Aunt Judys Tales | Page 5

they always said, 'very, very hard.' This was, of course, a winter
misery, when the air was so frosty and cold that it was very unpleasant
to jump out into it from a warm nest. Terrible scenes took place on
these occasions, I assure you, for sometimes the wretched Victims
would sit shivering on the floor, crying over their socks and shoes
instead of putting them on, (which they had no spirit for,) and then the
savage creatures who managed them would insult them by irritating
speeches.
"'Come, Miss So-and-So,' one would say, 'don't sit fretting there; there's
a warm fire, and a nice basin of bread-and-milk waiting for you, if you
will only be quick and get ready.'
"Get ready! a nice order indeed! It meant that they must wash
themselves and be dressed before they would be allowed to touch a
morsel of food.
"But it is of no use dwelling on the unfeelingness of those keepers. One
day one of them actually said:-
"'If you knew what it was to have to get up without a fire to come to,
and without a breakfast to eat, you would leave off grumbling at
nothing.'
"NOTHING! they called it NOTHING to have to get out of a warm bed
into the fresh morning air, and dress before breakfast!
"Well, my dears," pursued Aunt Judy, after waiting here a few seconds,
to see if anybody would groan, "I shall take it for granted you feel for

the GETTING-UP misery as well as the GOING-TO-BED one,
although you have not groaned as I expected. I will just add, in
conclusion, that the summer GETTING-UP misery was just the reverse
of this winter one. Then the poor little wretches were expected to wait
till their nursery was dusted and swept; so there they had to lie,
sometimes for half-an-hour, with the sun shining in upon them, not
allowed to get up and come out into the dirt and dust!
"Of course, on those occasions they had nothing to do but squabble
among themselves and teaze; and I assure you they had every now and
then a very pleasant little revenge on their keepers, for they half
worried them out of their lives by disturbances and complaints, and at
any rate that was some comfort to them, although very often it hindered
the nursery from being done half as soon as it would have been if they
had been quiet.
"I shall not have time to tell of everything," continued Aunt Judy, "so I
must hurry over the breakfast, although the keepers contrived to make
even that miserable, by doing all they could to prevent the little Victims
from spilling their food on the table and floor, and also by insisting on
the poor little things sitting tolerably upright on their seats--NOT
lolling with both elbows on the table-cloth--NOT making a mess--not,
in short, playing any of those innocent little pranks in which young
creatures take delight.
"It was a pitiable spectacle, as you may suppose, to see reasonable
beings constrained against their inclinations to sit quietly while they ate
their hearty morning meal, which really, perhaps, they might have
enjoyed, had they been allowed to amuse themselves in their own
fashion at the same time.
"But I must go on now to that great misery of the day, which I shall call
the LESSON misery.
"Now you must know, the little Victims were all born, as young kids,
lambs, kittens, and puppy-dogs are, with a decided liking for jumping
about and playing all day long. Think, therefore, what their sufferings
were when they were placed in chairs round a table, and obliged to sit
and stare at queer looking characters in books until they had learned to
know them what was called BY HEART. It was a very odd way of
describing it, for I am sure they had often no heart in the matter, unless
it was a hearty dislike.

"'Tommy Brown in the village never learns any lessons,' cried one of
them once to the creature who was teaching him, 'why should I? He is
always playing at oyster-dishes in the gutter when I see him, and
enjoying himself. I wish I might enjoy myself!'
"Poor Victim! He little thought what a tiresome lecture this clever
remark of his would bring on his devoted head!
"Don't ask me to repeat it. It amounted merely to this, that twenty years
hence he would he very glad he had learnt something else besides
making oyster-dishes in the streets. As if that signified to him now! As
if it took away the nuisance of having to learn at the present moment, to
be told it would be of use hereafter! What was the use of its being of
use by-and-by?
"So thought the little Victim,