The Brownies and Other Tales | Page 2

alarmed.
An earthquake is one thing; you have a good shaking, and settle down
again. But Europe gone--lost--Why, here comes Deordie, I declare,
looking much more cheerful than we do; let us humbly hope that
Europe has been found. At present I feel like Aladdin when his palace
had been transported by the magician; I don't know where I am."
"You're here, Doctor; aren't you?" asked the slow curly-wigged brother,

squatting himself on the grass.
"Is Europe found?" said the Doctor tragically.
"Yes," laughed Deordie. "I found it."
"You will be a great man," said the Doctor. "And--it is only common
charity to ask--how about North America?"
"Found too," said Deordie. "But the Wash is completely lost."
"And my six shirts in it!" said the Doctor. "I sent them last Saturday as
ever was. What a world we live in! Any more news? Poor Tiny here
has been crying her eyes out."
"I'm so sorry, Tiny," said the brother. "But don't bother about it. It's all
square now, and we're going to have a new shelf put up."
"Have you found everything?" asked Tiny.
"Well, not the Wash, you know. And the elephant and the guinea-pig
are gone for good; so the other elephant and the other guinea-pig must
walk together as a pair now. Noah was among the soldiers, and we have
put the cavalry into a night-light box. Europe and North America were
behind the book-case; and, would you believe it? the rocking-horse's
nose has turned up in the nursery oven."
"I can't believe it," said the Doctor. "The rocking-horse's nose couldn't
turn up, it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin marbles.
Perhaps it was the heat that did it, though. However, you seem to have
got through your troubles very well, Master Deordie. I wish poor Tiny
were at the end of her task."
"So do I," said Deordie ruefully. "But I tell you what I've been thinking,
Doctor. Nurse is always nagging at us, and we're always in rows of one
sort or another, for doing this, and not doing that, and leaving our
things about. But, you know, it's a horrid shame, for there are plenty of
servants, and I don't see why we should be always bothering to do little
things, and--"
"Oh! come to the point, please," said the Doctor; "you do go round the
square so, in telling your stories, Deordie. What have you been thinking
of?"
"Well," said Deordie, who was as good-tempered as he was slow, "the
other day Nurse shut me up in the back nursery for borrowing her
scissors and losing them; but I'd got 'Grimm' inside one of my
knickerbockers, so when she locked the door, I sat down to read. And I
read the story of the Shoemaker and the little Elves who came and did

his work for him before he got up; and I thought it would be so jolly if
we had some little Elves to do things instead of us."
"That's what Tommy Trout said," observed the Doctor.
"Who's Tommy Trout?" asked Deordie.
"Don't you know, Deor?" said Tiny. "It's the good boy who pulled the
cat out of the what's-his-name.
'Who pulled her out? Little Tommy Trout.'
Is it the same Tommy Trout, Doctor? I never heard anything else about
him except his pulling the cat out; and I can't think how he did that."
"Let down the bucket for her, of course," said the Doctor. "But listen to
me. If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your mother
with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I'll have you all to tea, and tell
you the story of Tommy Trout."
"This very night?" shouted Deordie.
"This very night."
"Every one of us?" inquired the young gentleman with rapturous
incredulity.
"Every one of you.--Now, Tiny, how about that work?"
"It's just done," said Tiny.--"Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold
back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're
pulling my hair out. Don't."
"I want to make a pig-tail," said Deor.
"You can't," said Tiny, with feminine contempt. "You can't plait.
What's the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it's done at last.
Now go and ask Mother if we may go.--Will you let me come, Doctor,"
she inquired, "if I do as you said?"
"To be sure I will," he answered. "Let me look at you. Your eyes are
swollen with crying. How can you be such a silly little goose?"
"Did you never cry?" asked Tiny.
"When I was your age? Well, perhaps so."
"You've never cried since, surely," said Tiny.
The Doctor absolutely blushed.
"What do you think?" said he.
"Oh, of course not," she answered. "You've nothing to cry about.
You're grown up, and you live