The Garies and Their Friends | Page 8

Mrs. Ellis rubbed her spectacles and looked peevishly out of the window as she concluded.--"Where can he be?" she resumed, looking in the direction in which he might be expected. "Oh, here he comes, and Caddy with him. They have just turned the corner--open the door and let them in."
Esther arose, and on opening the door was almost knocked down by Charlie's abrupt entrance into the apartment, he being rather forcibly shoved in by his sister Caroline, who appeared to be in a high state of indignation.
"Where do you think he was, mother? Where do you think I found him?"
"Well, I can't say--I really don't know; in some mischief, I'll be bound."
"He was on the lot playing marbles--and I've had such a time to get him home. Just look at his knees; they are worn through. And only think, mother, the tea was lying on the ground, and might have been carried off, if I had not happened to come that way. And then he has been fighting and struggling with me all the way home. See," continued she, baring her arm, "just look how he has scratched me," and as she spoke she held out the injured member for her mother's inspection.
"Mother," said Charlie, in his justification, "she began to beat me before all the boys, before I had said a word to her, and I wasn't going to stand that. She is always storming at me. She don't give me any peace of my life."
"Oh yes, mother," here interposed Esther; "Cad is too cross to him. I must say, that he would not be as bad as he is, if she would only let him alone."
"Esther, please hush now; you have nothing to do with their quarrels. I'll settle all their differences. You always take his part whether he be right or wrong. I shall send him to bed without his tea, and to-morrow I will take his marbles from him; and if I see his knees showing through his pants again, I'll put a red patch on them--that's what I'll do. Now, sir, go to bed, and don't let me hear of you until morning."
Mr. and Mrs. Ellis were at the head of a highly respectable and industrious coloured family. They had three children. Esther, the eldest, was a girl of considerable beauty, and amiable temper. Caroline, the second child, was plain in person, and of rather shrewish disposition; she was a most indefatigable housewife, and was never so happy as when in possession of a dust or scrubbing brush; she would have regarded a place where she could have lived in a perpetual state of house cleaning, as an earthly paradise. Between her and Master Charlie continued warfare existed, interrupted only by brief truces brought about by her necessity for his services as water-carrier. When a service of this character had been duly rewarded by a slice of bread and preserves, or some other dainty, hostilities would most probably be recommenced by Charlie's making an inroad upon the newly cleaned floor, and leaving the prints of his muddy boots thereon.
The fact must here be candidly stated, that Charlie was not a tidy boy. He despised mats, and seldom or never wiped his feet on entering the house; he was happiest when he could don his most dilapidated unmentionables, as he could then sit down where he pleased without the fear of his mother before his eyes, and enter upon a game of marbles with his mind perfectly free from all harassing cares growing out of any possible accident to the aforesaid garments, so that he might give that attention to the game that its importance demanded.
He was a bright-faced pretty boy, clever at his lessons, and a favourite both with tutors and scholars. He had withal a thorough boy's fondness for play, and was also characterised by all the thoughtlessness consequent thereon. He possessed a lively, affectionate disposition, and was generally at peace with all the world, his sister Caddy excepted.
Caroline had recovered her breath, and her mind being soothed by the judgment that had been pronounced on Master Charlie, she began to bustle about to prepare tea.
The shining copper tea-kettle was brought from the stove where it had been seething and singing for the last half-hour; then the tea-pot of china received its customary quantity of tea, which was set upon the stove to brew, and carefully placed behind the stove pipe that no accidental touch of the elbow might bring it to destruction. Plates, knives, and teacups came rattling forth from the closet; the butter was brought from the place where it had been placed to keep it cool, and a corn-cake was soon smoking on the table, and sending up its seducing odour into the room over-head to which Charlie had been recently