The Talkative Wig | Page 6

me still, as well as for all the rest of us; and so I am allowed to remain here in this most respectable company. I trust the wig will now give us his history for which we have waited so long."
"There is time enough before eight o'clock for the story of the wig," said Frank, "if you can remember it, Mother. He ought to tell his story now, as he promised."
"As the wig began to speak," said their mother, "he gave a slight hitch on one side, just as if some one pushed him up a little, and then, after a short pause, began thus: "You will be astonished, perhaps, to know that it is more than a hundred years since I first saw the light. None of you have lived so long, or seen as much as I have. I cannot tell all I have seen or known. It would take too long, and weary you too much. I can only give a slight sketch of my long life.
In the year seventeen hundred and fifty, the baby head upon which I grew came into this strange world in which we live. O, how happy was the mother who saw me for the first time! How full was her joy when she stroked the small head of her little girl, and exclaimed, "How beautiful and soft her hair is! softer than velvet or satin." Even then, every one said, "What a beautiful head of hair! What a lovely baby!"
The little girl whose head I adorned was the daughter of a poor vicar who lived with his wife in an obscure country town in England.
Alice was their fifth child, but their only daughter. She was very beautiful, and, I may say it surely without vanity now, I was her greatest ornament. I was of a beautiful auburn color, and fell in thick clusters all over her happy, gentle head, and shaded her laughter-loving face. After a day of hard work, how fond her mother was of taking her little pet in her lap, and twisting up every curl in nice order under her white linen night-cap, before putting her to bed! Her father, too, would wind my ringlets around his great fingers, made hard and rough with toil in the garden, and would kiss every one of them, and pray God to bless the young head on which they grew.
As the dear head grew larger, I grew larger and thicker. Every one who saw me noticed me. One would say, "It looks like a pot of hyacinths"; another, "It has caught the sunshine and kept it."
What a pleasant life I led! When Alice grew a large girl, she became something of a romp, and one of her favorite amusements was to go to the top of a hill near her father's house, when there was a high wind, and let it blow through her curls, and sing and shout and dance from the fulness of her joy. When she came home, she would say "Mother, the wind has been combing my hair."
O the horrid combing that I had to endure every morning! One must be a head of curly hair to know how terrible is a comb.
If you will not think me too long, I must talk a little more about the dear Alice, and tell you what I witnessed till I was separated from her."
"Go ahead," said the old musket.
"I must tell you how her sweetness and goodness once saved the house from robbery. It was the custom of her father and mother, on Sunday, to lock up the house, while they went to church. A pot of pork and beans, and a pudding of Indian meal was put in the oven to bake for their dinner.
One Sunday, as Alice had a heavy cold, they left her at home. She was then fourteen years old, and felt herself quite equal to taking charge of the house.
It was generally known that the curate's house was locked up on Sunday; and a poor, foolish, as well as wicked fellow, determined to take that opportunity to help himself to the good curate's silver, or any other valuable, he could find in the house. It happened that the man took the Sunday when Alice was left at home for his wicked purpose.
When he came to the door which he intended to break open, he was admitted by Alice, who saw him coming. She asked him to come in and sit down, then inquired if he had travelled far, and set before him some bread and butter and cold water.
"My father is a minister," she said, "and always asks travellers to stay. We have some dinner in the oven, and we shall all of us like to have you stay and dine. You look pale