The Talkative Wig | Page 6

blew me up so as to hide him entirely, and she took me
for great dark wings.
I fear you may be weary of my story. I have much more that I could
relate, but I have already been too long.
I am, as you see, ragged and worn, but the dear family have an
affection for 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