DING-DONG! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
The town crier has rung his bell, at a distant corner, and little Annie
stands on her father's doorsteps, trying to hear what the man with the
loud voice is talking about. Let me listen too. O, he is telling the
people that an elephant, and a lion, and a royal tiger, and a horse with
horns, and other strange beasts from foreign countries, have come to town,
and will receive all visitors who choose to wait upon them! Perhaps little
Annie would like to go. Yes; and I can see that the pretty child is weary
of this wide and pleasant street, with the green trees flinging their
shade across the quiet sunshine, and the pavements and the sidewalks all
as clean as if the housemaid had just swept them with her broom. She feels
that impulse to go strolling away--that longing after the mystery of the
great world--which many children feel, and which I felt in my childhood.
Little Annie shall take a ramble with me. See! I do but hold out my hand,
and, like some bright bird in the sunny air, with her blue silk frock
fluttering upwards from her white pantalets, she comes bounding on tiptoe
across the street.
Smooth back your brown curls, Annie; and let me tie on your bonnet, and we
will set forth! What a strange couple to go on their rambles together! One
walks in black attire, with a measured step, and a heavy brow, and his
thoughtful eyes bent down, while the gay little girl trips lightly along,
as if she were forced to keep hold of my hand, lest her feet should dance
away from the earth. Yet there is sympathy between us. If I pride myself
on anything, it is because I have a smile that children love; and, on the
other hand, there are few grown ladies that could entice me from the side
of little Annie; for I delight to let my mind go hand in hand with the
mind of a sinless child. So, come, Annie; but if I moralize as we go, do
not listen to me; only look about you, and be merry!
Now we turn the corner. Here are hacks with two horses, and stage-coaches
with four, thundering to meet each other, and trucks and carts moving at a
slower pace, being heavily laden with barrels from the wharves, and here
are rattling gigs, which perhaps will be smashed to pieces before our
eyes. Hitherward, also, comes a man trundling a wheelbarrow along the
pavement. Is not little Annie afraid of such a tumult? No; she does not
even shrink closer to my side, but passes on with fearless confidence, a
happy child amidst a great throng of grown people, who pay the same
reverence to her infancy that they would to extreme old age. Nobody
jostles her; all turn aside to make way for little Annie; and, what is
most singular, she appears conscious of her claim to such respect. Now her
eyes brighten with pleasure! A street-musician has seated himself on the
steps of yonder church, and pours forth his strains to the busy town, a
melody that has gone astray among the tramp of footsteps, the buzz of
voices, and the war of passing wheels. Who heeds the poor organ-grinder?
None but myself and little Annie, whose feet begin to move in unison with
the lively tune, as if she were loath that music should be wasted without
a dance. But where would Annie find a partner? Some have the gout in their
toes, or the rheumatism in their joints; some are stiff with age; some
feeble with disease; some are so lean that their bones would rattle, and
others of such ponderous size that their agility would crack the
flagstones; but many, many have leaden feet, because their hearts are far
heavier than lead.
It is a sad thought that I have chanced upon. What a company of dancers
should we be! For I, too, am a gentleman of sober footsteps, and
therefore, little Annie, let us walk sedately on.
It is a question with me, whether this giddy child, or my sage self, have
most pleasure in looking at the shop-windows. We love the silks of sunny
hue, that glow within the darkened premises of the spruce drygoods' men;
we are pleasantly dazzled by the burnished silver, and the chased gold,
the rings of wedlock and the costly love-ornaments, glistening at the
window of the jeweller; but Annie, more than I, seeks for a glimpse of her
passing figure in the dusty looking-glasses at the hardware stores. All
that is bright and gay attracts us both.
Here is a shop to which the recollections of my boyhood, as well as
present partialities, give a peculiar magic. How delightful to let the
fancy revel on the dainties of a confectioner; those pies, with such white
and flaky paste, their contents being a mystery, whether rich mince, with
whole plums intermixed, or piquant apple, delicately rose-flavored; those
cakes, heart-shaped or round, piled in a lofty pyramid; those sweet little
circlets, sweetly named kisses; those dark, majestic masses, fit to be
bridal-loaves at the wedding of an heiress, mountains in size, their
summits deeply snow-covered with sugar! Then the mighty treasures of
sugar-plums, white and crimson and yellow, in large glass vases; and candy
of all varieties; and those little cockles, or whatever they are called,
much prized by children for their sweetness, and more for the mottoes
which they enclose, by love-sick maids and bachelors! O, my mouth waters,
little Annie, and so doth yours; but we will not be tempted, except to an
imaginary feast; so let us hasten onward, devouring the vision of a
plum-cake.
Here are pleasures, as some people would say, of a more exalted kind, in
the window of a bookseller. Is Annie a literary lady? Yes; she is deeply
read in Peter Parley's tomes, and has an increasing love for fairy-tales,
though seldom met with nowadays, and she will subscribe, next year, to the
Juvenile Miscellany. But, truth to tell, she is apt to turn away from the
printed page, and keep gazing at the pretty pictures, such as the
gay-colored ones which make this shopwindow the continual loitering-place
of children. What would Annie think, if, in the book which I mean to send
her, on New Year's day, she should find her sweet little self, bound up in
silk or morocco with gilt edges, there to remain till she become a woman
grown with children of her own to read about their mother's childhood!
That would be very queer.
Little Annie is weary of pictures, and pulls me onward by the hand, till
suddenly we pause at the most wondrous shop in all the town. O, my stars!
Is this a toy-shop, or is it fairy-land? For here are gilded chariots, in
which the king and queen of the fairies might ride side by side, while
their courtiers, on these small horses, should gallop in triumphal
procession before and behind the royal pair. Here, too, are dishes of
china-ware, fit to be the dining set of those same princely personages,
when they make a regal banquet in the stateliest ball of their palace,
full five feet high, and behold their nobles feasting adown the long
perspective of the table. Betwixt the king and queen should sit my little
Annie, the prettiest fairy of them all. Here stands a turbaned Turk,
threatening us with his sabre, like an ugly heathen as he is. And next a
Chinese mandarin, who nods his head at Annie and myself. Here we may
review a whole army of horse and foot, in red and blue uniforms, with
drums, fifes, trumpets, and all kinds of noiseless music; they have halted
on the shelf of this window, after their weary march from Liliput. But
what cares Annie for soldiers? No conquering queen is she, neither a
Semiramis nor a Catharine, her whole heart is set upon that doll, who
gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true
plaything. Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal
personage, endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady
is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy
scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape
the real one. Little Annie does not understand what I am saying, but looks
wishfully at the proud lady in the window. We will invite her home with us
as we return. Meantime, good by, Dame Doll! A toy yourself, you look forth
from your window upon many ladies that are also toys, though they walk and
speak, and upon a crowd in pursuit of toys, though they wear grave
visages. O, with your never-closing eyes, had you but an intellect to
moralize on all that flits before them, what a wise doll would you be!
Come, little Annie, we shall find toys enough, go where we may.
Now we elbow our way among the throng again. It is curious, in the most
crowded part of a town, to meet with living creatures that had their
birthplace in some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature in the
wilderness of men. Look up, Annie, at that canary-bird, hanging out of the
window in his cage. Poor little fellow! His golden feathers are all
tarnished in this smoky sunshine; he would have glistened twice as
brightly among the summer islands; but still he has become a citizen in
all his tastes and habits, and would not sing half so well without the
uproar that drowns his music. What a pity that he does not know how
miserable he is! There is a parrot, too, calling out, "Pretty Poll! Pretty
Poll!" as we pass by. Foolish bird, to be talking about her prettiness to
strangers, especially as she is not a pretty Poll, though gaudily dressed
in green and yellow. If she had said, "Pretty Annie," there would have
been some sense in it. See that gray squirrel at the door of the
fruit-shop, whirling round and round so merrily within his wire wheel!
Being condemned to the treadmill, he makes it an amusement. Admirable
philosophy!
Here comes a big, rough dog, a countryman's dog in search of his master;
smelling at everybody's heels, and touching little Annie's hand with his
cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted him.
Success to your search, Fidelity! And there sits a great yellow cat upon a
window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this
transitory world, with owl's eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless,
or what appear such, to the silly beast. O sage puss, make room for me
beside you, and we will be a pair of philosophers!
Here we see something to remind us of the town crier, and his ding-dong
bell! Look! look at that great cloth spread out in the air, pictured all
over with wild beasts, as if they had met together to choose a king,
according to their custom in the days of AEsop. But they are choosing
neither a king nor a president; else we should hear a most horrible
snarling! They have come from the deep woods, and the wild mountains, and
the desert sands, and the polar snows, only to do homage to my little
Annie. As we enter among them, the great elephant makes us a bow, in the
best style of elephantine courtesy, bending lowly down his mountain bulk,
with trunk abased, and leg thrust out behind. Annie returns the salute,
much to the gratification of the elephant, who is certainly the best-bred
monster in the caravan. The lion and the lioness are busy with two
beef-bones. The royal tiger, the beautiful, the untamable, keeps pacing
his narrow cage with a haughty step, unmindful of the spectators, or
recalling the fierce deeds of his former life, when he was wont to leap
forth upon such inferior animals, from the jungles of Bengal. Here we see
the very same wolf,--do not go near him, Annie!--the self-same wolf that
devoured little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. In the next cage, a
hyena from Egypt, who has doubtless howled around the pyramids, and a
black bear from our own forests are fellow-prisoners, and most excellent
friends. Are there any two living creatures who have so few sympathies
that they cannot possibly be friends? Here sits a great white bear, whom
common observers would call a very stupid beast, though I perceive him to
be only absorbed in contemplation; he is thinking of his voyages on an
iceberg, and of his comfortable home in the vicinity of the north pole,
and of the little cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact,
he is a bear of sentiment. But, O, those unsentimental monkeys the ugly,
grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little
brutes. Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks her pure,
instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her mind unquiet, because it
bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little pony,
just big enough for Annie to ride, and round and round he gallops in a
circle, keeping time with his trampling hoofs to a band of music. And
here,--with a laced coat and a cocked hat, and a riding whip in his
hand,--here comes a little gentleman, small enough to be king of the
fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes, and takes a flying leap
into the saddle. Merrily, merrily plays the music, and merrily gallops the
pony, and merrily rides the little old gentleman. Come, Annie, into the
street again; perchance we may see monkeys on horseback there! Mercy on
us, what a noisy world we quiet people live in! Did Annie ever read the
Cries of London City? With what lusty lungs doth yonder man proclaim that
his wheelbarrow is full of lobsters! Here comes another mounted on a cart,
and blowing a hoarse and dreadful blast from a tin horn, as much as to
say, "Fresh fish!" And hark! a voice on high, like that of a muezzin from
the summit of a mosque, announcing that some chimney-sweeper has emerged
from smoke and soot, and darksome caverns, into the upper air. What cares
the world for that? But, well-a-day, we hear a shrill voice of affliction,
the scream of a little child, rising louder with every repetition of that
smart, sharp, slapping sound, produced by an open hand on tender flesh.
Annie sympathizes, though without experience of such direful woe. Lo! the
town crier again, with some new secret for the public ear. Will he tell us
of an auction, or of a lost pocketbook, or a show of beautiful wax
figures, or of some monstrous beast more horrible than any in the caravan?
I guess the latter. See how he uplifts the bell in his right hand, and
shakes it slowly at first, then with a hurried motion, till the clapper
seems to strike both sides at once, and the sounds are scattered forth in
quick succession, far and near.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
Now he raises his clear, loud voice, above all the din of the town; it
drowns the buzzing talk of many tongues, and draws each man's mind from
his own business; it rolls up and down the echoing street and ascends to
the hushed chamber of the sick, and penetrates downward to the cellar
kitchen, where the hot cook turns from the fire to listen. Who, of all
that address the public ear, whether in church, or court-house, or hall of
state, has such an attentive audience as the town crier? What saith the
people's orator?
"Strayed from her home, a LITTLE GIRL, of five years old, in a blue silk
frock and white pantalets, with brown curling hair and hazel eyes. Whoever
will bring her back to her afflicted mother--"
Stop, stop, town crier! The lost is found. O, my pretty Annie, we forgot
to tell your mother of our ramble, and she is in despair, and has sent the
town crier to bellow up and down the streets, afrighting old and young,
for the loss of a little girl who has not once let go my hand! Well, let
us hasten homeward; and as we go, forget not to thank Heaven, my Annie,
that, after wandering a little way into the world, you may return at the
first summons, with an untainted and unwearied heart, and be a happy child
again. But I have gone too far astray for the town crier to call me back.
Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit, throughout my ramble
with little Annie! Say not that it has been a waste of precious moments,
an idle matter, a babble of childish talk, and a revery of childish
imaginations, about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice. Has it been
merely this? Not so; not so. They are not truly wise who would affirm it.
As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our
moral nature revived by their free and simple thoughts, their native
feeling, their airy mirth, for little cause or none, their grief, soon
roused and soon allayed. Their influence on us is at least reciprocal with
ours on them. When our infancy is almost forgotten, and our boyhood long
departed, though it seems but as yesterday; when life settles darkly down
upon us, and we doubt whether to call ourselves young any more, then it is
good to steal away from the society of bearded men, and even of gentler
woman, and spend an hour or two with children. After drinking from those
fountains of still fresh existence, we shall return into the crowd, as I
do now, to struggle onward and do our part in life, perhaps as fervently
as ever, but, for a time, with a kinder and purer heart, and a spirit more
lightly wise. All this by thy sweet magic, dear little Annie!