CHAPTER XVI
LITTLE SUSY'S SIX TEACHERS.
CHAPTER XVI.
Ar last Susy had a real trouble.
Her Aunt Maria moved away from New York, and went to live in the country near grandmamma.
Susy could not see Frank and Charlie every week, and she missed them very much indeed.
She cried so much when she went to bid them goodby that, in order to comfort her, her Aunty invited her to go with them.
"That would make too much trouble," said Susy.
"Oh! yes, just as you are moving," said her mamma.
"But if Susy is very good, and you would like a visit from her after you are nicely settled in your new house, I should like her to go."
So ina few weeks Susy went.
But she stayed at her grandmamma's, and slept all by herself in a little room that grandma kept on purpose for the children when they came to see
LITTLE SUSY'S SIX TEACHERS.
her.
Then Frank and Charlie came to see Susy, or she went to see them, every day. When she had been there two weeks, her mamma and Robbie came for her.
But grandmamma would not let her go.
Susy had become such a gentle, affectionate little girl that it was a pleasure to have her in the house, and then grandma was so much like Mrs.
Love, that she was not very ready to see faults in any one, especially not in little folks.
So they all stayed another week, and a very happy week it was.
When Susy and Robbie, and their mamma, went back to their own home, they begged Aunt Maria to come and make them a visit, with Frank and Charlie.
"T do not think I can go this fall," said she.
" But in the spring perhaps I can."
"Oh! go now, Aunty, do," said Susy.
"No, dear, not now.
It would not be convenient now."
Susy was just beginning to say: "Oh, Aunty! do come !" when she remembered that she had often been told that it is not proper for children
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to tease their friends to do things they have just refused to do.
9) "How many years will it be before spring she asked.
Her aunty smiled.
"It will only be a few months," said she.
'Not more than five or six."
Susy did not know much about time.
However, as there was no help for it, she had to wait, and Aunt Patience told her she would stay with her and make the time fly quite fast.
But as soon as they were all nicely settled at home, Susy began to expect her aunt and cousins.
Every time the door-bell rang she would say: "Oh! there they are!" and when she found herself mistaken she would laugh and say: "Aunt Patience, how much longer shall I have to wait ?"
At last Aunt Maria wrote to say that Frank and Charlie had the whooping-cough, and would not be able to come.
"Would it catch me if I went there?" asked Susy.
"You would catch it," said her nurse, smiling.
So it was a whole year before Aunt Maria
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found it convenient to make the promised visit, and Susy was then a little more than five and Robbie three years old.
They were all very happy to meet again.
"Why, Susy! how you have grown!" said Frank.
"Yes, papa marks me on the wall, so as to make me grow," said Susy.
"Tsn't she a funny little thing?' said Frank.
He kept kissing her and trying to take her up and carry her. But Susy held back. She felt too big to be carried, and she felt a little shy, too, for Frank had altered a good deal since she had seen him, and then he kept looking at her so.
"Oh, mother! I wish I had a little sister," said he.
"T don't," said Charlie.
" Charlie would love her if he had one," said his mother.
" But now, as he isn't used to girls, he fancies he doesn't like them."
Just then Mrs. Love whispered to Susy. She said: "I should think you would take your cousins up to see dear little Robbie."
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"Oh! don't you want to go upstairs and see Robbie 2" said Susy.
"I forgot all about Robbie," said Frank.
"Where is he?
I suppose he won't know me, but we'll soon get acquainted."
They all ran up to the nursery, where they found Robbie standing at a chair in which was a bow] of water.
He was all undressed.
When he saw the three children come flying in he looked down at his two little hands that lay flat on the bottom of the bowl, and did not move or speak.
"Why, Robbie! don't you know Cousin Frank?" said Susy.
"He's such a little fellow he doesn't know how to behave.
He's afraid of strangers. Won't Robbie say his hymn to sister Susy 2"
Robbie looked solemnly at his hands and did not speak, but he peeped out from under his great long eyelashes at Frank and Charlie.
"You ought not to come and hinder me when I am dressing Robbie," said his nurse.
"I was going to dress him up before his aunty saw him."
"But I want him to say his hymn," said Susy,
LITTLE SUSY'S SIX TEACHERS.
vB} "You'll have to wait till he gets acquainted," said his nurse.
" Well, we'll go down then," said Frank, and they all three ran off, while little Miss Joy flew after them, quite out of breath with delight.
"Of course they've left the door wide open," said nurse.
"I never saw such children."
Nurse always said this, no matter what they did.
But most people have seen just such children, and have had to shut the door after them a hundred, perhaps a thousand times.
When Robbie was dressed he was taken down to see his aunty, who had been wondering why he did not come.
She had a little horse for him.
Robbie was very thankful for it, and that night when he said his prayers he looked at his horse and said:
"Oh, God! send grass!"