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_LITTLE SUNBEAMS._


VI.

NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING.




By the Author of this Volume.


I.

LITTLE SUNBEAMS.

  By JOANNA H. MATHEWS, Author of the "Bessie Books."
   6 vols. In a box                             $6.00

_Or, separately_:--

      I. BELLE POWERS' LOCKET. 16mo      1.00
     II. DORA'S MOTTO. 16mo              1.00
    III. LILY NORRIS' ENEMY              1.00
     IV. JESSIE'S PARROT                 1.00
      V. MAMIE'S WATCHWORD               1.00
     VI. NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING           1.00


II.

THE FLOWERETS.

  A series of Stories on the Commandments. 6 vols. In a box    $3.60


    "Under the general head of 'Flowerets,' this charming
    author has grouped six little volumes, being a series
    of stories on the Commandments. 'Our folks' are in love
    with them, and have made off with them all before we
    could get the first reading."--_Our Monthly._


III.

THE BESSIE BOOKS.

    6 vols. In a box      $7.50

    "We can wish our young readers no greater pleasure than
    an acquaintance with dear, cute little Bessie and her
    companions, old and young, brute and human."--_American
    Presbyterian._


    ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
    _New York_




NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING.


    "Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever:
       Do noble things, not dream them, all day long;
     So shalt thou make life, death, and that vast for ever.
       One grand, sweet song."--KINGSLEY.

    BY
    JOANNA H. MATHEWS,
    AUTHOR OF THE "BESSIE BOOKS" AND THE "FLOWERETS."


    NEW YORK:
    ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
    530 BROADWAY.
    1882.




    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
    ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
    In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.




CONTENTS.


                                        PAGE
       I. HARD AT WORK                    7
      II. A TALK WITH PAPA               25
     III. NELLIE A HOUSEKEEPER           50
      IV. A COURTSHIP                    70
       V. WHITE MICE                     94
      VI. THE GRAY MICE                 113
     VII. THE BLACK CAT                 136
    VIII. DAISY'S SACRIFICE             157
      IX. MAKING GINGER-CAKES           181
       X. FRESH TROUBLES                204
      XI. A NIGHT OF IT                 224
     XII. AN ALARM                      236
    XIII. LAST OF THE SUNBEAMS          245




[Illustration]




NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING.




I.

_HARD AT WORK._


"NELLIE, will you come down to the beach now?"

"No!" with as much shortness and sharpness as the little word of two
letters could well convey.

"Why not?"

"Oh! because I can't. Don't bother me."

And, laying down the pencil with which she had been writing, Nellie
Ransom pushed back the hair from her flushed, heated face, drew a long,
weary sigh, took up the Bible which lay at her elbow, and, turning
over the leaf, ran her finger slowly and carefully down the page before
her.

Carrie stood with one elbow upon the corner of the table at which her
sister sat, her chin resting in her palm as she discontentedly watched
Nellie, while with the other hand she swung back and forth by one
string the broad straw hat she was accustomed to wear when playing out
of doors.

"I think you might," she said presently. "Mamma says I can't go if you
don't, and I want to go so."

"I can't help it," said Nellie, still without taking her eyes from her
Bible. "I wish you'd stop shaking the table so."

"How soon will you come?" persisted Carrie, taking her elbow from the
table.

"When I'm ready, and not before," snapped Nellie. "I wish you'd let me
alone."

Carrie began to cry.

"It's too bad," she whimpered. "Mamma says, if I go at all, I must go
early, so as to be back before sundown, 'cause my cold is so bad.
There won't be any time for me to play."

Nellie made no answer, but, having found what she wanted in her Bible,
began to write again, copying from the page of the Holy Book before her.

Presently Carrie, forgetting her caution, tossed down her hat, and
pettishly plumped both elbows upon the table, muttering,--

"I think you're real mean."

"Stop shaking the table, or I won't go at all," said Nellie, in a loud,
irritable tone. "Ask mamma to let Ruth take you."

"She can't spare Ruth, she says. The baby is fretful, and she don't
feel well enough to take care of it herself; and I think you might
go with me. I haven't been to the beach for four days, because I was
sick," pleaded Carrie, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Well, I'm too busy to go now. You'll have to wait until I'm ready,"
said Nellie. "I'll come by and by."

"By and by will leave hardly any time," said Carrie, with a wistful
glance out upon the lawn, where the shadows were already growing long.

No answer; only the rustle of Nellie's sheet of paper as she turned it
over.

Carrie wandered restlessly about the room for a moment or two; then,
coming back to the table, began idly to turn over some loose papers
which lay at Nellie's right hand.

Nellie snatched them from her.

"Now, look here," she said, "if you don't go away and let me and my
things alone, I won't go to the beach at all. You hinder me all the
time, and I won't be so bothered."

"Cross, hateful thing!" said Carrie, passionately. "I don't b'lieve you
mean to go at all. I wish I had a better sister than you."

Nellie turned once more to the Bible, but deigned no answer to this
outburst.

Carrie looked back from the door, which she had reached on her way from
the room, and said in a tone one shade less furious than her last,--

"You're always poking over your Bible now, but it don't seem to teach
you to be kind. You grow crosser and crosser every day; and you're not
one bit like you used to be."

"Carrie!" called Mrs. Ransom's gentle voice from the next room; and
Carrie vanished, leaving Nellie, as she had said she wished to be,
alone.

Did her work go smoothly after that?

Not very, at least for a few moments. Perhaps mamma had heard all that
had passed, and Nellie did not feel quite satisfied that she should
have done so. What had she said to Carrie? She could hardly recollect
herself, so divided had been her attention between her little sister
and the task before her; but she was quite certain that she had been
"cross," and spoken to Carrie in an unkind manner, apart from her
refusal to accompany the child, who, she well knew, had been confined
to the house for the last few days, and deprived of her usual play and
exercise in the open air.

But then Carrie might just as well have waited patiently a few
moments till she was ready to go, and not bothered her so. She would
go presently when she had looked out three--well, no--five--six more
verses, and written them out; and once more she took up the Bible.

But the words before her eyes mingled themselves with those which were
sounding in her ears.

"Not like she used to be! Crosser and crosser every day!"

Ah! none knew this better than Nellie herself, and yet she strove, or
thought she did, against the growing evil.

Well, there was no use thinking about it now. She would finish the task
she had set herself, call Carrie, make it up with her, and go to the
beach.

And once more she was absorbed in her work, in spite of aching head
and burning cheeks,--so absorbed that she did not heed how time was
passing, did not heed that the six verses had grown into ten, until, as
she was searching for the eleventh, the last golden rays of the sun
fell across her paper, and, looking up quickly, she saw that he was
just sinking in the far west. Too late for Carrie to go out now! The
poor child had lost her afternoon stroll. Oh, she was so sorry! How
could she forget?

Hastily shutting the Bible and pushing it from her, she gathered up her
papers, thrust them into her writing-desk, and turned the key, ran into
the hall for her hat, and went in search of Carrie.

Where was she? She had not heard the child's voice since she left her
in such a temper, nor had she heard Daisy's. Probably the two little
sisters had found some other way of amusing themselves, and Carrie
would have forgotten her disappointment. Well, she would be sure to
give her a good play on the beach to-morrow.

Where could the children be? For, as Nellie thought this to herself,
she was looking in all the places where they were usually to be found,
but they were nowhere to be seen. She called in vain about house and
garden; no childish voice answered.

"I suppose Carrie is provoked with me, and won't speak to me, and won't
let Daisy," she said to herself. "Well, I'm sure I don't care."

But she did care, though she would not acknowledge it to herself;
and she sat down upon the upper step of the porch, and watched the
last rosy sunset tints fading out of the soft clouds overhead, with
