Читать книгу The Haven Children; or, Frolics at the Funny Old House on Funny Street онлайн

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Those third-story windows let in, too, a deal of sunlight to the Family Menagerie, in the nursery, where the Keeper, Master Artie, a bright boy of ten, when not engaged—as, very sorry I am to say it, he sometimes is—in teasing the little animals in the nursery cage, is often to be found quirled up in the wide window-seat, following Napoleon Bonaparte through his snowy Russian marches, or on the bloody, fatal field of Waterloo, or reading aloud to the never-wearied trio of the wonderful content and skilful management of that remarkable Swiss Family Robinson, who seem to have borrowed the brains as well as the daring of the great Crusoe.

Daisy, the family Owl, has a wise look beaming from her large full eyes. Seldom does eight years bring such a deal of wisdom to a young mind, such wonderful acuteness in discovering family faults, and such readiness in reproving the same; but Daisy is loving, perfectly truthful, and really a great help to the nurses in the care of the little ones. She is a most devoted mother to two wax, two china, and one large rag doll. Patiently and uncomplainingly, has she watched over their sick-beds, nursing them tenderly through their various stages of whooping cough, measles, and scarlet fever, and the nurses tell “how pale Miss Daisy looked, one morning, when, on going to Felicie’s little bed, she saw the face of the young French beauty quite disfigured with what was, probably, the very disease which was then raging in New York.”