I cannot feel that I have done my duty as humble historian of the March family, without devoting at least one chapter to the two most precious and important members of it. Daisy and Demi had now arrived at years of discretion, for in this fast age babies of three or four assert their rights, and get them, too, which is more than many of their elders do. If there ever were a pair of twins in danger of being utterly spoiled by adoration, it was these prattling Brookes.
Of course they were the most remarkable children ever born, as will be shown when I mention that they walked at eight months, talked fluently at twelve months, and at two years they took their places at table, and behaved with a propriety which charmed all beholders.
At three, Daisy demanded a ’needler’, and actually made a bag with four stitches in it. She likewise set up housekeeping in the sideboard, and managed a microscopic cooking stove with a skill that brought tears of pride to Hannah’s eyes, while Demi learned his letters with his grandfather, who invented a new mode of teaching the alphabet by forming letters with his arms and legs, thus uniting gymnastics for head and heels.
The boy early developed a mechanical genius which delighted his father and distracted his mother, for he tried to imitate every machine he saw, and kept the nursery in a chaotic condition, with his ’sewinsheen’, a mysterious structure of string, chairs, clothespins, and spools, for wheels to go ’wound and wound’.
Also a basket hung over the back of a chair, in which he vainly tried to hoist his too confiding sister, who, with feminine devotion, allowed her little head to be bumped till rescued, when the young inventor indignantly remarked, "Why, Marmar, dat’s my lellywaiter, and me’s trying to pull her up."
Though utterly unlike in character, the twins got on remarkably well together, and seldom quarreled more than thrice a day. Of course, Demi tyrannized over Daisy, and gallantly defended her from every other aggressor, while Daisy made a galley slave of herself, and adored her brother as the one perfect being in the world.
A rosy, chubby, sunshiny little soul was Daisy, who found her way to everybody’s heart, and nestled there. One of the captivating children, who seem made to be kissed and cuddled, adorned and adored like little goddesses, and produced for general approval on all festive occasions. Her small virtues were so sweet that she would have been quite angelic if a few small naughtinesses had not kept her delightfully human.
It was all fair weather in her world, and every morning she scrambled up to the window in her little nightgown to look out, and say, no matter whether it rained or shone, "Oh, pitty day, oh, pitty day!" Everyone was a friend, and she offered kisses to a stranger so confidingly that the most inveterate bachelor relented, and baby-lovers became faithful worshipers.
"Me loves evvybody," she once said, opening her arms, with her spoon in one hand, and her mug in the other, as if eager to embrace and nourish the whole world.
As she grew, her mother began to feel that the Dovecote would be blessed by the presence of an inmate as serene and loving as that which had helped to make the old house home, and to pray that she might be spared a loss like that which had lately taught them how long they had entertained an angel unawares. Her grandfather often called her ’Beth’, and her grandmother watched over her with untiring devotion, as if trying to atone for some past mistake, which no eye but her own could see.
Demi, like a true Yankee, was of an inquiring turn, wanting to know everything, and often getting much disturbed because he could not get satisfactory answers to his perpetual "What for?"
He also possessed a philosophic bent, to the great delight of his grandfather, who used to hold Socratic conversations with him, in which the precocious pupil occasionally posed his teacher, to the undisguised satisfaction of the womenfolk.
"What makes my legs go, Dranpa?" asked the young philosopher, surveying those active portions of his frame with a meditative air, while resting after a go-to-bed frolic one night.
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“是你的小脑袋,德米,”哲人抚摸着他那金黄色的脑袋恭敬地回答。
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"It’s your little mind, Demi," replied the sage, stroking the yellow head respectfully.
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“小脑太(袋)是什么呢?”
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"What is a little mine?"
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“是使你身体活动的东西,就像我手表里的发条使齿轮转动那样。我给你看过的。”
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"It is something which makes your body move, as the spring made the wheels go in my watch when I showed it to you."
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“把我打开吧,我想看着它卷(转)动。”
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"Open me. I want to see it go wound."
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“那我可做不到,就像你不能打开手表一样。上帝给你上了发条,你就走着,直到他止住你。”
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"I can’t do that any more than you could open the watch. God winds you up, and you go till He stops you."
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“是这样吗?”德米接受了这个新的思想,棕色眼睛变得又大又亮。”我就像个手表给上了发条?
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"Does I?" and Demi’s brown eyes grew big and bright as he took in the new thought. "Is I wounded up like the watch?"
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“是的,可是我不能告诉你是怎样上的,因为上的时候我们没看到。”
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"Yes, but I can’t show you how, for it is done when we don’t see."
A careful explanation followed, to which he listened so attentively that his anxious grandmother said, "My dear, do you think it wise to talk about such things to that baby? He’s getting great bumps over his eyes, and learning to ask the most unanswerable questions."
"If he is old enough to ask the question he is old enough to receive true answers. I am not putting the thoughts into his head, but helping him unfold those already there. These children are wiser than we are, and I have no doubt the boy understands every word I have said to him. Now, Demi, tell me where you keep your mind."
If the boy had replied like Alcibiades, "By the gods, Socrates, I cannot tell," his grandfather would not have been surprised, but when, after standing a moment on one leg, like a meditative young stork, he answered, in a tone of calm conviction, "In my little belly," the old gentleman could only join in Grandma’s laugh, and dismiss the class in metaphysics.
There might have been cause for maternal anxiety, if Demi had not given convincing proofs that he was a true boy, as well as a budding philosopher, for often, after a discussion which caused Hannah to prophesy, with ominous nods, "That child ain’t long for this world," he would turn about and set her fears at rest by some of the pranks with which dear, dirty, naughty little rascals distract and delight their parent’s souls.
Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?
"No more raisins, Demi. They’ll make you sick," says Mamma to the young person who offers his services in the kitchen with unfailing regularity on plum-pudding day.
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“德米喜欢生玻”
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"Me likes to be sick."
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“我这里不需要你,你走开去帮黛西做小馅饼吧。”
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"I don’t want to have you, so run away and help Daisy make patty cakes."
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他不情愿地离开了。但是受到的委屈压在心头,不一会儿,弥补的机会来临,他用精明的交易智胜了妈妈。
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He reluctantly departs, but his wrongs weigh upon his spirit, and by-and-by when an opportunity comes to redress them, he outwits Mamma by a shrewd bargain.
"Now you have been good children, and I’ll play anything you like," says Meg, as she leads her assistant cooks upstairs, when the pudding is safely bouncing in the pot.
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“当真,妈妈?”德米问,他那搽了许多粉的脑袋冒出了个绝妙的主意。
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"Truly, Marmar?" asks Demi, with a brilliant idea in his well-powdered head.
"Yes, truly. Anything you say," replies the shortsighted parent, preparing herself to sing, "The Three Little Kittens" half a dozen times over, or to take her family to "Buy a penny bun," regardless of wind or limb. But Demi corners her by the cool reply . . .
Aunt Dodo was chief playmate and confidante of both children, and the trio turned the little house topsy-turvy. Aunt Amy was as yet only a name to them, Aunt Beth soon faded into a pleasantly vague memory, but Aunt Dodo was a living reality, and they made the most of her, for which compliment she was deeply grateful. But when Mr. Bhaer came, Jo neglected her playfellows, and dismay and desolation fell upon their little souls.
Daisy, who was fond of going about peddling kisses, lost her best customer and became bankrupt. Demi, with infantile penetration, soon discovered that Dodo like to play with ’the bear-man’ better than she did him, but though hurt, he concealed his anguish, for he hadn’t the heart to insult a rival who kept a mine of chocolate drops in his waistcoat pocket, and a watch that could be taken out of its case and freely shaken by ardent admirers.
Some persons might have considered these pleasing liberties as bribes, but Demi didn’t see it in that light, and continued to patronize the ’the bear-man’ with pensive affability, while Daisy bestowed her small affections upon him at the third call, and considered his shoulder her throne, his arm her refuge, his gifts treasures surpassing worth.
Gentlemen are sometimes seized with sudden fits of admiration for the young relatives of ladies whom they honor with their regard, but this counterfeit philoprogenitiveness sits uneasily upon them, and does not deceive anybody a particle. Mr. Bhaer’s devotion was sincere, however likewise effective--for honesty is the best policy in love as in law. He was one of the men who are at home with children, and looked particularly well when little faces made a pleasant contrast with his manly one. His business, whatever it was, detained him from day to day, but evening seldom failed to bring him out to see--well, he always asked for Mr. March, so I suppose he was the attraction. The excellent papa labored under the delusion that he was, and reveled in long discussions with the kindred spirit, till a chance remark of his more observing grandson suddenly enlightened him.
Mr. Bhaer came in one evening to pause on the threshold of the study, astonished by the spectacle that met his eye. Prone upon the floor lay Mr. March, with his respectable legs in the air, and beside him, likewise prone, was Demi, trying to imitate the attitude with his own short, scarlet-stockinged legs, both grovelers so seriously absorbed that they were unconscious of spectators, till Mr. Bhaer laughed his sonorous laugh, and Jo cried out, with a scandalized face . . .