THE ORCHARD.
Next morning, when breakfast was over, Miss Wealthy made a little
speech, giving the two girls the freedom of the place.
"You will find your own way about, my dears," she said. "I will only
give you some general directions. The orchard is to the right, beyond
the garden. There is a pleasant seat there under one of the apple-trees,
where you may like to sit. Beyond that are the woods. On the other side
of the house is the barnyard, and the road goes by to the village. You
will find plenty of flowers all about, and I hope you will amuse
yourselves."
"Oh, indeed we shall, Cousin Wealthy!" cried Hildegarde. "It is delight
enough just to breathe this delicious air and look at the river."
They were sitting on the piazza, from which the lawn sloped down to a
great hedge of Norway fir, just beyond which flowed the broad blue
stream of the Kennebec.
"How about the river, Cousin Wealthy?" asked Hildegarde, timidly. "I
thought I saw a boat-house through the trees. Could we go out to row?"
Miss Wealthy seemed a little flurried by the question. "My dear," she
said, and hesitated,--"my dear, have you--do your parents allow you to
go on the water? Can you swim?"
"Oh, yes," said Hildegarde, "I can swim very well, Cousin Wealthy,--at
least, Papa says I can; and I can row and paddle and sail."
"Oh, not sail!" cried Miss Wealthy, with an odd little catch in her
breath,--"not sail, my dear! I could not--I could not think of that for
a moment. But there is a row-boat," she added, after a pause,--"a boat
which Jeremiah uses. If Jeremiah thinks she is perfectly safe, you can
go out, if you feel quite sure your parents would wish it."
"Oh, I am very sure," said Hildegarde; "for I asked Papa, almost the
last thing before we left. Thank you, Cousin Wealthy, so much! We will
be rather quiet this morning, for Rose does not feel very strong; but
this afternoon perhaps we will try the boat. Isn't there something I can
do for you, Cousin Wealthy? Can't I help Martha? I can do all kinds of
work,--can't I, Rose?--and I love it!"
But Martha had a young girl in the kitchen, Miss Wealthy said, whom she
was training to help her; and she herself had letters to write and
accounts to settle. So the two girls sauntered off slowly, arm in arm;
Rose leaning on her friend, whose strong young frame seemed able to
support them both.
The garden was a very pleasant place, with rhubarb and sunflowers, sweet
peas and mignonette, planted here and there among the rows of
vegetables, just as Jeremiah's fancy suggested. Miss Wealthy's own
flower-beds, trim and gay with geraniums, pansies, and heliotrope, were
under the dining-room windows; but somehow the girls liked Jeremiah's
garden best. Hildegarde pulled some sweet peas, and stuck the winged
blossoms in Rose's fair hair, giving a fly-away look to her smooth
locks. Then she began to sniff inquiringly. "Southernwood!" she
said,--"I smell southernwood somewhere, Rose. Where is it?"
"Yonder," said Rose, pointing to a feathery bush not far off.
"Oh! and there is lavender too, Hilda! Do you suppose we may pick some?
I do like to have a sprig of lavender in my belt."
At this moment Jeremiah appeared, wheeling a load of turf. He was "long
and lank and brown as is the ribbed sea-sand," and Hildegarde mentally
christened him the Ancient Mariner on the spot; but he smiled sadly and
said, "_Good_-mornin'," and seemed pleased when the girls praised his
garden. "Ee-yus!" he said, with placid melancholy. "I've seen wuss
places. Minglin' the blooms with the truck and herbs was my idee, as you
may say,--'livens up one, and sobers down the other. _She_ laughs at me,
but she don't keer, s'long as she has all she wants. Cut ye some
mignonette? That's very favoryte with me,--very favoryte."
He cut a great bunch of mignonette; and Rose, proffering her request for
lavender, received a nosegay as big as she could hold in both hands.
"The roses is just comin' on," he said. "Over behind them beans they
are. A sight o' roses there'll be in another week. Coreopsis is pooty,
too; that's down the other side of the corn. Curus garding, folks
thinks; but, there, it's my idee, and she don't keer."
Much amused, the girls thanked the melancholy prophet, and wandered away
into the orchard, to find the seat that Miss Wealthy had told them of.
"Oh, what a lovely, lovely orchard!" cried Hildegarde, in delight; and
indeed it was a pretty place. The apple-trees were old, and curiously
gnarled and twisted, bending this way and that, as apple-trees will. The
short, fine grass was like emerald; there were no flowers at all, only
green and brown, with the sunlight flickering through the branches
overhead. They found the seat, which was curiously wedged into the
double trunk of the very patriarch of apple-trees.
"Do look at him!" cried Hildegarde. "He is like a giant with the
rheumatism. Suppose we call him Blunderbore. What does twist them so,
Rose? Look! there is one with a trunk almost horizontal."
"I don't know," said Rose, slowly. "Another item for the ignorance list,
Hilda. It is growing appallingly long. I really _don't_ know why they
twist so. In the forest they grow much taller than in orchards, and go
straight up. Farmer Hartley has seen one seventy feet high, he says."
"Let us call it vegetable rheumatism!" said Hildegarde. "How _is_ your
poor back this morning, ma'am?" She addressed an ancient tree with
respectful sympathy; indeed, it did look like an aged dame bent almost
double. "Have you ever tried Pond's Extract? I think I must really buy a
gallon or so for you. And as long as you must bend over, you will not
mind if I take a little walk along your suffering spine, and sit on your
arm, will you?"
She walked up the tree, and seated herself on a branch which was crooked
like a friendly arm, making a very comfortable seat. "She's a dear old
lady, Rose!" she cried. "Doesn't mind a bit, but thinks it rather does
her good,--like _massage_, you know. What do you suppose her name is?"
"Dame Crump would do, wouldn't it?" replied Rose, looking critically at
the venerable dame.
"Of course! and that ferocious old person brandishing three arms over
yonder must be Croquemitaine,--
"'Croquemitaine! Croquemitaine!
Ne dinerai pas 'vec toi!'
I think they are rather a savage set,--don't you, Rosy?--all except my
dear Dame Crump here."
"I _know_ they are," said Rose, in a low voice. "Hush! the three witches
are just behind you, Hilda. Their skinny arms are outstretched to clasp
you! Fly, and save yourself from the caldron!"
"Avaunt!" cried Hilda, springing lightly from Dame Crump's sheltering
arm. "Ye secret, black, and midnight hags, what is 't ye do?"
"A deed without a name!" muttered Rose, in sepulchral tones.
"I think it is, indeed!" cried Hildegarde, laughing. "Poor old gouty
things! they can only claw the air, like Grandfather Smallweed, and
cannot take a single step to clutch me."
"Just like me, as I was a year ago," said Rose, smiling.
"Rose! how can you?" cried Hildegarde, indignantly; "as if you had not
always been a white rosebush."
"On wheels!" said Rose. "I often think of my dear old chair, and wonder
if it misses me. Hildegarde dear!"
"My lamb!" replied Hildegarde, sitting down by her friend and giving her
a little hug.
"I wish you could know how wonderful it all is! I wish--no, I don't wish
you could be lame even for half an hour; but I wish you could just
_dream_ that you were lame, and then wake up and find everything right
again. Having always walked, you cannot know the wonder of it. To think
that I can stand up--so! and walk--so! actually one foot before the
other, just like other people. Oh! and I used to wonder how they did it.
I don't now understand how 'four-leggers,' as Bubble calls them, move
so many things without getting mixed up."
"Dear Rose! you are happy, aren't you?" exclaimed Hildegarde, with
delight.
"Happy!" echoed Rose, her sweet face glowing like her own name-flower.
"But I was always happy, you know, dear. Now it is happiness, with
fairyland thrown in. I am some wonderful creature, walking through
miracles; a kind of--Who was the fairy-knight you were telling me
about?"
"Lohengrin?" said Hildegarde. "No, you are more like Una, in the 'Faerie
Queene.' In fact, I think you _are_ Una."
"And then," continued Rose, "there is another thing! At least, there are
a thousand other things, but one that I was thinking of specially just
now, when you named the trees. That was only play to you; but, Hilda, it
used to be almost quite real for me,--that sort of thing. Sitting there
as I used, day after day, year after year, mostly alone,--for mother
and Bubble were always at work, you know,--you cannot imagine how real
all the garden-people, as I called them, were to me. Why, my
Eglantine--I never told you about Eglantine, Hilda!"
"No, heartless thing! you never did," said Hildegarde; "and you may tell
me this instant. A pretty friend you are, keeping things from me in that
way!"
"She was a fair maiden," said Rose. "She stood against the wall, just by
my window. She was very lovely and graceful, with long, slender arms.
Some people called her a sweetbrier-bush. She was my most intimate
friend, and was always peeping in at the window and calling me to come
out. When I came and sat close beside her in my chair, she would bend
over me, and tell me all about her love-affairs, which gave her a great
deal of trouble."
"Poor thing!" said Hildegarde, sympathetically.
"She had two lovers," continued Rose, dreamily, talking half to herself.
"One was Sir Scraggo de Cedar, a tall knight in rusty armor, who stood
very near her, and loved her to distraction. But she cared nothing for
him, and had given her heart to the South Wind,--the most fickle and
tormenting lover you can imagine. Sometimes he was perfectly charming,
and wooed her in the most enchanting manner, murmuring soft things in
her ear, and kissing and caressing her, till I almost fell in love with
him myself. Then he would leave her alone,--oh! for days and days,--till
she drooped, poor thing! and was perfectly miserable. And then perhaps
he would come again in a fury, and shake and beat her in the most
frightful manner, tearing her hair out, and sometimes flinging her right
into the arms of poor Sir Scraggo, who quivered with emotion, but never
took advantage of the situation. I used to be _very_ sorry for Sir
Scraggo."
"What a shame!" cried Hildegarde, warmly. "Couldn't you make her care
for the poor dear?"
"Oh, no!" said Rose. "She was very self-willed, that gentle Eglantine,
in spite of her soft, pretty ways. There was no moving her. She turned
her back as nearly as she could on Sir Scraggo, and bent farther and
farther toward the south, stretching her arms out as if imploring her
heartless lover to stay with her. I fastened her back to the wall once
with strips of list, for she was spoiling her figure by stooping so
much; but she looked so utterly miserable that I took them off again.
Dear Eglantine! I wonder if she misses me."
"I think she was rather a minx, do you know?" said Hildegarde. "I
prefer Sir Scraggo myself."
"Well," replied Rose, "one respected Sir Scraggo very much indeed; but
he was _not_ beautiful, and all the De Cedars are pretty stiff and
formal. Then you must remember he was older than Eglantine and I,--ever
and ever so much older."
"That does make a difference," said Hildegarde. "Who were some other of
your garden people, you funniest Rose?"
"There was Old Moneybags!" replied Rose. "How I did detest that old man!
He was a hideous old thorny cactus, all covered with warts and knobs and
sharp spines. Dear mother was very proud of him, and she was always
hoping he would blossom, but he never did. He lived in the house in
winter, but in spring Mother set him out in the flower-bed, just beside
the double buttercup. So when the buttercup blossomed, with its lovely
yellow balls, I played that Old Moneybags, who was an odious old miser,
was counting his gold. Then, when the petals dropped, he piled his money
in little heaps, and finally he buried it. He wasn't very interesting,
Old Moneybags, but the buttercups were lovely. Then there were Larry
Larkspur and Miss Poppy. I wonder--No! I don't believe you would."
"What I like about your remarks," said Hildegarde, "is that they are so
clear. What do you mean by believing I wouldn't? I tell you I would!"
"Well," said Rose, laughing and blushing, "it really isn't anything;
only--well, I made a little rhyme about Larry Larkspur and Miss Poppy
one summer. I thought of it just now; and first I wondered if it would
amuse you, and then I decided it wouldn't."
"_You_ decided, forsooth!" cried Hildegarde. "'"Who are you?" said the
caterpillar.' I will hear about Larry Larkspur, if you please, without
more delay."
"It really _isn't_ worth hearing!" said Rose. "Still, if you want it you
shall have it; so listen!
"Larry Larkspur, Larry Larkspur,
Wears a cap of purple gay;
Trim and handy little dandy,
Straight and smirk he stands alway.
"Larry Larkspur, Larry Larkspur,
Saw the Poppy blooming fair;
Loved her for her scarlet satin,
Loved her for her fringed hair.
"Sent a message by the night-wind:
'Wilt thou wed me, lady gay?
For the heart of Larry Larkspur
Beats and burns for thee alway.'
"When the morning 'gan to brighten,
Eager glanced he o'er the bed.
Lo! the Poppy's leaves had fallen;
Bare and brown her ugly head.
"Sore amazed stood Larry Larkspur,
And his heart with grief was big.
'Woe is me! she was so lovely,
Who could guess she wore a wig?'"
Hildegarde was highly delighted with the verses, and clamored for more;
but at this moment some one was seen coming toward them through the
trees. The some one proved to be Martha, with her sleeves rolled up,
beaming mildly through her spectacles. She carried a tray, on which were
two glasses of creamy milk and a plate of freshly baked cookies. Such
cookies! crisp and thin, with what Martha called a "pale bake" on them,
and just precisely the right quantity of ginger.
"Miss Rose doesn't look over and above strong," she explained, as the
girls exclaimed with delight, "and 't would be a pity for her to eat
alone. The cookies is fresh, and maybe they're pretty good."
"Martha," said Hildegarde, as she nibbled a cooky, "you are a saint!
Where do you keep your aureole, for I am sure you have one?"
"There's a pair of 'em, Miss Hilda," replied Martha. "They build every
year in the big elm by the back door, and they do sing beautiful."