Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
_Such a_
_Happy Day._
BY
CATHARINE SHAW.
AUTHOR OF
"DICKIE'S SECRET," "NELLIE ARUNDEL," "SOMETHING FOR SUNDAY,"
"SUNDAY SUNSHINE," ETC.
London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd.
3, Pilgrim Street, E. C.
CONTENTS.
————
Chapter.
I. Such a Happy Day
II. Such a Happy Afternoon
III. Such a Happy Evening
_Such a Happy Day._
SUCH A HAPPY DAY.
————
"GOOD morning, Father!"
"Good morning, my little son! Where have you been? Your face is as
fresh and cool as my cucumbers, though your cheeks are not green, but
are as rosy as apples."
"I've been out with my mother!"
"With 'your mother,' have you?"
Cyril smiled. "We've been picking flowers, but you don't know what for—"
"Do I not? Shall I guess?"
"No, don't guess, Father, 'cause I like secrets!"
"Very well. And what did my 'early birds' find when they were out?"
Cyril's mother came in at the window with her basket of flowers in her
hand. She looked down upon them with her gentle eyes, but left her
little son to speak.
"We saw—we saw lots of dew!"
"Oh, so you did. I love dew; that shows how early you were up."
"And we saw Eddie and Effie out picking flowers too. And then—What else
do you suppose we saw?"
"You have a great many 'saws' in your yard," said his father, laughing
at him. "But go on."
Cyril looked puzzled for a moment, and then meeting his mother's eyes,
went on—
"We did see a very funny thing! One of our hens wasn't satisfied with
the hen-house for her nest, and has made one for herself under a hedge.
Mother called it—"
"Stolen a nest?" suggested Cyril's father.
"Yes, but I do not see that. When Eddie and Effie went on, I sat down
on a bank to think about it. I call it 'made a nest' not 'stolen.' The
poor hen thought she could make it much better out there in the sweet
air, than in that stuffy hen-house."
"Did you see which hen it was?" asked his father.
"Yes. While I was waiting and watching a frog that was jumping about,
she came up through the hedge all wet and draggled, and got right on to
the nice eggs: I thought she would spoil them."
"That's what they do," said his father; "and they say it is what makes
the eggs hatch so well."
"Do they?" asked Cyril, opening his blue eyes very wide. "Anyway, she
frightened away the frog that had come to have a look at me. It did hop
so, Father."
"I should think we had better hop in to breakfast, Cyril," said Mr.
Forde, "for we have plenty to do before ten o'clock, early as we are."
"Eddie and Effie are going by train at the same time as we are," nodded
Cyril, getting off his perch and taking his father's hand. "'I' don't
think they're old enough, but they said they were going to walk to the
station and sit there till uncle and aunt came."
"They won't hurt," said Mr. Forde. "If your sweet mother did not coddle
you, Cyril, you could go to London by yourself! Boys always turn up
right-side-up!"
"Yes," said Cyril eagerly, "that's what I say. I'm six, and I should
turn up all right, I know."
Mrs. Forde did not answer her husband's quizzical look. As she moved
towards the door, she was gazing on the little darling, who was the
very light of her eyes.
That day was to be a wonderful day to some people, for Cyril's
grandfather and grandmother were to celebrate their fiftieth
wedding-day, while all the children and grandchildren were to meet at
the pretty house near London, to spend the happy day together.
Plenty of people got up early that morning! Some of them, like
Cyril and his cousins, Effie and Eddie, knew all about the Golden
Wedding-day, and some knew nothing about it, and yet were preparing for
it all the same.
Far away in the country two boys were busy picking the sweet flowers
for the London market. And when they had gathered a large basket full,
one of them hastened to the station so as to catch the earliest train
which steamed away to the great city.
By-and-by, in one of the courts in that great city, a little girl
raised her head from her couch, and said in a sleepy voice, "Good
morning, sir!"
"Why, child!" said her mother. "Do ye think ye're out in the street
already! But get up, do; it's late, and if you're not there, somebody
else will have the best flowers, that they will!"
The child roused herself then, and with many a yawn, put on her little
dress and apron, and after but a slight breakfast, hurried off to the
market with her few pence, making as clever a bargain as any other
little girl of her age.
Then she went out into the streets, and made her way to the spot near
the Bank where she always took her stand.
Many were the "Good morning, sirs," which passed her rosy lips. But
some were too busy to turn towards her, and some not inclined to buy,
so that her basket did not get empty very fast.
But Bella stood patiently enough. She did not thrust her flowers into
people's faces, nor did she whine or beg.
Well she knew that her brothers and sisters needed all she could
earn for them; well she knew that her ailing father needed food and
medicine, and that her mother "could" not work harder than she did
already. But Bella had found out the best way to empty her basket was
to keep a cheerful face and a sharp look-out. And among the many who
passed her each day to their business near, there were some who made a
point of buying of her rather than any one else.
One young lady, who had just come from a visit to the happy country
near Reigate, and had there picked flowers with her cousins, turned as
she passed Bella's tasteful bunches, and paused for an instant.
"I wish—" she said, and stopped.
"Only a penny, miss!" said Bella eagerly. "The whole bunch, miss, just
as it is. I don't cheat, miss!"
"I was thinking," said the young lady slowly, "I wish I had brought one
of my bunches with me from home."
Bella looked inquiringly; she wondered why the young lady hesitated
to buy. Such a sweet young lady, with such a bright, calm look, that
somehow reminded the little flower-girl of a clear, cloudless sky on a
summer day.
"I think I will have one," was her final decision. Then her eyes met
Bella's: "I was going to see a little sick boy on my way home, and I
wished I had brought one of my own bunches of flowers. But I think
yours will please him just as much."
She did not add that the penny which she paid for it would have to
come out of the money which had been set apart for her dinners; for
her little income had to go a long way. When she took Bella's pretty
flowers in her hand, she looked into the clear childish eyes with a
soft expression, as she said,—
"I shall give these to a little boy who is going to heaven very soon.
Have you ever heard of heaven?"
Bella nodded.
"Do you know how we can get there?"
Bella shook her head, then added quickly, "Ain't it by being honest?"
It was the young lady's turn to shake her head.
"It's just because the Lord Jesus died—instead of us,—bore our sins,
and all the punishment of them, so that we can go free."
Bella sat down and looked at her earnestly. "I never heard that afore,"
she said slowly.
"Shall you be here on Monday?" asked the young schoolmistress,
preparing to hasten on.
"Yes, I shall."
"I'll come earlier, and tell you," she said; "I must not stop now. But
you can think of this: 'Jesus' is the only way to heaven!"
She hurried away, while Bella's eyes followed her curiously.
It was no wonder that the young schoolmistress was loved so much.
As she sat in her dull schoolroom that morning, with her flowers placed
in a glass of water, she noticed one of her little pupils in the oldest
class looking dull and listless.
The rest were busy over sums, when the teacher's voice was heard
calling,—
"Nellie, my dear, come here!"
The child looked up startled, and then hastened to her side.
"Is anything wrong, Nellie? Are you not well?"
"Yes, I'm quite well, Miss Archer."
"Cannot you do your lesson?"
"Yes, Miss Archer."
"Then what is it, dear?"
Now what it was, was this. The night before, when Nellie had been going
to bed, her sister Mary had said,—
"Miss Archer makes a favourite of you, so of course you get on with
your lessons."
"She doesn't!" Nellie had answered indignantly. "She never makes the
least difference."
"I know she does, for the other girls have noticed it," Mary had said.
And then poor Nellie had knelt down to pray. But instead of being able
to speak to God, all her sister's words had come over her again, and at
last, she had crept into bed full of sorrow and resentment.
So when Miss Archer asked her what was the matter, and looked so
lovingly in her face, she remembered all this, and knew that the other
girls would make up their minds more than ever that she was a favourite.
"Cannot you tell me?" her teacher was saying.
And then Nellie gave one shy glance at her and whispered,—
"I don't think I can; but—it was my fault—being angry with Mary! I
ought to have helped that."
Miss Archer kissed her in silence, and then, as it was just the end of
school, she asked Nellie to walk with her as far as their roads went
together.
Before Nellie had quite got through her story of her fear of being a
favourite, Miss Archer came to the house where she was to take the
bunch of flowers she had bought of Bella.
So she wished the little schoolgirl good-bye, and ran up to the
invalid, only waiting for one whispered word, before she flew
down again; for to-day was a great day for her, and to her joy a
half-holiday. For this was her grandparents' Golden Wedding-day, and
like Eddie and Effie in the country, or like Cyril and his parents, her
heart was full of plans and thoughts as to how the large party would go
off.
Only yesterday a man had come to the dining-room window of her London
home, and had held up a pretty pot of flowers for her to buy. Then she
had thought, "That will do for my present. It isn't much, but they all
know I am not rich."
For Miss Archer was an orphan, and she boarded with some friends, and
kept herself by her teaching. Many a home had been offered her, but she
always shook her head.
To-day, her friend's little girl ran to greet her with her picture book.
And as she took her on her knee, she said,—
"Do you remember, Mabel, that, poor man who came to the window
yesterday?"
"I know," nodded Mabel.
"Well, he said he had a little girl almost as young as you, who stands
all day with a basket of flowers. He said that in the cold spring
weather, when the palm first comes out, the poor parents make most of
their living by what she sells."
"Poor little girl!" said Mabel softly. "I'd like to give her my
pudding!"
But Miss Archer had not time to tell her the whole story just then,
so she carried her up all the long flights of stairs to her little
room at the top of the house, to watch her change her dress for her
grandmamma's Golden Wedding-day.
Meanwhile, some of the other grandchildren had been busy on this
auspicious morning. Already the train was bringing Eddie, Effie, and
Cyril, those happy children, towards London. While nearer the pretty
house where the grandparents lived, there were other boys and girls who
were up early too, and long before their elders were awake had picked
baskets of fruit as a present from their father's orchard.
Then what a grand changing of clothes there was, and combing and
brushing, and tying and fastening!
How the girls had to be arrayed in all their prettiest things! And how
the boys were anxious about certain neckties, and took quite as long as
the girls to turn themselves out as "spic and span" as they did!
"How many will there be of us?" had been a frequent question in all the
families. But there were so many to count, and so many to be counted,
that one never seemed to come at the right number.
"Well, there's Cousin Lily Archer—she's one at any rate," the boys
said, and everybody was glad of that; for wherever she went, Lily was a
great favourite.
"Then there's all the boys from Reigate," said some one, regardless
of his good English in his excitement; "and there's that fellow whose
father is in India, who's staying with them, Claude Champion—he's
invited. And there's—"
But nobody would wait to hear. There were, all were agreed, seven
families to bring their different members to the gathering, and their
numbers varied from poor Lily Archer, who was the sole representative
of her dead parents, down to the blooming twelve children of the eldest
son and daughter.
Many a "Good morning!" sounded that day as the parties began to arrive.
And their dear grandmother had her cheeks kissed into a pretty pink, as
one and another came up to her, bringing tokens of love and greeting.
When the first excitement was over, there was a general assent to the
proposal of the elders that as many as liked should go to meet the
train by which the next party was expected.
The girls ran for their hats, the boys sauntered out on to the lawn to
wait for them, while the little ones eagerly said they should not be
tired, and that the cool lanes would be better than the gardens.
Though the elders smiled at this little fiction, it was allowed to go
uncontradicted, and the troop set off in the best of spirits.
"May I come too?" asked Claude, who was living with the Reigate family.
"Of course you may!" said some one.
Now their friend from India remembered the pleasant summer holiday he
had just spent, and thought of the weeks when Lily Archer had been
among them, and he considered the greatest attraction of the Golden
Wedding-day was that he should see her sweet, quiet face. So he gladly
availed himself of the boy's permission to go and meet her, and made
himself so bright and interesting that he was the centre of attraction
all the way to the station.
When they returned with a fresh accession to their numbers, there were
more greetings and more presents. Flowers, from far and near, seemed
the order of the day.
"Who is this?" said grandpapa roguishly, as one of his darlings came up
to him with her frock filled with fruit and flowers. "Do I know this
little girl?"
"Please, I'm Effie," said a little voice, "and Eddie is here too—at
least, he was in the conservatory just now; he's too shy to come in."
"Shy, is he?" said her grandfather. "Then we must go and fetch him.
Nobody must be shy on Golden Wedding-days, must they, Effie?"
"I'm not shy at all," said Effie, at which everybody laughed.
And then Effie turned shy in good earnest, and hung her head.
But everybody was too busy and too happy to notice her, and in another
moment, she found herself being led through the window at the end
of the room into the pretty conservatory, where the profusion of
the flowers nearly took away her breath. But her hand was in her
grandfather's, and who could be as dear, as interesting, as loving as
he?
There they found Eddie gazing at a rose-coloured camellia which had
grown far above his head.
"Eddie, Eddie!" exclaimed his little sister. "Grandpa says you mustn't
be shy on Golden days—'cause—I don't know why—but—here's grandpa come
to find you. It's awfully nice in here, isn't it, Eddie?"
"Yes," said Eddie shortly, looking as he would very much have preferred
that they should have kept away. "Yes, it's nice when—when I can see
all the flowers."
"Can't you see?" asked Effie, opening her eyes.
But the children soon found out where their grandfather was, and
flocked round him begging for a story.
"Hey-dey!" he said. "I can't make stories like I used when I was
younger; I haven't the imagination now."
"But you can tell us real ones, sir," said Claude Champion, who stood
behind the rest arranging some flowers into a little posy.
"Eh?" said the old gentleman.
"Yes, something true, Grandfather," exclaimed one of the Reigate boys.
So he sat down on a green iron seat and the rest crowded round; till
the story-telling getting wind, everybody gathered near, filling in the
doorways and drawing-room windows; such an audience as moved the old
man to see.
"All my own," he murmured, his observant eyes going round from one to
another; "all my own, except Claude Champion,—and he's the son of a
dear friend. Almost as good as my own anyway."
A smile passed over his face, which no one understood, unless it were
grandmamma, who understood most things!
"Are you goin' to begin, Grandfather?" asked Cyril, who was seated on
the knee of one of his cousins.
The old gentleman hemmed and cleared his throat, and then began in good
earnest:—
"Once upon a time—"
"That's the way," murmured one of the Reigate boys, and got a punch in
the ribs from another of them as a stopper.
"Once upon a time, not very far from here, in a great smoky city, there
lived a happy young mother.
"Every day, when she had sent her little girl off to school, and had
dressed her baby boy, she would take him to the window where she kept
her flowers, and would water them and attend to them while she sang a
bright, cheerful hymn.
"Presently, if her boy were very good, she would reward him with a
bunch for his very own. Oh, what infinite joy it gave that mother's
heart to do anything for her baby, to deny herself that he might have
pleasure!
"When her little girl, whom we will call Minnie, came back from school,
she would take her little brother for a walk or play with him in the
court, where she chose the only corner on which the sun shone down; for
like her mother, and the flowers and the canary (and like all of us!),
she loved sunshine!
"But dark, sad days came upon those happy children.
"All at once Minnie discovered that her mother was sick. It came upon
her with a blank despair she had never even dreamed of before. One
morning when she got up, she found her mother was unable to rise from
her bed.
"'Minnie!' said the panting voice of the fever-stricken woman. 'I'd
thought we would all have met your father when he came home from
his voyage—so happy—but—it's not to be. Minnie, we'll meet in the
Home above; and God 'll take care of you somehow, though I can't see
how. Minnie, take care of baby, and write to your grandfather and
grandmother.'
"The poor mother paused there.
"'Minnie, you'll tell your father as I did my best for you, and always
loved him, at home or away, just the same; and write—mind you write—to
your grandmother.'
"Soon after that, she got too ill to arrange anything, and Minnie could
only sit by and whisper what she had learned of the Home above, and
say over and over again to her dying mother, the words which seemed to
quiet her more than any others, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee.'
"Soon after that, she had need to remember those words for herself,
for she was left alone in the world, with only her little brother and
far-away father who had not been heard of for many a long day.
"She wrote, as her mother had told her, to her grandparents, and the
poor old couple knew not what to say. They had hard work to keep a fire
on their own hearth. While they were thinking it over, their son's wife
came in, and she listened to all they had to say without any remark.
But when she got home, she told her husband all about it, and how she
had been watching her hen gathering its chickens under its wings, and
how she had thought she should like to gather the little orphans under
her wings till a home could be found for them.
"Her husband was a very bluff man, and he did not answer many words,
but as he went off to his work, he gave her a rarely tender kiss as he
said shortly, 'You may ask 'em for a bit—anyway—Pollie.'
"So Pollie wrote the letter of welcome, and poor little Minnie received
it the next morning, just as she had come to her very last halfpenny
after paying her week's rent.
"The letter contained an order for enough money to bring the two
children into the country, and there were plenty of kind neighbours to
pack up their few clothes and get them off.
"As one motherly woman took her leave of them, she said to Minnie,—
"'Well—anyways, my dear—you've cared for yer brother pretty near as
well as his mother, and that's sayin' a great deal.'
"Almost as soon as Minnie's answer could get to Pollie, the two
children had started, and were on their way.
"But Pollie was not surprised. She liked things done quickly. And when
she had read the letter which the postman had brought, she just ran
into her cottage and 'spun round,' as she called it, putting her little
plans into execution which she had just formed while she sat thinking
about them yesterday.
"Yes! She would keep some more hens, and Minnie should help her in
the care of them. And the child should take the eggs round to some
houses she knew, where the gentlefolks would have as many as she could
spare them. And Minnie should sleep in the little attic with her baby
brother, and should be made welcome till her father came home to see
about her. And if he never came home—why, there was another Almighty
Father who would help the orphans and find food and clothes for them in
His wonderful way!
"That was what Pollie thought, while all the time she was 'spinning
round' making her neat cottage neater still.
"So the children came. Minnie with her mournful eyes and thin,
sorrowful face, and the baby with that pathetic, motherless look which
went to Pollie's heart.
"But Pollie thought the best plan would be to take the baby into her
heart instead of letting him make it ache. So the little fellow sat on
her knee, was fed by her hand, and delighted her by growing stronger
every day. She taught Minnie to make a frock for him, and out of her
own pocket bought some new boots in which he could run about.
"After a few weeks of country sunshine had passed over their heads,
the woebegone look went away from Minnie's face, and though she never
forgot her mother—never, never,—she forgot her sorrow, and began to be
the light of her uncle's home.
"How the baby learned to walk and play and dig! How he laughed all day
long and gambolled with the dog! How he, by-and-by, trotted into his
grandfather's cottage and lisped out 'Dood-mornin',' like all of you
have done to-day!
"But Minnie did not get to be a selfish little girl, only anxious to
enjoy herself. Of that you may be sure!
"When the Lord Jesus reigns in anybody's heart, He drives selfishness
out, as surely as sunshine drives out darkness!
"By-and-by Minnie and her little brother sent up some country flowers
to the neighbours who had been so kind to her. And then she saved up
some eggs which Pollie gave her for her own, and sent them to another
poor little girl, named Rose, who had no mother. And in a letter, she
told her how nice it was to learn to grow flowers, and advised her to
try to get a geranium for her window, and take care of it till there
should be a flower-show for poor people.
"And Rose took her advice, and spent the next penny she had on a little
plant, and so made a beginning.
"Then she took her baby-sister to a certain place where she knew some
flowers were to be seen, and stood long and watched them, and then went
home with fresh heart to save up for another larger pot, which in due
time she obtained.
"Minnie's old grandparents thought there were never two such children
as these loving ones who had dropped from the skies, as it were, at
their feet. But they told their son that it was a good day that ever
his young wife thought of such a thing, and they blessed her for it.
"As to Pollie, the blessing came to her, too; for her little poultry
farm throve wonderfully, and as to the people that came far and near
for her eggs, she said it was quite surprising!
"Then Minnie and Bobbie were so loving! They seemed to fill up her
hungry heart, and she only wondered how she had ever got on without
them.
"At last, their father did come back to London, but when he found his
home broken up, his sorrow was very great.
"But the neighbours directed him to where his children were being
sheltered, and he hastened down to Bickley."
"Bickley!" interrupted a half-a-dozen voices. "Why, that's here!"
"Does anything prevent it's being here?" said their grandfather smiling.
"Well, don't interrupt," said the girl who held Cyril on her knee. "Do
go on, Grandfather!"
"I've just done. When he came down to Bickley and found how happy the
children were, and how Tom and Pollie did not want to part with them,
he shed tears of joy, and went on his next voyage with less sorrow in
his heart than he had had for many a long day."
* * * * * * *
The old gentleman paused.
"Is that all?" asked some one.
"Yes, all—except that the eggs which you will eat at tea to-night were
laid by Minnie's hens!"
"Oh!"
There was a general move, and a general "Thank you, Grandfather—very
much!" from at least twenty voices.
Claude Champion had been making and remaking his bouquet all this time,
and when the story was finished, he passed it to Lily with a smile.
"Not for me?" she asked.
"Yes—certainly; for whom else did you suppose?"
"I'll have just one flower," she answered.
It was almost dinner time. But all were waiting for one more train to
bring the rest of the party from a distance.
So once more, the garden was the scene of merry groups of bright
colours flitting about among the trees. Some of the younger ones
playing hide-and-seek, while some wheeled their aunt's dolls, where
they could pace up and down undisturbed.
The grandparents sat down under the great elm watching all with
happy faces, their own children—the fathers and mothers of the
party—gathering round them, enjoying and entering into it all in their
different ways.
"Who would have thought, my dear—fifty years ago—that we should have
such a party as this?" said the grandfather, taking his wife's hand in
his.
She only shook her head, smiling peacefully. Whatever storms life had
brought, sunshine had come at the end—the sunshine "which shineth more
and more unto the perfect day."
In the half-hour before the rest had arrived, Lily had been persuaded
to accept the offer of a home, by some one who had set his heart very
much upon it. So that grandfather was right, and Claude Champion did
bid fair to be one of his own after all, on this Golden Wedding-day.
SUCH A HAPPY AFTERNOON.
————
IT was the afternoon of the Golden Wedding-day. All the seven families
of children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had arrived
at Bickley, the great dinner-table had been set, and the great dinner
eaten. The grandfather had tried to count the numbers, and had failed,
and half-a-dozen at least of his grandsons had tried to help him,
always with the same result, that everybody clamoured so, and had so
many suggestions to make, that nobody ever got to the end.
Grandmamma sat smiling and silent at the top of the table. It would
have been useless for her to try to get a word in, and she certainly
did not try. At last, when everybody had spent all the breath there
was, it occurred to somebody to say to her,—
"Perhaps you can tell us, Grandma! You look very knowing!"
"I wrote all the names," she answered demurely.
"Oh, aye! So you did," said grandfather; for there was a lull, and his
voice could reach the top of the long, long table. "Pity we did not
think of that before."
"Why, Grandfather?" asked some one.
"Saved a lot of breath," answered the old gentleman with a twinkle.
"Then how many are there?" asked Claude Champion, who was seated by
Mrs. Forde's side, as the greatest stranger. "Can you tell us now?"
"I wrote fifty names," said Mrs. Forde, smiling.
"And there are fifty here?"
"Yes; all have come."
She glanced down the long lines of faces, to where even her tiny
great-granddaughter sat in her mother's lap, looking as happy as all
the rest.
"Let us go into the garden," she said, rising. "There will be shade
under the elms, and I have promised my baby of babies to see her
namesake, Daisy."
She stretched out her arms to the youngest of the party, receiving her
from her pretty young mother, and led the way to the lawn, where the
shadows had already begun to lengthen enough to afford a delightful
shade for those who felt inclined to rest there.
She herself, however, took her great-grandchild to the iron fence which
separated the smooth lawn from the little meadow, and called, "Daisy,
Daisy, where are you?"
How the baby turned her head, looking this way and that, when she heard
her own name.
But there was another gentle creature, who understood even better than
the baby. At the sound of her mistress's voice, the Alderney cow turned
her head from the sweet grass and walked towards them, followed by
her calf, till she drew up at the fence and put her head over the top
expectantly.
"Give baby to me, Grandmamma," said the baby's mother, "while you see
to 'your' Daisy; she seems to expect something."
Mrs. Forde acknowledged that the cow did expect something. When her
hand was free, she put it into a little bag she carried, and produced
from a soft piece of paper three or four small carrots!
"There, Daisy!" she said. "You must have your treat as well as the rest
of us!"
Then turning to the little boy who sat on the stile watching them, she
added,—
"Georgie, go into cook, and ask her for that cake I looked out for you.
This is my Golden Wedding-day, you know."
Just then the troop of grandchildren came down the path close to them,
on their way to the farmyard, that wonderful attraction which had been
saved "till after dinner" by everybody.
Margaret gave her baby to the nurse and accepted the offer of a rest in
the hammock; for proud young mothers find that, however delightful it
is to show off their treasures, it is very fatiguing!
As she rested there, listening to the voices going farther and farther
away, the cawing of the rooks in the elms overhead soothed her into a
sort of dreamy reverie. She fell to musing about the leafless trees in
which they built their nests in the spring, and how she had heard that
the same rooks came back to the same trees—year after year. Then she
thought,—
"And is there any place like home, winter or summer, for any of us? I
do not wonder the rooks come back again to their old haunts."
After that, Margaret's moralizing ended in dreams for about a minute,
and when she opened her eyes again, the light wind was stirring the
chestnut leaves all round her, and her husband's voice was saying,—
"Why, Margaret, I had quite lost you! The rest are all off to the
farmyard, feeding the donkeys and chickens and ducks and drakes, as if
it were the business of life! Will you come too? It is no fun without
you, and to-day we must have all the fun we can!"
"All gone, are they?" she asked, springing out of her hiding-place,
well pleased to be wanted.
"I think so. I interrupted one of the Reigate boys begging his mother
to let him climb or something. And I passed Dorothy tying on her hat
in a great hurry; she was nearly crying, because she said the rest had
gone without her."
"Poor little girl! But I daresay she will catch them. Do you know,
Harry, even to this day I cannot bear to be left behind. Perhaps you do
not know that feeling?"
Harry looked at her with a comical glance of mingled love and
admiration, and they sauntered back to ask what the more sedate members
of the party were going to do. But nobody would acknowledge to being
sedate to-day. And in spite of the heat, they all decided to follow
the fortunes of the young ones; for whatever interested them, would
interest those whose hearts were always young.
"Where's Jack?" asked that young gentleman's mother, perhaps somewhat
doubtfully.
She had not confessed to any one that up in a certain bag she had
actually brought a second suit of clothes for her son, in case the
first should by any misfortune come to grief.
Now what Jack was doing was this. He had reached the farmyard the first
of any one. And just reserving enough wits to turn up his trousers,
he gave a great jump into the soft, springy straw which he saw in the
middle of the enclosure, deciding while he was in mid-air that it was
like jumping on the best spare room bed while the maids were making it!
"Ugh! Oh!" But Jack had not counted on its being so very—very—soft, and
springy, and warm—and ugh—wet!
He plunged in and out with more speed than generally fell to the share
of the best spare room bed; and his only hope was that no one had seen
his disaster. He rushed into the doorway of a friendly cow-house, while
he recovered his breath and could have time to decide what to do.
He peeped out; the rest were coming in at the gate of the yard, and
were already calling the hens to be fed. Then no one "had" seen him,
that was his greatest hope.
But what to do? He looked down at his clothes. Surely they were not so
very bad! And yet—what was this constantly increasing impression of
damp and cold behind him, and this odour which met his olfactory nerves
whenever he turned his head down to his own shoulder?
"I'll go right away home to Reigate," he said; "there's nothing else
for it. It serves me right, for being so careless. I always 'do' get
into a scrape, try as hard as I will. It's because I'm so thoughtless,
mother says, but then—ugh! I wish they'd have done with those
everlasting chickens; I shall be kept here all day. As if I'd never
seen a farmyard before! I suppose they'd put some clean straw over
there, to make it look nice for the Golden Wedding-day—ugh!"
He was quite right about the party bidding fair to stay there all
day. There were so many things to see, dear to the hearts of suburban
children!
There was Gipsy, the beautiful dog, with her puppies, who resented the
chickens drinking her dish of milk. There was the favourite cock, who
looked as if he were just going to accept the corn from Eddie's hand,
and then walked off with a supercilious kind of air, which seemed to
say, "Don't you wish you may catch me, young sir?"
All this Jack saw through a peep-hole in the cow-house, but he was
very weary of his situation. He was too impatient to be philosophical,
or he would have considered that they must get tired some time, and
then he could slip out. Instead of that, his busy brain was planning
some brave, wonderful way of escape. If only he could devise something
splendid to do!
He looked up and down and around. If he could once get to the station,
he shouldn't mind anything or anybody there, he thought; he would just
get into an empty carriage and—
But when his plans had matured as far as that, he thought of his
mother, and of her anxiety at his disappearance; he thought of the
party, which would be utterly spoilt should one be missing, and his
heart misgave him.
Then the thought of his disaster swept over him afresh. No, he could
not face the jeers of his boy cousins, nor the pitying looks of his
girl cousins, nor the raised eyebrows of some of his aunts and uncles.
No, he must risk the anxiety of other people, and save himself the
inevitable disgrace.
Again he looked up. All around the cow-house were apertures for
ventilation; he thought he could squeeze through one of these, and so
away.
He sprang on the manger, and in another moment, his lithe form was
holding on to the rafters, and he was already half-way through.
"Safe!" he muttered as he let himself lightly to the ground, but there
he stopped.
"I'm doing a cowardly thing, I do believe," he said, half aloud. "I'm
actually running away from what I ought to bear, and leaving other
folks to the annoyance of my fault! That's what I should call cowardly
in any one else. Well—"
He stood still and looked round. Close to him a goose and her goslings
were sporting in and out of a favourite gutter, beyond them some
country children were driving home a goat from the common.
Jack had made up his mind.
He gave a flying leap across the gutter and brought up in front of the
cottage girl.
"I say—" he began.
"Yes, sir," she answered, looking somewhat slyly at his hot, bashful
face.
"I say; I've got into a mess,—see here," he added, turning round.
"Oh my!" said the girl expressively.
"Could you just go into the farmyard and ask 'em to tell you which is
my mother?"
The girl looked doubtful.
"She's a nice sort of woman, with grey stuff in her bonnet, and a grey
dress,—anybody 'ull tell you!"
"What am I to say?" asked the little girl, still doubtfully.
"Tell her Jack wants her! He's gone indoors. He's got into trouble—as
usual. Tell her that."
He turned off, and hurried to the house, while the cottage girl did
his bidding as well as she could. Among the forty or more people
who stood about watching the cows or feeding the chickens, she had
great difficulty in finding which was the "nice" woman whom Jack had
described. But she was a straightforward little girl, and she felt very
sorry for the poor young gentleman's trouble; so she waited till she
saw a lady who suited her ideas, and then she spoke,—
"Please, mum, are you 'Jack's' mother?"
"Yes, that I am!" said the lady in the grey bonnet.
"Then he's tumbled down somewhere, and he wants you, ma'am; he's gone
indoors."
"Not hurt?" asked his mother with a sinking at her heart.
"Oh dear no, ma'am!—Only in a mess," said the country girl, and moved
off towards home.
"Thank you, very much," said Jack's mother gratefully. And as she
hastened back, that extra suit flashed across her with intense relief.
"You 'are' a dear mother!" said her boy as, clean and fresh, he stood
dressed, all but his socks and boots which were ready for him. "I do
think you 'are' kind, never to even reproach a fellow. Well, it's like
mothers—that's all I can say!"
"I am glad you came to me, my boy," she said, putting her arm round
him. "Mothers are generally the best friends to go to!"
Meanwhile, the rest had left the farmyard and were making a call at the
Dairy Cottage, that picturesque spot which in winter seemed the most
snowy of any spot round, and in summer the most leafy.
It was cool and leafy now, but while the elders looked at the butter
and cream, and admired the cleanliness of everything, the young people
sought the outhouses behind, where a certain donkey was known to reside.
Here Jack, who had but just joined the party, and was in front of the
others, recognised his friend of just now, the little girl who had
helped him so kindly.
"Good afternoon!" he said, unconcernedly, with his ready wit, always
knowing the best thing to do at the moment, though he did get into
scrapes so often,—"Good afternoon!"
"Good afternoon, sir," she answered, blushing, on seeing who it was,
and inwardly wondering at the transformation.
"I'm much obliged to you for carrying that message," he said frankly.
"I couldn't thank you then—but I wanted to afterwards, and didn't know
where you lived."
"Oh, I live here," said the girl, surprised.
As the rest crowded out after the donkey and her foal, he added, "I
wanted you to have this. Mother said I might, if I saw you. I haven't
anything else!"
He put into her hand his cherished four-bladed knife, which he had had
for a whole month in his possession, without its being either broken or
lost.
"Ah no, sir," said the little girl; "I'd—"
But Jack was half across the meadow, and the only wonder was he did not
fall into a wide ditch full of water in his eagerness to escape her
thanks.
When he put his hand in his pocket that night to get his knife to cut
something, he made a wry face at the thought that it was gone. But
after an instant, he said to himself,—
"Well, that was a brave little girl, and I'm glad she's got it! When I
think that I sent her among fifty gentlefolks, with only a grey dress
and her own kindness to guide her, I think I may say she was a very
brave little girl,—considering all things!"
Those who did not care for the donkey, or who had had their turn on
his back, amused themselves with the turkeys, which were the especial
charge of the dairy-woman.
Her little children were at the very moment feeding them with some
bread.
At last, the children began to think that there were other pleasures to
be found nearer home.
Something had been hinted about some surprise at four o'clock, and as
that time drew on, all the party began to collect on the lawn again.
When the clock on the stable rang forth its four strokes, two
labourers, looking very shy, came over the soft grass, and touching
their caps to the grandfather said,—
"Please sir, the hay's ready for the young ladies and gentlemen."
"Hay!" shouted the boys. "Where, where?"
"I have had a field reserved on purpose for this day," said their
grandfather. "I thought there could not be a greater pleasure—"
"Where?" asked everybody, for they had not noticed any grass cut on
their way to the farmyard.
"It is a field I rent on the other side of the lane. You can reach it
in a moment through the garden gate."
"Grandfather, you will come and show us," said Lily Archer, putting her
arm through his, and leading him down the garden.
"You don't want 'me,'" said the old gentleman, smiling.
"Indeed we do," she answered earnestly. "You and Grandmamma seem the
nearest I have to-day."
Tears glittered in her eyes, which had been so bright and happy but a
moment before. She was thinking of her own loneliness, without father
or mother, the sole representative of those who were gone before.
Claude, who was walking by her, guessed just a little of this from her
words. And when her grandfather only squeezed her arm sympathisingly,
he said,—
"You would like them to be here, and I am sure I should too. You must
miss them more than ever to-day!"
That little speech was the most comforting thing, Lily thought, which
had been said to her for many a long day.
And yet was she selfish, that it was not only that her parents missed
the Golden Wedding-day, but she so wanted them to share in her
happiness, and to give their blessing to the step she had taken only
this very morning?
Almost the whole party collected in the hay-field, with the exception
of an aunt and three children who were left behind. Even grandmamma was
enticed to accept a very carefully prepared hay seat, and her husband
came and sat down by her side, drawing Lily to another seat near.
"How lovely it is!" she said.
"I think it is," answered the old gentleman.
"It is the happiest day I ever spent," said Claude.
"The haymakers were up almost before it was light, turning the hay
over, as we had a shower yesterday, and I was afraid it would be damp.
But it is not in the least."
"No, indeed," said Claude; "I never saw a nicer hay-field. I'm going
to help those boys build a gigantic house. Will you come and visit us
presently, and give your approval?" he added, turning to Lily.
"'If' I approve," she answered, smiling archly.
"Of course; we do not want you to be insincere! But we really are going
to build a magnificent castle."
He went off, and Lily sat with her grandparents under the shady elms by
the hedge, well content.
By-and-by one and another of the uncles and aunts gathered round, while
their own boys and girls, or their nephews and nieces, made fresh hay
seats for them, till there was quite a circle.
"Are all here?" asked the grandmamma. "For I cannot count my fifty."
"All but two or three of the little girls who have some project or
other. I left them sitting demurely on a seat in the garden, only
anxious for us to leave them, I fancy," said one of Mr. Forde's
home-daughters.
"Oh yes, so they were! I remember now, and they had got hold of their
Aunt Rachel, and were whispering to her earnestly. What could they be
wanting?"
"Oh, if Rachel was there," said Miss Forde, "it will be all right."
(Rachel was the other home-daughter.)
So they forgot for a while about the little girls who were with Aunt
Rachel, and gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hay, watching
Claude and the boys rearing up the highest hay-castle that ever had
been seen, or the younger children copying them in their smaller
measure.
When the grand erection was finished, Claude and his friends, the
Reigate boys, came to fetch Lily Archer, and any of the others who
could be persuaded to move, to see it.
"I 'do' approve," smiled Lily.
"Of course you do," said one of her cousins. "You'd have been a girl of
egregious taste if you hadn't."
"What a long word!" answered Lily. "Are you sure you said it right? I
have heard of egregious blunders, but not so often of egregious taste!
Perhaps you are thinking of the blunder I should have made if I had
dared to disapprove?"
The boys laughed; anything that Lily said or did was always right in
their eyes.
Meanwhile, Aunt Rachel had been taken to a certain very private
verandah, and there had had a very private request made her—
"May we go and see Cook?"
"Is that so very particular," she asked, "that all those preparations
of secrecy should have to be made?"
"Oh, hush, Auntie!"
"There is no one near; the rest are so far-away in the hay-field, that
if you were to shout, they could not hear."
"But if any one guessed, it would spoil our fun!"
"Guessed that you were going to pay Cook a visit?"
"Well—yes, Auntie, because, in the first place, we're her
favourites—Elsie and I."
"Oh, are you? But even then—"
"And in the second place," interrupted Ethel eagerly, "we want Cook to
let us do something—"
"Oh, I see now. But do you not think that Cook is busy?"
"If she is, we'll not ask her—there, Auntie, we promise you. We can
soon tell whether Cook is busy, because if she is, she's so snappy!"
"Is she?"
"Yes; she's very fond of us, but if she's snappy, she's not at all
nice."
"I should think not," said Aunt Rachel, laughing. "I don't know
anything that's nice to be snappy except gingerbread."
"Oh, Auntie!"
"What?"
"You've guessed!"
"Guessed what?" she asked, looking puzzled.
"Hush!" whispered Frank. "It was only an accidental coincidence. If you
don't say any more, girls, auntie will be quite in the dark."
Having thus gained the permission that if cook were not busy, they
might visit her, the little girls ran off, followed closely by Frank,
who promised faithfully to be very quiet and only sit and watch them,
did cook permit them to carry out their plans.
"Bless your little hearts!" was her greeting, by which the children
understood that she was not snappy.
"We've come to see you," announced Frank boldly, while Ethel and Elsie
wished he had said that they had come for something else too.
"That's very kind of you," said cook. "I thought some of the young
ladies and gentlemen would pay me a visit to-day!"
"Did you?" asked Elsie. "Well, we wanted to see you, and we wanted—if
you weren't busy—to ask you a 'great' favour."
Cook looked so far from being snappy that they ventured to whisper in
her ear.
"Gingerbread!" she echoed. "Why, my dears, they've got heaps and heaps
for tea!"
The little girls' countenances fell.
"But there," added cook, "it ain't the stuff, but the fun of making it
in my kitchen that you want! I see that. Here, Jane, come along (to her
little daughter, the kitchen maid), just you get out the flour, and
the treacle, and the spice, and the butter. Oh! Deary me, to think of
beginning cooking again in my clean kitchen!"
"It 'is' clean," said Frank. "I like this kitchen the best of any I go
into. It's the cleanest."
Jane giggled, but cook accepted the compliment quite calmly.
"You should ha' seen it this morning, when some one tore her dress on a
nail, and came slopping the milk all over my floor."
Jane bent her head, colouring, and Frank could not help smiling. Cook
pretended to be so very unconscious of who it could have been.
But the girls were by this time deep in the gingerbread, and Frank
began to tire of what was to be seen inside, so he sauntered into the
yard, and burst out laughing so loud that cook ran out to see what the
fun was.
"Here's a new kind of puppy!" said Frank.
But by the time the gingerbread snaps were baked, cook was getting very
busy indeed over the tea, and Frank, who had come back again from the
yard, decided that it would be wiser for them all to disappear, as cook
was now getting decidedly snappy.
So the little girls, with many grateful thanks, and with many
instructions to the maids to put what they had made on the tea-table
without any remark, hurried off to the hay-field, where already long
tables were groaning beneath the weight of tea, coffee, cakes, fruit,
ham, chickens, eggs, and dainties too many to be counted.
Everybody was moving to the table, and they were only just in time
before the grace was said by their dear grandfather, standing
bareheaded under the blue sky.
The two little girls watched those four plates of gingerbread snaps
with anxious eyes. Yes—people did take some, and took some a second
time! But, what spoilt their fun most was, that Frank kept on begging
people to try them, and pressed them so earnestly upon Aunt Rachel,
with such knowing winks, that they were afraid their secret would be
out, and they covered with confusion.
But people were too busy to notice any two little girls of the party,
and just then a diversion occurred in some one asking their grandmother
whether those were not swallows wheeling about overhead?
"Yes," she answered; "we have a great many of them. And as we have
finished tea, if you will draw round a little nearer to me, I will tell
you something very curious that happened under our own eaves. It taught
'me' a great lesson."
"You, Grandmamma?" echoed several voices.