"Will I take him to the stable, Miss Daisy?" inquired the boy, as Daisy
got out at the back door.
"No. Just wait a little for me, Lewis."
Up stairs went Daisy; took off her boots and got rid of the soil they
had brought home; that was the first thing. Then, in spotless order
again, she went back to Lewis and inquired where Logan was at work.
Thither she drove the pony chaise.
"Logan," said Daisy coming up to him; she had left Loupe in Lewis's
care; "what do you use to help you get up weeds?"
"Maybe a hoe, Miss Daisy; or whiles a weeding fork."
"Have you got one here?"
"No, Miss Daisy. Was it a fork you were wanting?"
"Yes, I want one, Logan."
"And will you be wanting it noo?"
"Yes, I want it now, if you please."
"Bill, you go home and get Miss Daisy one o' them small hand forks--out
o' that new lot--them's slenderer."
"And Logan, I want another thing. I want a little rose bush--and if you
can, I want it with a rose open or a bud on it."
"A rose bush!" said Logan. "Ye want it to be set some place, nae doute?"
"Yes, I do; but I want to set it out myself, Logan; so it must not be
_too_ big a bush, you know, for I couldn't manage it."
"Perhaps Miss Daisy had better let me manage it. It's dirty work, Miss
Daisy."
"No; I only want the rose bush. I will take care of it, Logan. Have you
got one that I can have?"
"Ou, ay, Miss Daisy! there's a forest of rose bushes; ye can just please
yourself."
"Where is it?"
[Illustration]
Seeing his little mistress was greatly in earnest and must be presently
satisfied, Logan cast a wistful glance or two at his own proper work in
hand which he was abandoning, and walked away with Daisy. The flower
garden and nursery were at some distance; but Daisy trudged along as
patiently as he. Her little face was busy-looking now and eager, as well
as wise; but no tinge of colour would yet own itself at home in those
pale cheeks. Logan glanced at her now and then and was, as she said,
"very good." He thought he was about the best business, after all, that
could occupy him. He directed his steps to a great garden that yet was
not the show garden, but hid away behind the plantations of trees and
shrubbery. There were a vast number of plants and flowers here, too; but
they were not in show order, and were in fact only the reserve stock,
for supplying vacancies or preparing changes or especially for
furnishing cut flowers to the house; of which a large quantity must
every day be sent in. There was a very nursery of rose trees, smaller
and larger. Logan peered about, very particular in his own line as to
how every thing should be done; at last he found and chose just the
right thing for Daisy. A slender, thrifty young plant, with healthy
strong leaves and shoots, and at the top a bud shewing red and a half
opened sweet rose. Daisy was quite satisfied.
"Now where is it going, Miss Daisy?" Logan inquired.
"I am going to plant it out myself, Logan; it is going in a place--where
I want it."
"Surely! but does Miss Daisy know how to plant a rose tree?"
"Won't you tell me how, Logan?"
"Weel, Miss Daisy, there must be a hole dug for it, in the first place;
you must take a trowel and make a hole for it--But your dress will be
the waur!" he exclaimed, glancing at his little mistress's spotless
draperies.
"Never mind; only go on and tell me exactly how to manage, Logan."
"Does Miss Daisy intend to do it this afternoon?"
"Yes."
"Aweel, you must take a trowel and make a hole," said Logan, nipping off
some useless buds and shoots from the plants in his neighbourhood as he
was speaking--"and be sure your hole is deep as it should be; and make
the bottom soft with your trowel, or throw in a little earth, well
broken, for the roots to rest on"------
"How shall I know when my hole is deep enough?"
"Weel, Miss Daisy, it depends on the haighth of the roots--ye must even
try and see till ye get it deep enough; but whatever ye do, keep the
crown of the plant above ground."
"And what is the crown of the plant, Logan?"
Logan stooped down and put his fingers to the stem of a rose tree.
"It's just called the crown o' the plant, Miss Daisy, here where the
roots goes one way and the stem springs up another. Miss Daisy sees,
there's a kind o' shouther there."
"No, I don't see," said Daisy.
Logan put in his spade, and with a turn or two brought up the little
rose bush he had chosen for her purpose; and holding the ball of earth,
in his hand, shewed her the part of the plant he spoke of, just above
the surface of the soil.
"It's the most tenderest pairt of the vegetable nature," he said; "and
it must be kept out of the ground, where it can breathe, like; it won't
answer to cover it up."
"I will not," said Daisy. "Then?--"
"Then, when ye have gotten the place prepared, ye must set in this ball
of earth, as haill as ye can keep it; but if it gets broken off, as it's
like it will!--then ye must set the roots kindly in on the soft earth,
and let them lie just natural; and put in the soft earth over them; and
when ye have got a little in press it down a bit; and then more, after
the same manner, until it's all filled up."
"Why must it be pressed down?"
"Weel, Miss Daisy, it must be dune; the roots is accustomed to have the
soil tight round them, and they don't like it unless they have it so.
It's a vara good way, to have a watering pot of water and make a puddle
in the bottom of the hole, and set the roots in that and throw in the
soil; and then it settles itself all round them, and ye need not to coax
it with your fingers. But if ye don't puddle the roots, the bush must be
well watered and soaked when ye have dune."
"Very well, Logan--thank you. Now please put it in a basket for me, with
a trowel, and let me take a watering pot of water too; or Lewis can
carry that, can't he?"
"He can take whatever ye have a mind," said Logan; "but where is it
going?"
"I'll take the basket with the rose," said Daisy--"it's going a little
way--you can set it just here, in my chaise, Logan."
The gardener deposited the basket safely in the chaise, and Daisy got in
and shook the reins. Lewis, much wondering and a little disgustful, was
accommodated with a watering pot full of water, by the grinning Logan.
"See ye ride steady now, boy," he said. "Ye won't want to shew any
graces of horsemanship, the day!"
Whatever Lewis might have wanted, the necessity upon him was pretty
stringent. A watering pot full of water he found a very uncomfortable
bundle to carry on horseback; he was bound to ride at the gentlest of
paces, or inflict an involuntary cold bath upon himself every other
step. Much marvelling at the arrangement which made a carriage and
horses needful to move a rose bush, Lewis followed as gently as he could
the progress of his little mistress's pony chaise; which was much
swifter than he liked it; until his marvelling was increased by its
turning out of Melbourne grounds and taking a course up the road again.
Towards the same place! On went Daisy, much too fast for the watering
pot; till the cripple's cottage came in sight a second time. There, just
at the foot of the little rise in the road which led up to the cottage
gate, Loupe suddenly fell to very slow going. The watering pot went
easily enough for several yards; and then Loupe stopped. What was the
matter?
Something was the matter, yet Daisy did not summon Lewis. She sat quite
still, looking before her up to the cottage, with a thoughtful, puzzled,
troubled face. The matter was, that just there and not before, the
remembrance of her mother's command had flashed on her--that she should
have nothing to do with any stranger out of the house unless she had
first got leave. Daisy was stopped short. Get leave? She would never get
leave to speak again to that poor crabbed, crippled, forlorn creature;
and who else would take up the endeavour to be kind to her? Who else
would even try to win her to a knowledge of the Bible and Bible joys?
and how would that poor ignorant mortal ever get out of the darkness
into the light? Daisy did not know how to give her up; yet she could not
go on. The sweet rose on the top of her little rose tree mocked her,
with kindness undone and good not attempted. Daisy sat still, confounded
at this new barrier her mother's will had put in her way.
Wheels came rapidly coursing along the road in front of her, and in a
moment Dr. Sandford's gig had whirled past the cottage and bore down the
hill. But recognizing the pony chaise in the road, he too came to a stop
as sudden as Daisy's had been. The two were close beside each other.
"Where away, Daisy?"
"I do not understand, Dr. Sandford."
"Where are you going? or rather, why are you standing still here?"
"Because I was in doubt what to do."
"Did the doubt take you here, in the middle of the road?"
"Yes, Dr. Sandford."
"What is it, Daisy? To whom are you carrying a rose bush?"
"I am afraid--nobody."
"What is the matter--or the doubt?"
"It is a question of duty, Dr. Sandford."
"Then I will decide it for you. Go on and do what you wish to do. That
will be right."
"O no, sir," said Daisy, smiling at her adviser--"that is just what
would be wrong. I cannot."
"Cannot what?"
"Do that, sir; do what I wish to do." And Daisy sighed withal.
"What do you wish to do?"
The doctor was quite serious and as usual a little imperative in his
questions, and Daisy knew him to be trusted.
"I wanted to take this little rose bush and set it out in the garden up
there."
"_There?_? do you mean the garden of that cottage?" said the doctor
pointing with his whip.
"Yes, sir."
"Are you bound thither now?"
"No, sir--I am going home."
"Rose bush and all? Daisy, let Lewis get Loupe home, and you come here
and ride with me. Come! I want you."
Truly Daisy wanted nothing else. She left rose bush and watering pot,
chaise and pony, to Lewis's management, and gladly let the doctor take
her up beside him. She liked to drive with him; he had a fine horse and
went fast; and there were other reasons.
Now they drove off in fine style; fast, over the good roads; whisked by
Melbourne, sped away along south, catching glimpses of the river from
time to time, with the hills on the further side hazily blue and
indistinct with the September haze of sunbeams. Near hand the green of
plantations and woodland was varied with brown grainfields, where grain
had been, and with ripening Indian corn and buckwheat; but more
especially with here and there a stately roof-tree or gable of some fine
new or old country house. The light was mellow, the air was good; in the
excitement of her drive Daisy half forgot her perplexity and
discomfiture. Till the doctor said, suddenly looking round at her with a
smile,
"Now I should like to know the history of that rose bush."
"O, there is no history about it," said Daisy, quite taken by surprise.
"Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end," said the doctor.
"What was the beginning of this?"
"Only, Dr. Sandford," said Daisy doubtfully,--"I was sorry for that poor
woman, after what you told me about her."
"Molly Skelton?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you thought to comfort her with rose bushes?"
"No sir,--but--I wanted to get on good terms with her."
"Are you on any other terms?"
"She does not know me, you know, sir," said Daisy lifting to her friend
a face that was beyond his comprehension,--"and I do not think she was
very well pleased to see me in her garden a little while ago."
"You have been in her garden, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Daisy, will you excuse me for asking, why you should be on any terms
whatever with Molly Skelton?"
"She is so unhappy, Dr. Sandford,"--Daisy said, looking up again.
"And do you think you can do anything to make her less unhappy?"
"I thought"--Daisy did not look up now, but the doctor watching her saw
a witnessing tinge that he knew coming about her eyelids, and a softened
line of lip, that made him listen the closer,--"I thought--I might teach
her something that would make her happy,--if I could."
"What would you teach her, Daisy?"
"I would teach her to read--perhaps--I thought; if she would like me and
let me."
"Is reading a specific for happiness?"
"No sir--but--the Bible!" Daisy said with a sudden glance. And so clear
and sure the speech of her childish eye was, that the doctor though
believing nothing of it would not breathe a question of that which she
believed.
"O that is it!" he said. "Well, Daisy, this is the beginning; but though
I came in upon the middle of the subject I do not understand it yet. Why
did not the rose tree get to its destination?"
"Because--I remembered, just when I had got to the bottom of the hill,
that mamma would not let me."
Daisy's tone of voice told more than she knew of her subdued state of
disappointment.
"Mrs. Randolph had forbidden you to go to Molly's cottage?"
"No sir; but she had forbidden me to speak to anybody without having her
leave. I had forgotten it till just that minute."
"Ask her leave, and then go. What is the difficulty in that, Daisy?"
"She will not give me leave, Dr. Sandford. Mamma does not like me
to----do such things."
"Do you care much about it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Present your request to Mrs. Randolph to-morrow, Daisy--that is my
advice to you."
"It would be no use, Dr. Sandford."
"Perhaps not; but I advise you to take my advice; and lay the rose bush
by the heels till to-morrow afternoon."
"By the heels, sir?"
"Yes. Logan will tell you what that means."
Daisy looked with such a gaze of steadfast inquiry up in the doctor's
face, that he had hard work to command his countenance. She could not
make out anything from his face, except that somehow she got a little
encouragement from it; and then they whirled in at the gate of Melbourne
and in another minute were at home. Daisy went off to see after her
rose-bush, find Logan, and have it laid by the heels. The doctor marched
in through the hall, into the library, and then catching sight of Mr.
Randolph on the piazza, he went out there. Mr. Randolph was enjoying the
September sunlight, and seemed to be doing nothing else.
"Good afternoon!" said the doctor.
"How do you do?" said Mr. Randolph. "Can you possibly have business on
hand, doctor, in this weather?"
"Very good weather for business," said the doctor.
"Too good. It is enough to look and breathe."
All Mr. Randolph was doing, apparently. He was lounging on a settee,
with a satisfied expression of countenance. The doctor put himself in a
great cane chair and followed the direction of his host's eyes, to the
opposite river and mountains; over which there was a glory of light and
atmosphere. Came back to Mr. Randolph's face with an air of the
disparaged business.
"It is not bad, driving."
"No, I suppose not!"
"Your little daughter likes business better than you do." A smile came
over Mr. Randolph's face, a smile of much meaning.
"She likes it too well, doctor. I wish I could infuse some degree of
nonchalant carelessness into Daisy's little wise head."
"We must deal with things as we find them," said the doctor. "I met her
this afternoon in the road, with a carriage-load of business on hand;
but what was very bad for her, it was arrested business."
"How do you mean?"
The doctor rose here to give his chair to Mrs. Randolph, who stepped out
through the library window. He fetched another for himself and went on.
"She was in the middle of the road, her chaise loaded with baskets and
greenhouse plants, and with a general distribution of garden tools
between herself and her outrider. All in the middle of the road at a
stand-still--chaise and pony and all,--and Daisy herself in particular.
I found it was an interrupted expedition, and invited Daisy to take a
ride with me; which she did, and I got at the rationale of the affair.
And I come now to make the request, as her physician, not as her friend,
that her expeditions may be as little interfered with as possible. Let
her energies work. The very best thing for her is that they should find
something to work upon, and receive no interruption."
"What interrupted her this afternoon?"
"Conscience--as I understand it."
"There is no dealing with Daisy's conscience, doctor," said Mr. Randolph
with a smile. "What _that_ says, Daisy feels herself bound to do."
"Do not burden her conscience then," said the doctor. "Not just
now--till she gets stronger."
"Where was she going this afternoon?" Mrs. Randolph asked in her calm
voice.
"On an errand of the most Utopian benevolence"--
"Having what for its object?"
"A miserable old crippled creature, who lives in a poor cottage about
half a mile from your gate."
"What was Daisy desiring to do, doctor?"
"Carry some comfort to this forlorn thing, I believe; whom nobody else
thinks of comforting."
"Do you know what shape the comfort was to take?"
"I think," said the doctor,--"I am not quite sure, but I think, it was a
rose bush."
Mr. Randolph looked at his wife and straightened himself up to a sitting
posture.
"And what hindered her, Dr. Sandford?"
"I think, some understanding that she had not liberty to go on."
"Very proper in Daisy," said Mrs. Randolph.
"That is your child who is wanting in docility," remarked Mr. Randolph.
"She might have remembered my orders before she got so far,"--said the
lady.
"I wish you would change the orders," said Dr. Sandford boldly.
"Not even to oblige you, doctor," said Mrs. Randolph. "Daisy has an idea
that the companions who are not fit for her are precisely the ones whom
she should cultivate."
"I think Daisy would state the question differently, however," Mr.
Randolph remarked.
"She has a tinge of the wildest fanaticism," Mrs. Randolph went on,
dropping her work and facing the doctor. "Wherever there are rags and
dirt, there, by force of contrast, Daisy thinks it is her business to
go. This is a miserable place, I suppose, that she was aiming for this
afternoon--is it not?"
"Very miserable. But the point is, to visit it would have made Daisy
happy."
"It is sheer fanaticism!" said Mrs. Randolph. "I cannot let her
encourage it. If I did, she would not be fit for anything by and by. She
is fit for very little now."
"You will of course judge as you please about it," said the doctor; "but
it is my duty to tell you that the danger in that line is far more than
compensated by the advantage to be gained. For Daisy's health, she
should be checked in nothing; let her go where she will and do what she
will; the more business on hand the better, that carries her out of
doors and out of herself. With a strong body and secure health, you will
find it far easier to manage fanaticism."
"I am sure Dr. Sandford is right, Felicia," said Mr. Randolph.
"I know Daisy--" said the lady.
"I think I know fanaticism," said the doctor; "and if I do, the best
thing you can do with it is to give it plenty of sun and air."
"Is it quite safe for Daisy to go to this cottage you speak of?" Mr.
Randolph asked.
"Quite safe."
"I cannot think of letting Daisy go there, Mr. Randolph!" said his wife.
"What danger do you apprehend, Felicia?"
It was not quite so easy to say. The lady handled her tetting pins,
which were in her fingers, for a moment or two in silence; then let them
fall, and raised her handsome head.
"Daisy must be withdrawn entirely from the associations which have taken
possession of her--if it is possible. The very best thing for her in my
opinion would be to send her to a boarding school. Unless you wish your
daughter to grow up a confirmed _réligieuse_, Mr. Randolph. Do you wish
that?"
"I have not considered it. What do you suppose Daisy will do to harm
herself, at this place Dr. Sandford speaks of?"
"Some absurdity, that just cherishes the temper she is in."
"Quite as likely"--to wear it out, Mr. Randolph was going to say; but
some remembrance of Daisy came up and stopped him.
"Good evening!" said the doctor, rising to his feet.
"Are you going, Dr. Sandford?"
"Yes."
"Then you recommend that we let Daisy go to this place, and alone?"
"In my capacity of physician I should _order_ it," said the doctor with
a smile; "only, I do not like to give orders and have them dishonoured."
Off he went.
"Felicia," said Mr. Randolph, "I believe he is right."
"I am sure he knows nothing about it," said the lady.
"Do you? Daisy is very delicate."
"She will never die of want of resolution."
"Felicia, I mean to enquire into Daisy's wishes and purposes about this
matter; and if I find them unobjectionable, I shall give her leave to go
on with it."
"You do not know what you are about, Mr. Randolph."
"I shall find out, then," said the gentleman. "I would rather she would
be a _réligieuse_ than a shadow."