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THE
PIGEON TALE
BY
VIRGINIA BENNETT.
[Illustration: Title]
ILLUSTRATED BY
E. STUART HARDY.
_LONDON:_ _NEW YORK:_
ERNEST NISTER. E. P. DUTTON & CO.
E.N. No. 2074.
[Illustration: Flower ornament]
[Illustration: Pigeons]
[Illustration: Branch ornament]
[Illustration: The boy Laurie with a pigeon]
The Pigeon Tale
CHAPTER I.
Something unusual was about to happen--any one could see that; the tall
pine trees swayed and nodded to each other as if whispering together,
the leaves blew up against a corner of the fence as though they meant to
sweep the old-fashioned brick path clean, and the gate swung to and fro
on its hinges as in anticipation of a visitor.
In a far-away corner of the United States stood an old farm-house which
had put on its company manners and quite left off being an every-day
house, though it really never could be called an "every-day" house--it
was too old for that.
Ever so many children had been born there, and had grown up under its
sheltering roof, loved, married and had gone out into the world; it was
a _very_ old house, and could have told wonderful stories if any one had
listened to them; no, it could not be called an every-day house at all,
but to-day it had a look of expectancy quite different from its usual
sleepy air.
[Illustration: Aunt Laura]
The ancient box-hedge by the rose-garden stood like an old soldier at
attention, so! The fresh muslin curtains at the window were stiff with
starch, they would not stir an inch to the breeze blowing in. The old
farm-house was trying to look young again, that was it! To look young
again: how many of us can do that, eh! for it was expecting a visitor, a
very young visitor indeed, a little boy was coming.
He was not an ordinary little boy, or at least the people at the
farm-house (Aunt Laura and Uncle Sam) did not think so--because his
mother when she was a little girl had gone there for a visit years and
years ago, just as he was coming to-day, and she had loved every nook
and cranny of the old house as they hoped he would love it, and to those
two people, it seemed almost as if she were coming back again, which
really couldn't happen, for that was ever so long ago.
But she had sent her little boy instead, hoping that the change of air
would do him good after the winter months spent leaning over school
books. So in the quaint low-ceiled bedroom upstairs, sheets that smelled
of lavender, with beautiful hand-embroidered initials, made by some
bride for her trousseau long ago, were spread on the tall four-poster
bed with its curious starched valence and silk patch-work quilt; the
pitcher on the wash-stand had been filled to the brim with cool clear
spring water, queer knit towels in basket weave design hung ready for
use, and a delicious odor of home-made bread floated up from the
regions below.
It was the little boy's first journey, everything was new to him--when
he got off at the station Uncle Sam met him and lifted him up to the
front seat of the carriage with his hand bag tucked in behind, as he had
lifted the little boy's mother up and seated her beside him, years ago.
And so they drove out together along the broad country roads, past the
green meadows, where quiet cows cropped the grass, until they came
within sight of the farm and windmill and turned into the leafy lane
under the spreading chestnut trees and stopped at the gate.
[Illustration: _Aunt Laura was there to welcome him._]
Aunt Laura was there to welcome him--the little boy's name was Laurie,
he had been given the name out of compliment to Aunt Laura; somehow or
other it was almost like "coming home" instead of "going away" he
thought, it was so home-like; perhaps it was because everything was so
very, very old, that their newness and strangeness had entirely worn
off. Perhaps it was because his mother had so often told him about it
all, that everything seemed so familiar.
He had to ask ever so many questions, polite questions you know, for he
was not a rude little boy at all, but it seemed so wonderful to him to
be here at last that he could not help exclaiming at everything.
There was the parlor just as he had imagined it, with the row of
seashells across the mantle and the door opening into the porch and
garden and beyond the library with its great deep fireplace, its
old-fashioned andirons and red brick hearth.
Nothing was new in the old house, everything had been made years and
years ago when there was no machinery, and chairs and furniture had to
be turned by hand; for that reason people who made them took more pains
than they do now, so that they would last a long time, and only the
colours in the brocades had faded and the silk worn away in the
cross-stitch work of the antimacassars.
Laurie went from room to room with Aunt Laura, looking at everything.
"Will you show me the cow-pitcher, Aunt Laura?" he asked, and Aunt Laura
laughed and opened a deep cupboard, where the best china was kept, and
took the pitcher down from a high shelf. Such a curious pitcher, it was,
a brown and white china cow--I'm sure it must have been very, very old,
for I never see pitchers like it now-a-days. The tail was curved into a
handle, and the mouth was the spout!
Aunt Laura said that she would keep it on the table every day, full of
cream for his porridge, just as she had done for his mother, when she,
as a little girl, had stayed at the farm.
[Illustration: Aunt Laura shows Laurie the cow-pitcher]
When supper came, how good everything tasted! The home-cured ham,
delicious butter made on the farm, great slices of fresh bread and
schmeirkase--I don't believe many of you boys and girls know what
"Schmeirkase" is, do you? Well, anyway, it is made somehow from thick
sour cream, so thick that it is put in a bag and hung up in the dairy
until it is time to be eaten--when I was a little girl and visited a
farm they used to have schmeirkase for supper, and I always hoped they
would offer me a second helping and they always did! There were
strawberries too, and stewed rhubarb, and chocolate layer cake. And Aunt
Laura put the cake away after supper in a round tin box, in a corner of
the cupboard, and gave Laurie a great slice the next morning to eat, for
fear he would grow hungry before dinner.
"I'm as glad as I can be that I've come," he said, and Uncle Sam and
Aunt Laura smiled at each other. "So like his mother," said Aunt Laura
and Laurie wondered how he could be like his mother, for his mother was
ever so much taller then he, and ever so much more "grown up."
[Illustration: Flower ornament]