|I’M going into the meadow now for a while,” said Gill. “Would you like
to go with me? I have a good deal to do there to get up the useless
roots.”
The little girl was ready to go wherever Gill went. He told her so many
pleasant things about the natural object’s around them, that it was
better than school, she thought. It was playing and learning at the same
time.
The beautiful ox-eye daisies dotted the grass. Sally was delighted;
but Gill had no mercy on them. He grasped the tall stems, and the large
white blossoms fell prostrate to the ground. “You see,” said Gill, “if
I don’t uproot these pretty things, they’ll take all the strength out of
the soil, and choke out the good, sweet grass; and then what’ll Brindle
and Flash do for feed, and where will you and Ben and the rest of us get
milk and butter?”
Ben came along with his hammer nicely mended. He was very proud of the
new handle which he had made.
Gill said it was well done, almost as well as if he had made it himself,
and quite wonderful for a boy nine years old.
“Nine years and six months,” said Ben. At that stage of his life he
could not bear to cut off a single day.
“And I’m eight,” said Sally. “I’m nearly as old as brother, I come within
three inches of being as tall as Ben.”
“I’ll help you pull weeds,” said the lad. “I can cut them with my
jackknife.”
“It will do no good if you leave the roots,” said Gill. “These daisies
are wonderful to spread,--one root will have sixty or seventy stalks,
and the stalks branch out on all sides, and bear any quantity of seed.”
“They’re lovely,” said Sally, “it seems a pity to destroy them.”
Every little child loves the fine “ox-eye.”
It stands up amid the green, so attractive and beautiful, with the
pretty yellow center, and the delicate white petals.
The children wade in the meadow grass, and fill their little hands with
daisies, and feel very rich as they run home with them to mother.
“I do not see why they are called ‘ox-eyes,’” said Ben.
“Nor I,” said Gill. “People take strange fancies sometimes. There’s
a small cloud that is seen at the cape of Good Hope, once in a while
before a dreadful storm. They call that an ‘ox-eye.’ They say it is
of that form and size, when it first appears, though it soon grows and
overspreads the whole heavens. These flowers do look something like, with
the great round pupil, come to think of it.”
Ben tried in vain to get up the roots. The stems broke off in his hands,
leaving the roots firm in the ground.
“I’ll have to take them after a rain,” said Gill. “That will loosen them
a little. Here’s another tough affair, this Canada thistle. I must put
my leather mittens on, before I touch it, or I shall get well pricked.
It carries its weapons in its leaves.”
“They’re as thick around the edges as the pins in my pocket cushion,”
said Ben, taking out a little leaf made of pasteboard, covered with
green velvet, and stuck closely with pins. “See how nice I keep your
birthday present, sister.’Tis always in my jacket pocket next my heart.”
Sally looked pleased. “I’ll make you another when that is worn out,” she
said.
Gill tugged at the thistle. By and by up it came at a lusty pull; but
the Scotchman landed plump upon the ground. That made sport for the
little people, and Gill joined them in their mirth.
“You’re just what you mean, ‘austere’ or ‘harsh,’” said Gill, shaking
his fist at the plant, and making believe angry, as he arose to his
feet. “You stick your sharp spears into me, and then throw me flat
upon my back, without reference to my size, or my age; but I’ll get the
better of you yet. You can not stand here and scatter your downy seeds
in the air, to fall and vegetate and spring up to make trouble for me
by and by. Wait till the autumn comes, and I’ll get my spade and take up
every mother’s son of you.”
“The blossom is pretty,” said Sally, touching the feathery purple with
her finger tips.
“So it is,” said Gill. “What are common weeds in one country are rare,
choice plants in another. Where this does not grow, it would be thought
exquisite; but the Canada thistle is wide spread throughout the world.”
“‘Tis enough prettier than the cactus that mother takes such care of,”
said Ben.
“Oh, yes, there’s nothing graceful in that plant, with its thick,
bristly body. To be sure the blossom is very brilliant; but I like a
flower that is set off by graceful green leaves.”
“Where does the cactus belong, Gill?”
“In South America and the West Indies. There are ever so many sorts, but
the ‘melon thistles’ are the most curious, with their deep ribs, and the
spikes set all over them, and the juicy flesh that is pleasant and
acid, and is eaten by the natives. There’s another species called the
‘grandiflorus.’ It is a creeping plant, and the flowers begin to open
in the evening between seven and eight o’clock, and are in full bloom by
eleven; but they are short-lived and fade away before the morning. It
is also called the ‘night-blooming cereus.’ The calyx or cup is nearly
a foot in diameter, yellow within and dark-brown without, and the petals
are pure white, and the fragrance delicious.”
“That must be lovely.”
“Yes,” said Gill, “but to my eye the daisies and dandelions are just as
pretty. God makes every thing beautiful.”
“Don’t you hate to pull them up?” asked little Sally.
“‘Tis not pleasant to see them withering upon the ground where they have
stood upright and smiling and fresh; but then you know I must have a
clean grass meadow, if I want the cows to thrive, and give rich milk and
good butter. Maybe in the new earth the grass and the flowers will grow
together, and not hurt, but rather help one another.”
Sally picked a golden dandelion and held it up to Gill. “It is like a
little parasol,” she said.
“So it is. We never get tired of this beautiful yellow flower that dots
the green. The French call it ‘dent de leon,’ or lion’s tooth, from the
resemblance in the jagged leaves to the teeth of that animal. From this
has come our word dandelion.”
“I hope I shall know as much as you do when I grow up, Gill,” said Ben.
“That would be little enough,” said the Scotchman. “I search the books
whenever I have a minute to spare, and in that way I gather up a good
deal in the course of the year; but it is as a drop in the bucket when I
think how much there is yet to be learned. It is good of God to give us
an eternity in which to study his works, this life is such a speck of
time.”
“Is that what we are to do by and by?” asked Ben.
“I think so,” said Gill; “part of our life hereafter at least, to look
into the wonderful things of creation, the things that we cannot see
here, and that we have not leisure to learn about.”
Sally was running along by the fence which separated the meadow from the
field. She espied the children’s delight, “butter-and-eggs,” as little
people call it.
“We say ‘toad-flax,’” said Gill, examining the pale-green, narrow
leaves, and light-yellow blossoms with a touch of deep orange. “The
plant is something like the flax plant, and they say the blossom
resembles a toad’s mouth.”
“I shall keep to butter-and-eggs,” said little Sally, “that is what all
the children call it.”
“Dobbin is whinnying,” said Gill. “He has finished his hay, and I must
be off to town. I have errands enough to do to-night, and I must be up
betimes in the morning to pick beans and peas, and get them to market in
season.”
“Wake me at four o’clock, if you please,” said Ben, “and I’ll help you.”
“And I will get up and help you,” said the little girl. “‘Tis so lovely
out here in the morning. I’ll put on my old frock and my thick shoes,
and mother will not mind the dew. I can dress nicely before breakfast.”
Dolly was aroused from her nap, and the hay and the milking-stool were
removed from the old cart, and Dobbin stood between the thills, and Ben
and Sally watched the wheels go round and round, as Gill drove out of
the big gate, and away toward the city.