|THE Reed family were at breakfast. Lucy had peeled some potatoes, and
baked them brown in the oven, and they were very delicious, the children
thought,--so much better than with the skins on.
“Gill dug the potatoes while I was sick,” said Sally. “I am sorry, for
we lost our lesson.”
“Maybe papa will tell us about them,” said Ben:
“I think you must know nearly as much as I do about this common
vegetable,” said Mr. Reed. “Did you not help to plant it?”
Sally recollected that she and her mother were with Gill when he put the
tubers into the hills, and that he told her how each little “eye” in the
potato was a germ of life, and would sprout, and send up a new plant to
spread out its green leaves, and display its purple and white blossoms
and its little clusters of green seed balls, as big as some of Ben’s
marbles. She and Ben went down cellar when they had finished their meal,
to see the different varieties. The “early rose” and the “mercer” and
the “pink-eyes” and the “blue-noses” and the “ladies’ fingers.”
“These big fellows Gill cuts in pieces to plant,” said Ben. “And he
takes care to have two eyes or buds in each piece, for fear one
might fail. He planted some seeds from the ‘apples’ as he calls the
potato-balls, and there were tubers as large as a hen’s egg this first
year. He says they will bear nice potatoes, fit for food, the third
year. He has put them away as very choice seed.”
Mr. Reed told the children about the wild potato, which belongs to South
America. He said, “It is a great blessing that it was transplanted to
various parts of the world, and that it bears so well its exile from its
native land, and gives nourishment to so many people.”
He told the children also that the potato plant is of the same family as
the woody nightshade, which has purple flowers and red berries, and the
garden nightshade, which has white flowers and black berries, and the
deadly nightshade or belladonna, with its reddish flowers and purple
berries.
“It is only the tubers that are wholesome,” said Mr. Reed. “The leaves
and blossoms are narcotic, and produce a similar effect to the poisonous
belladonna and henbane and stramonium.”
“Fortunately, there is very little danger of any body’s eating potato
leaves, or flowers; for both taste and smell are disagreeable,” said
Ben.
Mamma called the children. “It is too damp down there for Sally,” she
said.
Papa had but a moment for them, but it was long enough to give them
a few more facts about potato starch, and potato yeast and bread and
cheese.
“Cheese! potato cheese!” exclaimed the children.
“Yes,” said papa. “The potatoes must be mashed to a paste, and curd and
salt added, and some other ingredients, and the whole pressed together
in a mold.”
Gill was off to market. The old cart was heaped-up--baskets of turnips
and carrots, parsnips, beets, and potatoes on the bottom; and above
these the great drum-heads and the yellow pumpkins.
Dobbin felt brisk and cheery as he trotted along in the fresh autumnal
air, and the Scotchman was as blithe as a lad of seventeen, who looks
only upon the bright side of life. Gill was thinking of the old country
far away, where he used to play among the heather, and of the day when
he first met bonny Lucy in the dingle. He cast no regretful looks across
the waters to the old home and the former times; but he thanked heaven
that he and Lucy and Jack were under this free blue American sky, and
that they had health of body and vigor of mind, and that they were all
traveling toward the beautiful city that lies beyond the great sea.
He touched the ripe vegetables with a gentle, almost a caressing hand.
“Well done!” said he. “Well done! The harvest is past, the summer is
ended, and you have made good use of sun and air and rain, and here you
are in the perfection of your beauty. I am proud to call you mine.”
His words seemed to impress him strangely. He thought of himself in
connection with this produce that he was bearing away to market.
“Am I ripening for the great harvest?” said he. “Will the Master look
upon me with approving eye, and say, ‘Well done! well done! ’”
Gill’s heart was full of sweet trust. He was trying to do the very best
that he could, and he knew that the blessed Saviour would do all the
rest for him, and that God would count it as his own righteousness. This
was what made him so blithe as he jogged along toward the market-place.
“Tib” did an unusual thing as she heard the familiar “whoa” outside the
door. She shook the folds of her black silk gown, and tripped along in
her white satin slippers to meet him, as if she knew that he would not
come very soon again, and as if she wanted to do him all the honor
she could by ushering him in. For you must know that it is always a
beautiful courtesy when we open the door for a guest, rather than leave
it to a servant to do; and I suppose you have learned long, ago that it
is true politeness to accompany a friend to the portals of your house,
when he must leave you, and bid him adieu, as he goes out from under
your roof. “Adieu,”--that is a precious prayer in a word,--think of it
always when it escapes your lips, and be sure that it comes from your
earnest heart. “I commend you to God, who is able and willing to take
care of you.” That is what it means.
Mrs. Beth made Gill drink from her tin coffee-kettle, and gave him a
buttered roll to eat. She and Tib vied with each other in hospitality.
He thought he had never seen her with such light in her eyes as on this
morning; but then you must remember that his own soul was particularly
bright and sunny, and we often see the reflection of ourselves in
other faces. That is a good thing to know, for it will lead us to take
especial care as to what is within us; for we must surely desire
the very best and happiest reflection. Nobody likes an ugly image of
himself. I want to sit again, and again, when the photographer shows me
a disagreeable picture, and I always turn away from my mirror when it
does not give my very best expression. I wonder if one can not have the
very best expression all the time, if the heart is full of sweet and
pure and holy thoughts. It is worth trying.
Gill did not stop long in the market. It was never his way to loiter
after his errand was finished. He put the baskets of vegetables upon the
bench around the stall, and the crisp green cabbages and purple kale and
nice cauliflowers upon the table, and turned to go away; but Mrs. Beth
had another word to say. She took off her spectacles, and wiped them,
and put them on her nose again. Then she lifted Tib upon her knee and
stroked gently the creature’s head.
“If any thing should happen to me,” said she, “I should like for Tib to
have a good home where they will treat her as one of the family. She’s
been a faithful companion to me, and I should feel easy about her if
you will promise to take her to the farm, and care for her, if she ever
needs other care than mine; will you?”
To be sure the Scotchman said, “Yes,” for he knew that Sally would go
almost wild with joy over such a cat as Tib; but he wondered all the way
home what was the matter with the old market-woman that she should be so
eager to provide a home for her pet. Not all the way home, for when he
had reached the first few rods of the last mile there was a poor man by
the wayside half dead from fatigue, and Gill helped him into the cart,
and talked to him the rest of the way, so that Mrs. Beth faded quite out
of his mind. The man was old and very feeble, and had no friends. He had
been a soldier, and had outlived all who loved him,--all but One. We can
neither outlive Him, nor his boundless love. It was that almighty and
everlasting Friend, who sent Gill to lift him into the cart at the very
moment when his own strength had failed him. The children ran to meet
Gill as he drove into the yard. They saw the old gray head, and had
pity. They walked beside the soldier as Gill led him to a seat in the
kitchen, and talked pleasantly to him as Lucy refreshed him with a cup
of tea, and a biscuit, and the old man blessed them, and called them
“God’s angels.” How beautiful a name!
Mamma came out with her arms full of clothing, and said that she would
give him shelter and food, until he could be taken to the “Home.” That
was an institution not far away for aged and poor men. But you
should have heard little Sally, as she talked to the old market-cart,
rehearsing its good deeds and giving it a well merited praise.
“You dear old body!” said she, as she brushed away the dust preparatory
to moving in from the corn-crib, with her little family. “I don’t know
what you haven’t done in your life, and what you haven’t been! Ever
since I was born you’ve been going, going, with a great burden on your
back,--not your own burden either, but every body’s else,--carrying food
for hungry mouths, and bringing home good things for us; and you’ve been
such a splendid house for Jennie and me, and such a grand church for
us all,--don’t you remember? under the apple tree by the fence, when we
sang that hymn of praise. And to-day, you’ve been,--what do you call it?
an--am--ambulance, to bring the sick soldier in, and now you are my home
once more, and my baby and I are going to live here always, always, for
I love you better than any thing in the world, next to mother and
father and Ben, and Gill and Lucy and Jack.” Lucy brought out the old
comforter, and spread it on one side of the cart floor, and put Jack
upon it with his playthings, and left him with Sally; and Gill and Ben
got some of the white beets, and were pressing them and boiling them
over the kitchen fire to see what sort of sugar they would make. They
told Sally; but she preferred her housekeeping, and was too tired with
moving, she said. “She could taste the sugar when it was ready.”
Lucy was stuffing a turkey for dinner. She had mixed the bread-crumbs
and water, and put in a little salt, and an egg, and some sweet
marjorum, and pepper, and summer-savory; and had plumped out the
creature with it, and sewed up the openings with strong linen thread,
and put a link of sausages around the neck, and laid it in the
dripping-pan to roast. The poor old man sat looking on, and thinking of
the time when he had a home of his own, and a wife to get good cheer for
the table, and sons and daughters round about the board when the viands
were smoking.
“All gone now,” he muttered to himself, “all gone,--wife, and children,
and home.”
But Lucy caught him up there in his speech.
“The home is waiting,” she said, “with the wife and children in
it,--waiting for us all. What if the wife and children have gone a
little while before us? To be sure the heart may be sick with its
yearning after them; but it is a sickness that is good for us, since it
weans us from the things of this world.”.
“You speak like my Mary,” said the old man. “She had always a holy
sermon on her lips.”
“And you seem like my dear old father, who used to dandle me upon his
knee when I was merry, and sing sweet, sacred songs to me when the
evening came on, and I was content to be quiet for an hour,” said Lucy.
“He has gone, and my oldest sister and my little brother, and the home
is all the brighter and more attractive for it. Gill and baby and I
shall try to follow.”
So they talked together, while Gill and Ben were absorbed in their
sugar-making, and Sally and Jack and Jennie kept house in the old cart.
When Mr. Reed came from the city at night, he had a great, square sheet,
folded, and sealed with a wafer, and addressed simply:--
“Gill the Scotchman.
“At Mr. Reed’s.”
It had been sent to the office, just before the cars left, and all the
letter said was,--
“Come for Tib.
“Mrs. Beth.”
Of course, Gill was off betimes next morning, taking the old soldier to
the Institution on his way. He went directly to the pleasant room,
under the French roof, where the one window looked out upon the sweep of
houses and spires, and up to the deep, fathomless sky. The plants were
fresh and green upon the stand, and a new rose had just blossomed,
filling the room with its fragrance; but the old market-woman sat by
the window with her head upon her hand. She had lost the bloom of the
previous day, and looked withered and weary.
“I’m tired of the market-place,” she said. “I think I shall be permitted
to go to my husband and my baby before long; but I could not go easily
until you had taken the cat. Thank you for coming so soon.”
Gill tried to persuade her that she was only slightly ailing, and that
she would be out again by to-morrow; but she held Tib in one long, close
embrace, and then put her in the cradle and turned her back, while Gill
took the cat down stairs and drove away.
She had nothing more to live for now. Not that she had lived for this
little animal alone,--Mrs. Beth was gentle and kind to every thing and
every body; but her days were fulfilled, and God took her up to be with
himself and her beloved ones, and somebody else sat in the stall by the
old broken lantern. Tib mourned for a a little while, and seemed lost in
the new place, but soon grew content; for she had the same old cradle,
and Gill and the market-cart, which she had long been accustomed to. She
liked her new mistress, and Ben and Jack, very much indeed. Mr. and Mrs.
Reed and Lucy petted her, and Dobbin and Flash and Brindle allowed her
to get almost under their heels and purr about them.