TROUBLE FOR DAISY.
It was fortunate that Susan was so happy while she could be; for the
poor woman little dreamed how soon her sunny home was to become a sad,
dark place for her.
Peter used to go forth in the morning, whistling as gayly as any of the
birds; and Daisy following him, proud enough that she could carry his
little dinner basket for the short way she went.
She did not know that what was such a heavy load to her was only a
feather for the strong man to lift, and so delighted in thinking she had
grown old enough to help her dear father.
Still Peter had to watch his dinner closely; for Daisy would espy some
beautiful flower or vine looking at her from away off in the shade; and
down the basket would go, and the little girl was off to take a nearer
look, and see if she could not break off a branch to carry home to her
mother.
Sometimes Peter walked so fast, or Daisy staid so long, that they lost
each other; and then the father made a call that could be heard for
miles, which frightened all the birds home to their nests, and must have
startled the old dame herself, wherever she might be lurking in the
wood.
But the call was music to Daisy; and before many minutes, she would come
bounding into her father's arms, almost hidden in the waving white
blossoms with which she had loaded herself.
And all this while, unless Peter himself took care of it, what would
become of his dinner!
When Susan went to meet her husband at evening, now, Daisy was sure to
be with her--one moment holding her hand, the next skipping away alone,
or kneeling to gather bright pebbles and sheets of green moss, to make
banks and paths in her garden. She fluttered about in the sunshine like
the butterflies she loved, and was as harmless and gentle.
But, alas! one night, no Peter came to meet them; and though Daisy kept
thinking she heard his step or his voice, it could only be the fall of
some dead limb or the hooting of an owl.
The night grew darker, and it lightened so sharply that Daisy clung to
her mother's skirts, and begged her to hide somewhere under a rock until
the storm should be past, as the little girl felt almost sure her father
had done.
But Susan groped her way on, with the wind blowing the branches into
their faces, and the dead boughs snapping and falling about them, and
the snakes, that they had never seen before, gliding across the path,
hissing, and running their forked tongues out with fear.
And at length they found poor Peter, dead, on the ground. The tree
which he had been cutting down had fallen suddenly, and crushed his head
so under its great trunk that they only knew him by his clothes.