[Illustration: UNPLEASANT COMPANY.]
"FRAGI AGRESTES."
"LET'S have a club," said Will Post to a group of his schoolmates; "we
can meet once a week in some place, and have a motto, and a password,
and everything, just like the big clubs."
"Agreed!" shouted the boys. "What shall we call ourselves?"
"The Do-Nothing Club," some one suggested; "we aren't going to do
anything, only have all the fun we can."
Have all the fun you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
With all the people you can,
And as long as ever you can.
"We can have that for our motto," said one of the boys.
"Well, we only have a few minutes before the bell will ring: let's
elect officers."
So Will tore a few pages out of his note-book, and after some officers
had been nominated, each one wrote the names of those he wanted, on his
slip. The results were just being announced when the school-bell rang.
"The first meeting of the Do-Nothing Club will be held in our yard
to-morrow afternoon," called Will Post, who had been elected president
of the new organization.
So the next afternoon, immediately after school, ten boys wended their
way through the back gate of Mr. Post's yard, and seated themselves on
the woodpile.
"I know where we will go," said Will, "right out in the orchard in the
boughs of those two gnarly old apple-trees that just touch." Everyone
thought this a splendid plan, so soon the ten boys were in different
places in the two great apple-trees in the orchard.
"Has any one a suggestion to make as to the first adventure of the
Do-Nothing Club?" said the president, by way of opening the meeting.
"I have," said George Shaw, the treasurer of the club. "You know Mr.
Clay's pasture?"
"Yes!" they all said.
"Well, it's just chock-full of daisies and wild strawberries, and I
move that next Saturday we ask him if we can get some daisies, and
each take a big basket and get it most full of strawberries with a
few daisies on top, to make it look all right, you know;" and George
chuckled.
"I think it is a splendid plan, worthy of our honorable treasurer,"
said President Post. A vote was taken, which was almost unanimous in
favor of George's proposition, although there were a few demurs made at
first on the ground of it's not being "quite honest."
"Honest!" sneered Will, "as if it wasn't all right to refresh ourselves
in a big meadow, with what's there, free as grass!" So the objections
were silenced, and the meeting adjourned.
Now it so happened that Mr. Post's orchard and Mr. Clay's farm were
only separated by a high board fence. Close by this fence grew quite
a little coarse grass, and as Mr. Clay thought it took too much room,
on this very afternoon on which the Do-Nothing Club held their first
meeting, he had taken his scythe and spade, and had gone to cut and dig
up the offending material. The day was very hot, and he grew so tired
and warm that he determined to lie down in the shade by the fence for a
few minutes. But while lying there, he fell into a little doze, and was
only awakened by the laughter of the boys as they climbed up the trees,
getting seated for the meeting. He lay awake for a few moments, trying
to make up his mind to arise, and consequently heard the conversation
in the apple-tree, in which he became not a little interested.
Just here I must stop and explain that Mr. Clay knew his meadow was
very productive of wild strawberries, and had said to his son, a few
days before the time at which my story begins:
"James, there will probably be a quantity of strawberries in the meadow
this summer, and if you pick them, you can sell them at a good price,
which will bring you considerable spending money. Do you want to try
it?"
"Yes, indeed!" had been the reply, and so it was planned that in about
a week James should pick his strawberries, and have the money for his
"very own."
To go back now to the new club, I may say that the next Friday
afternoon (after the apple-tree meeting) the ten boys appeared at Mr.
Clay's door.
"Mr. Clay," said the president, "we've formed a new club lately--the
Do-Nothing Club, of which I'm the president, and George is treasurer.
We decided that the first thing we'd do would be to pick some daisies
out of your meadow, that is, if you would let us. You don't use them
for anything, do you?"
"Not at all," said the gentleman, heartily; "you are perfectly welcome
to pick just as many as you want. But don't step on any more wild
strawberries than you can help."
"We'll be careful," said Will, so he nodded good-morning, and the club
marched away. "Indeed we won't step on them," he added, when they were
out of hearing, "we want the use of them, and it won't do to destroy
them."
So bright and early the next morning the club marched to Mr. Clay's
meadow, each member armed with a basket, with a good-sized pail inside.
They were to fill the pails with berries, and completely cover them
with daisies. They worked hard all the morning. About ten o'clock James
Clay said to his father, "I guess I'll go out and help. They must be
having great fun."
"No, my boy," said Mr. Clay, with a twinkle in his eye, "I would rather
not."
When the town clock struck one, the boys had searched the meadow so
thoroughly that there was hardly a berry in it, and their pails were
nearly all full! Then they went into the woods back of the meadow to
rest and take their fill of the fresh fruit. Now you who have no idea
of the capacity of boys' stomachs, especially for berries, would hardly
believe me if I should state the exact amount that those boys devoured!
So I will not give it. Suffice it to say that there were _some_ which
they had to throw away, having no place to put them for safe-keeping,
and not daring to share them with anyone, for in that case, as Will
said, "the cat would be out of the bag." So it came to pass that the
rapid river which flowed through Snyvylville could have told, if it had
chosen, how one part of it was dyed as red as blood that afternoon,
and how it looked as if some awful deed had been done there, until the
_strawberries_ were all washed down stream.
On Saturday evening, divers little girls went about the streets of
Snyvyville with pails of wild strawberries, and the mothers or fathers
of every one of the members of the Do-Nothing Club, happened to buy
some of them for the Sunday dinner. But in each family there was great
amazement because the boy or boys thereof would eat no berries, and
because each boy had the headache and stomachache all day. "I don't
believe it was good for you to be out in the sun so long," said Mrs.
Post to Will, as she put a fresh cloth dipped in ice-water, on his
head. He made no reply, for he knew that it was not the exposure to the
sun that gave him the headache, but--quarts of wild strawberries! Too
much of a good thing is worse than none at all.
"James dear," said Mrs. Clay to her husband on Saturday evening, after
James, Jr., had gone to bed, "I don't believe it will be wise for Jamie
to pick all those berries out in the meadow. Couldn't you get somebody
to pick them, at two cents a quart? That would leave him quite a good
deal of money. The sun is so hot, I am afraid he would get sunstruck."
"I think that will be all right," said Mr. Clay, looking earnestly at
his newspaper; "I don't suppose you would mind at all if the person we
hired did get sunstruck?"
His wife laughed, but turned again to her mending, and said no more.
On Monday afternoon Mr. Clay went out to continue the work of banishing
the aforesaid offensive grass from the face of the earth, but lay down
again as he saw, through a crack in the fence, the Do-Nothing Club
wending its way toward the apple-trees where it was to meet to talk
over the success of the strawberry plan.
"Twenty quarts!" ejaculated George Shaw, "that was pretty good. I
hardly thought there would be so many. Wasn't my plan splendid, though,
Will--oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. President?"
"Fine!" said the president; "all that you planned for was, anyhow, for
I don't suppose you calculated for ten headaches and ten stomachaches,
as well as ten pails of berries, did you? As nearly as I can find out,
the other members of the club have suffered in these ways, like myself."
There was a good deal more talk; they decided what should be their
password, and a great many other private matters. They would have been
very much disgusted, I am certain, if they had guessed that Mr. Clay
was intently listening to everything that was said. Their motto was to
be "Fragi Agrestes," because, as John Clower, the only Latin student
of the club, announced, that meant "wild strawberries." Of course that
was to be used as the password, too. The seal was to be a leaf of that
plant, while the color of the club was to be red.
When they went home, Mr. Clay got up and went to work again, but he
didn't work as well as usual, for he had a plan in which he was more
interested than he was in demolishing the grass. When he got home he
sat down and wrote some sort of a letter which he sealed with a piece
of red sealing-wax, and a button which he had found in his wife's
button-box.
Thus it happened that on Tuesday morning, when George Shaw went to the
post-office to get the mail, he found a big yellow envelope addressed
to him. It had a red seal, on which there was stamped the outline of
a strawberry leaf. He looked at it in amazement, for the writing was
strange. He found the document inside to be sealed with the same seal.
I will give you a copy of it:
"FRAGI AGRESTES."