CHAPTER XII

"I won't be selfish, Mary," Christopher said. "You invented the game,

and you told me about them. You shall have them in water on your

dressing-table; they might get lost in the nursery. Bessy is always

throwing things out. To-morrow I shall go and look for galligaskins."

I was too glad to keep them from Bessy's observation, as well as her

unparalleled powers of destruction, which I knew well. I put them into

a slim glass on my table, and looked stupidly at them, and then out of

the window at Mary's Meadow.

So they had lived--and grown--and settled there--and were now in

bloom. _My_ plants.

Next morning I was sitting, drawing, in the school-room window, when I

saw the Old Squire coming up the drive. There is no mistaking him when

you can see him at all. He is a big, handsome old man, with white

whiskers, and a white hat, and white gaiters, and he generally wears a

light coat, and a flower in his button-hole. The flower he wore this

morning looked like----, but I was angry with myself for thinking of

it, and went on drawing again, as well as I could, for I could not

help wondering why he was coming to our house. Then it struck me he

might have seen Chris trespassing, and he might be coming at last to

lay a formal complaint.

Twenty minutes later James came to tell me that Father wished to see

me in the library, and when I got there, Father was just settling his

eye-glass in his eye, and the Old Squire was standing on the

hearth-rug, with a big piece of paper in his hand. And then I saw that

I was right, and that the flowers in his button-hole were

hose-in-hose.

As I came in he laid down the paper, took the hose-in-hose out of his

button-hole in his left hand, and held out his right hand to me,

saying: "I'm more accustomed to public speaking than to private

speaking, Miss Mary. But----will you be friends with me?"

In Mary's Meadow my head had got all confused, because I was

frightened. I was not frightened to-day, and I saw the whole matter in

a moment. He had found the double cowslips, and he knew now that I was

neither a liar nor a thief. I was glad, but I could not feel very

friendly to him. I said, "You can speak when you are angry."

Though he was behind me, I could feel Father coming nearer, and I knew

somehow that he had taken out his glass again to rub it and put it

back, as he does when he is rather surprised or amused. I was afraid

he meant to laugh at me afterwards, and he can tease terribly, but I

could not have helped saying what came into my head that morning if I

had tried. When you have suffered a great deal about anything, you

cannot sham, not even politeness.

The Old Squire got rather red. Then he said, "I am afraid I am very

hasty, my dear, and say very unjustifiable things. But I am very

sorry, and I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me?"

I said, "Of course, if you're sorry, I forgive you, but you have been

a very long time in repenting."

Which was true. If I had been cross with one of the others, and had

borne malice for five months, I should have thought myself very

wicked. But when I had said it, I felt sorry, for the old gentleman

made no answer. Father did not speak either, and I began to feel very

miserable. I touched the flowers, and the Old Squire gave them to me

in silence. I thanked him very much, and then I said--

"I am very glad you know about it now.... I'm very glad they lived....

I hope you like them? ... I hope, if you do like them, that they'll

grow and spread all over your field."

The Old Squire spoke at last. He said, "It is not my field any

longer."

I said, "Oh, why?"

"I have given it away; I have been a long time in repenting, but when

I did repent I punished myself. I have given it away."

It overwhelmed me, and when he took up the big paper again, I thought

he was going, and I tried to stop him, for I was sorry I had spoken

unkindly to him, and I wanted to be friends.

"Please don't go," I said. "Please stop and be friends. And oh,

please, please don't give Mary's Meadow away. You mustn't punish

yourself. There's nothing to punish yourself for. I forgive you with

all my heart, and I'm sorry I spoke crossly. I have been so very

miserable, and I was so vexed at wasting the hose-in-hose, because

Bessie's great aunt gave them to me, and I've none left. Oh, the

unkindest thing you could do to me now would be to give away Mary's

Meadow."

The Old Squire had taken both my hands in his, and now he asked very

kindly--"Why, my dear, why don't you want me to give away Mary's

Meadow?"

"Because we are so fond of it. And because I was beginning to hope

that now we're friends, and you know we don't want to steal your

things, or to hurt your field, perhaps you would let us play in it

sometimes, and perhaps have Saxon to play with us there. We are so

very fond of him too."

"You are fond of Mary's Meadow?" said the Old Squire.

"Yes, yes! We have been fond of it all our lives. We don't think there

is any field like it, and I don't believe there can be. Don't give it

away. You'll never get one with such flowers in it again. And now

there are hose-in-hose, and they are not at all common. Bessy's aunt's

aunt has only got one left, and she's taking care of it with a shovel.

And if you'll let us in we'll plant a lot of things, and do no harm,

we will indeed. And the nightingale will be here directly. Oh, don't

give it away!"

My head was whirling now with the difficulty of persuading him, and I

did not hear what he said across me to my father. But I heard Father's

reply--"Tell her yourself, sir."

On which the Old Squire stuffed the big paper into my arms, and put

his hand on my head and patted it.

"I told you I was a bad hand at talking, my dear," he said, "but

Mary's Meadow is given away, and that's the Deed of Gift which you've

got in your arms, drawn up as tight as any rascal of a lawyer can do

it, and that's not so tight, I believe, but what some other rascal of

a lawyer could undo it. However, they may let you alone. For I've

given it to you, my dear, and it is yours. So you can plant, and play,

and do what you please there. 'You, and your heirs and assigns, for

ever,' as the rascals say."

It was my turn now to be speechless. But as I stared blankly in front

of me, I saw that Father had come round, and was looking at me through

his eye-glass. He nodded to me, and said, "Yes, Mary, the Squire has

given Mary's Meadow to you, and it is yours."

* * * * *

Nothing would induce the Old Squire to take it back, so I had to have

it, for my very own. He said he had always been sorry he had spoken so

roughly to me, but he could not say so, as he and Father were not on

speaking terms. Just lately he was dining with Lady Catherine, to meet

her cousins from the Barracks, and she was telling people after dinner

about our game (rather mean of her, I think, to let out our secrets at

a dinner party), and when he heard about my planting things in the

hedges, he remembered what I had said. And next day he went to the

place to look, and there were the hose-in-hose.

Oh, how delighted the others were when they heard that Mary's Meadow

belonged to me.

"It's like having an Earthly Paradise given to you, straight off!"

said Harry.

"And one that doesn't want weeding," said Adela.

"And oh, Mary, Mary!" cried Arthur. "Think of the yards and yards of

top-spit. It does rejoice me to think I can go to you now when I'm making

compost, and need not be beholden to that old sell-up-your-grandfather John

for as much as would fill Adela's weeding basket, and that's about as small

an article as anyone can make-believe with."

"It's very heavy when it's full," said Adela.

"Is everything hers?" asked Christopher. "Is the grass hers, and the

trees hers, and the hedges hers, and the rooks hers, and the starling

hers, and will the nightingale be hers when he comes home, and if she

could dig through to the other side of the world, would there be a

field the same size in Australia that would be hers, and are the sheep

hers, and----"

"For mercy's sake stop that catalogue, Chris," said Father. "Of course

the sheep are not hers; they were moved yesterday. By-the-bye, Mary, I

don't know what you propose to do with your property, but if you like

to let it to me, I'll turn some sheep in to-morrow, and I'll pay you

so much a year, which I advise you to put in the Post Office Savings'

Bank."

I couldn't fancy Mary's Meadow always without sheep, so I was too

thankful; though at first I could not see that it was fair that dear

Father should let me have his sheep to look pretty in my field for

nothing, and pay me, too. He is always teasing me about my field, and

he teases me a good deal about the Squire, too. He says we have set up

another queer friendship in the family, and that the Old Squire and I

are as odd a pair as Aunt Catherine and Chris.

I am very fond of the Old Squire now, and he is very kind to me. He

wants to give me Saxon, but I will not accept him. It would be

selfish. But the Old Squire says I had better take him, for we have

quite spoilt him for a yard dog by petting him, till he has not a bit

of savageness left in him. We do not believe Saxon ever was savage;

but I daren't say so to the Old Squire, for he does not like you to

think you know better than he does about anything. There is one other

subject on which he expects to be humored, and I am careful not to

offend him. He cannot tolerate the idea that he might be supposed to

have yielded to Father the point about which they went to law, in

giving Mary's Meadow to me. He is always lecturing me on

encroachments, and the abuse of privileges, and warning me to be very

strict about trespassers on the path through Mary's Meadow; and now

that the field is mine, nothing will induce him to walk in it without

asking my leave. That is his protest against the decision from which

he meant to appeal.

Though I have not accepted Saxon, he spends most of his time with us.

He likes to come for the night, because he sleeps on the floor of my

room, instead of in a kennel, which must be horrid, I am sure.

Yesterday, the Old Squire said, "One of these fine days, when Master

Saxon does not come home till morning, he'll find a big mastiff in his

kennel, and will have to seek a home for himself where he can."

Chris has been rather whimsical lately. Father says Lady Catherine

spoils him. One day he came to me looking very peevish, and said,

"Mary, if a hedgehog should come and live in one of your hedges,

Michael says he would be yours, he's sure. If Michael finds him, will

you give him to me?"

"Yes, Chris; but what do you want with a hedgehog?"

"I want him to sleep by my bed," said Chris. "You have Saxon by your

bed; I want something by mine. I want a hedgehog. I feel discontented

without a hedgehog. I think I might have some thing the matter with my

brain if I didn't get a hedgehog pretty soon. Can I go with Michael

and look for him this afternoon?" and he put his hand to his forehead.

"Chris, Chris!" I said, "you should not be so sly. You're a real

slyboots. Double-stockings and slyboots." And I took him on my lap.

Chris put his arms round my neck, and buried his cheek against mine.

"I won't be sly, Mary," he whispered; and then, hugging me as he hugs

Lady Catherine, he added, "For I do love you; for you are a darling,

and I do really think it always was yours."

"What, Chris?"

"If not," said Chris, "why was it always called MARY'S MEADOW?"

NOTE.--If any readers of "Mary's Meadow" have been as completely

puzzled as the writer was by the title of John Parkinson's old

book, it may interest them to know that the question has been

raised and answered in _Notes and Queries_.

I first saw the _Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris_ at Kew,

some years ago, and was much bewitched by its quaint charm. I

grieve to say that I do not possess it; but an old friend and

florist--the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe--was good enough to lend me his

copy for reference, and to him I wrote for the meaning of the

title. But his scholarship, and that of other learned friends,

was quite at fault. My old friend's youthful energies (he will

permit me to say that he is ninety-four) were not satisfied to

rust in ignorance, and he wrote to _Notes and Queries_ on the

subject, and has been twice answered. It is an absurd play upon

words, after the fashion of John Parkinson's day. Paradise, as

AUNT-JUDY'S readers may know, is originally an Eastern word,

meaning a park, or pleasure ground. I am ashamed to say that the

knowledge of this fact did not help me to the pun. _Paradisi in

sole Paradisus terrestris_ means Park--in--son's Earthly

Paradise!

J. H. E., _February_, 1884.

LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN.

LETTER I.

"All is fine that is fit."--_Old Proverb._

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,

When, with the touching confidence of youth that your elders have

made-up as well as grown-up minds on all subjects, you asked my

opinion on _Ribbon-gardening_, the above proverb came into my head, to

the relief of its natural tendency to see an inconvenient number of

sides to every question. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am

convinced it is a comfortably compact confession of my faith on all

matters decorative, and thence on the decoration of gardens.

I take some credit to myself for having the courage of my moderation,

since you obviously expect a more sweeping reply. The bedding-out

system is in bad odor just now; and you ask, "Wasn't it hideous?" and

"Wasn't it hateful?" and "Will it ever come into fashion again, to the

re-extermination of the dear old-fashioned flowers which we are now

slowly, and with pains, recalling from banishment?"

To discover one's own deliberate opinion upon a subject is not always

easy--prophetic opinions one must refuse to offer. But I feel no doubt

whatever that the good lady who shall coddle this little garden at

some distant date after me will be quite as fond of her borders as I

am of mine; and I suspect that these will be about as like each other

as our respective best bonnets.

The annals of Fashion must always be full of funny stories. I know two

of the best amateur gardeners of the day; they are father and son. The

father, living _and gardening_ still (he sent me a specimen lily

lately by parcel post, and is beholden to no one for help, either with

packing or addressing, in his constant use of this new convenience),

is making good way between ninety and a hundred years of age. What we

call old-fashioned flowers were the pets of his youth. About the time

when ribbon-bordering "came in," he changed his residence, and, in the

garden where he had cultivated countless kinds of perennials, his son

reigned in his stead. The horticultural taste proved hereditary, but

in the younger man it took the impress of the fashion of his day. Away

went the "herbaceous stuff" on to rubbish heaps, and the borders were

soon gay with geraniums, and kaleidoscopic with calceolarias. But "the

whirligig of Time brings in his revenges," and, perhaps, a real love

for flowers could never, in the nature of things, have been finally

satisfied by the dozen or by the score; so it came to pass that the

garden is once more herbaceous, and far-famed as such. The father--a

_perennial_ gardener in more senses than one, long may he

flourish!--has told me, chuckling, of many a penitential pilgrimage to

the rubbish-heaps, if haply fragments could be found of the herbaceous

treasures which had been so rashly cast away.

Doubtless there were many restorations. Abandoned "bedding stuff" soon

perishes, but uprooted clumps of "herbaceous stuff" linger long in

shady corners, and will sometimes flower pathetically on the heap

where they have been thrown to rot.

I once saw a fine "Queen Anne" country house--an old one; not a modern

imitation. Chippendale had made the furniture. He had worked in the

house. Whether the chairs and tables were beautiful or not is a matter

of taste, but they were well made and seasoned; so, like the

herbaceous stuff, they were hardy. The next generation decided that

they were ugly. New chairs and tables were bought, and the Chippendale

"stuff" was sent up into the maids' bedrooms, and down to the men's.

It drifted into the farmhouses and cottages on the estate. No doubt, a

good deal was destroyed. The caprices of fashion are not confined to

one class, and the lower classes are the more prodigal and

destructive. I have seen the remains of Elizabethan bedsteads under

hayricks, and untold "old oak" has fed the cottage fire. I once asked

a village maiden why the people made firewood of carved armchairs,

when painted pinewood, upholstered in American cloth, is, if lovelier,

not so lasting. Her reply was--"They get stalled on[3] 'em." And she

added: "Maybe a man 'll look at an old arm chair that's stood on t'

hearth-place as long as he can remember, and he'll say--'I'm fair sick

o' t' seet o' _yon_. We mun have a new 'un for t' Feast. _I'l chop

thee oop!_'"

[Footnote 3: "Stalled on"--tired of. "T' feast"--the village feast, an

annual festival and fair, for which most houses in that district are

cleaned within and whitewashed without.]

Possibly some of the Chippendale chairs also fell to the hatchet and

fed the flames, but most of them bore neglect as well as hardy

perennials, and when Queen Anne houses and "Old Chips" came into

fashion again, there was routing and rummaging from attic to cellar,

in farmhouse and cottage, and the banished furniture went triumphantly

back to its own place.

I first saw single dahlias in some "little gardens" in Cheshire, five

or six years ago. No others had ever been cultivated there. In these

quiet nooks the double dahlia was still a new-fangled flower. If the

single dahlias yet hold their own, those little gardens must now find

themselves in the height of the floral fashion, with the unusual luck

of the conservative old woman who "wore her bonnet till the fashions

came round again."

It is such little gardens which have kept for us the Blue Primrose, the

highly fragrant Summer Roses (including Rose de Meaux, and the red and

copper Briar), countless beautiful varieties of Daffy-down-dillies, and

all the host of sweet, various and hardy flowers which are now

returning, like the Chippendale chairs, from the village to the hall.

It is still in cottage gardens chiefly that the Crown Imperial hangs

its royal head. One may buy small sheaves of it in the Taunton

market-place on early summer Saturdays. What a stately flower it is!

and, in the paler variety of what an exquisite yellow! I always fancy

_Fritillaria Imperialis flava_ to be dressed in silk from the Flowery

Land--that robe of imperial yellow which only General Gordon and the

blood royal of China are entitled to wear!

"All is fine that is fit." And is the "bedding-out"

system--Ribbon-gardening--ever fit, and therefore ever fine? My little

friend, I am inclined to think that it sometimes is. For long straight

borders in parks and public promenades, for some terrace gardens on a

large scale, viewed perhaps from windows at a considerable distance,

and in a general way for pleasure grounds, ordered by professional

skill, and not by an _amateur_ gardener (which, mark you, being

interpreted, is gardener _for love!_), the bedding-out style is good

for general effect, and I think it is capable of prettier ingenuities

than one often sees employed in its use. I think that, if I ever

gardened in this expensive and mechanical style, I should make

"arrangements," a la Whistler, with flowers of various shades of the

same color. But harmony and gradation of color always give me more

pleasure than contrast.

Then, besides the fitness of the gardening to the garden, there is the

fitness of the garden to its owner; and the owner must be considered

from two points of view, his taste and his means. Indeed, I think it

would be fair to add a third, his leisure.

Now, there are owners of big gardens and little gardens, who like to

have a garden (what Englishman does not?) and like to see it gay and

tidy, but who don't know one flower from the rest. On the other hand,

some scientists are acquainted with botany and learned in

horticulture. They know every plant and its value, but they care

little about tidiness. Cut flowers are feminine frivolities in their

eyes, and they count nosegays as childish gauds, like daisy chains and

cowslip balls. They are not curious in colors, and do not know which

flowers are fragrant and which are scentless. For them every garden is

a botanical garden. Then, many persons fully appreciate the beauty and

the scent of flowers, and enjoy selecting and arranging them for a

room, who can't abide to handle a fork or meddle with mother earth.

Others again, amongst whom I number myself, love not only the lore of

flowers, and the sight of them, and the fragrance of them, and the

growing of them, and the picking of them, and the arranging of them,

but also inherit from Father Adam a natural relish for tilling the

ground from whence they were taken and to which they shall return.

With little persons in little gardens, having also little strength and

little leisure, this husbandry may not exceed the small uses of fork

and trowel, but the earth-love is there, all the same. I remember

once, coming among some family papers, upon an old letter from my

grandmother to my grandfather. She was a clever girl (she did not

outlive her youth), and the letter was natural and full of energy and

point. My grandfather seems to have apologized to his bride for the

disorderly state of the garden to which she was about to go home, and

in reply she quaintly and vehemently congratulates herself upon this

unpromising fact. For----"I do so dearly love _grubbing_." This

touches another point. She was a botanist, and painted a little. So

were most of the lady gardeners of her youth. The education of women

was, as a rule, poor enough in those days; but a study of "the Linnean

system" was among the elegant accomplishments held to "become a young

woman;" and one may feel pretty sure that even a smattering of

botanical knowledge, and the observation needed for third or

fourth-rate flower-painting, would tend to a love of variety in beds

and borders which Ribbon-gardening would by no means satisfy. _Lobelia

erinus speciosa_ does make a wonderfully smooth blue stripe in

sufficient quantities, but that would not console any one who knew or

had painted _Lobelia cardinalis_, and _fulgens_ for the banishment of

these from the garden.

I think we may dismiss Ribbon-gardening as unfit for a botanist, or

for any one who happens to like _grubbing_, or tending his flowers.

Is it ever "fit" in a little garden?

Well, if the owner has either no taste for gardening, or no time, it

may be the shortest and brightest plan to get some nurseryman near to

fill the little beds and borders with spring bedding plants for spring

(and let me note that this _spring bedding_, which is of later date

than the first rage for ribbon-borders, had to draw its supplies very

largely from "herbaceous stuff" _myosotis_, _viola_, _aubretia_,

_iberis_, &c., and may have paved the way for the return of hardy

perennials into favor), and with Tom Thumb Geranium, Blue Lobelia, and

Yellow Calceolaria for the summer and autumn. These latter are most

charming plants. They are very gay and persistent whilst they last,

and it is not their fault that they cannot stand our winters. They are

no invalids till frost comes. With my personal predilections, I like

even "bedding stuff" best in variety. The varieties of what we call

geraniums are many and most beautiful. I should always prefer a group

of individual specimens to a band of one. And never have I seen the

canary yellow of calceolarias to such advantage as in an

"old-fashioned" rectory-garden in Yorkshire, where they were cunningly

used as points of brilliancy at corners of beds mostly filled with

"hardy herbaceous stuff."

But there, again, one begins to spend time and taste! Let us admit

that, if a little garden must be made gay by the neighboring

nurseryman, it will look very bright, on the "ribbon" system, at a

minimum cost of time and trouble--_but not of money!_

Even for a little garden, bedding plants are very expensive. For you

must either use plenty, or leave it alone. A ragged ribbon-border can

have no admirers.

If time and money are both lacking, and horticulture is not a hobby,

divide what sum you are prepared to spend on your little garden in

two. Lay out half in making good soil, and spend the rest on a limited

range of hardy plants. If mother earth is well fed, and if you have

got her _deep down_, and not a surface layer of half a foot on a

substratum of builder's rubbish, she will take care of every plant you

commit to her hold. I should give up the back of the borders (if the

aspect is east or south) to a few very good "perpetual" roses to cut

from; dwarfs, not standards; and for the line of color in front it

will be no great trouble to arrange roughly to have red, white, blue,

and yellow alternately.

One of the best cheap bedders is Pink Catchfly (_Silene pendula_). Its

rosy cushions are as neat and as lasting as Blue Lobelia. It is a

hardy annual, but the plants should be autumn sown of the year before.

It flowers early and long, and its place might be taken for the autumn

by scarlet dwarf nasturtiums, or clumps of geranium. Pink Catchfly,

Blue Forget-me-not, White Arabis, and Yellow Viola would make gay any

spring border. Then to show, to last, and to cut from, few flowers

rival the self-colored pansies (Viola class). Blue, white, purple, and

yellow alternately, they are charming, and if in good soil,

well-watered in drought, and constantly cut from, they bloom the whole

summer long. And some of them are very fragrant. The secret of success

with these is never to leave a flower to go to seed. They are not cut

off by autumnal frosts. On the contrary, you can take them up, and

divide, and reset, and send a portion to other little gardens where

they are lacking.

All mine (and they have been very gay this year and very sweet) I owe

to the bounty of friends who garden _non sibi sed toti_.

Lastly, if there is even a very little taste and time to spare,

surely nothing can be so satisfactory as a garden full of such flowers

as (in the words of John Parkinson) "our English ayre will permitt to

be noursed up." Bearing in mind these counsels:

Make a wise selection of hardy plants. Grow only good sorts, and of

these choose what suit your soil and climate. Give them space and good

feeding. Disturb the roots as little as possible, and cut the flowers

constantly. Then they will be fine as well as fit.

Good-bye, Little Friend,

Yours, &c.

* * * * *

LETTER II.

"The tropics may have their delights; but they have not turf, and

the world without turf is a dreary desert. The original Garden of

Eden could not have had such turf as one sees in England.

* * * * *

"Woman always did, from the first, make a muss in a garden.

* * * * *

"Nevertheless, what a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back,

with a hinge in it."

--_Pusley; or, My Summer in a Garden_.--C. D. WARNER.

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,

Do you know the little book from which these sayings are quoted? It is

one you can laugh over by yourself, again and again. A very good

specimen of that curious, new-world kind of wit--American humor; and

also full of the truest sense of natural beauty and of gardening

delights.

Mr. Warner is not complimentary to woman's work in the garden, though

he displays all the graceful deference of his countrymen to the weaker

sex. In the charming dedication to his wife, whilst desiring "to

acknowledge an influence which has lent half the charm to my labor,"

he adds: "If I were in a court of justice, or injustice, under oath, I

should not like to say that, either in the wooing days of spring, or

under the suns of the summer solstice, you had been, either with hoe,

rake, or miniature spade, of the least use in the garden." Perhaps our

fair cousins on the other side of the Atlantic do not _grub_ so

energetically as we do. Certainly, with us it is very common for the

ladies of the family to be the practical gardeners, the master of the

house caring chiefly for a good general effect, with tidy walks and

grassplots, and displaying less of that almost maternal solicitude

which does bring flowers to perfection.

I have sometimes thought that it would be a good division of labor in

a Little Garden, if, where Joan coddles the roses and rears the

seedlings, Darby would devote some of his leisure to the walks and

grassplots.

Few things in one's garden are pleasanter to one's own eye, or gain

more admiration from others, than well-kept turf. Green grass is one

of the charms of the British Isles, which are emerald isles

throughout, though Ireland is so _par excellence_. It is so much a

matter of course to us that we hardly realize this till we hear or

read what foreigners say about it, and also our own American and

colonial cousins. We go abroad and revel in real sunshine, and come

home with glowing memories to abuse our own cloudy skies; but they

come from burnt-up landscapes to refresh their eyes with our perpetual

green.

Even a little grassplot well repays pains and care. If you have to

make it, never use cheap seed. Buy the very best from seedsmen of

repute, or you will get a conglomeration of weeds instead of a

green-sward of fine grasses and white clover. Trench the ground to an

_even_ depth, tread it firm, and have light, finely-sifted soil

uppermost. Sow thickly early in April, cover lightly, and protect from

birds. If the soil is good, and the seed first-rate, your sward will

be green the first season.

Turfs make a lawn somewhat quicker than seed. The best are cut from

the road-side, but it is a hateful despoiling of one of the fairest of

travellers' joys. Those who commit this highway robbery should reckon

themselves in honor bound to sow the bare places they leave behind.

Some people cut the pieces eighteen inches square, some about a yard

long and twelve inches wide. Cut thin, roll up like thin bread and

butter. When they are laid down, fit close together, like bits of a

puzzle, and roll well after laying. If they gape with shrinking, fill

in between with finely sifted soil, and roll again and again.

Strictly speaking, a grassplot should be all grass, grass and a little

white clover. "Soldiers" (of the plaintain type) are not to be

tolerated on a lawn, but I have a weak corner for dog-daisies. I once

owned a little garden in Canada, but never a dog-daisy grew there. A

lady I knew had one--in a pot--sent from "Home." But even if you have

a sentimental fondness for "the pretty things" (as their botanical

name signifies), and like to see their little white faces peeping out

of the grass, this must not be carried too far. In some soils

dog-daisies will soon devour the whole lawn.

How are they, and "soldiers," and other weeds to be extirpated? There

are many nostrums, but none so effectual as a patient digging up (with

a long "daisy fork") of plant after plant _by the roots_. The whole

family party and any chance visitors will not be too many for the

work, and, if each laborer is provided with a cast-iron back with a

hinge in it, so much the better. A writer in the _Garden_ seems to

have been very successful with salt, used early in the season and with

great care. He says: "After the first cutting in the spring put as

much salt on each weed, through the palm of the hand, as will

distinctly cover it. In two or three days, depending on the weather,

they will turn brown. Those weeds that have escaped can be distinctly

seen, and the operation should be repeated. The weeds thus treated

die, and in about three weeks the grass will have grown, and there

will not be a vestige of disturbance left. Two years ago I converted a

rough pasture into a tennis-ground for six courts. Naturally the turf

was a mass of rough weeds. It took three days to salt them, and the

result was curiously successful."

Another prescription is to cut off the crowns of the offending plants,

and dose them with a few drops of carbolic acid.

Grass will only grow dense by constant cutting and moisture. The

scythe works best when the grass is wet, and the machine when it is

dry. Sweep it and roll it during the winter. Pick off stones, sticks,

or anything that "has no business" on it, as you would pick "bits" off

a carpet.

If grass grows rank and coarse, a dressing of sand will improve it; if

it is poor and easily burned up, give it a sprinkling of soot, or

guano, or wood ashes (or all three mixed) before rain. "Slops" are as

welcome to parched grass as to half-starved flowers. If the weather is

hot and the soil light, it is well occasionally to leave the short

clippings of one mowing upon the lawn to protect the roots.

I do not know if it becomes unmanageable, but, in moderation, I think

chamomile a very charming intruder on a lawn, and the aromatic scent

which it yields to one's tread to be very grateful in the open air. It

is pleasant, too, to have a knoll or a bank somewhere, where thyme can

grow among the grass. But the subject of flowers that grow well

through grass is a large one. It is one also on which the members of

our Parkinson Society would do kindly to give us any exceptional

experiences, especially in reference to flowers which not only

flourish among grass, but do not resent being mown down. The lovely

blue windflower (_Anemone Apennina_), is, I believe, one of these.

There is no doubt that now and then plants prefer to meet with a

little resistance, and despise a bed that is made too comfortable.

Self-sown ones often come up much more vigorously through the hard

path than when the seed has fallen within the border. The way to grow

the parsley fern is said to be to clap a good big stone on his crown

very early in the spring, and let him struggle out at all corners from

underneath it. It is undoubtedly a comfort to rock-plants and creeping

things to be planted with a stone over their feet to keep them cool!

Which reminds me of stones for bordering. I think they make the best

of all edgings for a Little Garden. Box-edgings are the prettiest, but

they are expensive, require good keeping, and harbor slugs. For that

matter, most things seem to harbor slugs in any but a very dry

climate, and there are even more prescriptions for their destruction

than that of lawn weeds. I don't think lime does much, nor soot. Wet

soon slakes them. Thick slices of turnip are attractive. Slugs really

do seem to like them, even better than one's favorite seedlings.

Little heaps of bran also, and young lettuces. My slugs do not care

for cabbage leaves, and they are very untidy. Put thick slices of

turnip near your auriculas, favorite primroses and polyanthuses, and

Christmas roses, and near anything tender and not well established,

and overhaul them early in the morning. "You can't get up too early,

if you have a garden," says Mr. Warner; and he adds: "Things appear to

go on in the night in the garden uncommonly. It would be less trouble

to stay up than it is to get up so early!"

To return to stone edgings. When quite newly laid, like miniature

rockwork, they are, perhaps, the least bit cockneyfied, and suggestive

of something between oyster-shell borderings and mock ruins. But this

effect very rapidly disappears as they bury themselves in cushions of

pink catch-fly (v. _compacta_), or low-growing pinks, tiny campanulas,

yellow viola, London pride, and the vast variety of rock-plants,

"alpines," and low-growing "herbaceous stuff," which delight in

squeezing up to a big cool stone that will keep a little moisture for

their rootlets in hot summer weather. This is a much more interesting

kind of edging than any one kind of plant can make, I think, and in a

Little Garden it is like an additional border, leaving the other free

for bigger plants. If one kind is preferred, for a light soil there is

nothing like thrift. And the white thrift is very silvery and more

beautiful than the pink. There is a large thrift, too, which is

handsome. But I prefer stones, and I like varieties of color--bits of

gray boulder, and red and yellow sandstone.

I like warm color also on the walks. I should always have red walks if

I could afford them. There is a red material, the result of some

process of burning, which we used to get in the iron and coal

districts of Yorkshire, which I used to think very pretty, but I do

not know what it is called.

Good walks are a great luxury. It is a wise economy to go round your

walks after rain and look for little puddles; make a note of where the

water lodges and fill it up. Keep gratings swept. If the grating is

free and there is an overflow not to be accounted for, it is very

possible that a drain-pipe somewhere is choke-full of the roots of

some tree.

Some people advise hacking up your walks from time to time, and other

people advise you not. Some people say there is nothing like salt to

destroy walk weeds and moss, and brighten the gravel, and some people

say that salt in the long run feeds the ground and the weeds. I am

disposed to think that, in a Little Garden, there is nothing like a

weeding woman with an old knife and a little salt afterwards. It is

also advisable to be your own weeding woman, that you may be sure that

the weeds come up by the roots! Next to the cast-iron back before

mentioned, I recommend a housemaid's kneeling mat (such as is used for

scrubbing floors), as a gardener's comfort.

I hope, if you have been bulb planting, that you got them all in by

Lord Mayor's Day. Whether bulbs should be planted deep or shallow is

another "vexed question." In a Little Garden, where you don't want to

disturb them, and may like to plant out some small rooted annuals on

the top of them later on, I should plant deep.

If you are planting roses, remember that two or three, carefully

planted in good stuff that goes deep, will pay you better than six

times the number stuck _into a hole_ in cold clay or sand or builders'

rubbish, and left to push their rootlets as best they can, or perish

in the attempt. Spread out these rootlets very tenderly when planting.

You will reap the reward of your gentleness in flowers. Rose roots

don't like being squeezed, like a Chinese lady's feet. I was taught

this by one who knows,--He has a good name for the briar suckers and

sprouts which I hope you carefully cut off from your grafted

roses,--He calls it "the old Adam!"

Yours, &c.

LETTER III.

A good rule

Is a good tool.

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,

January is not a month in which you are likely to be doing much in

your little garden. Possibly a wet blanket of snow lies thick and

white over all its hopes and anxieties. No doubt you made all tidy,

and some things warm, for the winter, in the delicious opportunities

of S. Luke's and S. Martin's little summers, and, like the amusing

American I told you of, "turned away writing _resurgam_ on the

gate-post."

I write _resurgam_ on labels, and put them wherever bulbs lie buried,

or such herbaceous treasures as die down, and are, in consequence, too

often treated as mere mortal remains of the departed, by the

undiscriminating hand of the jobbing gardener.

Winter is a good time to make plans, and to put them down in your

Garden-book. Have you a Garden-book? A note-book, I mean, devoted to

garden memoranda. It is a very useful kind of commonplace book, and

soon becomes as fascinating as autumn and spring catalogues.

One has to learn to manage even a Little Garden chiefly by experience,

which is slow teaching, if sure. Books and gardeners are helpful; but,

like other doctors, they differ. I think one is often slower to learn

anything than one need be, from not making at once for first

principles. If one knew more of these, it would be easier to apply

one's own experience, and to decide amid conflicting advice.

Here are a few rough and ready "first principles" for you.

_Hardy flowers in hedges and ditches are partly fed, and are also

covered from cold and heat, and winds, and drought, by fallen leaves

and refuse. Hardy flowers in gardens have all this tidied away from

them, and, being left somewhat hungry and naked in proportion, are all

the better for an occasional top-dressing and mulching, especially in

autumn._ It is not absolutely necessary to turn a flower border upside

down and dig it over every year. It may (for some years at any rate),

if you find this more convenient, be treated on the hedge system, and

_fed from the top_; thinning big clumps, pulling up weeds, moving and

removing in detail.

_Concentrated strength means large blooms._ If a plant is ripening

seed, some strength goes to that; if bursting into many blooms, some

goes to each of them; if it is trying to hold up against blustering

winds, or to thrive on exhausted ground, or to straighten out cramped

and clogged roots, these struggles also demand strength. Moral: Plant

carefully, support your tall plants, keep all your plants in easy

circumstances, don't put them to the trouble of ripening seed (unless

you specially want it). To this end cut off fading flowers, and also

cut off buds in places where they would not show well when they came

out, and all this economized strength will go into the blossoms that

remain.

_You cannot grow everything. Grow what suits your soil and climate,

and the best kinds of these, as well as you can._ You may make soil to

suit a plant, but you cannot make the climate to suit it, and some

flowers are more fastidious about the air they breathe than about the

soil they feed upon. There are, however, scores of sturdy, handsome

flowers, as hardy as highlanders, which will thrive in almost any

soil, and under all the variations of climate of the British Isles.

Some will even endure the smoke-laden atmosphere of towns and town

suburbs; which, sooner or later, is certain death to so many. It is a

pity that small florists and greengrocers in London do not know more

about this; and it would be a great act of kindness to them and to

their customers to instruct them. Then, instead of encouraging the

ruthless slaughter of primroses, scores and hundreds of plants of

which are torn up and then sold in a smoky atmosphere to which they

never adapt themselves, these small shopkeepers might offer plants of

the many beautiful varieties of poppies, from the grand _Orientalis_

onwards, chrysanthemums, stocks, wall-flowers, Canterbury bells,

salvias, oenotheras, snapdragons, perennial lobelias, iris, and

other plants which are known to be very patient under a long course of

soot. Most of the hardy California annuals bear town life well.

Perhaps because they have only to bear it for a year. _Convolvulus

major_--the Morning Glory, as our American cousins so prettily call

it--flourishes on a smutty wall as generously as the Virginian

creeper.

_North borders are safest in winter._ They are free from the dangerous

alternation of sunshine and frost. Put things of doubtful hardihood

under a north wall, with plenty of sandy soil or ashes over their

roots, some cinders on that, and perhaps a little light protection,

like bracken, in front of them, and their chances will not be bad.

Apropos to tender things, if your little garden is in a cold part of

the British Isles, and has ungenial conditions of soil and aspect,

don't try to keep tender things out of doors in winter; but, if it is

in the south or west of the British Isles, I should be tempted to very

wide experiments with lots of plants not commonly reckoned "hardy."

Where laurels flower freely you will probably be successful eight

years out of ten. Most fuchsias, and tender things which die down, may

be kept.

_Very little will keep Jack Frost out, if he has not yet been in_,

either in the garden or the house. A "hot bottle" will keep frost out

of a small room where one has stored geraniums, &c., so will a small

paraffin lamp (which--N. B.--will also keep water-pipes from

catastrophe). How I have toiled, in my young days, with these same hot

water bottles in a cupboard off the nursery, which was my nearest

approach to a greenhouse! And how sadly I have experienced that where

Mr. Frost goes out Mr. Mould is apt to slink in! Truly, as Mr. Warner

says, "the gardener needs all the consolations of a high philosophy!"

It is a great satisfaction if things _will_ live out of doors. And in

a _little_ garden a good deal of coddling may be done. I am going to

get some round fruit hampers to turn over certain tender pets this

winter. When one has one's flowers by the specimen and not by the

score, such cossetting is possible. Ashes and cinders are excellent

protection for the roots, and for plants--like roses--which do not die

back to the earth level, and which sometimes require a screen as well

as a quilt; bracken, fir branches, a few pea sticks, and matting or

straw are all handy helps. The old gentleman who ran out--without his

dressing gown--to fling his own bed-quilt over some plants endangered

by an unexpected frost, came very near to having a fine show of bloom

and not being there to see it; but, short of this excessive zeal, when

one's garden is a little one, and close to one's threshold, one may

catch Jack Frost on the surface of many bits of rough and ready

fencing on very cold nights.

_In drought, one good soaking with tepid water is worth six

sprinklings._ Watering is very fatiguing, but it is unskilled labor,

and one ought to be able to hire strong arms to do it at a small rate.

But I never met the hired person yet who could be persuaded that it

was needful to do more than make the surface of the ground look as if

it had been raining.

There is a "first principle" of which some gardeners are very fond,

but in which I do not believe, that if you begin to water you must go

on, and that too few waterings do harm. What I don't believe is that

they do harm, nor did I ever meet with a gardener who complained of an

odd shower, even if the skies did not follow it up. An odd sprinkling

does next to no good, but an odd soaking may save the lives of your

plants. In very hot weather don't grudge a few waterings to your

polyanthuses and primroses. If they are planted in open sunny borders

with no shade or hedge-mulching, they suffer greatly from drought.

_Flowers, like human beings, are, to some extent, creatures of habit._

They get used to many things which they can't at all abide once in a

way. If your little garden (like mine) is part of a wandering

establishment, here to-day and there to-morrow, you may get even your

roses into very good habits of moving good humoredly, and making

themselves quickly at home. If plants from the first are accustomed to

being moved about,--every year, or two years,--they do not greatly

resent it. A real "old resident," who has pushed his rootlets far and

wide, and never tried any other soil or aspect, is very slow to settle

elsewhere, even if he does not die of _nostalgia_ and nervous shock!

In making cuttings, consider the habits and customs of the parent

plant. If it has been grown in heat, the cuttings will require heat to

start them. And so on, as to dry soil or moist, &c. If somebody gives

you "a root" in hot weather, or a bad time for moving, when you have

made your hole pour water in very freely. Saturate the ground below,

"puddle in" your plants with plenty more, and you will probably save

it, especially if you turn a pot or basket over it in the heat of the

day. In warm weather plant in the evening, the new-comers then have a

round of the clock in dews and restfulness before the sun is fierce

enough to make them flag. In cold weather move to the morning, and for

the same period they will be safe from possible frost. Little, if any,

watering is needed for late autumn plantings.

_Those parts of a plant which are not accustomed to exposure are those

which suffer from it._ You may garden bare-handed in a cold wind and

not be the worse for it, but, if both your arms were bared to the

shoulders, the consequences would probably be very different. A

bundle of rose-trees or shrubs will bear a good deal on their leaves

and branches, but for every moment you leave their roots exposed to

drying and chilling blasts they suffer. When a plant is out of the

ground, protect its crown and its roots at once. If a plant is moved

quickly, it is advantageous, of course, to take it up with as much

earth as possible, if the roots remain undisturbed in their little

plat. Otherwise, earth is no better than any other protection; and in

sending plants by post, &c. (when soil weighs very heavily), it is

better to wash every bit of soil out of the roots, and then thoroughly

wrap them in moss, and outside that in hay or tow, or cotton wool.

Then, if the roots are comfortably spread in nice mould at the other

end of the journey, all should go well.

I reserve a sneaking credulity about "lucky-fingers." Or rather, I

should say, a belief that some people have a strange power (or tact)

in dealing with the vegetable world, as others have in controlling and

coaxing animals.

It is a vivid memory of my childhood that (amongst the box-edged

gardens of a family of eight), that of my eldest brother was almost

inconvenienced by the luck of his fingers. "Survival of the fittest"

(if hardiest does mean fittest!) kept the others within bounds; but

what he begged, borrowed, and stole, survived, all of it, conglomerate

around the "double velvet" rose, which formed the centrepiece. We

used to say that when the top layer was pared off, a buried crop came

up.

An old friend with lucky fingers visited my Little Garden this autumn.

He wanders all over the world, and has no garden of his own except

window-boxes in London, where he seems to grow what he pleases. He is

constantly doing kindnesses, and likes to do them his own way. He

christened a border (out of which I had not then turned the builders'

rubbish) Desolation Border, with more candor than compliment. He said

it wanted flowers, and he meant to sow some. I suggested that, sown at

that period of the summer, they would not flower this season. He said

they would. (They did.) None of my suggestions met with favor, so I

became gratefully passive, and watched the lucky fingers from a

distance, fluttering small papers, and making mystic deposits here and

there, through the length and breadth of the garden. I only begged him

to avoid my labels. The seeds he sowed ranged from three (rather old)

seeds of bottle gourd to a packet of mixed Virginian stock. They all

came up. He said, "I shall put them in where I think it is desirable,

and when they come up you'll see where they are." I did.

For some days after his departure, on other country visits, I received

plants by post. Not in tins, or boxes, but in envelopes with little or

no packing. In this way came sea lavender in full bloom, crimson

monkey plant from the London window box, and cuttings of

mesembryanthemum. They are all alive and thriving.

The bottle gourd and the annuals have had their day, and it is over;

but in the most unexpected places there still rise, like ghosts,

certain plants which completely puzzle me.[4] They have not blossomed,

but they grow on in spite of frost. Some of them are nearly as tall as

myself. They almost alarm me when I am dividing violas, and trifling

with Alpines. They stand over me (without sticks) and seem to say, "We

are up, you see where we are! We shall grow as long as we think it

desirable."

Farewell for the present, Little Friend,

Yours, &c.

[Footnote 4: When fully grown these plants proved to be the

Tree-Mallow, _Lavatera arborea_, the seeds were gathered from

specimens on the shores of the Mediterranean.]

LETTER IV.

When Candlemas Day is come and gone,

The snow lies on a hot stone.--_Old Saw._

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,

Among all the changes and chances of human life which go to make up

fiction as well as fact, there is one change which has never chanced

to any man; and yet the idea has been found so fascinating by all men

that it appears in the literature of every country. Most other fancied

transformations are recorded as facts somewhere in the history of our

race. Poor men have become rich, the beggar has sat among princes, the

sick have been made whole, the dead have been raised, the neglected

man has awoke to find himself famous, rough and kindly beasts have

been charmed by lovely ladies into very passable Princes, and it would

be hard to say that the ugly have not seen themselves beautiful in the

mirror of friendly eyes; but the old have never become young. The

elixir of youth has intoxicated the imagination of many, but no drop

of it has ever passed human lips.

If we ever do just taste anything of the vital, hopeful rapture, the

elastic delight of the old man of a fairy tale, who leaves his cares,

his crutches, and his chimney-corner, to go forth again young amongst

the young,--it is when the winter is ended and the spring is come.

Some people may feel this rising of the sap of life within them more

than others, but there are probably very few persons whom the first

mild airs and bursting buds and pushing flower-crowns do not slightly

intoxicate with a sort of triumphant pleasure.

What then, dear little friend, must be the February feelings of the

owner of a Little Garden? Knowing, as we do, every plant and its

place,--having taken just pride in its summer bloom,--having preserved

this by cares and trimmings and proppings to a picturesque and florid

autumn, though wild flowers have long been shrivelled and

shapeless,--having tidied it up and put a little something comforting

round it when bloom and outline were absolutely no more: what must we

feel when we first detect the ruddy young shoots of our favorite

peonies, or perceive that the brown old hepaticas have become green

and young again and are full of flower-buds?

The process of strolling, with bent back and peering eyes, by the side

of the still frosty borders is so deeply interesting, and a very

little sunshine on a broad band of crocuses has such a summer-like

effect, that one is apt to forget that it is one of the cheapest ways

of catching cold. The last days of the gardening year not unfrequently

lead from the flower-bed to the sick-bed. But though there is for

susceptible folk a noxious influence in the decaying vegetation of

autumn, from which spring is free, there is bitter treachery in many a

spring wind, and the damp of the ground seems to reek with the exuding

chill of all the frosts that have bound it in mid-winter.

I often wonder that, for some exigencies of weather, outdoor

red-flannel knickerbockers which one wears in Canada are not more in

use here. The very small children have all their clothes stuffed into

them, and tumble safely about in the snow like little Dutchmen. Older

wearers of petticoats cram all in except the outermost skirt. It is a

very simple garment made of three pieces,--two (straight) legs and a

large square. The square is folded like a kerchief, and the leg pieces

attached to the two sloping sides. A broad elastic and small openings

on each side and at the top enable these very baggy knickerbockers to

be easily pulled on for going out (where they effectually exclude cold

exhalations from snow or damp ground), and pulled off on coming in.

Short of such coddling as this, I strongly urge fleecy cork socks

inside your garden boots; and I may add that if you've never tried

them, you can have no idea of the warmth and comfort of a pair of

boy's common yellow-leather leggings, but the buttons will require

some adjusting.

Of course, very robust gardeners are independent of these troublesome

considerations; but the gardening members of a family, whether young

or old, are very often not those vigorous people who can enjoy their

fresh air at unlimited tennis or a real good stretching walk over the

hills. They are oftener those weaker vessels who have to be content

with strolls, and drives, and sketching, and "pottering about the

garden."

Now, pottering about the garden in spring and autumn has many risks

for feeble vitalities, and yet these are just the seasons when

everything requires doing, and there is a good hour's work in every

yard of a pet border any day. So _verbum sap_. One has to "pay with

one's person" for most of one's pleasures, if one is delicate; but it

is possible to do a great deal of equinoctial grubbing with safety and

even benefit, if one is very warmly protected, especially about the

feet and legs. These details are very tedious for young people, but

not so tedious as being kept indoors by a cold.

And not only must delicate gardeners be cossetted with little

advantages at these uncertain seasons, the less robust of the flowers

gain equally by timely care. Jack Frost comes and goes, and leaves

many plants (especially those planted the previous autumn) half jumped

out of the ground. Look out for this, and tread them firmly in again.

A shovel-full of cinder-siftings is a most timely attention round the

young shoots of such as are poking up their noses a little too early,

and seem likely to get them frost-bitten. Most alpines and low-growing

stuff will bear light rolling after the frost has unsettled them. This

is done in large gardens, but in a Little Garden they can be attended

to individually. Give a little protection to what is too forward in

growth, or badly placed, or of doubtful hardihood, or newly planted.

Roses and hardy perennials can be planted in open weather.

But you will not really be very busy outside till March, and we are

not concerning ourselves with what has to be done "in heat," where a

good deal is going on.

Still, in mild climates or seasons (and one must always remember how

greatly the British Isles vary in parts, as to climate), the idea of

seedlings and cuttings will begin to stir our souls, when February

"fills dike," if it is "with black and not with white," _i. e._, with

rain and not snow. So I will just say that for a Little Garden, and a

mixed garden, demanding patches, not scores of things, you can raise a

wonderfully sufficient number of half-hardy things in an ordinary

room, with one or two bell-glasses to give the moist atmosphere in

which sitting-rooms are wanting. A common tumbler will cover a dozen

"seedlings," and there you have two nice little clumps of half a dozen

plants each, when they are put out. (And mind you leave them space to

spread.) A lot of little cuttings can be rooted in wet sand.

Hardwooded cuttings may grow along slowly in cool places; little juicy

soft ones need warmth, damp, and quick pushing forward. The very tips

of fuchsias grow very easily struck early in wet sand, and will flower

the same year. Kind friends will give you these, and if they will also

give you "tips" of white, yellow, and blue Marguerites (this last is

_Agathea celestis_), these strike as easily as chrysanthemums, and

are delightful afterwards to cut from. They are not very tender,

though not quite hardy.

For the few pots and pans and boxes of cuttings and seedlings which

you require, it is well worth while to get a small stock of good

compost from a nursery gardener; leaf mould, peat, and sand, whether

for seedlings or cuttings. Always _sink_ your pot in a second

covering. Either have your pots sunk in a box of sand, which you can

keep damp, or have small pots sunk in larger ones. A _great coat_ to

prevent evaporation, in some shape, is invaluable.

Yours, &c.,

J. H. E.

SNAP-DRAGONS.

A TALE OF CHRISTMAS EVE.

MR. AND MRS. SKRATDJ.

Once upon a time there lived a certain family of the name of Skratdj.

(It has a Russian or Polish look, and yet they most certainly lived in

England.) They were remarkable for the following peculiarity. They

seldom seriously quarrelled, but they never agreed about anything. It

is hard to say whether it were more painful for their friends to hear

them constantly contradicting each other, or gratifying to discover

that it "meant nothing," and was "only their way."

It began with the father and mother. They were a worthy couple, and

really attached to each other. They had a habit of contradicting each

other's statements, and opposing each other's opinions, which, though

mutually understood and allowed for in private, was most trying to the

by-standers in public. If one related an anecdote, the other would

break in with half-a-dozen corrections of trivial details of no

interest or importance to anyone, the speakers included. For

instance: Suppose the two dining in a strange house, and Mrs. Skratdj

seated by the host, and contributing to the small-talk of the

dinner-table. Thus:--

"Oh yes. Very changeable weather indeed. It looked quite promising

yesterday morning in the town, but it began to rain at noon."

"A quarter past eleven, my dear," Mr. Skratdj's voice would be heard

to say from several chairs down, in the corrective tones of a husband

and father; "and really, my dear, so far from being a promising

morning, I must say it looked about as threatening as it well could.

Your memory is not always accurate in small matters, my love."

But Mrs. Skratdj had not been a wife and a mother for fifteen years,

to be snuffed out at one snap of the marital snuffers. As Mr. Skratdj

leaned forward in his chair, she leaned forward in hers, and defended

herself across the intervening couples.

"Why, my dear Mr. Skratdj, you said yourself the weather had not been

so promising for a week."

"What I said, my dear, pardon me, was that the barometer was higher

than it had been for a week. But, as you might have observed if these

details were in your line, my love, which they are not, the rise was

extraordinarily rapid, and there is no surer sign of unsettled

weather.--But Mrs. Skratdj is apt to forget these unimportant

trifles," he added, with a comprehensive smile round the

dinner-table; "her thoughts are very properly absorbed by the more

important domestic questions of the nursery."

"Now I think that's rather unfair on Mr. Skratdj's part," Mrs. Skratdj

would chirp, with a smile quite as affable and as general as her

husband's. "I'm sure he's _quite_ as forgetful and inaccurate as _I_

am. And I don't think _my_ memory is at _all_ a bad one."

"You forgot the dinner hour when we were going out to dine last week,

nevertheless," said Mr. Skratdj.

"And you couldn't help me when I asked you," was the sprightly retort.

"And I'm sure it's not like you to forget anything about _dinner_, my

dear."

"The letter was addressed to you," said Mr. Skratdj.

"I sent it to you by Jemima," said Mrs. Skratdj.

"I didn't read it," said Mr. Skratdj.

"Well, you burnt it," said Mrs. Skratdj; "and, as I always say,

there's nothing more foolish than burning a letter of invitation

before the day, for one is certain to forget."

"I've no doubt you always do say it," Mr. Skratdj remarked with a

smile, "but I certainly never remember to have heard the observation

from your lips, my love."

"Whose memory's in fault there?" asked Mrs. Skratdj triumphantly; and

as at this point the ladies rose, Mrs. Skratdj had the last word.

Indeed, as may be gathered from this conversation, Mrs. Skratdj was

quite able to defend herself. When she was yet a bride, and young and

timid, she used to collapse when Mr. Skratdj contradicted her

statements, and set her stories straight in public. Then she hardly

ever opened her lips without disappearing under the domestic

extinguisher. But in the course of fifteen years she had learned that

Mr. Skratdj's bark was a great deal worse than his bite. (If, indeed,

he had a bite at all.) Thus snubs that made other people's ears

tingle, had no effect whatever on the lady to whom they were

addressed, for she knew exactly what they were worth, and had by this

time become fairly adept at snapping in return. In the days when she

succumbed she was occasionally unhappy, but now she and her husband

understood each other, and having agreed to differ, they unfortunately

agreed also to differ in public.

Indeed, it was the by-standers who had the worst of it on these

occasions. To the worthy couple themselves the habit had become second

nature, and in no way affected the friendly tenor of their domestic

relations. They would interfere with each other's conversation,

contradicting assertions, and disputing conclusions for a whole

evening; and then, when all the world and his wife thought that these

ceaseless sparks of bickering must blaze up into a flaming quarrel as

soon as they were alone, they would bowl amicably home in a cab,

criticizing the friends who were commenting upon them, and as little

agreed about the events of the evening as about the details of any

other events whatever.

Yes. The by-standers certainly had the worst of it. Those who were

near wished themselves anywhere else, especially when appealed to.

Those who were at a distance did not mind so much. A domestic squabble

at a certain distance is interesting, like an engagement viewed from a

point beyond the range of guns. In such a position one may some day be

placed oneself! Moreover, it gives a touch of excitement to a dull

evening to be able to say _sotto voce_ to one's neighbor, "Do listen!

The Skratdjs are at it again!" Their unmarried friends thought a

terrible abyss of tyranny and aggravation must lie beneath it all, and

blessed their stars that they were still single, and able to tell a

tale their own way. The married ones had more idea of how it really

was, and wished in the name of common sense and good taste that

Skratdj and his wife would not make fools of themselves.

So it went on, however; and so, I suppose it goes on still, for not

many bad habits are cured in middle age.

On certain questions of comparative speaking their views were never

identical. Such as the temperature being hot or cold, things being

light or dark, the apple-tarts being sweet or sour. So one day Mr.

Skratdj came into the room, rubbing his hands, and planting himself at

the fire with "Bitterly cold it is to-day, to be sure."

"Why, my dear William," said Mrs. Skratdj, "I'm sure you must have got

a cold; I feel a fire quite oppressive myself."

"You were wishing you'd a seal-skin jacket yesterday, when it wasn't

half as cold as it is to-day," said Mr. Skratdj.

"My dear William! Why, the children were shivering the whole day, and

the wind was in the north."

"Due east, Mrs. Skratdj."

"I know by the smoke," said Mrs. Skratdj, softly but decidedly.

"I fancy I can tell an east wind when I feel it," said Mr. Skratdj,

jocosely, to the company.

"I told Jemima to look at the weathercock," murmured Mrs. Skratdj.

"I don't care a fig for Jemima," said her husband.

On another occasion Mrs. Skratdj and a lady friend were conversing.

... "We met him at the Smiths'--a gentlemanlike agreeable man, about

forty," said Mrs. Skratdj, in reference to some matter interesting to

both ladies.

"Not a day over thirty-five," said Mr. Skratdj, from behind his

newspaper.

"Why, my dear William, his hair's grey," said Mrs. Skratdj.

"Plenty of men are grey at thirty," said Mr. Skratdj. "I knew a man

who was grey at twenty-five."

"Well, forty or thirty-five, it doesn't much matter," said Mrs.

Skratdj, about to resume her narration.

"Five years matters a good deal to most people at thirty-five," said

Mr. Skratdj, as he walked towards the door. "They would make a

remarkable difference to me, I know;" and with a jocular air Mr.

Skratdj departed, and Mrs. Skratdj had the rest of the anecdote her

own way.

THE LITTLE SKRATDJS.

The Spirit of Contradiction finds a place in most nurseries, though to

a very varying degree in different ones. Children snap and snarl by

nature, like young puppies; and most of us can remember taking part in

some such spirited dialogues as the following:--

{"I will."

{"You can't."

{"You shall."

{"I won't."

{"You daren't."

{"I dare."

{"I'll tell Mamma."

{"I don't care if you do."

It is the part of wise parents to repress these squibs and crackers of

juvenile contention, and to enforce that slowly-learned lesson, that

in this world one must often "pass over" and "put up with" things in

other people, being oneself by no means perfect. Also that it is a

kindness, and almost a duty, to let people think and say and do things

in their own way occasionally.

But even if Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj had ever thought of teaching all this

to their children, it must be confessed that the lesson would not have

come with a good grace from either of them, since they snapped and

snarled between themselves as much or more than their children in the

nursery.

The two eldest were the leaders in the nursery squabbles. Between

these, a boy and a girl, a ceaseless war of words was waged from

morning to night. And as neither of them lacked ready wit, and both

were in constant practice, the art of snapping was cultivated by them

to the highest pitch.

It began at breakfast, if not sooner.

"You've taken my chair."

"It's not your chair."

"You know it's the one I like, and it was in my place."

"How do you know it was in your place?"

"Never mind. I do know."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"Suppose I say it was in my place."

"You can't, for it wasn't."

"I can, if I like."

"Well, was it?"

"I sha'n't tell you."

"Ah! that shews it wasn't."

"No, it doesn't."

"Yes, it does."

Etc., etc., etc.

The direction of their daily walks was a fruitful subject of

difference of opinion.

"Let's go on the Common to-day, Nurse."

"Oh, don't let's go there; we're always going on the Common."

"I'm sure we're not. We've not been there for ever so long."

"Oh, what a story! We were there on Wednesday. Let's go down Gipsey

Lane. We never go down Gipsey Lane."

"Why, we're always going down Gipsey Lane. And there's nothing to see

there."

"I don't care. I won't go on the Common, and I shall go and get Papa

to say we're to go down Gipsey Lane. I can run faster than you."

"That's very sneaking; but I don't care."

"Papa! Papa! Polly's called me a sneak."

"No, I didn't, Papa."

"You did."

"No, I didn't. I only said it was sneaking of you to say you'd run

faster than me, and get Papa to say we were to go down Gipsey Lane."

"Then you did call him sneaking," said Mr. Skratdj. "And you're a very

naughty, ill-mannered little girl. You're getting very troublesome,

Polly, and I shall have to send you to school, where you'll be kept in

order. Go where your brother wishes at once."

For Polly and her brother had reached an age when it was convenient,

if possible, to throw the blame of all nursery differences on Polly.

In families where domestic discipline is rather fractious than firm,

there comes a stage when the girls almost invariably go to the wall,

because they will stand snubbing, and the boys will not. Domestic

authority, like some other powers, is apt to be magnified on the

weaker class.

But Mr. Skratdj would not always listen even to Harry.

"If you don't give it me back directly, I'll tell about your eating

the two magnum-bonums in the kitchen garden on Sunday," said Master

Harry on one occasion.

"Tell-tale tit!

Your tongue shall be slit,

And every dog in the town shall have a little bit,"

quoted his sister.

"Ah! You've called me a tell-tale. Now I'll go and tell Papa. You got

into a fine scrape for calling me names the other day."

"Go, then! I don't care."

"You wouldn't like me to go, I know."

"You daren't. That's what it is."

"I dare."

"Then why don't you?"

"Oh, I am going; but you'll see what will be the end of it."

Polly, however, had her own reasons for remaining stolid, and Harry

started. But when he reached the landing he paused. Mr. Skratdj had

especially announced that morning that he did not wish to be

disturbed, and though he was a favorite, Harry had no desire to invade

the dining-room at this crisis. So he returned to the nursery, and

said with a magnanimous air, "I don't want to get you into a scrape,

Polly. If you'll beg my pardon I won't go."

"I'm sure I sha'n't," said Polly, who was equally well informed as to

the position of affairs at headquarters. "Go, if you dare."

"I won't if you want me not," said Harry, discreetly waiving the

question of apologies.

"But I'd rather you went," said the obdurate Polly. "You're always

telling tales. Go and tell now, if you're not afraid."

So Harry went. But at the bottom of the stairs he lingered again, and

was meditating how to return with most credit to his dignity, when

Polly's face appeared through the banisters, and Polly's sharp tongue

goaded him on.

"Ah! I see you. You're stopping. You daren't go."

"I dare," said Harry; and at last he went.

As he turned the handle of the door, Mr. Skratdj turned round.

"Please, Papa----" Harry began.

"Get away with you!" cried Mr. Skratdj. "Didn't I tell you I was not

to be disturbed this morning? What an extraor----"

But Harry had shut the door, and withdrawn precipitately.

Once outside, he returned to the nursery with dignified steps, and an

air of apparent satisfaction, saying,

"You're to give me the bricks, please."

"Who says so?"

"Why, who should say so? Where have I been, pray?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

"I've been to Papa. There!"

"Did he say I was to give up the bricks?"

"I've told you."

"No, you've not."

"I sha'n't tell you any more."

"Then I'll go to Papa and ask."

"Go by all means."

"I won't if you'll tell me truly."

"I sha'n't tell you anything. Go and ask, if you dare," said Harry,

only too glad to have the tables turned.

Polly's expedition met with the same fate, and she attempted to cover

her retreat in a similar manner.

"Ah! you didn't tell."

"I don't believe you asked Papa."

"Don't you? Very well!"

"Well, did you?"

"Never mind."

Etc., etc., etc.

Meanwhile Mr. Skratdj scolded Mrs. Skratdj for not keeping the

children in better order. And Mrs. Skratdj said it was quite

impossible to do so when Mr. Skratdj spoilt Harry as he did, and

weakened her (Mrs. Skratdj's) authority by constant interference.

Difference of sex gave point to many of these nursery squabbles, as it

so often does to domestic broils.

"Boys never will do what they're asked," Polly would complain.

"Girls ask such unreasonable things," was Harry's retort.

"Not half so unreasonable as the things you ask."

"Ah! that's a different thing! Women have got to do what men tell

them, whether it's reasonable or not."

"No, they've not!" said Polly. "At least, that's only husbands and

wives."

"All women are inferior animals," said Harry.

"Try ordering Mamma to do what you want, and see!" said Polly.

"Men have got to give orders, and women have to obey," said Harry,

falling back on the general principle. "And when I get a wife, I'll

take care I make her do what I tell her. But you'll have to obey your

husband when you get one."

"I won't have a husband, and then I can do as I like."

"Oh, won't you? You'll try to get one, I know. Girls always want to be

married."

"I'm sure I don't know why," said Polly; "they must have had enough of

men if they have brothers."

And so they went on, _ad infinitum_, with ceaseless arguments that

proved nothing and convinced nobody, and a continual stream of

contradiction that just fell short of downright quarrelling.

Indeed, there was a kind of snapping even less near to a dispute than

in the cases just mentioned. The little Skratdjs, like some other

children, were under the unfortunate delusion that it sounds clever to

hear little boys and girls snap each other up with smart sayings, and

old and rather vulgar play upon words, such as:

"I'll give you a Christmas box. Which ear will you have it on?"

"I won't stand it."

"Pray take a chair."

"You shall have it to-morrow."

"To-morrow never comes."

And so if a visitor kindly began to talk to one of the children,

another was sure to draw near and "take up" all the first child's

answers, with smart comments, and catches that sounded as silly as

they were tiresome and impertinent.

And ill-mannered as this was, Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj never put a stop to

it. Indeed, it was only a caricature of what they did themselves. But

they often said, "We can't think how it is the children are always

squabbling!"

THE SKRATDJ'S DOG AND THE HOT-TEMPERED GENTLEMAN.

It is wonderful how the state of mind of a whole household is

influenced by the heads of it. Mr. Skratdj was a very kind master, and

Mrs. Skratdj was a very kind mistress, and yet their servants lived in

a perpetual fever of irritability that fell just short of discontent.

They jostled each other on the back stairs, said sharp things in the

pantry, and kept up a perennial warfare on the subject of the duty of

the sexes with the general man-servant. They gave warning on the

slightest provocation.

The very dog was infected by the snapping mania. He was not a brave

dog, he was not a vicious dog, and no high-breeding sanctioned his

pretensions to arrogance. But like his owners, he had contracted a bad

habit, a trick, which made him the pest of all timid visitors, and

indeed of all visitors whatsoever.

The moment anyone approached the house, on certain occasions when he

was spoken to, and often in no traceable connection with any cause at

all, Snap the mongrel would rush out, and bark in his little sharp

voice--"Yap! yap! yap!" If the visitor made a stand, he would bound

away sideways on his four little legs; but the moment the visitor went

on his way again, Snap was at his heels--"Yap! yap! yap!" He barked at

the milkman, the butcher's boy, and the baker, though he saw them

every day. He never got used to the washerwoman, and she never got

used to him. She said he "put her in mind of that there black dog in

the Pilgrim's Progress." He sat at the gate in summer, and yapped at

every vehicle and every pedestrian who ventured to pass on the high

road. He never but once had the chance of barking at burglars; and

then, though he barked long and loud, nobody got up, for they said,

"It's only Snap's way." The Skratdjs lost a silver teapot, a Stilton

cheese, and two electro christening mugs, on this occasion; and Mr.

and Mrs. Skratdj dispute who it was who discouraged reliance on Snap's

warning to the present day.

One Christmas time, a certain hot-tempered gentleman came to visit the

Skratdjs. A tall, sandy, energetic young man, who carried his own bag

from the railway. The bag had been crammed rather than packed, after

the wont of bachelors; and you could see where the heel of a boot

distended the leather, and where the bottle of shaving-cream lay.

As he came up to the house, out came Snap as usual--"Yap! yap! yap!"

Now the gentleman was very fond of dogs, and had borne this greeting

some dozen of times from Snap, who for his part knew the visitor quite

as well as the washerwoman, and rather better than the butcher's boy.

The gentleman had good, sensible, well-behaved dogs of his own, and

was greatly disgusted with Snap's conduct. Nevertheless he spoke

friendly to him; and Snap, who had had many a bit from his plate,

could not help stopping for a minute to lick his hand. But no sooner

did the gentleman proceed on his way, than Snap flew at his heels in

the usual fashion--

"Yap! Yap! Yap!"

On which the gentleman--being hot-tempered, and one of those people

with whom it is (as they say) a word and a blow, and the blow

first--made a dash at Snap, and Snap taking to his heels, the

gentleman flung his carpet-bag after him. The bottle of shaving-cream

hit upon a stone and was smashed. The heel of the boot caught Snap on

the back and sent him squealing to the kitchen. And he never barked at

that gentleman again.

If the gentleman disapproved of Snap's conduct, he still less liked

the continual snapping of the Skratdj family themselves. He was an old

friend of Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj, however, and knew that they were

really happy together, and that it was only a bad habit which made

them constantly contradict each other. It was in allusion to their

real affection for each other, and their perpetual disputing, that he

called them the "Snapping Turtles."

When the war of words waxed hottest at the dinner-table between his

host and hostess, he would drive his hands through his shock of sandy

hair, and say, with a comical glance out of his umber eyes, "Don't

flirt, my friends. It makes a bachelor feel awkward."

And neither Mr. nor Mrs. Skratdj could help laughing.

With the little Skratdjs his measures were more vigorous. He was very

fond of children, and a good friend to them. He grudged no time or

trouble to help them in their games and projects, but he would not

tolerate their snapping up each other's words in his presence. He was

much more truly kind than many visitors, who think it polite to smile

at the sauciness and forwardness which ignorant vanity leads children

so often to "show off" before strangers. These civil acquaintances

only abuse both children and parents behind their backs, for the very

bad habits which they help to encourage.

The hot-tempered gentleman's treatment of his young friends was very

different. One day he was talking to Polly, and making some kind

inquiries about her lessons, to which she was replying in a quiet and

sensible fashion, when up came Master Harry, and began to display his

wit by comments on the conversation, and by snapping at and

contradicting his sister's remarks, to which she retorted; and the

usual snap-dialogue went on as usual.

"Then you like music?" said the hot-tempered gentleman.

"Yes, I like it very much," said Polly.

"Oh, do you?" Harry broke in. "Then what are you always crying over it

for?"

"I'm not always crying over it."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not. I only cry sometimes, when I stick fast."

"Your music must be very sticky, for you're always stuck fast."

"Hold your tongue!" said the hot-tempered gentleman.

With what he imagined to be a very waggish air, Harry put out his

tongue, and held it with his finger and thumb. It was unfortunate that

he had not time to draw it in again before the hot-tempered gentleman

gave him a stinging box on the ear, which brought his teeth rather

sharply together on the tip of his tongue, which was bitten in

consequence.

"It's no use _speaking_," said the hot-tempered gentleman, driving his

hands through his hair.

* * * * *

Children are like dogs, they are very good judges of their real

friends. Harry did not like the hot-tempered gentleman a bit the less

because he was obliged to respect and obey him; and all the children

welcomed him boisterously when he arrived that Christmas which we have

spoken of in connection with his attack on Snap.

It was on the morning of Christmas Eve that the china punch bowl was

broken. Mr. Skratdj had a warm dispute with Mrs. Skratdj as to whether

it had been kept in a safe place; after which both had a brisk

encounter with the housemaid, who did not know how it happened; and

she, flouncing down the back passage, kicked Snap; who forthwith flew

at the gardener as he was bringing in the horse-radish for the beef;

who stepping backwards trode upon the cat; who spit and swore, and

went up the pump with her tail as big as a fox's brush.

[Illustration: AND SHE FLOUNCING DOWN THE BACK PASSAGE KICKED SNAP WHO

FORTHWITH FLEW AT THE GARDENER.]

To avoid this domestic scene, the hot-tempered gentleman withdrew to

the breakfast-room and took up a newspaper. By-and-by, Harry and Polly

came in, and they were soon snapping comfortably over their own

affairs in a corner.

The hot-tempered gentleman's umber eyes had been looking over the top

of his newspaper at them for some time, before he called, "Harry, my

boy!"

And Harry came up to him.

"Shew me your tongue, Harry," said he.

"What for?" said Harry; "you're not a doctor."

"Do as I tell you," said the hot-tempered gentleman; and as Harry saw

his hand moving, he put his tongue out with all possible haste. The

hot-tempered gentleman sighed. "Ah!" he said in depressed tones; "I

thought so!--Polly, come and let me look at yours."

Polly, who had crept up during this process, now put out hers. But the

hot-tempered gentleman looked gloomier still, and shook his head.

"What is it?" cried both the children. "What do you mean?" And they

seized the tips of their tongues in their fingers, to feel for

themselves.

But the hot-tempered gentleman went slowly out of the room without

answering; passing his hands through his hair, and saying, "Ah! Hum!"

and nodding with an air of grave foreboding.

Just as he crossed the threshold, he turned back, and put his head

into the room. "Have you ever noticed that your tongues are growing

pointed?" he asked.

"No!" cried the children with alarm. "Are they?"

"If ever you find them becoming forked," said the gentleman in solemn

tones, "let me know."

With which he departed, gravely shaking his head.

In the afternoon the children attacked him again.

"_Do_ tell us what's the matter with our tongues."

"You were snapping and squabbling just as usual this morning," said

the hot-tempered gentleman.

"Well, we forgot," said Polly. "We don't mean anything, you know. But

never mind that now, please. Tell us about our tongues. What is going

to happen to them?"

"I'm very much afraid," said the hot-tempered gentleman, in solemn,

measured tones, "that you are both of you--fast--going--to--the."

"Dogs?" suggested Harry, who was learned in cant expressions.

"Dogs!" said the hot-tempered gentleman, driving his hands through his

hair. "Bless your life, no! Nothing half so pleasant! (That is, unless

all dogs were like Snap, which mercifully they are not.) No, my sad

fear is, that you are both of you--rapidly--going--_to the

Snap-Dragons_!"

And not another word would the hot-tempered gentleman say on the

subject.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

In the course of a few hours Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj recovered their

equanimity. The punch was brewed in a jug, and tasted quite as good as

usual. The evening was very lively. There were a Christmas tree, Yule

cakes, log, and candles, furmety, and snap-dragon after supper. When

the company was tired of the tree, and had gained an appetite by the

hard exercise of stretching to high branches, blowing out "dangerous"

tapers, and cutting ribbon and pack-thread in all directions, supper

came, with its welcome cakes and furmety and punch. And when furmety

somewhat palled upon the taste (and it must be admitted to boast more

sentiment than flavor as a Christmas dish), the Yule candles were

blown out and both the spirits and the palates of the party were

stimulated by the mysterious and pungent pleasures of snap-dragon.

Then, as the hot-tempered gentleman warmed his coat-tails at the

Yule-log, a grim smile stole over his features as he listened to the

sounds in the room. In the darkness the blue flames leaped and danced,

the raisins were snapped and snatched from hand to hand, scattering

fragments of flame hither and thither. The children shouted as the

fiery sweetmeats burnt away the mawkish taste of the furmety. Mr.

Skratdj cried that they were spoiling the carpet; Mrs. Skratdj

complained that he had spilled some brandy on her dress. Mr. Skratdj

retorted that she should not wear dresses so susceptible of damage in

the family circle. Mrs. Skratdj recalled an old speech of Mr. Skratdj

on the subject of wearing one's nice things for the benefit of one's

family, and not reserving them for visitors. Mr. Skratdj remembered

that Mrs. Skratdj's excuse for buying that particular dress when she

did not need it, was her intention of keeping it for the next year.

The children disputed as to the credit for courage and the amount of

raisins due to each. Snap barked furiously at the flames; and the

maids hustled each other for good places in the doorway, and would not

have allowed the man-servant to see at all, but he looked over their

heads.

"St! St! At it! At it!" chuckled the hot-tempered gentleman in

undertones. And when he said this, it seemed as if the voices of Mr.

and Mrs. Skratdj rose higher in matrimonial repartee, and the

children's squabbles became louder, and the dog yelped as if he were

mad, and the maids' contest was sharper; whilst the snap-dragon flames

leaped up and up, and blue fire flew about the room like foam.

At last the raisins were finished, the flames were all put out, and

the company withdrew to the drawing-room. Only Harry lingered.

"Come along, Harry," said the hot-tempered gentleman.

"Wait a minute," said Harry.

"You had better come," said the gentleman.

"Why?" said Harry.

"There's nothing to stop for. The raisins are eaten, the brandy is

burnt out----"

"No, it's not," said Harry.

"Well, almost. It would be better if it were quite out. Now come. It's

dangerous for a boy like you to be alone with the Snap-Dragons

to-night."

"Fiddle-sticks!" said Harry.

"Go your own way, then!" said the hot-tempered gentleman; and he

bounced out of the room, and Harry was left alone.

DANCING WITH THE DRAGONS.

He crept up to the table, where one little pale blue flame flickered

in the snap-dragon dish.

"What a pity it should go out!" said Harry. At this moment the brandy

bottle on the side-board caught his eye.

"Just a little more," murmured Harry to himself; and he uncorked the

bottle, and poured a little brandy on to the flame.

Now of course, as soon as the brandy touched the fire, all the brandy

in the bottle blazed up at once, and the bottle split to pieces; and

it was very fortunate for Harry that he did not get seriously hurt. A

little of the hot brandy did get into his eyes, and made them smart,

so that he had to shut them for a few seconds.

But when he opened them again, what a sight he saw! All over the room

the blue flames leaped and danced as they had leaped and danced in the

soup-plate with the raisins. And Harry saw that each successive flame

was the fold in the long body of a bright blue Dragon, which moved

like the body of a snake. And the room was full of these Dragons. In

the face they were like the dragons one sees made of very old blue and

white china; and they had forked tongues, like the tongues of

serpents. They were most beautiful in color, being sky-blue. Lobsters

who have just changed their coats are very handsome, but the violet

and indigo of a lobster's coat is nothing to the brilliant sky-blue of

a Snap-Dragon.

How they leaped about! They were for ever leaping over each other like

seals at play. But if it was "play" at all with them, it was of a very

rough kind; for as they jumped, they snapped and barked at each

other, and their barking was like that of the barking Gnu in the

Zoological Gardens; and from time to time they tore the hair out of

each others heads with their claws, and scattered it about the floor.

And as it dropped it was like the flecks of flame people shake from

their fingers when they are eating snap-dragon raisins.

Harry stood aghast.

"What fun!" said a voice close by him; and he saw that one of the

Dragons was lying near, and not joining in the game. He had lost one

of the forks of his tongue by accident, and could not bark for awhile.

"I'm glad you think it funny," said Harry, "I don't."

"That's right. Snap away!" sneered the Dragon. "You're a perfect

treasure. They'll take you in with them the third round."

"Not those creatures?" cried Harry.

"Yes, those creatures. And if I hadn't lost my bark, I'd be the first

to lead you off," said the Dragon. "Oh, the game will exactly suit

you."

"What is it please?" Harry asked.

"You'd better not say 'please' to the others," said the Dragon, "if

you don't want to have all your hair pulled out. The game is this. You

have always to be jumping over somebody else, and you must either talk

or bark. If anybody speaks to you, you must snap in return. I need

not explain what _snapping_ is. _You know._ If anyone by accident

gives a civil answer, a claw-full of hair is torn out of his head to

stimulate his brain. Nothing can be funnier."

"I dare say it suits you capitally," said Harry; "but I'm sure we

shouldn't like it. I mean men and women and children. It wouldn't do

for us at all."

"Wouldn't it?" said the Dragon. "You don't know how many human beings

dance with dragons on Christmas Eve. If we are kept going in a house

till after midnight, we can pull people out of their beds, and take

them to dance in Vesuvius."

"Vesuvius!" cried Harry.

"Yes, Vesuvius. We come from Italy originally, you know. Our skins are

the color of the Bay of Naples. We live on dried grapes and ardent

spirits. We have glorious fun in the mountain sometimes. Oh! what

snapping, and scratching, and tearing! Delicious! There are times when

the squabbling becomes too great, and Mother Mountain won't stand it,

and spits us all out, and throws cinders after us. But this is only at

times. We had a charming meeting last year. So many human beings, and

how they _can_ snap! It was a choice party. So very select. We always

have plenty of saucy children, and servants. Husbands and wives too,

and quite as many of the former as the latter, if not more. But

besides these, we had two vestry-men, a country postmaster, who

devoted his talents to insulting the public instead of to learning the

postal regulations, three cabmen and two 'fares,' two young shop-girls

from a Berlin wool shop in a town where there was no competition, four

commercial travellers, six landladies, six Old Bailey lawyers, several

widows from almshouses, seven single gentlemen and nine cats, who

swore at everything; a dozen sulphur-colored screaming cockatoos; a

lot of street children from a town; a pack of mongrel curs from the

colonies, who snapped at the human beings' heels, and five elderly

ladies in their Sunday bonnets with Prayer-books, who had been

fighting for good seats in church."

"Dear me!" said Harry.

"If you can find nothing sharper to say than 'Dear me,'" said the

Dragon, "you will fare badly, I can tell you. Why, I thought you'd a

sharp tongue, but it's not forked yet, I see. Here they are, however.

Off with you! And if you value your curls--Snap!"

And before Harry could reply, the Snap-Dragons came on on their third

round, and as they passed they swept Harry with them.

He shuddered as he looked at his companions. They were as transparent

as shrimps, but of this lovely cerulean blue. And as they leaped they

barked--"Howf! Howf!"--like barking Gnus; and when they leaped Harry

had to leap with them. Besides barking, they snapped and wrangled

with each other; and in this Harry must join also.

"Pleasant, isn't it?" said one of the blue Dragons.

"Not at all," snapped Harry.

"That's your bad taste," snapped the blue Dragon.

"No, it's not!" snapped Harry.

"Then it's pride and perverseness. You want your hair combing."

"Oh, please don't!" shrieked Harry, forgetting himself. On which the

Dragon clawed a handful of hair out of his head, and Harry screamed,

and the blue Dragons barked and danced.

"That made your hair curl, didn't it?" asked another Dragon, leaping

over Harry.

"That's no business of yours," Harry snapped, as well as he could for

crying.

"It's more my pleasure than business," retorted the Dragon.

"Keep it to yourself, then," snapped Harry.

"I mean to share it with you, when I get hold of your hair," snapped

the Dragon.

"Wait till you get the chance," Harry snapped, with desperate presence

of mind.

"Do you know whom you're talking to?" roared the Dragon; and he opened

his mouth from ear to ear, and shot out his forked tongue in Harry's

face; and the boy was so frightened that he forgot to snap, and cried

piteously,

"Oh, I beg your pardon, please don't!"

On which the blue Dragon clawed another handful of hair out of his

head, and all the Dragons barked as before.

How long the dreadful game went on Harry never exactly knew. Well

practised as he was in snapping in the nursery, he often failed to

think of a retort, and paid for his unreadiness by the loss of his

hair. Oh, how foolish and wearisome all this rudeness and snapping now

seemed to him! But on he had to go, wondering all the time how near it

was to twelve o'clock, and whether the Snap-Dragons would stay till

midnight and take him with them to Vesuvius.

At last, to his joy, it became evident that the brandy was coming to

an end. The Dragons moved slower, they could not leap so high, and at

last one after another they began to go out.

"Oh, if they only all of them get away before twelve!" thought poor

Harry.

At last there was only one. He and Harry jumped about and snapped and

barked, and Harry was thinking with joy that he was the last, when the

clock in the hall gave that whirring sound which some clocks do before

they strike, as if it were clearing its throat.

"Oh, _please_ go!" screamed Harry in despair.

The blue Dragon leaped up, and took such a claw-full of hair out of

the boy's head, that it seemed as if part of the skin went too. But

that leap was his last. He went out at once, vanishing before the

first stroke of twelve. And Harry was left on his face on the floor in

the darkness.

CONCLUSION.

When his friends found him there was blood on his forehead. Harry

thought it was where the Dragon had clawed him, but they said it was a

cut from a fragment of the broken brandy bottle. The Dragons had

disappeared as completely as the brandy.

Harry was cured of snapping. He had had quite enough of it for a

lifetime, and the catch-contradictions of the household now made him

shudder. Polly had not had the benefit of his experiences, and yet she

improved also.

In the first place, snapping, like other kinds of quarrelling,

requires two parties to it, and Harry would never be a party to

snapping any more. And when he gave civil and kind answers to Polly's

smart speeches, she felt ashamed of herself, and did not repeat them.

In the second place, she heard about the Snap-Dragons. Harry told all

about it to her and to the hot-tempered gentleman.

"Now do you think it's true?" Polly asked the hot-tempered gentleman.

"Hum! Ha!" said he, driving his hands through his hair. "You know I

warned you, you were going to the Snap-Dragons."

* * * * *

Harry and Polly snubbed "the little ones" when they snapped, and

utterly discountenanced snapping in the nursery. The example and

admonitions of elder children are a powerful instrument of nursery

discipline, and before long there was not a "sharp tongue" amongst all

the little Skratdjs.

But I doubt if the parents ever were cured. I don't know if they heard

the story. Besides, bad habits are not easily cured when one is old.

I fear Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj have yet got to dance with the Dragons.

DANDELION CLOCKS.

Every child knows how to tell the time by a dandelion clock. You blow

till the seed is all blown away, and you count each of the puffs--an

hour to a puff. Every child knows this, and very few children want to

know any more on the subject. It was Peter Paul's peculiarity that he

always did want to know more about everything; a habit whose first and

foremost inconvenience is that one can so seldom get people to answer

one's questions.

Peter Paul and his two sisters were playing in the pastures. Rich,

green, Dutch pastures, unbroken by hedge or wall, which

stretched--like an emerald ocean--to the horizon and met the sky. The

cows stood ankle-deep in it and chewed the cud, the clouds sailed

slowly over it to the sea, and on a dry hillock sat Mother, in her

broad sun-hat, with one eye to the cows and one to the linen she was

bleaching, thinking of her farm.

Peter Paul and his sisters had found another little hillock where,

among some tufts of meadow-flowers which the cows had not yet eaten,

were dandelion clocks. They divided them quite fairly, and began to

tell each other the time of day.

Little Anna blew very hard for her size, and as the wind blew too, her

clock was finished in a couple of puffs. "One, two. It's only two

o'clock," she said, with a sigh.

Her elder sister was more careful, but still the wind was against

them. "One, two, three. It's three o'clock by me," she said.

Peter Paul turned his back to the wind, and held his clock low. "One,

two, three, four, five. It's five o'clock by my dandelion--I wonder

why the fairy clocks all go differently."

"We blow differently," said his sister.

"Then they don't really tell the time," said Peter Paul.

"Oh yes, they do--the fairy time." And the little girls got more

clocks, and turned their backs to the wind in imitation of Peter Paul,

and went on blowing. But the boy went up to his mother.

"Mother, why do dandelion clocks keep different time? It was only two

o'clock by Anna's, and three o'clock by Leena's, and five by mine. It

can't really be evening with me and only afternoon with Anna. The days

don't go quicker with one person than another, do they?"

"Drive Daisy and Buttermilk nearer this way," said his mother; "and

if you must ask questions, ask your Uncle Jacob."

There was a reason for sending the boy to Uncle Jacob with his

difficulties. He had been born after his father's death, and Uncle

Jacob had taken up the paternal duties. It was he who had chosen the

child's name. He had called him Peter Paul after Peter Paul Rubens,

not that he hoped the boy would become a painter, but he wished him to

be called after some great man, and--having just returned from

Antwerp--the only great man he could think of was Peter Paul.

"Give a boy a great name," said Uncle Jacob, "and if there's any stuff

in him, there's a chance he'll live up to it."

This was a kindly way of putting the proverb about giving a dog a bad

name, and Uncle Jacob's strongest quality was kindness--kindness and

the cultivation of tulips.

He was sitting in the summer-house smoking, and reading over a

bulb-list when Peter Paul found him.

"Uncle Jacob, why do dandelion clocks tell different time to different

people? Sixty seconds make a minute, sixty minutes make an hour,

twenty-four hours make a day, three hundred and sixty-five days make a

year. That's right, isn't it? Hours are the same length for everybody,

aren't they? But if I got to tea-time when it was only two o'clock

with Anna, and went on like that, first the days and then the years

would go much quicker with me, and I don't know if I should die

sooner,--but it couldn't be, could it?"

"Certainly not," said Uncle Jacob; and he went on with his list.

"Yellow Pottebakker, Yellow Tournesol and Yellow Rose."

"Then the fairy clocks tells lies?" said Peter Paul.

"That you must ask Godfather Time," replied Uncle Jacob, jocosely. "He

is responsible for the clocks and the hour-glasses."

"Where does he live?" asked the boy.

But Uncle Jacob had spread the list on the summer-house table; he was

fairly immersed in it and in a cloud of tobacco smoke, and Peter Paul

did not like to disturb him.

"Twenty-five Bybloemens, twenty-five Bizards, twenty-five Roses, and

a seedling-bed for first bloom this year."

* * * * *

Some of Uncle Jacob's seedling tulips were still "breeders," whose

future was yet unmarked[5] (he did not name them in hope, as he had

christened his nephew!) when Peter Paul went to sea.

[Footnote 5: The first bloom of seedling tulips is usually without

stripes or markings, and it is often years before they break into

stripes; till then they are called breeders, and are not named.]

He was quite unfitted for a farmer. He was always looking forward to

what he should do hereafter, or backward to the time when he believed

in fairy clocks. Now a farmer should live in the present, and time

himself by a steady-going watch with an enamelled face. Then little

things get done at the right time, which is everything in farming.

"Peter Paul puzzles too much," said his mother, "and that is your

fault, Jacob, for giving him a great name. But while he's thinking,

Daisy misses her mash and the hens lay away. He'll never make a

farmer. Indeed, for that matter, men never farm like women, and Leena

will take to it after me. She knows all my ways."

They were a kindly family, with no minds to make this short life

bitter for each other by thwarting, as so many well-meaning relatives

do; so the boy chose his own trade and went to sea.

He saw many places and many people; he saw a great deal of life, and

came face to face with death more than once, and under strange shapes.

He found answers to a lot of the old questions, and then new ones came

in their stead. Each year seemed to hold more than a lifetime at home

would have held, and yet how quickly the years went by!

A great many had gone by when Peter Paul set foot once more upon Dutch

soil.

"And it only seems like yesterday that I went away!" said he.

Mother was dead. That was the one great change. Peter Paul's sisters

had inherited the farm. They managed it together, and they had divided

their mother's clothes, and also her rings and earrings, her gold

skull-cap and head-band and pins,--the heirlooms of a Dutch farmeress.

"It matters very little how we divide them, dear," Anna had said, "for

I shall never marry, and they will all go to your girl."

The elder sister was married and had two children. She had grown up

very pretty--a fair woman, with liquid misleading eyes. They looked as

if they were gazing into the far future, but they did not see an inch

beyond the farm. Anna was a very plain copy of her in body, in mind

she was the elder sister's echo. They were very fond of each other,

and the prettiest thing about them was their faithful love for their

mother, whose memory was kept as green as pastures after rain.

On Sunday Peter Paul went with them to her grave, and then to service.

The ugly little church, the same old clerk, even the look of that part

of the seat where Peter Paul had kicked the paint off during

sermons--all strengthened the feeling that it could only have been a

few days since he was there before.

As they walked home he told his sisters about the various religious

services he had seen abroad. They were curious to hear about them,

under a sort of protest, for they disapproved of every form of worship

but their own.

"The music in some of the cathedrals is very beautiful," said Peter

Paul. "And the choristers in their gowns, singing as they come, always

affect me. No doubt only some are devout at heart, and others

careless--which is also the case with the congregation--but outward

reverence is, at the lowest, an acknowledgment of what we owe, and for

my own part it helps me. Those white figures are not angels I know;

but they make one think of them, and I try to be worthier of singing

God's praises with them."

There was a little pause, and Leena's beautiful eyes were full of

reflections.

Presently she said, "Who washes all the white gowns?"

"I really don't know," said Peter Paul.

"I fancy they don't bleach anywhere as they do in Holland," she

continued. "Indeed, Brother, I doubt if Dutchwomen are what they were.

No one bleaches as Mother did. Mother bleached beautifully."

"Yes, she bleached beautifully," said Anna.

Peter Paul was only to be three weeks at home before he sailed again;

but when ten days were over, he began to think the rest of the time

would never come to an end. And this was from no want of love for his

sisters, or of respect for their friends. One cannot help having an

irritable brain, which rides an idea to the moon and home again,

without stirrups, whilst some folks are getting the harness of words

on to its back. There had been hours in his youth when all the

unsolved riddles, the untasted joys, the great possibilities of even a

common existence like his, so pressed upon him, that the shortness of

the longest life of man seemed the most pitiable thing about it. But

when he took tea with Vrow Schmidt and her daughters, and supper-time

would not come, Peter Paul thought of the penance of the Wandering

Jew, and felt very sorry for him.

The sisters would have been glad if Peter Paul would have given up the

sea and settled down with them. Leena had a plan of her own for it.

She wanted him to marry Vrow Schmidt's niece, who had a farm.

"But I am afraid you do not care for young ladies?" said she.

Peter Paul got red.

"Vrow Schmidt's niece is a very nice young lady," said he.

He was not thinking of Vrow Schmidt's niece, he was thinking of

something else--something for which he would have liked a little

sympathy; but he doubted whether Leena could give it to him. Indeed,

to cure heartache is Godfather Time's business, and even he is not

invariably successful. It was probably a sharp twinge that made Peter

Paul say, "Have you never wondered that when one's life is so very

short, one can manage to get so much pain into it?"

Leena dropped her work and looked up. "You don't say so?" said she.

"Dear Brother, is it rheumatism? I'm sure it must be a dreadful risk

being out on the masts in the night air, without a roof over your

head. But do you wear flannel, Peter Paul? Mother was very much

troubled with rheumatism latterly. She thought it was the dews at

milking time, and she always wore flannel."

"Yes, dear, Mother always wore flannel," said Anna.

Peter Paul satisfied them on this head. He wore flannel, red flannel

too, which has virtues of its own.

Leena was more anxious than ever that he should marry Vrow Schmidt's

niece, and be taken good care of.

But it was not to be: Peter Paul went back to his ship and into the

wide world again.

Uncle Jacob would have given him an off-set of his new tulip--a real

novelty, and named--if he had had any place to plant it in.

"I've a bed of breeders that will be worth looking at next time you

come home," said he.

Leena walked far over the pastures with Peter Paul. She was very fond

of him, and she had a woman's perception that they would miss him

more than he could miss them.

"I am very sorry you could not settle down with us," she said, and her

eyes brimmed over.

Peter Paul kissed the tears tenderly from her cheeks.

"Perhaps I shall when I am older, and have shaken off a few more of my

whims into the sea. I'll come back yet, Leena, and live very near to

you and grow tulips, and be as good an old bachelor-uncle to your boy

as Uncle Jacob was to me."

"And if a foreign wife would suit you better than one of the

Schmidts," said Leena, re-arranging his bundle for him, "don't think

we sha'n't like her. Any one you love will be welcome to us, Peter

Paul--as welcome as you have been."

When they got to the hillock where Mother used to sit, Peter Paul took

her once more into his arms.

"Good-bye, good Sister," he said. "I have been back in my childhood

again, and God knows that is both pleasant and good for one."

"And it is funny that you should say so," said Leena, smiling through

her tears; "for when we were children you were never happy except in

thinking of when you should be a man."

"And there sit your children, just where we used to play," said Peter

Paul.

"They are blowing dandelion clocks," said Leena, and she called them.

"Come and bid Uncle Peter good-bye."

He kissed them both.

"Well, what o'clock is it?" said he. The boy gave one mighty puff and

dispersed his fairy clock at a breath.

"One o'clock," he cried stoutly.

"One, two, three, four o'clock," said the girl. And they went back to

their play.

And Leena stood by them, with Mother's old sun-hat on her young head,

and watched Peter Paul's figure over the flat pastures till it was an

indistinguishable speck.

He turned back a dozen times to wave his hands to her, and to the

children telling the fairy time.

But he did not ask now why dandelion clocks go differently with

different people. Godfather Time had told him. He teaches us many

things.

THE BLIND MAN AND THE TALKING DOG.

[Illustration: THE BLIND MAN AND THE TALKING DOG.]

There was once an old man whom Fortune (whose own eyes are bandaged)

had deprived of his sight. She had taken his hearing also, so that he

was deaf. Poor he had always been, and as Time had stolen his youth

and strength from him, they had only left a light burden for death to

carry when he should come the old man's way.

But Love (who is blind also) had given the Blind Man a Dog, who led

him out in the morning to a seat in the sun under the crab-tree, and

held his hat for wayside alms, and brought him safely home at sunset.

The Dog was wise and faithful--as dogs often are--but the wonder of

him was that he could talk. In which will be seen the difference

between dogs and men, most of whom can talk; whilst it is a matter for

admiration if they are wise and faithful.

One day the Mayor's little son came down the road, and by the hand he

held his playmate Aldegunda.

"Give the poor blind man a penny," said she.

"You are always wanting me to give away my money," replied the boy

peevishly. "It is well that my father is the richest man in the town,

and that I have a whole silver crown yet in my pocket."

But he put the penny into the hat which the Dog held out, and the Dog

gave it to his master.

"Heaven bless you," said the Blind Man.

"Amen," said the Dog.

"Aldegunda! Aldegunda!" cried the boy, dancing with delight "Here's a

dog who can talk. I would give my silver crown for him. Old man, I

say, old man! Will you sell me your dog for a silver crown?"

"My master is deaf as well as blind," said the Dog.

"What a miserable old creature he must be," said the boy

compassionately.

"Men do not smile when they are miserable, do they?" said the Dog;

"and my master smiles sometimes--when the sun warms right through our

coats to our bones; when he feels the hat shake against his knee as

the pennies drop in; and when I lick his hand."

"But for all that, he is a poor wretched old beggar, in want of

everything," persisted the boy. "Now I am the Mayor's only son, and he

is the richest man in the town. Come and live with me, and I will give

the Blind Man my silver crown. I should be perfectly happy if I had a

talking dog of my own."

"It is worth thinking of," said the Dog. "I should certainly like a

master who was perfectly happy. You are sure that there is nothing

else that you wish for?"

"I wish I were a man," replied the boy. "To do exactly as I chose, and

have plenty of money to spend, and holidays all the year round."

"That sounds well," said the Dog. "Perhaps I had better wait till you

grow up. There is nothing else that you want, I suppose?"

"I want a horse," said the boy, "a real black charger. My father ought

to know that I am too old for a hobby-horse. It vexes me to look at

it."

"I must wait for the charger, I see," said the Dog. "Nothing vexes you

but the hobby-horse, I hope?"

"Aldegunda vexes me more than anything," answered the boy, with an

aggrieved air; "and it's very hard when I am so fond of her. She

always tumbles down when we run races, her legs are so short. It's her

birthday to-day, but she toddles as badly as she did yesterday, though

she's a year older."

"She will have learned to run by the time that you are a man," said

the Dog. "So nice a little lady can give you no other cause of

annoyance, I am sure?"

The boy frowned.

"She is always wanting something; She wants something now, I see. What

do you want, Aldegunda?"

"I wish--" said Aldegunda, timidly, "I should like--the blind man to

have the silver crown, and for us to keep the penny, if you can get it

back out of the hat."

"That's just the way you go on," said the boy angrily. "You always

think differently from me. Now remember, Aldegunda, I won't marry you

when you grow big, unless you agree with what I do, like the wife in

the story of 'What the Goodman does is sure to be right.'"

On hearing this, Aldegunda sobbed till she burst the strings of her

hat, and the boy had to tie them afresh.

"I won't marry you at all if you cry," said he.

But at that she only cried the more, and they went away bickering into

the green lanes.

As to the old man, he had heard nothing; and when the dog licked his

withered hand, he smiled.

Many a time did the boy return with his playmate to try and get the

Talking Dog. But the Dog always asked if he had yet got all that he

wanted, and, being an honorable child, the boy was too truthful to say

that he was content when he was not.

"The day that you want nothing more but me I will be your dog," it

said. "Unless, indeed, my present master should have attained perfect

happiness before you."

"I am not afraid of that," said the boy.

In time the Mayor died, and his widow moved to her native town and

took her son with her.

Years passed, and the Blind Man lived on; for when one gets very old

and keeps very quiet in his little corner of the world, Death seems

sometimes to forget to remove him.

Years passed, and the Mayor's son became a man, and was strong and

rich, and had a fine black charger. Aldegunda grew up also. She was

very beautiful, wonderfully beautiful, and Love (who is blind) gave

her to her old playmate.

The wedding was a fine one, and when it was over the bridegroom

mounted his black charger and took his bride behind him, and rode away

into the green lanes.

"Ah, what delight!" he said. "Now we will ride through the town where

we lived when we were children; and if the Blind Man is still alive,

you shall give him a silver crown; and if the Talking Dog is alive, I

shall claim him, for to-day I am perfectly happy and want nothing."

Aldegunda thought to herself--"We are so happy, and have so much, that

I do not like to take the Blind Man's dog from him;" but she did not

dare to say so. One--if not two--must bear and forbear to be happy

even on one's wedding day.

By-and-bye they rode under the crab-tree, but the seat was empty.

"What has become of the Blind Man?" the Mayor's son asked of a

peasant who was near.

"He died two days ago," said the peasant. "He is buried to-day, and

the priest and chanters are now returning from the grave."

"And the Talking Dog?" asked the young man.

"He is at the grave now," said the peasant; "but he has neither spoken

nor eaten since his master died."

"We have come in the nick of time," said the young man triumphantly,

and he rode to the church-yard.

By the grave was the dog, as the man had said, and up the winding path

came the priest and his young chanters, who sang with shrill, clear

voices--"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

"Come and live with me, now your old master is gone," said the young

man, stooping over the dog. But he made no reply.

"I think he is dead, sir," said the grave-digger.

"I don't believe it," said the young man fretfully. "He was an

Enchanted Dog, and he promised I should have him when I could say what

I am ready to say now. He should have kept his promise."

But Aldegunda had taken the dog's cold head into her arms, and her

tears fell fast over it.

"You forget," she said; "he only promised to come to you when you

were happy, if his old master were not happier first; and,

perhaps,----"

"I remember that you always disagree with me," said the young man,

impatiently. "You always did do so. Tears on our wedding-day, too! I

suppose the truth is that no one is happy."

Aldegunda made no answer, for it is not from those one loves that he

will willingly learn that with a selfish and imperious temper

happiness never dwells.

And as they rode away again into the green lanes, the shrill voices of

the chanters followed them--"Blessed are the dead. Blessed are the

dead."

"SO-SO."

"Be sure, my child," said the widow to her little daughter, "that you

always do just as you are told."

"Very well, Mother."

"Or at any rate do what will do just as well," said the small

house-dog as he lay blinking at the fire.

"You darling!" cried little Joan, and she sat down on the hearth and

hugged him. But he got up and shook himself, and moved three turns

nearer the oven, to be out of the way; for though her arms were soft

she had kept her doll in them, and that was made of wood, which hurts.

"What a dear, kind house-dog you are!" said little Joan, and she meant

what she said, for it does feel nice to have the sharp edges of one's

duty a little softened off for one.

He was no particular kind of a dog, but he was very smooth to stroke,

and had a nice way of blinking with his eyes, which it was soothing to

see. There had been a difficulty about his name. The name of the

house-dog before him was Faithful, and well it became him, as his

tombstone testified. The one before that was called Wolf. He was very

wild, and ended his days on the gallows, for worrying sheep. The

little house-dog never chased anything, to the widow's knowledge.

There was no reason whatever for giving him a bad name, and she

thought of several good ones, such as Faithful, and Trusty, and

Keeper, which are fine old-fashioned titles, but none of these seemed

quite perfectly to suit him. So he was called So-so; and a very nice

soft name it is.

The widow was only a poor woman, though she contrived by her industry

to keep a decent home together, and to get now one and now another

little comfort for herself and her child.

One day she was going out on business, and she called her little

daughter and said to her, "I am going out for two hours. You are too

young to protect yourself and the house, and So-so is not as strong as

Faithful was. But when I go, shut the house-door and bolt the big

wooden bar, and be sure that you do not open it for any reason

whatever till I return. If strangers come, So-so may bark, which he

can do as well as a bigger dog. Then they will go away. With this

summer's savings I have bought a quilted petticoat for you and a

duffle cloak for myself against the winter, and if I get the work I am

going after to-day, I shall buy enough wool to knit warm stockings for

us both. So be patient till I return, and then we will have the

plumcake that is in the cupboard for tea."

"Thank you, Mother."

"Good-bye, my child. Be sure and do just as I have told you," said the

widow.

"Very well, Mother."

Little Joan laid down her doll, and shut the house-door, and fastened

the big bolt. It was very heavy, and the kitchen looked gloomy when

she had done it.