_By_ DONALD G. MITCHELL
Isabel and I--she is my cousin, and is seven years old, and I am
ten--are sitting together on the bank of a stream, under an oak tree
that leans half way over to the water. I am much stronger than she, and
taller by a head. I hold in my hands a little alder rod, with which I am
fishing for the roach and minnows, that play in the pool below us.
She is watching the cork tossing on the water, or playing with the
captured fish that lie upon the bank. She has auburn ringlets that fall
down upon her shoulders; and her straw hat lies back upon them, held
only by the strip of ribbon, that passes under her chin. But the sun
does not shine upon her head; for the oak tree above us is full of
leaves; and only here and there, a dimple of the sunlight plays upon the
pool, where I am fishing.
Her eye is hazel, and bright; and now and then she turns it on me with a
look of girlish curiosity, as I lift up my rod--and again in playful
menace, as she grasps in her little fingers one of the dead fish, and
threatens to throw it back upon the stream. Her little feet hang over
the edge of the bank; and from time to time, she reaches down to dip her
toe in the water; and laughs a girlish laugh of defiance, as I scold
her for frightening away the fishes.
"Bella," I say, "what if you should tumble in the river?"
"But I won't."
"Yes, but if you should?"
[Illustration: SHE REACHES DOWN TO DIP HER TOE]
"Why then you would pull me out."
"But if I wouldn't pull you out?"
"But I know you would; wouldn't you, Paul?"
"What makes you think so, Bella?"
"Because you love Bella."
"How do you know I love Bella?"
"Because once you told me so; and because you pick flowers for me that I
cannot reach; and because you let me take your rod, when you have a fish
upon it."
"But that's no reason, Bella."
"Then what is, Paul?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Bella."
A little fish has been nibbling for a long time at the bait; the cork
has been bobbing up and down--and now he is fairly hooked, and pulls
away toward the bank, and you cannot see the cork.
"Here, Bella, quick!"--and she springs eagerly to clasp her little hands
around the rod. But the fish has dragged it away on the other side of
me; and as she reaches farther, and farther, she slips, cries--"Oh,
Paul!" and falls into the water.
The stream, they told us when we came, was over a man's head--it is
surely over little Isabel's. I fling down the rod, and thrusting one
hand into the roots that support the overhanging bank, I grasp at her
hat, as she comes up; but the ribbons give way, and I see the terribly
earnest look upon her face as she goes down again. Oh, my
mother--thought I--if you were only here!
But she rises again; this time, I thrust my hand into her dress, and
struggling hard, keep her at the top, until I can place my foot down
upon a projecting root; and so bracing myself, I drag her to the bank,
and having climbed up, take hold of her belt firmly with both hands, and
drag her out; and poor Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is lying upon
the grass.
I commence crying aloud. The workmen in the fields hear me, and come
down. One takes Isabel in his arms, and I follow on foot to our uncle's
home upon the hill.
--"Oh, my dear children!" says my mother; and she takes Isabel in her
arms; and presently with dry clothes, and blazing wood-fire, little
Bella smiles again. I am at my mother's knee.
"I told you so, Paul," says Isabel--"aunty, doesn't Paul love me?"
"I hope so, Bella," said my mother.
"I know so," said I; and kissed her cheek.
And how did I know it? The boy does not ask; the man does. Oh, the
freshness, the honesty, the vigor of a boy's heart! how the memory of it
refreshes like the first gush of spring, or the break of an April
shower!
But boyhood has its PRIDE, as well as its LOVES.
My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man; I fear him when he calls
me--"child;" I love him when he calls me--"Paul." He is almost always
busy with his books; and when I steal into the library door, as I
sometimes do, with a string of fish, or a heaping basket of nuts to show
to him--he looks for a moment curiously at them, sometimes takes them in
his fingers--gives them back to me, and turns over the leaves of his
book. You are afraid to ask him if you have not worked bravely; yet you
want to do so.
You sidle out softly, and go to your mother; she scarce looks at your
little stores; but she draws you to her with her arm, and prints a kiss
upon your forehead. Now your tongue is unloosed; that kiss and that
action have done it; you will tell what capital luck you have had; and
you hold up your tempting trophies; "are they not great, mother?" But
she is looking in your face, and not at your prize.
"Take them, mother," and you lay the basket upon her lap.
"Thank you, Paul, I do not wish them: but you must give some to Bella."
And away you go to find laughing, playful, cousin Isabel. And we sit
down together on the grass, and I pour out my stores between us. "You
shall take, Bella, what you wish in your apron, and then when study
hours are over, we will have such a time down by the big rock in the
meadow!"
"But I do not know if papa will let me," says Isabel.
"Bella," I say, "do you love your papa?"
"Yes," says Bella, "why not?"
"Because he is so cold; he does not kiss you, Bella, so often as my
mother does; and besides, when he forbids your going away, he does not
say, as mother does--my little girl will be tired, she had better not
go--but he says only--Isabel must not go. I wonder what makes him talk
so?"
"Why Paul, he is a man, and doesn't--at any rate, I love him, Paul.
Besides, my mother is sick, you know."
"But Isabel, my mother will be your mother, too. Come, Bella, we will go
ask her if we may go."
And there I am, the happiest of boys, pleading with the kindest of
mothers. And the young heart leans into that mother's heart--none of the
void now that will overtake it in the years that are to come. It is
joyous, full, and running over!
"You may go," she says, "if your uncle is willing."
"But mamma, I am afraid to ask him; I do not believe he loves me."
"Don't say so, Paul," and she draws you to her side; as if she would
supply by her own love the lacking love of a universe.
"Go, with your cousin Isabel, and ask him kindly; and if he says
no--make no reply."
And with courage, we go hand in hand, and steal in at the library door.
There he sits--I seem to see him now--in the old wainscoted room,
covered over with books and pictures; and he wears his heavy-rimmed
spectacles, and is poring over some big volume, full of hard words, that
are not in any spelling-book.
We step up softly; and Isabel lays her little hand upon his arm; and he
turns, and says--"Well, my little daughter?"