“Them’s my sentiments exactly,” says Harry. “It’s been just so at our
house now for a week. Everything’s topsy-turvy, and you can’t find a
place to rest the sole of your foot. And cross? my! I thought Ann would
take my head off, this morning, when I tumbled against her mop-pail and
tipped it over.”
“Will you please give these to Mr. Walter?”
It is bashful little Bessie, on her way home from a ramble in the distant
wood, who whispers in Kate’s ear, as she offers a bunch of spring
beauties gathered there, and blossoms plucked from a wayside apple-tree.
Mr. Walter receives them with a smile of recognition, for who does not
love the odor of apple-blossoms?
The blushing Bessie is straightway reassured and gratified by the
following fable improvised for the occasion:
Once on a time, in early dawn of summer,
Among the trees the question chanced to rise—
“Which of us is the fairest, the most comely?”
A towering pine tree boasted in this wise:
“Behold me, all ye puny ones, behold me!
Look at my shoulders reaching to the sky!
Look at my tasseled mantle—green forever!
How can ye doubt or question?—here am I!”
A stately elm tree upward gazed a moment,
In acquiescence bent her regal head:
“Aye, thou art tall and gayly decked, my brother,
But I have more of symmetry,” she said.
A languid willow, musing, softly murmured:
“Yes, shapely is the elm, and tall the pine;
But see, oh, friends (she made a sweeping courtesy),
You must admit that gracefulness is mine.”
“Ah, well, that’s not the point,” replied a maple;
“’Tis not of grace we’re talking, not at all;
And as for form, why, I am well proportioned:
And as for height, why, one may be _too_ tall.”
“Hold!” cried a tulip tree; “am I not shapely?
And illy would the pine tree’s tassels green
Compare with these broad leaves, so smooth and shining,
Or with the bells of bloom that swing between!”
“Conceited fools!” a gnarly old oak grumbled;
“Bragging of your fine clothes and shape and length!
Bah, with your silly prate and idle prattle!
There is most beauty where there is most strength!”
At that a plain, ill-favored tree took courage,—
“And I, too—I am rugged! I am stout!”
The little saplings sidelong glanced and giggled,
The grown-up trees did toss their heads and shout;
And, one and all, they laughed and laughed together,
And, one and all, together did they say:
“Oh, listen! ugly scrub lays claim to beauty!
Who ever heard the like before to-day!”
But Mother Nature frowned at their derision,
Seeing the humble tree with grief downcast;
Her wand she lifted—lo! the slighted claimant
In comeliness all other trees surpassed!
A downy robe the knotted limbs enveloped,
In folds whose fragrance thrilled the wond’ring air—
A robe of pale, rose-tinted blossoms woven!
Amazed and breathless did the scoffers stare.
And, one and all, they turned from jest and laughter,
And, one and all, together whispered they:
“Behold, behold the garment of our brother!
Who ever saw the like before to-day!”
Since then, alway, in early dawn of summer,
Dame Nature lifts her wand the trees to shame
Who envy him that wears the apple blossoms
And wish they had not mocked his modest claim.
But listen—will you?—to this score of lads and lasses, Bessie’s
companions (freed from school, for it is Saturday), who, laden with wild
flowers and mosses and ferns, have meanwhile established themselves on
the steps, and are chattering like a flock of blackbirds:
“Oh, we’ve had lots of fun, and I’m awfully tired. Will you believe it? I
ran over a snake! Dear me, how scared I was!” (A girl, of course.)
“Sho! you needn’t have been afraid of such a harmless little snake as
that; I’d just as soon take it up in my hand as not!” (A boy, of course.)
“Why didn’t you, then? Ha, ha! I’d like to have seen you.”
“See, Marie, what a pretty toad-stool I found, all scarlet inside; and
Fred, he’s got a lot of snail-shells in his pocket.”
“If I’d only had a gun along I could have popped over two or three red
squirrels.”
“Oh—h—h! it would be cruel to kill the dear, sweet, cunning little
creatures.”
“Don’t be alarmed, puss; he couldn’t fire off a gun to save his life.”
“Oh, the quantities of Bobolinks we saw in the meadows! If you could only
have heard them sing—”
_Ting-a-ling,_
_Ting-a-ling, ling._
Everybody stares at the apparition. He has stolen a march upon them—that
little tawny Italian, down there in the street, gazing up at the merry
group, with a weary sort of smile, as his slender fingers toy with the
strings of his instrument, bringing forth many a plaintive air. Soon
the music ceases, and the tattered hat is passed around. But he may not
go yet; his audience is clamoring for a song. “An Italian song,” cries
Marie. And so, to the accompaniment of his guitar, he sings in his native
tongue a little ballad which runs something after this fashion:
Wandering, wandering all the world over,
Hither and thither, and to and fro,
Free as the wind—the rollicking rover,
Lightly humming and thrumming I go.
Free as the wind to linger and tarry,
Free as the wind to hasten afar,
All my wealth in my hands I carry—
Look, behold it—my gay guitar!
Gold and houses and lands encumber,
Never king, in his palace high,
Slumber’d as sweetly as I slumber,
Under the clear, unclouded sky.
Free as the wind, the rollicking rover,
Little of trouble or care I know,
Wandering, wandering all the world over,
Hither and thither, and to and fro.
And off he goes with his merry song, and his weary smile, and his pockets
jingling with pennies; and is succeeded by a fair-haired Norwegian, with
a basket on his head, crying, “Oranges, oranges!”
Harry rushes down, and buys him out of the stock in hand, and before any
one has time to protest, begins to treat the assembled company. So it was
for this feast that the round, golden fruit has been, all these months,
basking and ripening and gathering fragrance and sweetness from the rays
that gladden a land of perpetual summer.
“What’s this—a picnic?” asks a gentleman in uniform, who has come to
call upon the Lieutenant. The youngsters follow with their eyes the blue
coat and bright buttons disappearing through the open doorway, then they
slowly disperse; and Ponto, the great shaggy Newfoundlander, is left
alone, dozing upon the mat. And the wee, gray sparrow returns with a wisp
of horse-hair, and commences to build her nest.