AT THE FARM.
When Tiny and Johnny had measles, as they had so many things, together,
one spring, they were both left rather weak and good-for-nothing, so Mr.
Leslie, after a good deal of hunting, found a farmhouse which seemed to
him about what he wanted, and took board there for the whole summer, and
the whole family. He meant to arrange his work so that he could often
take a two-or-three-days’ holiday, beside going home every evening, for
he was never so busy in the summer as he was in the winter, and he felt
the need of rest and change.
[Illustration]
It was a “really and truly farmhouse,” as Tiny said, standing back from
the road, at the end of a long green lane, shaded by tall, thick pine
trees. And, better still, the nearest railway station was five miles
away, and a large, old-fashioned stage, drawn by two tall, thin horses,
met the morning and evening trains.
[Illustration]
The farmhouse was long and low, with a gambrel roof and great dormer
windows, and what garrets that combination makes! It was whitewashed all
over the outside—and the inside, too, for that matter—and had faded green
shutters. There was a large porch at the front door, with benches at each
side, and a small one at the back door, and a wide hall ran straight
through the middle of the house, from one porch to the other.
[Illustration]
The farm was no make-believe affair of a few acres, with only two or
three horses and cows, and a flock of chickens. Orchards and grain
fields, meadows and “truck-patches,” stretched away on all sides, almost
as far as one could see. Twenty sleek cows came meekly every morning and
evening to be milked; six horses were to be watered three times a day;
at least a hundred solemn black chickens, with white topknots, scratched
about the great barn. Turkeys strutted, ducks and geese quacked, and
there was even a pair of proud peacocks. In short, Johnny informed Tiny,
before they had been there a day, that it was exactly the sort of farm he
meant to have when he was grown up; the only difference he should make
would be to have the slide down the side of the haymow a little higher,
and to turn half the farmhouse into a gymnasium.
[Illustration]
Mr. and Mrs. Allen, who owned this land of enchantment, and let people
live in it for six dollars a week, apiece, were kind, comfortable people,
who liked to see their boarders eat heartily, and drink plenty of milk.
[Illustration]
They had two tall sunburnt “boys,” who did most of the farm work, except
in the very busy season, when three or four “hired men” helped them. And
they had two daughters, one a fine, handsome girl, twenty years old, and
the other three or four years older, and with no beauty in her face but
that of a very sweet and pleasant expression. It was this one, whose name
was Ann, who showed the tired travellers to their rooms, on the evening
of their arrival, and waited on them while they ate their supper, and
brought a pitcher of fresh water and a lighted lamp, when she heard
Mrs. Leslie tell the children it was bedtime. She seemed surprised, they
thought, when Mrs. Leslie gently thanked her.
[Illustration]
They found, the next day, that the other daughter was named Julia, and
as time went on, and they saw more and more of the daily life on the
farm, they could not help noticing that, while Julia did her share of the
general work cheerfully and well, it was always Ann who seemed to think
of little uncalled-for kindnesses and helps, although she did this so
quietly and unobtrusively, that it was some time before they observed it.
[Illustration]
Her mother and sister were in the habit of asking her to “just” do this
or that, to run upstairs or “down-cellar” for something; her father and
the boys nearly always came to her for any chance bit of sewing they
wanted done, and even the great watch dog and the sober old yellow cat
seemed to take for granted that she should be the one to feed them. And
the children saw that to all these calls upon her time and attention she
responded not only willingly, but gladly.
Mrs. Allen, good-tempered as she usually was, was sometimes “tried,”
as she expressed it, when things “went contrary,” and Julia, although
generally in a good humor, and sometimes even frolicsome, was inclined
to be fretful if her wishes and plans were crossed; but the pleasant
serenity of Ann’s face was seldom ruffled, and before long the children
found themselves going to her for help and sympathy in their plans and
arrangements, just as her own family did.
“And I tell you, Tiny, she’s first rate!” said Johnny, warmly, one day,
when “Miss Ann” had left her sewing to help him find his knife, and
had found it, too. “Mrs. Allen’s very kind and nice, and Miss Julia’s
thundering—I mean very—pretty, but I do think Miss Ann has one of the
pleasantest faces I ever saw, and I’d be willing to lose my knife, and
have it stay lost, if I could find out how she manages always to know
just what everybody wants, and to do it as if it was what she wanted
herself. I’ve three quarters of a mind to ask her. Would you?”
“Why, yes, I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” said Tiny, after thinking a
minute; “only I would put in, to please not tell unless she really and
truly didn’t mind, for you know she might not like to tell, and yet not
like to say so. I’d make her promise that first, before you say what it
is.”
“I sometimes think you have more sense than I have, Tiny—about some
things, that is,” said Johnny, nodding his head approvingly. “I’ll fix
her that way; and if you see her off in the orchard, or anywhere where it
would be a good chance, I wish you’d tell me.”
To this Tiny agreed, and for several days she and Johnny kept watch over
their unconscious victim, hoping for a chance to see her alone, growing
quite impatient, at last, and declaring that they didn’t believe she ever
did sit down!
“Except to eat her breakfast and dinner and supper,” amended Johnny.
“And to put on and take off her shoes and stockings,” added Tiny; “though
you can do even that sort of hopping about on one foot, for I’ve tried
it.”
“Well, I should think she would be just about tired to death, every night
of her life,” said Johnny; “and yet she’s every bit as nice and pleasant
when she says good night, as she is when we go down to breakfast in the
morning. I tell you what it is, Tiny Leslie, I’m tired of waiting for her
just to happen to sit down where we can catch her. I mean to write her a
note, and ask her to meet us in the haymow, and fix her own time!”
“Why, yes,” said Tiny, joyfully; “that’s the very thing. Why didn’t we
think of it sooner, I wonder? Will you write it right away, Johnny, or
wait till after dinner?”
“Oh, right away,” said Johnny; “dinner won’t be ready for an hour and
more.”
So Johnny asked his mother for a sheet of paper and an envelope, and
wrote very carefully,—
“DEAR MISS ANN:—We want to speak to you about something, but
you don’t ever sit down, or at least we never see you. Can you
meet us in the haymow this afternoon, at four o’clock? If you
haven’t time, we will do something to help you, if you will let
us.
“Very respectfully yours,
“JOHN LESLIE.
“P. S. If you can come, please let us know at dinner time. Any
other time would do.
“J. L.”
The note was duly delivered across the ironing-board, and when they went
to dinner Miss Ann smiled, and nodded mysteriously at Johnny, to his
great delight, and whispered to him, as she handed him his plate,—
“I’ll be there, and you needn’t help me, dear; but I’m just as much
obliged to you as if you did.”
But when she said this, she did not know that a carriage-load of cousins
would arrive that afternoon at half past three, and respond to the very
first cordial request to “Take off your things, now do, and stay to tea?”
[Illustration]
So four o’clock found Miss Ann in the kitchen, not by any means eating
bread and honey, but mixing light biscuit for tea; and when Johnny and
Tiny, having waited impatiently in the haymow for fully five minutes,
went to hunt her up, they found her so engaged, and she said, pleasantly,—
“I hope it’ll keep till to-morrow, dear, for I shall be busy right on
from now till bedtime, I’m afraid. Cousin Samuel’s folks don’t come here
often, and mother’s set her heart on giving them a real good tea.”
“But where’s Miss Julia?” asked Johnny, without stopping to think that
he had no right to ask this question; for he was very much disappointed.
“Oh, she’d just dressed herself all clean for the afternoon,” said Miss
Ann, cheerfully; “so I told her to go along in and talk to ’em, while
mother fixed up. I’d rather cook than talk to a lot of folks, any day
in the year!” And she laughed so contentedly that Tiny and Johnny found
themselves laughing too.
Two or three more days passed, and still Miss Ann was hindered from
keeping her mysterious appointment, until Tiny and Johnny, growing
desperate, marched into the kitchen one afternoon, at four o’clock, and
appealed to Mrs. Allen, who was sitting in the old green rocking-chair,
knitting a stocking, while Miss Ann, her round face flushed with
heat, stood by the stove, waiting for her third and last kettleful of
blackberries to be ready to go into the jars.
“Mrs. Allen,” said Johnny, solemnly, “we’ve been trying for one week
to catch Miss Ann; we want her up in the haymow for something _very
particular_, and every day something happens, and we’ve never seen her
sit down once since we’ve been here, and you’re her mother, and we
thought perhaps you’d not mind telling her she must come!”
Mrs. Allen laughed heartily, but she did something better, too; she put
down her knitting, and, marching up to Miss Ann, took the spoon out of
her hand, saying with good-natured authority,—
“There! you go right along with the children, and don’t show your head
in this kitchen till tea’s ready! Because you’re a willing horse, is no
reason you should be drove to death, and I’m quite as able to finish up
these blackberries as you are!”
So, in spite of her laughing protests, the children dragged their victim
off in triumph, and never let go of her until they had throned her in
state upon a pile of hay.