THE CIRCULAR CITY.
Mr. Leslie made a discovery.
He had remarked, early in the spring, that when he was really rich, when
he had five or six millions of dollars, he was going to build a city in
the form of a very large circle, only two streets deep, and inside of
this circle was to be an immense farm.
“I shall begin,” he said, “by finding and buying a ready-made farm, for
the farmhouse and barns and orchard and garden must all be old. I shall
put all this in perfect order, without making it look new. Then I shall
build twenty-five Swiss cottages, each with three rooms and a great deal
of veranda. I shall buy twenty-five excellent tents, and hide them about
in the orchard and shrubberies, and I shall invite my friends, fifty
families at a time, to come and stay a month with me on my farm; and if
my friends should all be used up before the summer is over, I will ask
some of them to nominate some of their friends. And in the meantime,” he
added, dropping his millionaire tone of voice suddenly, “if we can find
the farm and the farmhouse, we will make a beginning by going there for
the summer, and planning the rest out.”
The others laughed at this dreadful coming down, but after that it became
a favorite amusement to make additions to the “circular city,” and I
could not begin to tell you all the plans which were made for the comfort
and happiness and goodness of the “circular citizens,” as one thought of
one thing, and one of another. And the best of this popular “pretend”
was, that it set everybody thinking, and it was surprising to find how
many of the plans for the dream-city might, in much smaller ways, of
course, be carried out without waiting for all the rest.
[Illustration]
For instance, when Tiny said that all the little girls should have dolls,
her mother reminded her that she knew how to make very nicely those rag
dolls which one makes by rolling up white muslin—a thick roll for the
body, and a thin one for the arms; coarse thread sewed round where the
neck ought to be, the top of the head “gathered” and covered with a
little cap, eyes and nose and mouth inked, or worked in colored thread,
upon the face, and the fact that the infant has only one leg concealed by
a nice long petticoat and frock.
Mrs. Leslie promised to supply as many “rags” as Tiny would use, in the
making and dressing of these dolls, and it became the little girl’s
delight to carry one of them in her pocket, when she was going for a
walk, and to give it to the poorest, most unhappy-looking child she could
find. There are very few small girls who do not love to mother dolls, and
Tiny’s heart would feel warm all day, remembering the joyful change in
some little pinched face, and the astonished,—
“For me? For my own to keep?”
And when Johnny said that all the sick people should have flowers every
day, his mother reminded him that the “can’t-get-aways” were glad even
of such common things as daisies and buttercups and clover blossoms. And
after that he took many a long walk to the fields outside the town, where
these could be found.
They had all hoped to go back to Mr. Allen’s for the summer, but when
Mrs. Leslie wrote to ask Mrs. Allen if they could be received, Mrs. Allen
replied, that since Ann had married and left them, half the house seemed
gone, and she really didn’t think she could take any boarders this summer.
[Illustration]
“Perhaps you did not hear that Ann was married,” she wrote; “but I miss
her so, all the time, that I feel as if everybody must know it. She’s
married a widower with two little children,—a nice, quiet, pleasant sort
of a man,—but we all told Ann she only took him because she fell in love
with the children! And she does seem as happy as a queen, and, for that
matter, so does he; but it provokes me to think how little we set by her,
considering what she was worth, till after we’d lost her.”
It was a week or two after this letter was received, that Mr. Leslie made
his discovery. He found the farmhouse, the “very identical” farmhouse,
for which he was longing, and he found it when he was not looking for it,
as he was riding a horse which a friend had lent him.
The gate of the long lane which led up to the house was only half a mile
from the railway station, and only eight miles from the town where the
Leslies lived, and two dear old Quaker people, who “liked children,”
lived there all alone, save for their few servants.
“No, they had never taken boarders,” Friend Mercy said, “and she was
afraid the children—her married boys and girls—might not quite like it.”
But Mr. Leslie, at her hospitable invitation, dismounted, and tied his
horse and sat down on the “settee,” under the lilac bushes, and drank
buttermilk and ate gingerbread, and I am afraid he talked a good deal,
and the result of it all was, that, just as he was going away, Friend
Mercy said,—
“Well, thee bring thy wife and little ones to-morrow afternoon, Friend
Leslie, and have a sociable cup of tea with us. I will talk with Isaac in
the meantime, and with thy wife when she comes, and—we’ll see.”
Mr. Leslie had no desire to break his children’s hearts, so, although it
was hard work not to, he did not tell them all that Friend Mercy and he
had said to each other, for fear she should not “see her way clear” to
take them; so he only told of his pleasant call, and of this magnificent
invitation to a real country tea, in the “inner circle”; and they were so
nearly wild over that, that it was a very good thing he stopped there!
Friend Mercy had suggested the four o’clock train, which would give the
children time for “a good run” before the six o’clock tea. So, while Tiny
and Johnny played in the hay, and sailed boats on the brook, the older
people talked; and the result was, that the Leslies were to be permitted
to come and board in the “inner circle,” until the end of September.
[Illustration]
A little talk which Friend Mercy had with her husband that evening, after
the guests were gone, and when he said he was “afraid it wouldn’t work,”
will explain this.
[Illustration]
“Thee sees, Isaac,” she said, “those two dear little things have played
here half the afternoon, and there was no quarrelling, or tale-bearing,
or cruelty. They did not stone the chickens and geese, nor tease Bowser
and the cat; and when I asked John to drive the cows to the spring—which,
I will confess, I did with a purpose—he used neither stick nor stone. I
would not have any children brought here who would teach bad tricks to
Joseph’s and Hannah’s children, for the world; but with these I think we
should be quite safe. Did thee notice how they put down the kittens, and
came at once, when their father called them to go to the train? When they
obey so implicitly such parents as these seem to be, there is nothing to
fear.”
[Illustration]
“Thee has had thy own way too long for me to begin to cross thee now, I’m
afraid, mother,” said Friend Gray, with an indulgent smile. “So, if thy
heart is really set upon it, let them come! The trouble of it will fall
chiefly on thee, I fear.”
It did not seem to fall very heavily. The one strong, willing
maid-of-all-work declared she could “do for a dozen like them.”
Mrs. Leslie and Tiny made the three extra beds, and dusted the rooms
every morning; and both Tiny and Johnny found various delightful ways of
helping “Aunt Mercy and Uncle Isaac,” as the dear old host and hostess
were called by everybody, before a week was out.
The days went by on swift, sunny wings, and everybody was growing
agreeably fat and brown. But, when they stopped to think of it, there was
a shadow over the children’s joy.
They were in the “inner circle”—even the five or six millions, they
thought, could do no more for them; but, oh, the hundreds and hundreds
who were hopelessly outside!
It was not very long, you may be sure, before Aunt Mercy heard all about
the “circular city”; and although at first she treated the whole matter
as a joke, she soon caught herself making valuable suggestions. And then,
when Tiny and Johnny began to lament to her about all the “outsiders,”
she began to think in good earnest, and the day before the next market
day she spoke, and this is what she said,—
[Illustration]
“Father is going to take some chickens to town, to-morrow, and there
will be a good deal of spare room in the wagon. That’s half. He passes
right by the house where a good city missionary lives. That’s the other
half. And the whole is, that if two little people I know would pick
up all those early apples that the wind blew down last night, in the
orchard, and make some nice big bunches of daisies and clover, with a
sweet-william or a marigold in the middle of each, father would leave
them at Mr. Thorpe’s door, to be given round to the poor people.”
Tiny and Johnny went nearly as wild over this announcement as they had
gone over the news that they were to spend the summer in the inner
circle—and then they went to work. By great good fortune, two of the
grand-children came that very day, and asked nothing better than to
help; and when, the next morning, at the appointed hour, which was five
o’clock, these four conspirators brought out their treasures, there was
a barrel of apples, and another barrel of bouquets.
[Illustration]
Uncle Isaac laughed, and said he had no idea what a “fix” he was getting
himself into, when he let Mercy make that speech, but he took the fruit
and flowers, all the same. And after that, it was really surprising to
see the number of things which, it was found, “might as well go to those
poor little ones as to the pigs.”
Wild raspberries, dewberries, blackberries, whortleberries, were all to
be had for the picking; Johnny was told that it was only fair for him to
keep one egg out of every dozen for which he had hunted, and these eggs,
which he at first refused to take, and afterward, when he found that Aunt
Mercy was “tried” about it, accepted, were very carefully packed, and
plainly labelled, “For the sickest children.” Then a very brilliant idea
occurred to Tiny.
[Illustration]
“Do the pigs have to eat all that bonny-clabber, Aunt Mercy?” she asked,
one morning, as David, the “hired man,” picked up two buckets full of the
nice white curds, and started for the pig-pen.
“Why no, deary,” Aunt Mercy replied, “I was saying to father, only
yesterday, that I was afraid we were over-feeding them, but we don’t know
what else to do with it. Had thee thought of anything, dear?”
[Illustration]
“If you _really_ don’t need it,” said Tiny, hesitating a little, “I’ve
watched thee make cottage cheese till I’m sure I could do it; and I
wouldn’t be in the way—I’d be ever so careful, and clear up everything
when I was done. And I thought dear little round white cheeses, tied up
in clean cloths, would be such lovely things to send! Don’t thee think
so, Aunt Mercy?”
Tiny was trying very hard to learn the “plain language”; she thought it
was so pretty.
“Yes, indeed!” said Aunt Mercy, “and of course thee shall! That’s one of
the best things thee’s thought of, dear. Father shall buy us plenty of
that thin cotton cloth I use for my cheese and butter rags, the very next
time he goes to town, and thee shall have all the spare clabber, after
this.”
“But you must let Johnny and me pay for the cotton cloth, Aunt Mercy,”
said Tiny, earnestly. “We’ve been saving up for the next thing we could
think of, and we’ve forty-five cents.”
Aunt Mercy had her mouth open to say “No indeed!” but she shut it
suddenly, and when it opened again, the words which came out were,—
“Very well, deary.”
So Johnny cut squares of cheese cloth, which was three cents a yard at
the wholesale place where Uncle Isaac bought it, and Tiny scalded and
squeezed and molded the white curd into delightful little round cheeses,
and then Johnny tied them up in the cloths.
“And the cloths will be beautiful for dumplings, afterward!” said Tiny.
“Yes, if they can get the dumplings, poor things!” answered Johnny,
soberly.
“There’s a way to make a crust, if the poor souls only knew it,” said
Aunt Mercy, “that’s real wholesome and good for _boiled_ crust and very
cheap. It’s just to scald the flour till it’s soft enough to roll out,
and put in a little salt. And another way, that’s most as cheap, and
better, is to work flour into hot mashed potatoes, till it makes a crust
that will roll out.”
The next time there was a barrel of “windfall” apples to go, Tiny and
Johnny came to Aunt Mercy, each with a sheet of foolscap paper and a
sharp lead pencil, and Tiny said, “Aunt Mercy, will thee please tell us,
quite slowly, those two cheap ways to make apple-dumpling crust?”
So Aunt Mercy gave out the recipes as if they were a school dictation,
and each of her scholars made twelve copies. It took a long time, and was
a tiresome piece of work, but it was a fine thing when it was done!
The twenty-four copies were put in a large yellow envelope, addressed
to “Mr. Thorpe,” and Johnny added a note, in the best hand he had left,
after all that writing,—
“DEAR MR. THORPE,—Will you please put one of these recipe
papers with each batch of apples you give away? They are all
right.
“Very respectfully,
“T. & J.”
This was the beginning of a most interesting correspondence. When Uncle
Isaac came home the next evening, he brought an envelope addressed to “T.
and J.,” and inside was a card, with “John Thorpe” on one side of it, and
on the other, in a clear, firm hand,—
“God bless you both, my dear T. and J. You will never know how many sad
lives you have gladdened, this summer. Is there any moss in your land
of plenty? Have any of your wild-flowers roots? And may I not know your
names?”
Now this was, as Tiny said, “Too beautiful for anything!” especially as
the early apples and all the berries were about gone, and the children
were beginning to wonder what they could find to send next.