I
_We carried down a little hair trunk_
[Illustration]
I was in the midst of the improvements mentioned when the family--that
is to say, Elizabeth and the girls--arrived on the scene. It was a fine
August day--the 21st, to be quite exact--and I borrowed a horse and
light wagon from Westbury and drove the three miles of brook and woods
and meadow to the station to meet them.
There was just one business house at the station--a general store--and I
suddenly found myself deeply interested, in things I had barely noticed
heretofore. Why, there was a broom! Sure enough, we would need a broom;
also, a rake--that was highly necessary; and a hatchet, and some nails,
and a shovel, and a water-pail, and a big galvanized tub, and--by the
time the train came it took careful arrangement to fit in the family and
the baggage among my purchases. The Pride had to sit on the water-pail,
the Joy, aged two, in the galvanized tub, while the Hope, who was seven,
sat on a trunk at the back, dangled her legs, waved her arms, and
whooped her delight as we joggled along, for the Hope was a care-free,
unrestrained soul, and the world to her just a perpetual song and dance.
[Illustration]
They were in a mood to take things as they found them; even the Pride,
who at twelve was critical, expressed herself as satisfied with the
house, and, with the Hope, presently made a dash for the attic, our
story of which had stirred them deeply. It was necessary to restrain
them somewhat. In the first place, our attic was not a possession to be
pawed over by careless and undiscerning childhood. Besides, it was hot
up there under the roof, and gray with the dust of years. It was a place
for a cool, rainy day and not for a mid-August afternoon.
We carried down a little hair trunk with brass nails in it, and under
the shade of one of the big maples the "tribe," as we sometimes call
them, spread out the treasures of some little old-fashioned girl who
long, long ago had put them away for the last time. There were doll
dresses, made of the quaint prints of another day, and their gay posy
patterns had remained fresh, though the thread of the long childish
stitches had grown yellow with the years. They had very full skirts, and
waists that opened in front, and there was an apron with a wonderful
bib, and a little split sun-bonnet, probably for every-day wear, also
another bonnet which must have been for occasions, for its material was
silk and it was one of those grand, flaring coal-scuttle affairs such as
fashionable dolls wore a very long time ago.
The doll was not there. Long since she had gone the way of all dolls;
but the Pride and the Hope decked their own dolls in the little old
wardrobe, and thought it all delightful and amusing, while we watched
them with long thoughts, trying to picture the little girl who had one
day put her treasures away to become a young lady, and in time a wife,
and a mother, and a grandmother, and was now resting on the sunny slope
where the road turns, beyond the hill. Later generations of little girls
appeared to have added nothing to the hair trunk. Doubtless they had
dolls, with dresses and styles of their own, and trunks of a newer
pattern, and had scorned these as being a little out of date. Even the
Pride and the Hope would not have permitted their dolls to appear in
those gowns in public, I think--at any rate, not in the best
society--though carefully preserving them with a view perhaps to
fancy-dress occasions.
The Joy was not deeply impressed with the hair trunk. Neither its art
nor its sentimental value appealed to her. She had passed something more
than two years in our society, and during most of this period had
imagined herself a horse. A fairly level green place, where she could
race up and down and whinny and snort and roll was about all she
demanded of life; though she had a doll--a sort of a horse's doll--which
at the end of a halter went bounding after her during long afternoons of
violence.
[Illustration]
For the Joy we brought down from the attic a little two-wheeled green
doll-buggy, with a phaeton top and a tongue, and this at once became her
chief treasure. She hitched herself to it, flung in her doll, and went
racing up and down, checked up or running free, until her round, fat
face seemed ready to burst, and it became necessary to explain to her
that she had arrived at wherever she was going and must stand hitched in
the shade till she cooled off. It was a drowsy occupation that summer
afternoon. She was presently sitting down--as much as a horse can sit
down--and just a little later was stretched among the long grass and
clover, forgetful of check-rein and hitching-post. Later, when the three
of them were awake at once, they possessed themselves of the big barn
and explored the stalls and tumbled about on the remnant of hay that
still remained in one of the mows. Then they discovered the brook, where
it flowed clear and cool among the willows at the foot of the door-yard.
It was not deep enough to be dangerous, and they were presently wading
and paddling to their hearts' content.
The brook, in fact, became one of their chief delights. It was never
very warm, but, tempered by August sun and shower, its shady, pleasant
waters were as balm to hot bare legs and burning feet. Flowers of many
kinds grew along its banks, while below the bridge where it crossed the
road there was always a school of minnows eager to be fed, and now and
then one saw something larger dart by--something dark, torpedo-shaped,
swift, touched with white along its propellers--a trout. There is no
end of entertainment in such things. Summer-time, the country, and
childhood--that is a happy combination, and a bit of running water adds
the perfect touch.