"There are a few red specks on it--very small ones," I said.
"Good eyes," he said approvingly. "That's what's the matter, my lad.
You've seen the greatest enemy we have under glass. Those red specks,
so small that you can hardly see them, cover the lower parts of the
leaves with tiny cobwebs and choke the growth while they suck all the
goodness out, and make the yellow specks on the top by sucking all the
sap from the leaves."
"What, those tiny specks!"
"Yes, those little specks would spoil all our melon plants if we did not
destroy them--melons, cucumbers, vines, peaches, and nectarines--
anything almost under glass. But there's your gun and ammunition; load
up and shoot 'em. Never give them any rest."
I looked at him wonderingly, for he was pointing at a syringe standing
in a pail of soapy-looking water.
"Yes," he continued, "that's right--kill 'em when you can. If you leave
them, and greenfly, and those sort of things, alone till to-morrow, by
that time they're turned into great-grandfathers, and have got such a
family of little ones about 'em that your leaves are ten times worse."
"But what are those red specks?" I said.
"Red spider, boy. Now I'll show you. This is my plan to keep my plants
healthy: have a bucket of soap and water in every house, and a syringe
in it. Then you take it up as soon as you see the mischief and kill it
at once. It's all handy for you, same as it is to have a bit of matting
hanging up on a nail, ready to tie up the stem that wants it. Somebody
said, Grant, `A stitch in time saves nine,' it ought to have been, `A
washed leaf keeps off grief.' See here."
He took the syringe, filled it, and sent a fine shower beneath the
leaves of the melons, where they were trained over a trellis, thoroughly
washing them all over.
"Now you try," he said, and taking off my jacket I syringed away
vigorously, while with matting and knife he tied in some loose strands
and cut off others, so as to leave the vines neat.
"That'll do for the present," he said; "but mind this, Grant, if ever
you see an enemy, shoot him while he's a single man if you can. Wait
till to-morrow, you'll have to shoot all his relations too."
He led the way out of the pit, and round by the grounds, where different
men were at work mowing and sweeping, the short cut grass smelling
delicious in the morning air. He spoke to first one and then another in
a short business-like way, and then went on with me to one of the great
conservatories up by the house.
"I might put you to that sort of work, Grant," he said, giving his head
a backward jerk; "but that wants no brains. Work under glass does. You
want to work with your hands and your head. Now we'll have a tidy up in
here. Sir Francis likes plenty of bright flowers."
I should have liked to stop looking about as soon as we were in the
large glass building, which was one mass of bloom; but following Mr
Solomon's example I was soon busily snipping off dead flowers and
leaves, so as to make the various plants tidy; and I was extremely busy
in one corner over this when I suddenly found that Mr Solomon was
watching me, and that a big bell was ringing somewhere.
"That's right," he said, nodding his head in a satisfied way. "That's
what I want. You don't know much yet, but you will. If I was to set
one of those men to do that he'd have knocked off half the buds, and--
what have you been doing there?"
"I tied up those two flower-stems," I said. "Wasn't it right, sir?"
"Right and wrong, my lad," he said, whipping out his knife and cutting
them free. "Look here."
He took a piece of wet matting--a mere strip--and tied them up again,
with his big fingers moving so quickly and cleverly that I wondered.
"There, that's the way. Looks the same as you did it, eh?"
"Yes," I said, smiling.
"No, it isn't. You tied yours in front of the stem, with an ugly knot
to rub and fret it, and make a sore place when the windows were open.
I've put a neat band round mine, and the knot rests on the stick."
"Oh, I see!" I cried.
"Yes, Grant, there's a right way and a wrong way, and somehow the
natural way is generally the wrong. Never saw one tried, but I believe
if you took a savage black and told him to get up on a horse, he would
go on the wrong side, put his left foot in the stirrup, and throw his
right leg over, and come down sitting with his face to the tail.
Breakfast."
"What! so soon?" I said.
"Soon! Why, it's past eight."
I was astounded, the time had gone so quickly; and soon after I was
saying "good morning" to Mrs Solomon, and partaking of the plain meal.
"Well?" said Mrs Solomon in her cold impassive way.
Mr Solomon was so busy with a piece of cold bacon and some bread that
he did not look up, and Mrs Solomon waited patiently till he raised his
head and gave her a nod.
"I am glad," she said, giving a sigh as if she were relieved; and then
she turned to me and looked quite pleasantly at me, and taking my cup,
refilled it with coffee, and actually smiled.
"Notice the missus?" said Mr Solomon, as, after a glance at his big
silver watch, he had suddenly said "Harpusate," and led the way to the
vineries.
"Notice Mrs Brownsmith?" I said.
"Yes; see anything about her?"
"I thought she looked better this morning than she did last night. Was
she ill?"
"Yes," he said shortly. "Get them steps."
I fetched _them_ steps, and thought that a gardener might just as well
be grammatical.
He opened them out, and opening his knife, cut a few strands of matting
ready, stuck them under one of his braces, after taking off his coat,
and then climbed up to the top to tie in a long green cane of the
grape-vine.
"Hold the steps steady," he said; and then with his head in amongst the
leaves he went on talking.
"Bit queer in the head," he said slowly, and with his face averted.
"Shied at you."
I stared. His wife was not a horse, and I thought they were the only
things that shied; but I found I was wrong, for Mr Solomon went on:
"I did, too. Ezra said a lot about you. Fine young shoot this, ain't
it?"
I said it was, for it was about ten feet long and as thick as my finger,
and it seemed wonderful that it should have grown like that in a few
months; but all the time my cheeks were tingling as I wondered what Old
Brownsmith had said about me.
"Sounded all right, but it's risky to take a boy into your house when
you are comfortable without, you see."
I felt ashamed and hurt that I should have been talked of so, and
remained silent.
"The missus said you might be dirty and awkward in the house. This cane
will be loaded next year if we get it well ripened this year, Grant.
That's why I'm tying it in here close to the glass, where it'll get
plenty of sun and air."
"What! will that bear grapes next year, sir?" I said, for I felt
obliged to say something.
"Yes; and when the leaves are off you shall cut this one right out down
at the bottom yonder."
He tapped a beautiful branch or cane from the main stem, which was
bearing about a dozen fine bunches of grapes, and it seemed a pity; but
of course he knew best, and he began cutting and snapping out shoots and
big leaves between the new green cane and the glass.
"She was afraid you'd be a nuisance to me, and said you'd be playing
with tops, and throwing stones, and breaking the glass. I told her that
Brother Ezra wouldn't send me such a boy as that; but she only shook her
head. `I know what boys are,' she said. `Look at her ladyship's two.'
But I said that you wouldn't be like them, and you won't, will you?"
I laughed, for it seemed such a comical idea for me to be behaving as
Mrs Solomon had supposed.
"What are you laughing at?" he said, looking down at me.
"I was thinking about what Mrs Brownsmith said," I replied.
"Oh yes! To be sure," he continued. "You'll like her. She's a very
nice woman. A very good woman. I've known her thirty years."
"Have you had any children, sir?" I said.
"No," he replied, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye; "and yet I've
always been looking after nurseries--all my life."
In about an hour he finished his morning work in the vinery, and I went
out with him in the garden, where he left me to tidy up a great bed of
geraniums with a basket and a pair of scissors.
"I've got to see to the men now," he said. "By-and-by we'll go and have
a turn at the cucumbers."
The bed I was employed upon was right away from the house in a sort of
nook where the lawn ran up amongst some great Portugal laurels. It was
a mass of green and scarlet, surrounded by shortly cropped grass, and I
was very busy in the hot sunshine, enjoying my task, and now and then
watching the thrushes that kept hopping out on to the lawn and then back
under the shelter of the evergreens, when I suddenly saw a shadow, and,
turning sharply, found that my friend of the peach-house had come softly
up over the grass with another lad very much like him, but a little
taller, and probably a couple of years older.
"Hullo, pauper!" said the first.
I felt my cheeks tingle, and my tongue wanted to say something very
sharp, but I kept my teeth closed for a moment and then said:
"Good morning, sir!"
He took no notice of this, but turned to his brother and whispered
something, when they both laughed together; and as I bent down over my
work I felt as if I must have looked very much like one of the scarlet
geraniums whose dead blossom stems I was taking out.
Of course, a boy with a well-balanced brain and plenty of sound, honest,
English stuff in him ought to be able to treat with contempt the jeering
and laughter of those who are teasing him; but somehow I'm afraid that
there are very few boys who can bear being laughed at with equanimity.
I know, to be frank, I could not, for as those two lads stared at me and
then looked at each other and whispered, and then laughed heartily--
well, no; not heartily, but in a forced way, I felt my face burn and my
fingers tingle. My mouth seemed to get a little dry, too, and the
thought came upon me in the midst of my sensations that I wanted to get
up and fight.
The circumstances were rather exceptional, for I was suffering from two
sore places. One started from my shoulder and went down my back, where
there must have been the mark of the cane; the other was a mental sore,
caused by the word _pauper_, which seemed to rankle and sting more than
the cut from the cane.
Of course I ought to have treated it as beneath my notice, but whoever
reads this will have found out before now that I was very far from
perfect; and as those two lads evidently saw my annoyance, and went on
trying to increase it, I bent over my work in a vicious way, and kept on
taking out the dead leaves and stems as if they were some of the enemies
Mr Solomon had been talking about in the pits.
All at once, as I was bending down, I heard Courtenay, the elder boy,
say:
"What did he say--back to school and be flogged?"
"Yes," said Philip aloud; "but he didn't know. They only flog workhouse
boys and paupers."
"I say, though," said Courtenay, "who is that chap grubbing out the
slugs and snails?"
My back was turned, and I went on with my work. "What! that chap I
spoke to?" said Philip; "why, I told you. He's a pauper."
"Is he?"
"Yes, and Browny fetched him from the workhouse. Brought him home in
the cart. He's going to be a caterpillar crusher."
I felt as if I should have liked to be a boy crusher, and have run at
him with my fists clenched, and drubbed him till he roared for mercy,
but I did not stir.
"Then what's he doing here?" said Courtenay in a sour, morose tone of
voice. "He ought to be among the cabbages, and not here."
This was as if they were talking to themselves, but meant for me to
hear.
"Old Browny was afraid to put him there for fear he'd begin wolfing
them. I caught him as soon as he came. He got loose, and I found him
in the peach-house eating the peaches, but I dropped on to him with the
cane and made the beggar howl."
"Old Browny ought to look after him," said Courtenay.
"Don't I tell you he ran away. I expect Browny will have to put a
dog-collar and chain on him, and drive a stake down in the
kitchen-garden to keep him from eating the cabbages when he's
caterpillaring. These workhouse boys are such hungry beggars."
"Put a muzzle on him like they do on a ferret," said Courtenay; and then
they laughed together.
"Hasn't he got a rum phiz?" said Philip, who, I soon found, was the
quicker with his tongue.
"Yes; don't talk so loud: he'll hear you. Just like a monkey," said
Courtenay; and they laughed again.
"I say, is he going to stop?" said Courtenay.
"I suppose so. They want a boy to scrape the shovels and light the
fires, and go up the hothouse chimneys to clear out the soot. He's just
the sort for that."
"He'll have to polish Old Browny's boots, too."
"Yes; and wash Mother Browny's stockings. I say, Court, don't he look a
hungry one?"
"Regular wolf," said Courtenay; and there was another laugh.
"I say," said Courtenay, "I don't believe he's a workhouse."
"He is, I tell you; Browny went and bought him yesterday. They sell 'em
cheap. You can have as many as you like almost for nothing. They're
glad to get rid of 'em."
"I wonder what they'd say to poor old Shock!" I thought to myself.
"I'm glad he isn't here."
"I don't care," said Courtenay; "I think he's a London street boy. He
looks like it from the cut of his jib."
I paid not the slightest heed, but my heart beat fast and I could feel
the perspiration standing all over my face.
"I don't care; he's a pauper. I wonder what Old Browny will feed him
on."
"Skilly," said Courtenay; and the boys laughed again. All at once I
felt a push with a foot, and if I had not suddenly stiffened my arms I
should have gone down and broken some of the geraniums, but they
escaped, and I leaped to my feet and faced them angrily.
"Here, what's your name?" said Courtenay haughtily.