“Wee folk, old folk,
Chatting altogether.”
Aunt Emma and good Mrs. Brown sat in the cool cottage parlor talking,
when, suddenly, the door was thrown hurriedly open, and the two little
boys dashed in, whilst Roly-poly Rosy followed near.
The three flushed, young faces, with their coronet of hay straws,
looked as if they had something very startling to tell, but their poor
little breaths had to be recovered first. Then came--
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! Aunt Emma.”
“Mrs.--eh,--eh,--Brown--eh,--eh,--in a minute I’ll get my breath.”
[Illustration: Waiting for a Pinch of Salt. Page 149.]
“Miss, good Miss Brown, I--I--I mean Artie, Daisy and ----”
“Wait a moment, dearies,” interrupted the kind farmer’s wife, feeling
relieved from her fears that Artie had fallen into the duck-pond or
Daisy from the hay-mow, “you’ve run all the little breaths out of your
pipes. Just rest yourselves, and then tell your Auntie and me.”
“Can’t wait, Ma’am, we’re losing time,” said Charlie.
“Oh, good Mr. Brown’s wife, won’t you please to give me, I mean Artie
and my sister Daisy, a peck of salt?”
“No, Jack, ’tis a pinch of salt to put on the horse’s,--oh, dear! I
mean”--and Rosie stopped.
“She means Artie’s and Daisy’s birds’ tails they are catching; that is,
they are going to, when they get the salt.”
“Yes, yes, Pets, I understand,” and in less time than it takes me to
tell it, the children were off, with generous “pinches” of salt, on
the way to a large tree in the next meadow, where Artie and Daisy were
guarding a little song sparrow.
The pinches must have fallen a little short of the tail, or else the
wary song sparrow had another engagement, and couldn’t wait, for
when the breathless little messengers returned, they found the state
of things quite changed, for the sparrow on his airy perch, on a
neighboring tree-top, was pouring out a defiant little song, and the
elder brother and sister quite out of sight. The little Salt Hunters
agreed,--
“Best thing to do was just to pile up the pinches under this plantain
leaf, and maybe the birds’ tails will get in ’out their knowing it,
and they’ll be just catched same as Artie and Daisy would have done, if
they had did it.”
Daisy just now approaches, with an anxious face, and a sad tale she has
to tell,--
“Artie had come across a French boy, who could not speak any American
words but bad ones, whose father was dressed in dirty shirt-sleeves and
no stockings, hoeing corn, and the French boy had a long branch, and he
said he was going to de duck-pond for thrash it to scare de bull frogs.”
Artie had immediately seized the idea, and a long stick, too, and said
he would indeed go in for such a “jolly lark,” and when the little
Frenchman had explained that after the poor bull-frogs had been driven,
from very fright, out upon the duck-pond’s banks, they were to have
their “back legs” chopped off at the wood-pile to make a savory supper
for the young Frenchman and his “dirty shirt-sleeved” Father; then
Daisy hesitated no longer to warn Artie against such shameful, cruel
sport. Master Artie had naughtily retorted,--
“He should do as he liked, and not be tied to a girl’s
apron-string,”--which was insulting, indeed, as Daisy’s dress was made
with a Polonaise, and aprons, she had long laid aside. Now, Daisy was
hurrying on to Charlotte, and trying not to hear some odious words, the
soft breezes were wafting across that sweet meadow from a young rebel’s
mouth, words which sounded very much, I am sorry to say, like--
“Tell-tale, tell-tale; hurry home before your shoes wear out.”
The welcome sound of a loud bugle’s clear notes, which told of a
waiting supper, rescued Artie from the Tempter’s snare, saved the
duck-pond its “thrashing,” and the poor little bull-frogs their back
legs. The young rebel runs off his ill-humor, and overtaking his little
sister-monitor, links his arm in hers, and hurries with her to the old
farm-house porch. Clean towels and spring water brought to light a
group of merry young faces, around the table, spread under the old Elm,
whilst Papa, and the good Farmer and his Wife, look “happy as happy can
be.”
Bear says, “It is a funny dining-room, it is papered with blue, and got
a green carpet on, and live crickets to put our feet on.”
Then the wee folk clapped their hands loudly. Mrs. Brown looked
admiringly toward Aunt Emma, and Farmer Brown “thought he should have
died,” but did not, or he would have lost many a little joke from the
younger folk, and some so big from Papa, that even solemn Hugh was
obliged to lean against the tree to hold himself together, whilst the
tea-cups he carried on a waiter rattled out faint applause. There was
something besides joking to be done, for Celia had provided for country
appetites, and some Fairy’s wand had changed Mrs. Brown’s promised
“molasses cake and milk” into glass bowls of strawberries, with creamy
cottage cheese, and blocks of currant cake.
“A dainty feast enough, I ween,
To set before a King or Queen.”
Whereabouts those little folk stowed away “such a many” plates of cream
and berries, and yet found room for ham, biscuit, and cake, is beyond
my ken; nor do I know how long that feast would have continued, had
not a sudden explosion taken place, and one of Jack’s waist-buttons
flew over into Papa’s cup, which frightened Mr. Havens so much that
he sprang like a squirrel up into the tree above; and soon after down
upon the children, table, ground, Mrs. Brown’s cap, and Hugh’s shining
bald head, came a most startling shower of torpedoes. That was a signal
indeed, and away flew the screaming magpies across the meadow to take
another look at the sty where dwelt the pigs that gave the ham that
Farmer Brown might well be proud of.
Then they paid a visit to the old back shed, where from her high perch,
old Madam Poll Parrot eyed them carefully, first turning her head on
one side, and then on the other, and finally, startling them all by
saying,--
“Polly wants her supper. Had yours?”
Little Jack was so entirely surprised by the salutation, that he
demurely answered, “Yes, ma’am, thank you,” which threw the children
into fits of laughter. Madam Poll laughed too, and mortified poor Jack
by screaming long after he had got out of her sight:
“Ha! ha! ha! Silly boy! Ha! ha! ha!”
A stranger, on the road, was attracted by the group about Poll, and
calling them to him, said,
“I can tell you, children, of a more wonderful Parrot than that. A
Clergyman once went on board a ship which had just made the return
voyage from Cuba, to try to get a Parrot for his children.
“The Captain said he knew of one man in the forecastle, who had a
very unusually imitative bird, so the Clergyman went in search of
the sailor, and offered him quite a liberal price for his pet. To his
surprise the sailor replied:
“‘I want to sell her bad, but she won’t suit the like of you, sir.’
“‘Oh,’ said the other, ‘I am the best judge of that, and am ready to
take all risks.’
“‘But, indeed, your reverence, if you must have the truth out of me,
you know we sailors are apt, the more shame for us, to let slip bad
words often, and you see the bird has got into our ways.’
“‘That is indeed a sad thing,’ said the Clergyman, ‘but I will engage
soon to cure him of _that_ fault.’
“The bargain was concluded, and Poll soon found, instead of being
laughed at and admired when she said her bad words, she was instantly
plunged into a cold bath, from which she came out so uncomfortable
that she had to fly to the warm kitchen, and sit in the chimney-corner.
“One day a poor, shivering little chicken sought shelter in the kitchen
from a heavy shower. Poll was there, too, in disgrace, and, as she
caught sight of the dripping feathers, she said to her companion bird,
‘You say bad words, too?’
“Now, children, I have been told that this story is true; but, however
that may be, never utter a word you would shrink to hear this poor,
soulless creature repeat after you.”
The children thanked the traveller for his story, and ran off for
another chat with Poll.
Mr. Havens, in the meantime, has lighted his cigar, and is talking on
the porch steps with Farmer Brown, whose wife is showing Miss Emma her
poultry-yard and dairy, whilst Hugh, Nan, Charlotte, and Norah are
enjoying their meal under the tree.
Then the deepening twilight reminds Papa it is time for the homeward
flitting; the bugle sounds its loud notes, the horses, refreshed by
their country supper, come gayly prancing up to the cottage door;
kisses and kind words are exchanged,--neglected dollies, recovered from
their resting-place under the bushes, the “two nurses, two girls, three
dollies, and two boys,” are again packed in; the coachman’s whip makes
its airy circles, then a crack, and homeward hie the chattering party,
just as the silvery moon’s face, peeping from behind the piled-up
summer clouds, seemed to say to those fairy lanterns, the fire-flies
twinkle, “You may go now, there is no further occasion for you.”