A WAGON RIDE.
The next day, after Royal had finished his own studies, he wanted Lucy
to come and learn arithmetic. But Lucy did not like to come. She wanted
to play just then, and, besides, although she did not recall to mind,
very distinctly, the manner in which Royal had attempted to teach her
the evening before, yet the occurrence left an unpleasant impression
upon her mind, and she was not disposed to put herself under his
instructions again.
“But, then,” said Royal, “you can’t have a paint-box.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I don’t care much.”
After a little pause, while Royal was thinking what other inducement he
could offer, he said,--
“Well, Lucy, if you will study a lesson in arithmetic, I will give you
a good ride.”
He meant that he would give her a ride in a little wagon, which was
bought for Lucy when she was too young to walk, and which had been
kept with so much care that it was still a very good wagon. Royal used
sometimes to draw Lucy in this wagon, and she liked to ride in it very
much.
“Well,” said Lucy, “how far will you give me a ride?”
“O, I will give you a good long ride,” said Royal. “I will draw you
away over to Rollo’s.”
Lucy’s cousin Rollo, who was at this time a very small boy, lived at
not a great distance, and Royal and Lucy sometimes went over to play
with him. So they made the agreement, that Royal was to draw Lucy over
to Rollo’s and Lucy was to learn a lesson in arithmetic. But then there
immediately arose a difficulty in determining which should take place
first, the ride or the lesson: Royal wanted to have the lesson then,
and the ride some other time; but Lucy wanted to make sure of the ride,
and so postpone the lesson.
“Why, the rule is, Lucy,” said Royal, “always to pay when the work is
done. I’ll pay you for the lesson when you have studied it.”
“No,” said Lucy, “the ride is the work. I’ll pay you for the ride when
I have had it.”
Royal thought that the lesson ought to be considered the work, and the
ride the pay; but he couldn’t think of any good reason to offer for
this opinion, and he therefore, after some hesitation, came to Lucy’s
terms. They brought out Lucy’s wagon, and, after obtaining permission
of their mother, he helped Lucy into it, and then, he acting the part
of horse, and Lucy that of driver, they went over to their cousin
Rollo’s.
They went into a yard where there was a gravel walk, which led them
around behind the house. Here they found Rollo sitting upon a bench
near the door, trying to read in a picture-book. He had not learned
to read much yet. The door was open, and there were a couple of bars
across the door-way, pretty low down; and behind them was a little
child, not old enough to walk, who was kept from falling out into the
yard by the bars. This was Rollo’s little brother Nathan.
By the time that Royal had arrived at Rollo’s house, he had become
quite interested in drawing Lucy in the wagon, and had forgotten his
desire to teach her a lesson in arithmetic. So he said,--
“Lucy, if Rollo will go with us, I’ll draw you farther. Come, Rollo,”
said he, “come and play travel with us. I’ll pull, and you push behind.”
“No,” said Rollo, “I can’t go; I must stay and take care of Nathan.”
Royal and Lucy looked at Nathan. He was standing behind his bars,
striking the upper one with a stick, evidently pleased with the
rattling, but paying no attention to the discussion which was going on
among the other children.
“Let Nathan go with us,” said Royal.
“No,” said Rollo, shaking his head; “I don’t think my mother will let
him.”
“Yes she will,” said Royal; “Lucy will get out, and let him get into
the wagon, and then you and Lucy shall be the horses, and I will be the
driver.”
Rollo still thought that his mother would not be willing to let Nathan
go. However, he said that he would go and ask her.
Rollo’s mother came out, and said,--
“Well, Royal, I hardly know what to say to your plan. Do you think you
can take good care of Nathan?”
“O yes, aunt,” said Royal; “we will be very careful indeed.”
After some hesitation, Nathan’s mother consented to let them go. She
said that she should put Nathan under Royal’s special charge. So she
put a sort of a cloak upon his shoulders, and a cap upon his head, and
put him into the wagon. Lucy and Rollo then took hold of the tongue
of the wagon, to draw, while Royal pushed behind; and so they sallied
forth from the yard, Rollo’s mother standing at the door, to watch them
as they went along. Just as they passed around the corner of the house,
she gave them her last charges; which were to keep in the smooth road,
and to be very careful about turning.
The children, promising to obey these instructions, passed on around
the corner, and turned into the road.
They went on for some distance, without any difficulty or trouble. At
last, they came to a place where a road branched off from the main
road, and led into the woods. They turned into this road, for Royal
said that it led to a place where they could get some flowers. Both
Rollo and Lucy said they should like this very much, for they wanted to
have some flowers. Rollo said that he was going to study botany; his
mother was going to teach him.
“I wish I could study botany,” said Lucy; “I should like botany a great
deal better than arithmetic.”
“Well,” said Royal, “I can teach you.”
“O Royal,” said Lucy, “you don’t know how to study botany.”
“Yes, I do,” said Royal. “The first thing is to study the leaves; you
must gather all the different kinds of leaves you can find, and press
them in a book.”
“What good does that do?” said Lucy.
“O, then you know how many different shapes of leaves there are,” he
replied.
Rollo had put his picture-book into the wagon, just before they had
set out from the house, thinking that perhaps they might stop at some
place, where he would want to look at it. So he asked Royal if his
picture-book would do to put the leaves into, and Royal said it would
do very well. And they all determined that, after they had gone a
little farther, they would stop and get some leaves by the side of the
road.
They were now in a sort of by-road, leading through the woods; but
presently they came to a kind of cart path, which turned out to one
side, and seemed to lead to places still more solitary than where they
were. Royal wanted to turn off into this cart path.
“It will be a beautiful place to study botany, in there,” said he.
“No,” said Rollo, “we must not go in there; for mother said that we
must keep in smooth roads.”
“Well,” replied Royal, “that is a smooth road. It is just as smooth as
this.”
Royal and Lucy looked in. The road was indeed smooth, but then it was
narrow, and Rollo did not know into what difficulties it might lead
them. He was quite reluctant to go in. But Royal assured him that there
was no danger; and he said, also, that, if they should find any rough
places after they had got in some way, they could easily turn around
and come out.
So Rollo consented, and they turned off into the cart path.
After they had gone in for some distance, Royal said that they had got
to a good place to collect leaves. So Lucy and Rollo put the tongue of
the wagon down in the road, and went to the banks on each side, and
began to gather the leaves from the various wild plants which were
growing there. These leaves were of all shapes: some were long and
pointed, others oval, others nearly round; some were shaped like a
heart, some notched along the edges like a saw, and one which Royal got
down from an oak-tree, Lucy said, wasn’t shaped like any thing at all.
While they were collecting these leaves, Lucy suddenly called out to
Rollo, who was upon the side of the road with her,--
“O Rollo, Rollo, come here! here is a little squirrel! come and see
him.”--
“Where? where?” said Rollo, running towards the place; “let me see; let
me see.”
Royal, hearing this call, immediately dropped a large collection of
leaves and flowers, which he had gathered, and ran across the road.
When he first got sight of the squirrel, he was standing upon his hind
legs on the end of a half-decayed log, holding a nut between his fore
paws, which he nibbled a little from time to time, keeping, however, a
sharp lookout upon the children all the while.
“I’ll catch him in my cap,” said he.
In the mean time, little Nathan, who had been left in his wagon in the
path-way, and who was yet too young to appreciate the pleasure and
the utility of making botanical collections, began to make a sort of
murmuring sound, which indicated restlessness and discontent.
“Yes, Nathan,” said Rollo, calling out to him, “we’ll come in a minute.”
Royal crept up softly towards the squirrel, with his cap in the
air, ready to make him prisoner. Rollo and Lucy looked on with
great interest, while Nathan, who had not yet learned to place much
confidence in promises, seemed still more uneasy. The squirrel stuffed
the remains of his nut into his cheek, leaped off the log, and ran
along upon the ground.
“You go and take care of Nathan,” said Royal, “and I’ll run and catch
the squirrel. You can go and help him, Lucy.”
“But we want to _see_ you catch the squirrel,” said Lucy.
“O, never mind that,” said Royal, looking back towards them, and
speaking in a hurried manner, as he crept along after the squirrel; “I
shall have to chase him ever so far, and you can’t keep up; but you
shall have a share in him just the same, when I catch him. So run back
and take care of Nathan.”
Thus urged, the two children went back to the road, while Royal went
on in pursuit of the squirrel. Lucy and Rollo showed Nathan their
leaves and flowers, and gave him a large lily to pull to pieces. By
these means they had just succeeded in getting him quiet and amused,
when Rollo saw a cow walking slowly along the path, towards the place
where they and the wagon were standing. This threw the children into a
state of great alarm; for, although the cow was really innocent of any
bad design, the children thought they saw in her countenance a very
determined and threatening expression. They thought she was coming to
bite them, or at least that she would certainly run over Nathan.
Rollo’s first design was, to look around for a stick, and drive her
away, which, on the whole, would have been the most judicious plan.
But Lucy, being a girl, was naturally more inclined to retreat than
to give battle; and she called upon Rollo to help her draw the wagon
out of the road, so as to give the cow the opportunity to get by. They
accordingly took hold of the tongue of the wagon, and, turning it short
round, began to pull hard upon it, to get their little charge out of
the danger.
In their eagerness and trepidation, however, they turned the tongue
too short about, so as to lock one of the fore wheels under the wagon,
and then, as very often happens under such circumstances, by the
violence of their effort the wagon was upset; and Nathan, the fragments
of the lily, the picture-book, and the cushion on which Nathan had
been seated, all rolled out together upon the ground. The cow paid no
attention whatever to their terror and distress, but walked by very
deliberately on the other side.
[Illustration: “She walked by very deliberately on the other
side.”--Page 33]
Nathan was not hurt. He looked a little wild when they took him up,
and even began to cry a little; but Lucy soon hushed him, sitting down
upon the bank, and holding him in her lap, while Rollo set the wagon up
again, and replaced the things which had been thrown out. Then,
while Lucy continued to amuse Nathan, Rollo went to see if he could
find Royal.
After going on for some distance, he found him returning slowly, with
his cap upon his head, and a strange-looking thing in his hand.
“Have you caught him?” said Rollo.
“Caught what?” said Royal.
“The squirrel,” replied Rollo.
“O--no,” said Royal, “but I have got a most curious-looking thing here.”
“What is it?” said Rollo.
“A kind of a fungus,” replied Royal. “I found it growing on a tree.”
Royal showed Rollo the fungus, and he thought it was a very curious
thing indeed. Then Rollo told him the story of the accident which had
happened in the cart path. Royal was somewhat alarmed at this, and he
hastened to the place. He felt somewhat condemned for having gone away
and left his charge in the hands of such guardians as Rollo and Lucy,
and so he very assiduously helped them replace Nathan in his wagon, and
turn it round. The leaves which they had collected were all scattered
upon the ground; even those which had been put into the picture-book
had fallen out when the wagon had been upset; so that, when the
children had got nearly home, they recollected that they had left their
whole botanical collection behind them. And this was the end of Lucy’s
attempts to pursue the study of botany, for several years.