said Lucy.
“Well,” said Joanna,--“what shall I tell you about? Let me see.--O,
I’ll tell you how I got lost in the woods, one day.”
“Ah, yes,” said Lucy, “I should like to hear about that very much
indeed.”
“One day,” said Joanna, “my father was going a fishing, and my brother
was going with him.”
“The same one that made your hen-coop?” asked Lucy.
“No, he was a bigger one than that. I asked my father to let me go too.
At first he said I was too little; but afterwards he said I might go.”
“How big were you?” said Lucy.
“I was just about your age,” said Joanna. “My mother said I could not
possibly walk so far; but father said I should not have to walk but a
little way, for he was going down the brook in a boat.
“So father concluded to let me go, and we started off,--all three
together. We went across the road, and then struck right into the
woods.”
“Struck?” said Lucy.
“Yes; that is, we _went_ right in.”
“O,” said Lucy.
“We walked along by a sort of cart-road a little while, until we came
to a place where I just began to see some water through the trees.
Father said it was the brook.
“When we got down to it, I found that it was a pretty wide brook; and
the water was deep and pretty still. There was a boat in the brook. The
boat was tied to a tree upon the shore; my brother got in, and then my
father put me in; and afterwards he untied the boat, and threw the rope
in, and then got in himself. Then there were three of us in.”
“Wasn’t you afraid?” said Lucy.
“Yes, I was afraid that the boat would tip over; but father said that
it wouldn’t. But he said that I must sit still, if I didn’t want the
boat to upset. So I sat as still as I could, and watched the trees and
bushes, moving upon the shore.”
“I wish I could go and sail in a boat,” said Lucy.
“It is very pleasant,” said Joanna, “when the water is smooth and
still. The branches of the trees hung over the water where we were
sailing along, and one time we sailed under them, and my brother broke
me off a long willow stick.
“After a time, we came to the end of the brook, where it emptied into
the pond.”
“Emptied?” said Lucy.
“Yes; that is, where it came out into the pond.”
“Do brooks run into ponds?” asked Lucy.
“Not always,” said Joanna; “sometimes they run into other larger
brooks, and sometimes into rivers, and sometimes into ponds. This brook
ran into a pond; and when we came to the end of the brook, our boat
sailed right out into a pond. This pond was the place where they were
going to catch the fishes.”
“Why didn’t they catch the fishes in the brook?” asked Lucy.
“I believe they could not catch such large fishes there,” said Joanna.
“At any rate, they went out into the pond. There was a point of land
at the mouth of the brook, and when my father had got out around this
point, he began to fish.”
“Did he catch any?” asked Lucy.
“He caught one, and my brother caught one; and after that, they could
not catch any more for some time. At last, my father said it was not
worth while for them both to stay there all the afternoon, and that my
brother might go back home by a road across through the woods, and he
would stay and see what luck he should have himself. He said, too, that
I might stay with him, if I chose.”
“And did you?” asked Lucy.
“No,” replied Joanna. “At first, I thought I should like to stay with
father; but then I had already become pretty tired of sitting in the
boat with nothing to do, and so I concluded to go with my brother.
Besides, I wanted to see what sort of a road it was across through the
woods.
“My father then took his line in, and paddled the boat to the shore, to
let me and my brother get out. Then he went back to his fishing-ground
again, and let down his line. As for my brother and myself, we went
along a little way, until we came to a large pine-tree, which stood
not very far from the shore of the pond; and there we turned into the
woods, and walked along together.”
“And was it in these woods that you got lost?” said Lucy.
“Not exactly,” said Joanna; “but I will tell you all about it. We went
along a little way without any difficulty, but presently we came to a
bog.”
“What is a bog?” asked Lucy.
“Why, it is a low, wet place, where wild grass and rushes grow. The
path led through this bog, and brother said he did not think that I
could get along very well.”
“I should not think that he could get along himself,” said Lucy.
“Yes,” answered Joanna, “_he_ could get along by stepping upon the
stones and hummocks of grass; and he tried to carry me, at first; but
he soon found that it would be a great deal of work, and he said that I
had better go back to my father, and get into the boat, and stay with
him.
“I said, ‘Well;’ and he carried me back as far as to hard ground; and
then he told me to go back by the path, until I came to the pine-tree;
and then he said I should only have to follow the shore of the pond, a
short distance, when I should come in sight of father’s boat.”
“Yes, but how could you get into the boat,” said Lucy, “without getting
wet, when it was so far from the shore?”
“O, I could call to my father, and he would come to the shore and take
me in,” said Joanna.
“Well,” said Lucy, “tell on.”
“I walked along the path, without any trouble, until I came to the
great pine-tree, where I saw a woodpecker.”
“A woodpecker?” said Lucy.
“Yes; that is, a kind of a bird which pecks the bark and wood of old
trees, to get bugs and worms out of it, to eat.”
“I should not think that bugs and worms would be good to eat,” said
Lucy.
“They are good for woodpeckers,” said Joanna. “This woodpecker was
standing upon the side of the great pine-tree, clinging to the bark. He
has sharp claws, and can cling to the bark upon the side of a tree. I
looked at him a minute, and then went on.
“I followed the shore of the pond, until I came to the place where we
had left my father fishing; but when I looked out upon the water there,
the boat was nowhere to be seen. I was very much frightened.”
“Where was he gone?” said Lucy.
“I did not know then,” said Joanna; “but I learned afterwards that he
had found that he could not catch any fishes there, and so he concluded
to go up the brook again, and see if he could not catch any there. I
did not know this then, and I could not think what had become of him. I
was frightened. I did not see how I could ever find my way home again.
What do you think I did first?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “What was it?”
“I called out, _Father! Father! Father!_ as loud as I could call; and
then I listened for a reply,--but I could not hear any.”
“Then what did you do?” asked Lucy.
“Why, I began to consider whether I could not go home the way that my
brother had gone, by walking along through the mud, even if it was
deep. I thought I had better get my feet wet and muddy than stay there
in the woods and starve.”
“Well, did you go that way?” asked Lucy.
“No,” said Joanna; “on thinking more of it, I was afraid to go. I did
not know but that the mud would be deep enough somewhere to drown
me; and then, besides, I did not know that I could find the way, any
farther than I had gone with my brother.
[Illustration]
“The next plan I thought of, was to follow the shore of the brook up.
You remember that we came down the brook, in the boat; and of course I
knew that, if I went _up_ the brook, either on the water or close to
it, upon the shore, I should be going back towards home. I tried this
way, but I found that I could not get along.”
“Why couldn’t you get along?” asked Lucy.
“Because,” said Joanna, “the trees and bushes were so thick, and the
ground was so wet and swampy, in some places, that I couldn’t get
through. Then I came back, and sat down upon a log, near the shore of
the pond, and began to cry.”
“And didn’t you ever get home?” said Lucy.
“Certainly,” said Joanna, laughing, “or else how could I be here now to
tell the story?”
“O!--yes,” said Lucy. “But how did you get home?”
“Why, pretty soon I thought that the best plan would be for me to stay
just where I was, for I thought that as soon as my father and brother
should both get home, and find that I was not there, they would come
after me; and if they came after me, I knew they would come, first of
all, to the place where my brother had told me to go, near the mouth of
the brook. So I concluded that I would wait patiently there until they
came.
“I waited all the afternoon, and they did not come; and at last the sun
went down, and still I was there alone.”
“Why did not they come for you sooner?” asked Lucy.
“Why, the reason was, that my father did not get home until night. When
he went up the brook, he found a place where he could catch fishes
quite fast; and so he staid there all the afternoon. He thought I was
safe at home with my brother. And my brother, who was at home all this
time, thought that I was safe in the boat with my father.
“When it began to grow dark, I thought I should have to stay in the
woods all night; but then I thought that, at any rate, they would come
for me the next morning; and I began to look around for a good place to
lie down and go to sleep. But, just then, I heard a noise, like a noise
in the water, through the woods; and I looked that way, and saw a light
glancing along through the trees. It was my father and brother coming
down the brook in the boat. I called out to them as loud as I could,
and they heard me and answered. They came round the point of land, and
then up to the shore where I was, and took me in. And so I got home.”
Here Lucy drew a long breath, very much relieved to find that Joanna
was safe home again.
“What did you do when you got home?” said she.
“I don’t recollect very well,” said Joanna, “only I remember that my
mother let me sit up pretty late, and eat some of father’s fishes,
which she fried for supper.”
* * * * *
When Miss Anne came home that night, Lucy told her the story which
Joanna had related to her. She told her while Miss Anne was putting her
to bed. Lucy said that she should like to be lost in the woods.
“O no,” said Miss Anne, “you would not like the reality. It makes
an interesting story to relate, but the thing itself must be very
distressing.”
“Well, at any rate,” said Lucy, “I should like to sail under the trees
in a boat.”
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “that would be pleasant, no doubt.”
“And to see a woodpecker,” said Lucy.
“Yes, very likely,” said Miss Anne.
CONVERSATION XII.
LUCY’S SCHOLAR.
After this, Lucy often “played boat” for amusement. She built her boat
of chairs and crickets, and had the hearth brush for a paddle.
One evening, just after tea, when she was playing in this way, in the
parlor, Royal looking on, she said to Miss Anne,
“I wish we had a real boat.”
“A real boat,” said Miss Anne, “would do no good, unless you had a
place to sail it in.”
“Couldn’t we sail it in our brook?” asked Lucy.
“No, indeed,” said Royal; “there is scarcely water enough in our brook
to float my turtle.”
“O Royal,” said Lucy, “it is a great deal too deep for your turtle.”
“In some places,” said Miss Anne; “but to sail a boat, you must have a
long extent of deep water. I should think, however, that you might have
a better boat than you can make of chairs and crickets.”
“How could we make it?” said Lucy.
“Why, Royal might find a long box, out behind the barn; or two common
boxes, and put them together, end to end, out in the yard. You might
put two boards across for seats, and have poles for paddles.”
“But it would not sail any,” said Royal.
“If you want it to sail, you must put some rollers under it, and then
you can push it along a little.”
Royal said that that was an excellent plan, and that he meant to go and
make such a boat the very next day. He said he did not believe but that
he could put a mast in, and hoist up a sail; or at least a flag or a
streamer.
“Well,” said Lucy, “we will.”
“I mean to go now and see if there is a box,” said Royal; “it is just
light enough.”
So Royal went off out of the room.
“Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “how much does a real boat cost?”
“I don’t know, exactly, how much,” said Miss Anne.
“I don’t suppose I should have money enough to buy a boat, even if we
had a deep brook to sail it in,” added Lucy.
“I don’t know,” said Miss Anne; “how much money have you got?”
“I have not got but a little; it is a dollar, or else a half a dollar;
or a sixpence; I don’t know exactly. Royal has got more than I.”
Miss Anne merely said, “Has he?” and then the conversation dropped. She
had just taken her seat at her work table, and began to be busy.
“I wish I knew of some way that I could earn money,” said Lucy. “Do you
know of any way, Miss Anne?”
“What did you say?” asked Miss Anne.
“Don’t you know of some way that I could earn money?”
“Why, I don’t know; earning money is rather hard work, as I’ve heard
people say. I believe young ladies generally earn money by teaching.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “if I could only get any scholars.”
“Why, you must be your own scholar; teach yourself to read. Come, I
think that will be an excellent plan.”
“Can I earn any money so?” said Lucy.
“Yes, I should think so. It would take you three months, at a school,
to learn your letters, and three months is twelve weeks. Now, I
suppose that your father would have to pay about sixpence a week
for you to go to school, and that would make twelve sixpences; and
I presume he would be willing to give you as much as eight of the
sixpences, if you would learn to read yourself.”
“Why not all the twelve?” asked Lucy.
“Because you would not do quite all yourself. Somebody would have to
answer your questions, and show you what the letters were, at first;
so that you could not do it all yourself. I should think that perhaps
you might earn eight out of the twelve sixpences. That would be one
sixpence for every three letters.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I mean to try.”
“If you think you would like to try,” said Miss Anne, “I’ll form a plan
for you, so that you can begin to-morrow.”
Lucy said she should like to try, and accordingly Miss Anne reflected
upon the subject that evening, endeavoring to contrive some plan by
which Lucy might sit down by herself and study her letters, half an
hour every day, until she had learned them all. She thought of a plan
which she hoped might answer pretty well; and the next morning she
made preparations for carrying it into execution.
First she got Lucy’s little table, and set it near one of the windows
in her room; she also put her little chair before it. Then she got a
large flat pin-cushion, and put upon the table.
“Why, Miss Anne!” said Lucy, who stood by looking at all these
preparations, “what is the pin-cushion for? I never heard of studying
with a pin-cushion.”
“You’ll see,” said Miss Anne. “I am going to have you learn to read on
the _pin-cushion method_.”
Then Miss Anne opened an ebony box, which she had upon her table, and
took out a very large pin, and also a stick of red sealing-wax. She
carried these into the kitchen, Lucy following her; then she lighted
a lamp, and melted some of the sealing-wax, and stuck it upon the
head of the pin, turning it round and round, and then warming it, and
pressing it with her fingers, until at last she had made a little ball
of sealing-wax, about as big as a pea, which covered and concealed the
original head of the pin.
“There,” said Miss Anne, “that is your _pointer_.”
“Let me take it, Miss Anne,” said Lucy. “I want to take it.”
Miss Anne handed the pointer to Lucy, and she looked at it carefully,
as she walked slowly along back into Miss Anne’s room. When she got
there, Miss Anne took it, and stuck it into the pin-cushion, and
requested Lucy not to touch it.
Then she went and found some of the scattered leaves of an old
picture-book, which had once been Royal’s, but was now nearly worn
out and almost destroyed. She took one of these leaves, and spread it
out upon the pin-cushion. Then she seated Lucy before it, and put the
pointer in her hands.
“Now, Lucy,” said she, “what letter do you know?”
“I know _o_ the best,” said Lucy.
Then Miss Anne pointed to the upper line, and in the third word there
was an _o_.
“There,” said she--“prick it with your pointer.”
Lucy pricked through the _o_ with great force, so as to sink the pin
for half its length into the pin-cushion.
“That will do,” said Miss Anne. “Now look along until you find another
_o_.”
Lucy found one about the middle of the line.
“Now,” said Miss Anne, “prick _him_ too,--only do it gently, so as just
to put the point in a little way; and when you are doing it, say, _o_.”
Lucy did so. She pressed the point of the pin through the letter, and
at the instant that it went through, she said, _o_.
“Now,” said Miss Anne, “the plan is for you to go on in that way. Look
all through that line, and prick every _o_ you can find. Then take
the next line, and the next, and so on regularly through the whole,
and prick every _o_. After you have done, put the pointer into the
pin-cushion, and the pin-cushion into your drawer. Then set your chair
back, and bring the paper to me.”
Lucy was very ready to go on with this work. In fact, while Miss Anne
was speaking, she had found another _o_, and was just going to prick;
but Miss Anne stopped her, and told her that it was not rulable to
begin to obey her orders until she had finished giving them.
At last, Miss Anne went out of the room, and left Lucy at her work.
Lucy pricked away, very industriously, for nearly half an hour. She had
then got almost to the bottom of the page. There she found a capital
_o_, thus, _O_, at the beginning of a sentence; and she did not know
whether she ought to prick such a one as that or not. While she was
considering, she heard Royal’s voice in the entry way, calling her.
Lucy answered, in a loud voice,
“Here I am, Royal,--here, in Miss Anne’s room.”
Royal advanced to the door of Miss Anne’s room, and looked in. He had
his cap on, and seemed to be in haste.
“Come, Lucy,” said he, “let’s go and make our boat.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “just wait till I have pricked two more lines.”
“Pricked,” said Royal,--“what do you mean by pricking?”
Royal came up to the little table where Lucy was at work, and looked
over her shoulder, while she explained to him what she was doing.
“I am going to find every _o_ there is on this page, and prick them
all. I have pricked down to here already, and now I have got only two
lines more to prick, and then I shall come out.”
“O, come out now,” said Royal, “and let the pricking go.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I must wait and finish my work.”
“That isn’t work,” said Royal; “it is nothing but play. It does not do
any good.”
“Yes it does,” said Lucy; “I am doing it to earn money.”
“To earn money!” repeated Royal; and he began to laugh aloud at the
idea of earning money in any such way as that.
Lucy explained to Royal that this was a way which Miss Anne had
contrived for her to learn her letters herself, without troubling other
people, and that she had told her that she should have sixpence for
every three letters.
Royal then perceived that the plan was at least worthy of being treated
with more respect than he had at first supposed;--but then he told Lucy
that, in his opinion, she was beginning wrong.
“You ought to begin with some letter that you don’t know, Lucy,” said
he; “you know _o_ now, as well as I know my own thumb; and of course
it’s of no use to prick it.”
Lucy did not know what to reply to this reasoning,--only that Miss Anne
had told her to prick _o_, and Miss Anne knew best.
“At any rate,” said Royal, “you can finish it another time; so come out
with me now, and help me get out the boxes for our boat.”
Lucy concluded that she would go out a few minutes with Royal, and
then come back again, and finish her work. They accordingly went out
together.
They found one long box, which Royal said would do very well indeed for
a boat. The box was made to pack bedsteads in, and of course it was
more than six feet long; but it was narrow, like a boat, and Royal said
it was just the thing.
The children got this down upon a place where the ground was smooth
and hard; and Lucy got so much interested in playing boat, that she
entirely forgot her pricking for two hours; and then the first bell
rang, to call them in to dinner.
The first bell always rang ten minutes before the second bell. This
was to give Royal and Lucy time to come in and get ready. Lucy thought
that she should just have time to finish the two lines, and she ran in
to Miss Anne’s room to sit right down to her work. To her surprise,
however, as soon as she got in, she saw that her chair was not before
the little table, but had been set back; and the pin-cushion, pointer,
and paper, had all entirely disappeared.
Lucy went into the parlor, and found Miss Anne placing the chairs
around the dinner table.
“Miss Anne,” said she, in a tone of complaint, “somebody has taken away
all my things.”
“That is some of _my_ mischief, I suppose,” said Miss Anne.
“Did you take them away?” said Lucy.
“I _put_ them away,” replied Miss Anne. “I went into my room, about an
hour after I left you there, and found that you had gone away to play,
and had left your work all out upon the table; and so I had to put it
away.”
“Why, I was coming right back again,” said Lucy.
“And did you come right back?”
“Why, no,” said Lucy. “Royal wanted me to stay with him so much!”
“I thought you’d find it rather hard to earn money. You ought to have
waited until you had finished your work, and then you could have gone
out to play.--But I don’t mean that you did wrong. You had a right, if
you chose, to give up the plan of earning money, and have your play
instead.”
“Why, Miss Anne, I almost finished the work. I pricked all but two
lines.”
“Yes, but then you left the work of putting the things away to me; and
that gave me about as much trouble as all your pricking did good. So
you did not _earn_ any thing.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I will try this afternoon, while Royal is at his
studies; and then he won’t want me to go out and play.”
She took _s_ for her letter that afternoon, and she pricked all that
she could find on the page. Then she put her work carefully away, all
except the page itself, which she brought to Miss Anne, so that she
might examine it. Miss Anne found that she had done it very well. She
had pricked almost every one. Miss Anne looked it over very carefully,
and could only find two or three which Lucy had overlooked.
After this, Lucy persevered for several weeks in pricking letters.
She took a new letter every day, and she generally spent about half
an hour at each lesson. She learned to be very still while she was
thus engaged, saying nothing except to pronounce aloud the name of the
letter when she pricked it, which Miss Anne said was a very important
part of the exercise.
In this way, in process of time, she learned all the letters of the
alphabet; and her father paid her the eight sixpences. With one of
these sixpences she bought a fine black lead pencil, to draw with, and
a piece of India rubber, to rub out her marks when they were made wrong.
Miss Anne also taught her how to make a purse to keep the rest of her
money in; and when the purse was done, Lucy put the money into it, and
got Miss Anne to let her keep it in one of her drawers. She was afraid
it would not be quite safe in her treasury.
[Illustration]
CONVERSATION XIII.
SKETCHING.
Lucy asked Miss Anne if she would let her go with her the next time
that she went out to make sketches, and let her try to see if she could
not make sketches too, with her new pencil. Miss Anne had two or three
pencils, which she kept in a little morocco case, and some small sheets
of drawing paper in a portfolio. Sometimes, when she went out to walk,
she used to take these drawing implements and materials with her, and
sit down upon a bank, or upon a rock, and draw, while Lucy was playing
around.
But now, as Lucy herself had a pencil, she wanted to carry it out, so
that she could make sketches too.
Miss Anne said that she should like this plan very much; and
accordingly, one pleasant summer afternoon, they set off. Miss Anne
tied Lucy’s pencil and India rubber together, by a strong silk thread,
so that the India rubber might not be so easily lost. The other
necessary materials--namely, some paper, some pencils for Miss Anne,
and two thin books with stiff covers, to lay their paper upon, while
drawing--were all properly provided, and put in a bag, which Miss Anne
had made, and which she always used for this purpose.
Lucy observed, also, that Miss Anne put something else in her bag. Lucy
thought, from its appearance, that it was a square block; but it was
folded up in a paper, and so she could not see. She asked Miss Anne
what it was, and Miss Anne told her it was a secret.