Part 4 (1/2)
”But, Mr. Hall?” said John, hesitatingly, leaning on his hoe-handle.
”Harry? Oh, never mind him. He has seen more ledgers than corn. Corn?
Ha! that's good. You can go cart that load of gravel up the hill. What a fortunate thing for Harry, that I am here to oversee things. This amateur farming is pretty play enough; but the way it sinks the money is more curious than profitable. I wonder, now, if that tree is grafted right. I'll take off the ligatures and see. That hedge won't grow, I'm certain; the down-east cedars thrive the best for hedges. I may as well pull these up, and tell Harry to get some of the other kind;” and the doctor pulled them up by the roots, and threw them over the fence.
CHAPTER XVI.
”Time for papa to come,” said little Daisy, seating herself on the low door-step; ”the sun has crept way round to the big apple-tree;” and Daisy shook back her hair, and settling her little elbows on her knees, sat with her chin in her palms, dreamily watching the s.h.i.+fting clouds. A b.u.t.terfly alights on a blade of gra.s.s near her: Daisy springs up, her long hair floating like a veil about her shoulders, and her tiny feet scarce bending the clover blossoms, and tiptoes carefully along in pursuit.
He's gone, Daisy, but never mind; like many other coveted treasures, he would lose his brilliancy if caught. Daisy has found something else; she closes her hand over it, and returns to her old watch-post on the door-step. She seats herself again, and loosing her tiny hold, out creeps a great, bushy, yellow caterpillar. Daisy places him carefully on the back of her little, blue-veined hand, and he commences his travels up the polished arm, to the little round shoulder. When he reaches the lace sleeve, Daisy's laugh rings out like a robin's carol; then she puts him back, to retravel the same smooth road again.
”Oh, Daisy! Daisy!” said Ruth, stepping up behind her, ”what an _ugly_ playfellow; put him down, do darling; I cannot bear to see him on your arm.”
”Why--_G.o.d_ made him,” said little Daisy, with sweet, upturned eyes of wonder.
”True, darling,” said Ruth, in a hushed whisper, kissing the child's brow, with a strange feeling of awe. ”Keep him, Daisy, dear, if you like.”
CHAPTER XVII.
”Please, sir, I'll be afther leaving the night,” said John, sc.r.a.ping out his hind foot, as Harry drew rein on Romeo, and halted under a large apple-tree.
”Leave?” exclaimed Harry, patting Romeo's neck; ”you seemed a contented fellow enough when I left for the city this morning. Don't your wages suit? What's in the wind now? out with it, man.”
John scratched his head, kicked away a pebble with the toe of his brogan, looked up, and looked down, and finally said, (lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, as he glanced in the direction of the doctor's cottage;) ”It's the ould gintleman, sir, savin' yer presence.
It is not _two_ masthers Pat would be afther having;” and Pat narrated the affair of the plough.
Harry bit his lip, and struck Romeo a little quick cut with his riding-whip. Harry was one of the most dutiful of sons, and never treated his father with disrespect; he had chosen a separate home, that he might be master of it; and this old annoyance in a new shape was very provoking. ”Pat,” said he at length, ”there is only one master here; when _I_ give you an order, you are to stick to it, till you get a different one from me. D'ye understand?”
”By the Holy Mother, I'll do it,” said Pat, delightedly resuming his hoe with fresh vigor.
CHAPTER XVIII.
”That's the fourth gig that has been tied to Harry's fence, since dinner,” said the old lady. ”I hope Harry's business will continue to prosper. Company, company, company. And there's Ruth, as I live, romping round that meadow, without a bit of a bonnet. Now she's climbing a cherry-tree. A _married woman_ climbing a cherry-tree! Doctor, do you hear that?”
”Shoot 'em down,” said the doctor, abstractedly, without lifting his eyes from the Almanac.
”Shoot _who_ down?” said the old lady, shaking him by the shoulder. ”I said that romp of a Ruth was up in a cherry-tree.”
”Oh, I thought you were talking of those thievish robins stealing the cherries,” said the doctor; ”as to Ruth I've given her up long ago; _she_ never will settle down to anything. Yesterday, as I was taking a walk over Harry's farm to see if things were not all going to the dogs, I saw her down in the meadow yonder, with her shoes and stockings off, wading through a little brook to get at some flowers, which grew on the other side. Half an hour after she came loitering up the road, with her bonnet hanging on the back of her neck, and her ap.r.o.n crammed full of gra.s.ses, and herbs, and branches, and all sorts of green trash. Just then the minister came along. I was glad of it. Good enough for her, thinks I to myself; she'll blush for once. Well, what do you think she did, Mis. Hall?”