Part 9 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

”Waiting, waiting, waiting!” suddenly sang the bird, from out of sight among the boughs; ”waiting, Bessie,” sang the bird.

”True enough,” said Bessie; ”perhaps I'm making my mother or dear Aunt Annie wait,--and they are so good! I'd better let the basket wait; take care of it, birdie!--and none of your trampling down my flowers, Mr. Toad!” And she climbed back again from bush to bush, and skipped along among the trunks of the great tall trees, and out by the brook through the meadow, hedge, garden,--up the steps, calling, ”Mother, mother! Aunt Annie! who wants me?”

”I, dear,” said her mother's voice; ”I am going away for a long visit, and if you had not come at once, I couldn't have bidden my little girl good by.” So Bessie's mother kissed her, and told her to obey her kind aunt, and then asked what she would like brought home for a present.

”O, bring yourself, dear mother; come home all well and bright,” said Bessie, ”and I won't ask any more.” For Bessie's mother had long been sick, and was going now for her health.

Her mother smiled and kissed her. ”Yes, I will bring that if I can, but there must be something else; how would you like a set of tools for this famous garden?”

Bessie's eyes shone with joy. ”What! a whole set,--rake, and hoe, and trowel, such as the gardener uses?”

”Exactly, only they'll be small enough for your little hands; and there'll be a shovel besides, and a wheelbarrow, and a water-pot.”

So Bessie did not cry when her mother went away, though she loved her as well as any one possibly could. She thought of all the bright things, of the pleasant journey and the better health; and then,--then of her pretty set of tools, and the handsome garden they would make!

It was too late to go back to the hill that evening; and on the morrow Bessie awoke to find it raining fast. She went into her Aunt Annie's room with such a mournful face. ”O aunty, this old rain!”

”This new, fresh, beautiful rain, Bessie; what are you thinking about?

How it will make our flowers grow! and what a good time we can have together in the house!”

”I know it, Aunt Annie, but you'll think me so careless!”

”To let it rain!”

”No,--don't laugh, aunty,--to leave your nice basket out-of-doors all night, and now to be soaked and spoiled in this--this--beautiful rain.” Bessie's countenance did not look as though the beautiful rain made her very happy.

And good Aunt Annie, seeing how much she was troubled, only said, ”You must be more careful, dear, another time; come and tell me all about it. Perhaps my Bessie has some good excuse; I can see it now in her eyes.”

”Yes, indeed, I have,” said Bessie, wiping away her tears. And the little girl crept close to her aunty's side, and told her of her beautiful time the day before, and of the bird, and squirrel, and toad; and how the basket rolled away down hill in the steepest place, and then how the bell rang, and she couldn't wait to find it.

”And you did exactly right, dear,” said Aunt Annie. ”If you had lingered, your mother would have had to wait a whole day, or else go without seeing you. When I write, I shall tell her how obedient you were, and I know it will please her more than anything else I shall have to say.”

Dear Aunt Annie, she had always a word of excuse and of comfort for every one! Bessie was too small to think much about it then. She only pressed her little cheek lovingly against her aunty's hand, and resolved that, when she grew up to a young lady, she would be just as kind and ready to forget herself as Aunt Annie was.

Ah, it was not Bessie's lot to grow up to a woman in this world!

Before the ground was dry enough for her to venture out in search of her basket, she was seized with a fever, and in a few days shut up her sweet eyes, as the flowers shut their leaves together, and never opened them again.

Then the summer pa.s.sed, and the gra.s.s grew green and faded, and snow-flakes began to fall on a little grave; and Aunt Annie quietly laid aside the set of garden tools that had come too late for Bessie's use, and only made her mother feel sad and lonely when she looked upon them now. And all this time, what had become of the basket?

As it fell from Bessie's hands that bright spring afternoon, it had lodged in a gra.s.sy hollow, that was all wound about, like a nest, with roots of the tall birch and maple trees; close among the roots grew patches of the lovely scented May-flower; and all the rest was long fine gra.s.s, with a tiny leaf or a violet growing here and there.

The roots in the basket dried away, and died for want of water; but the earth that Bessie had dug with them was full of little seeds, which had been hiding in the dark for years, awaiting their chance to grow.

Broader and darker grew the leaves on the shady boughs above, higher and higher grew the gra.s.s, and all but hid Bessie's basket. ”Coming, coming, coming!” the bird sang in the boughs; but Bessie never came.

So the summer pa.s.sed; and when autumn shook the broad leaves from the trees, and some went whirling down the hill, and some sailed away in the brook, some lodged in Bessie's basket; a few to-day, and a few the next day, till the snow came, and it was almost full to the brim.