قراءة كتاب Hildegarde's Holiday: A Story for Girls

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Hildegarde's Holiday: A Story for Girls

Hildegarde's Holiday: A Story for Girls

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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yes," said Hildegarde, "I can swim very well, Cousin Wealthy,—at least, Papa says I can; and I can row and paddle and sail."

"Oh, not sail!" cried Miss Wealthy, with an odd little catch in her breath,—"not sail, my dear! I could not—I could not think of that for a moment. But there is a row-boat," she added, after a pause,—"a boat which Jeremiah uses. If Jeremiah thinks she is perfectly safe, you can go out, if you feel quite sure your parents would wish it."

"Oh, I am very sure," said Hildegarde; "for I asked Papa, almost the last thing before we left. Thank you, Cousin Wealthy, so much! We will be rather quiet this morning, for Rose does not feel very strong; but this afternoon perhaps we will try the boat. Isn't there something I can do for you, Cousin Wealthy? Can't I help Martha? I can do all kinds of work,—can't I, Rose?—and I love it!"

But Martha had a young girl in the kitchen, Miss Wealthy said, whom she was training to help her; and she herself had letters to write and accounts to settle. So the two girls sauntered off slowly, arm in arm; Rose leaning on her friend, whose strong young frame seemed able to support them both.

The garden was a very pleasant place, with rhubarb and sunflowers, sweet peas and mignonette, planted here and there among the rows of vegetables, just as Jeremiah's fancy suggested. Miss Wealthy's own flower-beds, trim and gay with geraniums, pansies, and heliotrope, were under the dining-room windows; but somehow the girls liked Jeremiah's garden best. Hildegarde pulled some sweet peas, and stuck the winged blossoms in Rose's fair hair, giving a fly-away look to her smooth locks. Then she began to sniff inquiringly. "Southernwood!" she said,—"I smell southernwood somewhere, Rose. Where is it?"

"Yonder," said Rose, pointing to a feathery bush not far off.

"Oh! and there is lavender too, Hilda! Do you suppose we may pick some? I do like to have a sprig of lavender in my belt."

At this moment Jeremiah appeared, wheeling a load of turf. He was "long and lank and brown as is the ribbed sea-sand," and Hildegarde mentally christened him the Ancient Mariner on the spot; but he smiled sadly and said, "Good-mornin'," and seemed pleased when the girls praised his garden. "Ee-yus!" he said, with placid melancholy. "I've seen wuss places. Minglin' the blooms with the truck and herbs was my idee, as you may say,—'livens up one, and sobers down the other. She laughs at me, but she don't keer, s'long as she has all she wants. Cut ye some mignonette? That's very favoryte with me,—very favoryte."

He cut a great bunch of mignonette; and Rose, proffering her request for lavender, received a nosegay as big as she could hold in both hands.

"The roses is just comin' on," he said. "Over behind them beans they are. A sight o' roses there'll be in another week. Coreopsis is pooty, too; that's down the other side of the corn. Curus garding, folks thinks; but, there, it's my idee, and she don't keer."

Much amused, the girls thanked the melancholy prophet, and wandered away into the orchard, to find the seat that Miss Wealthy had told them of.

"Oh, what a lovely, lovely orchard!" cried Hildegarde, in delight; and indeed it was a pretty place. The apple-trees were old, and curiously gnarled and twisted, bending this way and that, as apple-trees will. The short, fine grass was like emerald; there were no flowers at all, only green and brown, with the sunlight flickering through the branches overhead. They found the seat, which was curiously wedged into the double trunk of the very patriarch of apple-trees.

"Do look at him!" cried Hildegarde. "He is like a giant with the rheumatism. Suppose we call him Blunderbore. What does twist them so, Rose? Look! there is one with a trunk almost horizontal."

"I don't know," said Rose, slowly. "Another item for the ignorance list, Hilda. It is growing appallingly long. I really don't know why they twist so. In the forest they grow much taller than in orchards, and go straight up. Farmer Hartley has seen one seventy feet high, he says."

"Let us call it vegetable rheumatism!" said Hildegarde. "How is your poor back this morning, ma'am?" She addressed an ancient tree with respectful sympathy; indeed, it did look like an aged dame bent almost double. "Have you ever tried Pond's Extract? I think I must really buy a gallon or so for you. And as long as you must bend over, you will not mind if I take a little walk along your suffering spine, and sit on your arm, will you?"

She walked up the tree, and seated herself on a branch which was crooked like a friendly arm, making a very comfortable seat. "She's a dear old lady, Rose!" she cried. "Doesn't mind a bit, but thinks it rather does her good,—like massage, you know. What do you suppose her name is?"

"Dame Crump would do, wouldn't it?" replied Rose, looking critically at the venerable dame.

"Of course! and that ferocious old person brandishing three arms over yonder must be Croquemitaine,—

"'Croquemitaine! Croquemitaine!
Ne dinerai pas 'vec toi!'

I think they are rather a savage set,—don't you, Rosy?—all except my dear Dame Crump here."

"I know they are," said Rose, in a low voice. "Hush! the three witches are just behind you, Hilda. Their skinny arms are outstretched to clasp you! Fly, and save yourself from the caldron!"

"Avaunt!" cried Hilda, springing lightly from Dame Crump's sheltering arm. "Ye secret, black, and midnight hags, what is 't ye do?"

"A deed without a name!" muttered Rose, in sepulchral tones.

"I think it is, indeed!" cried Hildegarde, laughing. "Poor old gouty things! they can only claw the air, like Grandfather Smallweed, and cannot take a single step to clutch me."

"Just like me, as I was a year ago," said Rose, smiling.

"Rose! how can you?" cried Hildegarde, indignantly; "as if you had not always been a white rosebush."

"On wheels!" said Rose. "I often think of my dear old chair, and wonder if it misses me. Hildegarde dear!"

"My lamb!" replied Hildegarde, sitting down by her friend and giving her a little hug.

"I wish you could know how wonderful it all is! I wish—no, I don't wish you could be lame even for half an hour; but I wish you could just dream that you were lame, and then wake up and find everything right again. Having always walked, you cannot know the wonder of it. To think that I can stand up—so! and walk—so! actually one foot before the other, just like other people. Oh! and I used to wonder how they did it. I don't now understand how 'four-leggers,' as Bubble calls them, move so many things without getting mixed up."

"Dear Rose! you are happy, aren't you?" exclaimed Hildegarde, with delight.

"Happy!" echoed Rose, her sweet face glowing like her own name-flower. "But I was always happy, you know, dear. Now it is happiness, with fairyland thrown in. I am some wonderful creature, walking through miracles; a kind of—Who was the fairy-knight you were telling me about?"

"Lohengrin?" said Hildegarde. "No, you are more like Una, in the 'Faerie Queene.' In fact, I think you are Una."

"And then," continued Rose, "there is another thing! At least, there are a thousand other things, but one that I was thinking of specially just now, when you named the trees. That was only play to you; but, Hilda, it used to be almost quite real for

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