Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends Part 8

SCOTT FARM.

What a blessed thing it is to have a good grandmother! Sophy had one.

Sophy loved to go and see her.

It was in the country where Grandmother Scott lived, just a pleasant ride from Sophy's home; in a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned farm-house, with green moss growing out of the sloping roof, shaded by trees that looked a century old. It is autumn there now; so you see on the cellar door and under the front windows, crooked necked squashes and round yellow pumpkins, mellowing in the warm sunbeams. Strings of dried apples are festooned from chamber windows; and paper bags of catnip and spearmint and thoroughwort and penny-royal and mullen hang drying on the garret walls.

On "the b.u.t.tery" shelves are broad pans of fresh, new milk, crusted with cream that would make a New-Yorker stare; and great round cheeses, and little pats of golden b.u.t.ter, stamped with a rose, and jars of pickled cuc.u.mbers, and pots of preserved plums, and peaches, and barberries, tied down with tissue brandy papers; and loaves of "riz cake," and plates of doughnuts, and pans of apple dowdy, beside an earthen jar of rich English plum cake.

Then, there's the sitting room, where the bright sun shone in, on a picture of General Was.h.i.+ngton, and a sampler of Grandma Scott's, representing a woman crying over a tombstone shaded by a pea-green willow; and black profile likenesses of all the Scott family cut by a traveling artist, hanging in spots over the fire place; and an old-fas.h.i.+oned clock, standing guard in the corner, with the picture of the rising sun on it, and Grandpa's spectacles, and loose copies of the "Scott-town Daily Bulletin" tucked in round the wood work at the sides; and great, comfortable-looking arm-chairs, with patch cus.h.i.+ons; and a sideboard with a silver pitcher on it, presented to Grandpa Scott by the Agricultural Society and a china mug with a gold rim round it, and "Betsey" on the side, given by the minister to Grandma Scott when she was a little girl, for learning her catechism right; and a great big china closet, with a gla.s.s door, to show off the rows of china cups and saucers and flowered plates, all ready if the minister or the President should come to tea.

Then, out of doors, wasn't there a great barn for the children to play in?--with piles of hay, and ladders reaching up to the roof; and old Dobbin nibbling and munching oats in his stall; and Brindle, and her little two-day old, red and white calf cuddled down in a straw bed in the corner; and the little field mice darting over the barn floor; and the swallows twittering overhead among the beams and rafters; and the old grindstone that the children liked to turn; and the scythe and pitchfork that Grandpa charged them "not even to look at;" and the yellow ears of corn peeping out of their dry husks, in a pile in the corner, and the old rooster strutting round it, (followed by his hen wives,) now and then stopping short, with one foot lifted up, and c.o.c.king his eye at them from under his red cap, as much as to say, "Stir if you dare, till I give the signal!" Oh, I can tell you, that barn was a grand old place to play in, to frolic in, or to read and think in.

Then, there was the pig-stye under it, with such lazy great pigs, and such frisky little ones, with their tails curled up so tight that they lifted their hind legs right up, jumping round and tumbling heels over head over their mother, who lay half-buried in a mud-puddle, winking her pink eyes at the bright sun, and looking just as happy as if there wasn't a butcher in the world, or as if "the Governor and council"

wouldn't sign her little piggies' death warrant with the Thanksgiving proclamation.

Thanksgiving! Oh, wasn't _that_ an affair? Grandma Scott would mount her silver-bowed spectacles, strip her arms to this elbows, tie on a check ap.r.o.n, pin up her cap strings, and stew pumpkins and squashes and apples and quinces, and pound spices, and chop meat and suet, and roll out pie-crust, and heat the oven, and turn out so many pies and tarts and "pan-dowdies," and loaves of cake, that it would make your ap.r.o.n strings grow tight just to look at them!

Then, the first thing the hens in the barn-yard knew, _they didn't know anything_! but lay on the kitchen table with their yellow boots kicked up in the air, waiting to be singed, stuffed, and skewered. Poor things, they had laid their last egg, and swallowed their last kernel of corn, every rooster's daughter of 'em!

What a party of horses stamped their iron shoes in Grandpa Scott's barn on Thanksgiving morning! What a party of little children in bright autumn-leaf dresses and white ap.r.o.ns, went scampering through the house! What a fuss they all made over the littlest baby! What a fire (big enough to roast an ox whole) blazed in the great, wide, sitting-room fireplace!

How Grandpa Scott walked round, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, patting this one on the head, chucking the other under the chin, and tossing a third up to the wall. How he looked all round, with his arms a-kimbo, and said if any grandpa in the United States had a prettier set of grandchildren than that, he'd like to see them; and how Grandma said, "Pshaw! Grandpa," because she was so proud of them herself that she didn't know what else to say!

And how Grandma looked as if she never would grow old, with her nice lace cap, and her own brown hair, with scarce a silver thread in it, curling round her happy face; and how Grandpa would whisper slily to the boys, "After all, your mother is handsomer than any child she ever had!"

How contented and satisfied Grandmamma looked, sitting at the head of her Thanksgiving table; plenty of chickens and turkeys boiled and roasted before her. What a time she had getting all the little Scott-ites seated to her mind, and napkins tucked properly under each chubby chin; how she _would_ carve the turkey herself, because, when Grandpa got busy talking, he cut off the wings before he did the legs!

How she insisted upon "all just tasting some of that chicken-pie," when it was quite impossible to stow away another mouthful, because "she had no idea of making it for nothing."

How she would give the little wee baby a "wish-bone," though it could not hold it one minute in its limpsy little fingers; and how she would keep on pa.s.sing round nuts, and oranges, and grapes, and apples, and wonder what _had_ become of all their appet.i.tes.

And then how all the family would go back into the sitting-room after dinner; and how Tom, the family "Mozart," would sing "Home, Sweet Home;" and how Grandma Scott would rub her eyes with her handkerchief, and declare that the room smoked! And how all the grown-up boys and girls would begin to look hysterical; and how Maggie, who believed in "a time to dance," would jump up and seize sober Uncle Walter by the waist, and waltz round the room with him; and how Grandmamma would smile and say, "Will anything _ever_ tame that girl?" Poor, merry Maggie! she's "tame" enough now, though Grandmamma didn't live to see the sorrow that it took to do it.

And bright-eyed Hal, and golden-haired Letty, and brave, handsome Walter, and cherry-lipped Susy, and dimpled little Benny,--and Grandmamma with her warm, big heart and cheerful smile; and Grandpapa with his silvery locks, and beaming eye, and kindly hand of welcome--oh, where are they all _now_?

Dear children,

"There is a reaper, his name is Death, And with his sickle keen, He cuts _the bearded grain at a breath_, _And the flowers that grow between_."

Yes, other families have "Thanksgiving" now under the mossy eaves of the old farm-house--other strange little voices lisp "Grandpapa,"

"Grandmamma;" and long graves and short graves are in the old churchyard; and names look you in the face from marble tablets, that were once at Scott Farm--_oh_, such _cherished_ "household words!"

A TRUE STORY.

People say that it is a sign of good luck to tumble up stairs. I am glad of it; for, what with my long skirts, and what with the broken stairway, and the pitch darkness, I did nothing _but_ tumble. However, it's my motto _never to give up_; so, of course I gained the top at last, and, opening a door, found myself in a garret, piled up as high as my waist with old rags, and old papers, and old bits of bones.

"Go down, I say! Don't want you,--don't want anybody. I've got a dreadful pain----. Go down,--there's nothing here;--go down, I say,"

growled a voice, from a pile of rags in the corner.

I pa.s.sed by this growling man, without noticing him; for, in the middle of the room was a woman, (oh, so miserable a looking creature!) with her hands crossed hopelessly in her lap, and so buried up in the piles of rags about the floor, that I could see nothing but her head and shoulders.

She was quite young,--not more than twenty. She was not that old man's wife, nor his daughter, nor his sister--but _that was her home_; and every day she went out with him and sc.r.a.ped the gutters, and refuse barrels, for old rags and papers; and then came back and emptied them out upon the garret floor at night, to pick them over. One whole year she had lived in that dirty den. How came she here? Listen, and I will tell you.

Mary once lived in the country, amid sweet, green fields, and cl.u.s.tering vines, and shady trees, and murmuring brooks. Her father was a good old farmer, as happy and contented with his few acres, as if he owned all Great Britain. Mary was his only child. Her mother died when she was a very little girl. Mary could not even remember how she looked; but her father often used to part her hair away from her white forehead, and say, "You are so _like_ your mother, Mary"--and then Mary would run to the little mirror, over the dresser, and see a sweet pair of hazel eyes, and cl.u.s.ters of rich, brown hair falling over rosy cheeks and snowy shoulders; and then she'd toss her curls, and run back again to her father. Mary knew that her mother must have been very pretty.

Mary had an uncle, named Ralph. He was a bad man; but Mary's father was so good and honest himself, that it was hard to make him believe anybody was _dis_-honest. So he lent his brother large sums of money--(Ralph all the while promising to pay him at a certain time.) By and by, Ralph got away all his money, and the old farm, too, with all the cows and horses, and sheep and oxen; and then Mary's father worried so much that it made him very sick, and he soon died, leaving poor Mary without a penny in the world.

Uncle Ralph told her to go to the city, and he would find employment for her. But, after he got her there, he left her, and ran off; and poor Mary wandered about, quite heart-broken, till finally she found some coa.r.s.e work to do, for which she was paid a trifle. She worked on with a brave heart, from day to day, for some weeks, till her employer died; and then, poor Mary knew not what to do,--n.o.body would employ her; and wicked people came and tempted her to sin, but Mary was good, and would not listen to them; and so she had to sell her clothes, one after another, as poor people do, till she had nothing left but the calico dress she had on. Even her under-clothes were gone, to pay the woman where she lived for her lodging. Alas! then poor Mary said, despairingly, "It is of no use for me to try to be honest any longer,"--and wicked people came again and tempted her, and n.o.body said, "Mary, struggle on, and I will help you; I will give you work to do." No; n.o.body said _that_; and everything looked dark and gloomy, and she forgot the little prayer she used to say at the old farmhouse, and made her home with wicked people; and the sweet, innocent look faded out from her soft blue eyes, and her heart grew hard--and wrong seemed right to poor Mary.

But sometimes Mary would wake at night, when all was still, and think of her childhood's home, under the linden trees; and of her good old father sitting in the porch, with the Bible on his knee, and the soft wind gently lifting the gray hair from his temples. Then she thought of the old church-yard, where her mother lay buried; and then she would press her hands tightly over her eyes, as if in that way she could shut out the torturing picture.

Mary could not bear such thoughts; they drove her almost wild. So, she drank wine (when she could get it) to drown her misery, and pa.s.sed from one place of shelter to another, till at last she was glad of a home in the wretched garret where I found her.

When I spoke to Mary, she would not answer me; but looked me in the face as if she had been a stone image. She seemed to be afraid of the old man with whom she lived in the garret. Finding, after many earnest attempts, that I could do Mary no good, I left her; and soon after I heard that the old man had died, and that Mary had found a great many dollars in gold and silver, hid away in the garret, that he had earned picking up old rags.

So, Mary had all the old miser's money. But did it bring back the sweet, innocent look to her eyes? or take the misery out of her heart?

No, no. She'd count over her gold, and say, with a horrid laugh, "It comes too late--too late!"

Oh! how I wished that all who give only----_good advice_! to a poor, tempted, starving, fellow creature, could have heard those dreadful words: "Too late,--too late!"

THE LITTLE EMIGRANTS.

Tell you a story, Harry? Do you like to hear about poor people? Well, jump up into my lap. So;--now look straight into my eyes.

Last night I went to see some poor Italian emigrants. I threaded my way through dirty streets and alleys, and up rickety old staircases, where it was so dark that I had to feel my way, and where I coughed and choked at every step, with the tobacco smoke and bad air.

At last I opened the door of a small room, lighted with one window, where were a dozen persons--men, women and children. Some were seated on straw beds, which were lying upon the floor; some were sitting upon old boxes, and others were looking out the window (as if bewildered) upon the strange scenes in the street below.

Crouched upon the hearth, was a very old woman, with thin, gray locks, toothless gums, and bare bosom. She was stretching out her skinny hands over a few shavings that she had kindled into a blaze; while a little baby lay in a shawl beside her, rubbing its eyes, and crying at the smoke that was every instant puffed into its little face. On the opposite side of the hearth, was a little boy and girl, quite naked to the waist from whence hung a little dirty tunic to their bare knees. A tin pan of _raw potatoes_ lay between them, which they were slicing off with a great knife, and greedily devouring, as if they were half-starved.

Harry, what do you think of that? How should _you_ relish a raw potato for supper? How should you like to come from a warm, sunny country, into a cold, chilly climate, and be obliged to go half-naked because you had no money to buy clothes? How should you like not to be able to understand a word anybody there said to you, or not to be able to make _them_ understand _you_? How should you like to have _your_ mother, or _your_ father, go wandering round, day after day, _making signs_ to people, to try to get employment, and have to keep giving away one article of their poor clothing after another for a loaf of bread? How should you like to be turned out (even of that miserable room) into the street, some stormy night, by a cruel landlord? How should you like to see _your mother_ sit down on a door step, in the dark, dark night, and droop her weary head upon her bosom and _die_?

Oh, Harry! all that had happened to the poor little boy and girl who were eating raw potatoes at the hearth. They were poor little orphans, and that old woman was their grandmother. They had all wandered about, from place to place, ever since they left the s.h.i.+p that brought them out.

They were pretty children, with great dark eyes, and curly hair, and such a bright smile when we spoke kindly to them. Their grandmother was all they had now to love; and she, poor woman, couldn't live long to take care of them, for the cold, and exposure, and anxiety, had almost killed her, too. So, she felt very anxious about what would become of little Pietro and Annita, when she was dead; and she kept patting them on the head, as if she was determined to make them as happy as possible while she lived.

Well, do you know, Harry, it struck me that Mrs. ----, who lives in New-York, might like to adopt the little orphans. She has no children of her own, and she loves children. That's why I took her with me to see the poor emigrants last night.

How she _did_ cry when she saw the poor things eating raw potatoes! She turned round to me, and said, "f.a.n.n.y, I must have those children. I'll take them right home, and I'll ----" then she couldn't stop to tell me the rest, but ran up to the grandmother, and asked her, in Italian, if she might not have Pietro and Annita.