Stories Told to a Child. Jean Ingelow
so much' (so 'sister' phrased it) 'as a fallen gooseberry.'
Fruit was always given to us once during the day, but the father of the family was extremely particular about his trees, and suffered no fruit to be gathered but by his own hand.
I was told of this regulation at once by the children, and when Lucy said to her sister, 'Did thee know that Sophia had leave to gather fruit at home?' and I exclaimed, that I did not wish to do it here, and was very happy; she answered with her usual sweet composure, 'Thee need not blush so much, I know thou art in general a reasonable child.'
'I don't wish for anything,' I explained, 'that Lucy does not have.'
'That's well,' she replied; 'we desire to see thee happy and satisfied; but thou knowest that my father considers thee under his authority while thou art here, and will not alter his rule for thy sake; but as thou hast been used to gather fruit for thyself, I advise thee not to go into the fruit-garden, if thou art tempted to transgress. There are other walks where thou canst bowl thy hoop.'
'I wonder you should suppose such a thing,' I interrupted, quite vexed at her plain speaking, and the implied supposition that I could be tempted to such a greedy and disobedient act.
She smiled at my speech, but there was nothing sarcastic in the smile; and she answered, 'I do not suppose thee to be any better than thy first mother; yet she was tempted with an apple.'
'And apples are not half so good as plums,' observed one of the little brothers, sagely nodding his head.
'No one asked for thy opinion,' said my champion Lucy, in a low voice; 'does thee wish Sophia to be kept out of the garden?'
Sister cut the conference short, by giving us each a piece of seed-cake, and sending us out with general directions to be good, and not get into mischief; and there was such ample space to play in, and we had so many means of amusing ourselves, that we should have been more culpable than most children, if we had disobeyed them.
The garden, with all its walks, the orchard, where we sometimes sauntered early in the morning, and saw the greengages which had fallen in the night lying among the dewy grass; the rough trunks of the plum, trees all gray with lichen, and blue above with partly ripe fruit, are vividly impressed upon my recollection; as well as the frames on which, in the middle of the day, we sometimes laid our hands to feel how hot the glass was; peeping through at the long cucumbers and plump melons, as they lay basking in the moist heat; or following the gardener when he walked round with his tiles, and laid them carefully under those which he wished to ripen first.
I also remember, as if it had happened but yesterday, how we used to run to meet Lucy's placid father, as he came leisurely down the grass walk, to have his daily colloquy with the gardener; how he gathered and stored the ripe pears from the espaliers, and lifted up the leaves from the wall fruit to see how it was coming on; how he would lament that birds should be such arrant thieves, and turn a deaf ear to the old gardener, when he muttered that there was but one way to cure them of it.
Then I remember the cool fruit-house, into which we sometimes helped him to carry summer apples; and what the gardener called the 'kippen peers;' but above all I remember a certain fine young apricot-tree, a moor-park, in its first year of bearing, and how every day we went to count and admire upon it six beautiful apricots, and no more.
Few things in a garden are more beautiful than ripening apricots; the downy surface, the rich golden color, speckled, as in this sort, with clear red spots, and surrounded by pointed leaves of most glossy green, and broad sunshine that bathed them, the careful training—all combined to make us take a peculiar interest in this young tree, which had been the only survivor among several of the same sort that had been planted along with it.
When we had walked all round with Lucy's father, he used to take up a flat straw-basket, lay some leaves of curly brocoli in it, and go with us to the orchard, where he would gather some ripe greengages, purple plums, jargonel-pears, with, perhaps, a few late white-heart cherries, and some little red apples, red to the very core. In the south wall of the garden there was a door, leading into a place they called the wilderness; it was an uncommonly well-ordered wilderness, like everything about the premises. Through this door father used to proceed to a bench under the trees, where he caused us to sit down in a row, while he divided the fruit equally among us.
There was no underwood in this delightful retreat; the trees composing it were elms, thickly boughed plants to shelter us from the sun, but not to prevent the elastic mossy grass from flourishing underneath, nor to prevent the growth of numerous groups of large white lilies.
All the lilies in the garden had done flowering, but these, more pure and more luxuriant, through shade and shelter, were then in their full perfection, and filled the air with their delightful fragrance. The children called them sister's lilies, because when she was a child she had planted them. We generally brought pieces of bread with us, to eat with our fruit, and the wilderness being our favorite retreat, we played there at all times in the day.
The lilies were taller than the younger children, who would stand on tip-toe to push their little fingers into the higher flowers, and bring them down covered with yellow pollen.
Unchanged, themselves, in their white purity, they were yet susceptible of apparent change from difference in the light cast upon them. When the full glare of high noon was upon the tops of the elms, then was cast, through their leaves, upon the lilies, a faint tinge of most delicate green; but at sunset, we, who lived so much among them, sometimes saw a pure glow of crimson reflected through the white petals, when the setting sun sent his level beams between the trunks of the trees. But I have said enough of these fragrant lilies, they are dead now, and the hand that planted them.
As I before mentioned, after that successful Sunday, Lucy and I walked out in the garden early in the morning, and congratulated one another on our good behavior, which we intended always to last, and firmly believed it always would; but we were growing careless and confident, and though the thought of the red curtain never failed to bring salutary feelings with it, there were times when we did not think of it at all, and in one of those times temptation came.
It was fine weather, and we expected some cousins of Lucy's to spend the day with us, and, as we walked, we planned how we would pass the time. Lucy confided to me that they would most likely be very noisy, and perhaps rude; but this, like two little self-righteous Pharisees, as we were on that particular day, we decided to prevent if possible; certainly not to participate in, as Lucy said she often had done hitherto.
I believe we had not the least idea that our strength might fail us, and we made our arrangements with as much composure as if we ourselves were quite above the ordinary temptations of humanity.
The cousins arrived soon after breakfast, and the very first sight of them dissipated some of our ideas; they were older, had more assurance of manner than ourselves; but children understand each other so well that I perceived, even during the first half-hour, that they were amusing themselves at my expense, and taking notice of every word I uttered, as was evident by the glances which passed between them, though to outward appearance they were remarkably grave. I also observed that Lucy, though so accustomed to see them, and though she talked of them so freely in their absence, was very much awed by them, and very silent now.
When they escaped from the presence of their elders, their manner suddenly changed; they had evidently not been brought up like ourselves, and their gravity and over-submissiveness in the company of their uncle, and their riotous behavior in his absence, had a bad effect upon us all.
At first, Lucy and I were all blushes and deference; but they soon laughed us out of that, and by means of a little well-applied ridicule brought us into such complete thraldom, that, though we neither liked them, nor enjoyed playing with them, we wished nothing so much as to stand well in their eyes, and to be and to do whatever they chose to dictate.
It is astonishing what mischief can be done in a day! Two rough boys, and one prim little girl, so upset our ideas of right and wrong, and frightened us out of propriety, that we were nearly as rude as themselves through false shame at appearing otherwise.