Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened. John Aikin
wild herbs which grew there. Still, however, when his mistress came to see him, he would run bounding at her call and accompany her back to the farm.
One fine summer’s day, Sylvia, after having finished the business of the morning, wanted to play with her kid; and missing him, she went to the side of the common, and called aloud, “Capriole! Capriole!” expecting to see him come running to her as usual. No Capriole came. She went on and on, still calling her kid with the most endearing accents; but nothing was to be seen of him. Her heart began to flutter. “What can be come of him? Surely somebody must have stolen him; or perhaps the neighbours’ dogs have worried him. Oh, my poor Capriole! my dear Capriole! I shall never see you again!” and Sylvia began to weep.
She still went on, looking wistfully all around, and making the place echo with “Capriole! Capriole! where are you, my Capriole?” till, at length, she came to the foot of the steep hill. She climbed up its sides to get a better view. No kid was to be seen. She sat down and wept and wrung her hands. After a while she fancied she heard a bleating like the well-known voice of her Capriole. She started up, and looked toward the sound, which seemed a great way overhead. At length, she spied, just on the edge of a steep crag, her Capriole peeping over. She stretched out her hands to him, and began to call, but with a timid voice, lest in his impatience to return to her, he should leap down and break his neck. But there was no such danger. Capriole was inhaling the fresh breeze of the mountains, and enjoying with rapture the scenes for which nature designed him. His bleating was the expression of joy, and he bestowed not a thought on his kind mistress, nor paid the least attention to her call. Sylvia ascended as high as she could toward him, and called louder and louder, but all in vain. Capriole leaped from rock to rock, cropped the fine herbage in the clefts, and was quite lost in the pleasure of his new existence.
Poor Sylvia stayed till she was tired, and then returned disconsolate to the farm, to relate her misfortune. She got her brothers to accompany her back to the hill, and took with her a slice of white bread and some milk to tempt the little wanderer home. But he had mounted still higher, and had joined a herd of companions of the same species, with whom he was frisking and sporting. He had neither eyes nor ears for his old friends of the valley. All former habits were broken at once, and he had commenced free commoner of nature. Sylvia came back crying, as much from vexation as sorrow. “The little ungrateful thing,” said she; “so well as I loved him, and so kindly as I treated him, to desert me in this way at last!—But he was always a rover.”
“Take care, then, Sylvia,” said her mother, “how you set your heart upon rovers again!”
HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT.
Robinet, a peasant of Lorraine, after a hard day’s work at the next market-town, was running home with a basket in his hand. “What a delicious supper shall I have!” said he to himself. “This piece of kid well stewed down, with my onions sliced, thickened with my meal, and seasoned with my salt and pepper, will make a dish for the bishop of the diocese. Then I have a good piece of barley-loaf at home to finish with. How I long to be at it!”
A noise in the hedge now attracted his notice, and he spied a squirrel nimbly running up a tree, and popping into a hole between the branches. “Ha!” thought he, “what a nice present a nest of young squirrels will be to my little master! I’ll try if I can get it.” Upon this, he set down his basket in the road, and began to climb the tree. He had half ascended, when casting a look at his basket, he saw a dog with his nose in it, ferreting out the piece of kid’s flesh. He made all possible speed down, but the dog was too quick for him, and ran off with the meat in his mouth. Robinet looked after him. “Well,” said he, “then I must be contented with soupe maigre—and no bad thing neither.”
He travelled on, and came to a little public-house by the roadside, where an acquaintance of his was sitting on a bench drinking. He invited Robinet to take a draught. Robinet seated himself by his friend, and set his basket on the bench close by him. A tame raven, which was kept at the house, came slyly behind him, and perching on the basket, stole away the bag in which the meal was tied up, and hopped off with it to his hole. Robinet did not perceive the theft till he had got on his way again. He returned to search for his bag, but could hear no tidings of it. “Well,” says he, “my soup will be the thinner; but I will boil a slice of bread with it, and that will do it some good at least.”
He went on again, and arrived at a little brook, over which was laid a narrow plank. A young woman coming up to pass at the same time, Robinet gallantly offered his hand. As soon as she was got to the middle, either through fear or sport, she shrieked out, and cried she was falling. Robinet hastening to support her with his other hand, let his basket drop into the stream. As soon as she was safe over, he jumped in and recovered it; but when he took it out he perceived that all the salt was melted, and the pepper washed away. Nothing was now left but the onions. “Well!” says Robinet, “then I must sup to-night upon roasted onions and barley-bread. Last night I had the bread alone. To-morrow morning it will not signify what I had.” So saying, he trudged on singing as before.
ORDER AND DISORDER.—A Fairy Tale.
Juliet was a clever, well-disposed girl, but apt to be heedless. She could learn her lessons very well, but commonly as much time was taken up in getting her things together as in doing what she was set about. If she was at work, there was generally the housewife to seek in one place, and the thread-papers in another. The scissors were left in her pocket upstairs, and the thimble was rolling about the floor. In writing, the copybook was generally missing, the ink dried up, and the pens, new and old, all tumbled about the cupboard. The slate and slate-pencil were never found together. In making her exercises, the English dictionary always came to hand instead of the French grammar; and when she was to read a chapter, she usually got hold of Robinson Crusoe, or the World Displayed, instead of the Testament.
Juliet’s mamma was almost tired of teaching her, so she sent her to make a visit to an old lady in the country, a very good woman, but rather strict with young folks. Here she was shut up in a room above stairs by herself after breakfast every day, till she had quite finished the tasks set her. This house was one of the very few that are still haunted by fairies. One of these, whose name was Disorder, took a pleasure in plaguing poor Juliet. She was a frightful figure to look at, being crooked and squint-eyed, with her hair hanging about her face, and her dress put on all awry, and full of rents and tatters. She prevailed on the old lady to let her set Juliet her tasks; so one morning she came up with a workbag full of threads of silk of all sorts of colours, mixed and entangled together, and a flower very nicely worked to copy. It was a pansy, and the gradual melting of its hues into one another was imitated with great accuracy and beauty. “Here, miss,” said she, “my mistress has sent you a piece of work to do, and she insists upon having it done before you come down to dinner. You will find all the materials in this bag.”
Juliet took the flower and the bag, and turned out all the silks upon the table. She slowly pulled out a red and a purple, and a blue and a yellow, and at length fixed upon one to begin working with. After taking two or three stitches, and looking at her model, she found another shade was wanted. This was to be hunted out from the bunch, and a long while it took her to find it. It was soon necessary to change it for another. Juliet saw that, in going on at this rate, it would take days instead of hours to work the flower, so she laid down the needle and fell a crying. After this had continued some time, she was startled at the sound of something stamping on the floor; and taking her handkerchief from her eyes, she spied a diminutive female figure advancing toward her. She was upright as an arrow, and had not so much as a hair out of its place, or the least article of her dress rumpled or discomposed. When she came up to Juliet, “My dear,” said she, “I heard you crying, and knowing you to be a good girl in the main, I am come to your assistance. My name is Order: your mamma is well acquainted with me, though this is the first time you ever saw me; but I hope we shall know one another better for the future.” She then