CHAPTER I. GILL.

IT stood with its thills upon the low stone wall that separated the barn-yard from the house-yard. There were wedges behind the wheels to keep the cart from rolling back, for it was little Sally Reed’s baby-house just now. She had brought an armful of hay from the barn and spread it upon the floor of her little oblong room, and had put the three-legged milking-stool in one corner, and there she sat nursing her great rag-baby. She felt very grand indeed, up there,—the mistress of a house in the air, and the mother of so precious a child as her black-eyed, black-haired Jessie. How she loved that little bundle of rags, which seemed to her warm heart a living thing and beautiful! and how she loved the old cart, and enjoyed the hours when it was resting!

Whatever has done good service, is entitled to rest, and the old market-cart was no idler. Its strong wheels had often been in swift motion, and many a bundle had it borne safely to the desired destination.

Gill looked upon it with a sort of affection. He was Mr. Reed’s farmer, a Scotchman by birth, and a good-natured, honest, kind-hearted man. His figure was tall and lank and awkward; but such a genial face shone out from under bushy, yellow locks, that little Benjamin and Sally Reed thought him almost handsome. His hair seemed to them quite like the glory which artists put around the heads of their saints, and they never dreamed of criticising Gill’s aspect. To them he was simply “Our Gill;” and when children say this, their heart is in the expression. The Scotchman had been with Mr. Reed ever since Ben and Sally were born, and their world would have been very strange and imperfect without him. Their father was away at business all day in the city, three miles distant, and Gill managed the land—only twelve acres—and made it bring forth enough for family use, and a surplus for the market. He was such a good steward that he took the same interest in the place as if it were his own; and he would have cut off his right hand rather than have proved unworthy

of the trust reposed in him.

Gill was in the field hoeing, while Sally occupied the cart; and Ben sat upon a large rock that was in a corner of the barn-yard and served as a salt-lick for the cattle,—a lump of the white substance being kept there for the animals to go to at pleasure. The boy was shaping a handle for his hammer, and was talking with Sally about the virtues of his two-bladed jack-knife, which he was trying for the first time. The barn-door was open, and they could see Dobbin standing in his stall eating, preparatory to a trot to town. Dobbin was a plump creature, with a shaggy mane and tail, and long ears that made people say, “He is the son of a jack-ass;” but that is no disgrace to a horse. When it is said of a lad who is vicious and stubborn, and does not try to overcome an obstinate temper, which is partly inherited from a wicked father, it is a term of reproach or contempt. Dobbin deserved only praise. Good, patient, hardworking Dobbin! Always ready to come and go at Gill’s call,—to take a brisk pace toward the market-place with the heaped-up vegetables

behind him; or to carry the bags of grain to the mill; or to hold Ben and Sally on his back, and give them a jaunt up and down the road while the Scotchman was getting the evening mash ready for the animal’s supper. Dobbin also earned his rest, as well as the old cart.

Little Sally hushed her baby to sleep, and laid it down upon the sweet hay. I can not say that dolly had done any work that would merit her repose; but then little babies are only meant to eat and sleep, and gather strength for labor by and by. The toil comes surely enough to most of them in after life. I’m not saying this with any feeling of regret. Oh, no; for “Work is worship,” if it is the work that God designs for us to do, and there is the sweetest pleasure in such worship. The most miserable people I have ever known are those who have nothing to do.

Sally felt that she must find something to occupy her, the moment she had finished her task of hushing the baby. So, while it lay sleeping, she clambered over the edge of the cart, and ran to the kitchen door. A chair was turned down across the sill, and Gill’s little child of nine months old was sitting upon the floor on the other side.

“Mind Jack,” said Lucy, as Sally stepped over, pretty near the little hand that was grasping at the patch of sunlight before him. “I put up the chair to keep him from creeping out; he’s getting a pert little fellow.”

“Give me a doughnut, please, Lucy,” said Sally. “I’m so hungry!”

Lucy was Gill’s wife, who did all the house-work, and the little Jack made a foreign soil like home to the emigrants, who were content to stay under the sky which had first smiled upon their bonnie laddie.

Sally took the nice brown ball from the good housewife, and stepped over the chair again. She gave two or three peeps through the slats, to make Jack crow, and then away she went to find Gill.

The baby pursed up its tiny mouth to cry, as he lost sight of her. He loved Sally so dearly!

“Never mind, little man,” said the mother, leaving her “biggin,” as she called the oat-meal porridge-cup which she was washing, and lifting the child to her shoulder, from whence he could see the little girl’s pink frock in the field, not far away.

Gill was bending to his labor, but now and then he stood erect and looked toward the farm-house, to catch a glimpse of Lucy and the “little man,” to sweeten toil. It makes work so light when one does it for those whom he loves.

“Why do you hoe so often, Gill?” asked Sally. “Won’t the things grow without?”

“Oh, yes, but other things will grow—weeds and things that are not wanted. You see this, don’t you?” pulling up a dockweed, and showing its long tap-roots. “Well, if I didn’t watch and pull, watch and pull all the time, I should have it thick enough pretty soon.”

“Isn’t it good for anything?” asked Sally, noticing its lance-like leaves, “I think this is what Lucy picks sometimes for spinach.”

“Yes, some people like it,” said Gill; “and the doctors have dockroot ointment, and dockroot powder, and dockroot liquid. They know what ‘tis good for, I suppose; but I can’t have it spreading every where among my crops. Then there’s this ragweed; if I let it alone, it will choke out every thing else. To be sure, the birds like the seed, but I have other mouths than theirs to fill.”

“And here’s a mullein, Gill, shall I pull it up?”

“I think your little hands would find it tough work; let me manage it.”

“It seems a pity to pull it up, and throw it away to wilt. What a long, hairy stalk it has, and what pretty yellow flowers, and how woolly the leaves feel,—just like flannel!”

“You can boil them in lard and make an ointment of them, to soften and soothe with. And you can steep the young leaves in water for cough mixtures.”

“You know a great deal about plants, don’t you, Gill?”

“That’s pretty much all I do know. I live among them, and I study them in the books, and out of the books. I like to study them; there’s no better learning than to look into the things that God has made.”

“What’s this?” asked Sally, pulling up a slender green stem, with long “spider legs” branching out from point to point of the stalk, until it looked like a miniature pine tree.

“That is what they call the field horsetail,” said Gill, “but a prettier name is low pine, or pine-weed, as some say. There’s another kind with a long stem of a light-brown color, with a darker-colored sheath at each joint, and, at the top of the stem, a head shaped like a pine cone. You find it on low, damp ground, and among the meadow grass. People fancy that it hurts horses, but Dobbin has eaten quantities of it with the hay, and isn’t any the worse.”

“I hope nothing will ever hurt Dobbin,” said Sally.

“Here’s my enemy, I meet it on every hand,” said Gill, twisting up a tuft of foxtail grass.

Sally admired the hairy brush at the top of the stem. “It does look like a fox’s tail,” she said.

CHAPTER II. DAISIES AND THISTLES.

I’M going into the meadow now for a while,” said Gill. “Would you like to go with me? I have a good deal to do there to get up the useless roots.”

The little girl was ready to go wherever Gill went. He told her so many pleasant things about the natural object’s around them, that it was better than school, she thought. It was playing and learning at the same time.

The beautiful ox-eye daisies dotted the grass. Sally was delighted; but Gill had no mercy on them. He grasped the tall stems, and the large white blossoms fell prostrate to the ground. “You see,” said Gill, “if I don’t uproot these pretty things, they’ll take all the strength out of the soil, and choke out the good, sweet grass; and then what’ll Brindle and Flash do for feed, and where will you and Ben and the rest of us get milk and butter?”

Ben came along with his hammer nicely mended. He was very proud of the new handle which he had made.

Gill said it was well done, almost as well as if he had made it himself, and quite wonderful for a boy nine years old.

“Nine years and six months,” said Ben. At that stage of his life he could not bear to cut off a single day.

“And I’m eight,” said Sally. “I’m nearly as old as brother, I come within three inches of being as tall as Ben.”

“I’ll help you pull weeds,” said the lad. “I can cut them with my jackknife.”

“It will do no good if you leave the roots,” said Gill. “These daisies are wonderful to spread,—one root will have sixty or seventy stalks, and the stalks branch out on all sides, and bear any quantity of seed.”

“They’re lovely,” said Sally, “it seems a pity to destroy them.”

Every little child loves the fine “ox-eye.”

It stands up amid the green, so attractive and beautiful, with the pretty yellow center, and the delicate white petals.

The children wade in the meadow grass, and fill their little hands with daisies, and feel very rich as they run home with them to mother.

“I do not see why they are called ‘ox-eyes,’” said Ben.

“Nor I,” said Gill. “People take strange fancies sometimes. There’s a small cloud that is seen at the cape of Good Hope, once in a while before a dreadful storm. They call that an ‘ox-eye.’ They say it is of that form and size, when it first appears, though it soon grows and overspreads the whole heavens. These flowers do look something like, with the great round pupil, come to think of it.”

Ben tried in vain to get up the roots. The stems broke off in his hands, leaving the roots firm in the ground.

“I’ll have to take them after a rain,” said Gill. “That will loosen them a little. Here’s another tough affair, this Canada thistle. I must put my leather mittens on, before I touch it, or I shall get well pricked. It carries its weapons in its leaves.”

“They’re as thick around the edges as the pins in my pocket cushion,” said Ben, taking out a little leaf made of pasteboard, covered with green velvet, and stuck closely with pins. “See how nice I keep your birthday present, sister.‘Tis always in my jacket pocket next my heart.”

Sally looked pleased. “I’ll make you another when that is worn out,” she said.

Gill tugged at the thistle. By and by up it came at a lusty pull; but the Scotchman landed plump upon the ground. That made sport for the little people, and Gill joined them in their mirth.

“You’re just what you mean, ‘austere’ or ‘harsh,’” said Gill, shaking his fist at the plant, and making believe angry, as he arose to his feet. “You stick your sharp spears into me, and then throw me flat upon my back, without reference to my size, or my age; but I’ll get the better of you yet. You can not stand here and scatter your downy seeds in the air, to fall and vegetate and spring up to make trouble for me by and by. Wait till the autumn comes, and I’ll get my spade and take up every mother’s son of you.”

“The blossom is pretty,” said Sally, touching the feathery purple with her finger tips.

“So it is,” said Gill. “What are common weeds in one country are rare, choice plants in another. Where this does not grow, it would be thought exquisite; but the Canada thistle is wide spread throughout the world.”

“‘Tis enough prettier than the cactus that mother takes such care of,” said Ben.

“Oh, yes, there’s nothing graceful in that plant, with its thick, bristly body. To be sure the blossom is very brilliant; but I like a flower that is set off by graceful green leaves.”

“Where does the cactus belong, Gill?”

“In South America and the West Indies. There are ever so many sorts, but the ‘melon thistles’ are the most curious, with their deep ribs, and the spikes set all over them, and the juicy flesh that is pleasant and acid, and is eaten by the natives. There’s another species called the ‘grandiflorus.’ It is a creeping plant, and the flowers begin to open in the evening between seven and eight o’clock, and are in full bloom by eleven; but they are short-lived and fade away before the morning. It is also called the ‘night-blooming cereus.’ The calyx or cup is nearly a foot in diameter, yellow within and dark-brown without, and the petals are pure white, and the fragrance delicious.”

“That must be lovely.”

“Yes,” said Gill, “but to my eye the daisies and dandelions are just as pretty. God makes every thing beautiful.”

“Don’t you hate to pull them up?” asked little Sally.

“‘Tis not pleasant to see them withering upon the ground where they have stood upright and smiling and fresh; but then you know I must have a clean grass meadow, if I want the cows to thrive, and give rich milk and good butter. Maybe in the new earth the grass and the flowers will grow together, and not hurt, but rather help one another.”

Sally picked a golden dandelion and held it up to Gill. “It is like a little parasol,” she said.

“So it is. We never get tired of this beautiful yellow flower that dots the green. The French call it ‘dent de leon,’ or lion’s tooth, from the resemblance in the jagged leaves to the teeth of that animal. From this has come our word dandelion.”

“I hope I shall know as much as you do when I grow up, Gill,” said Ben.

“That would be little enough,” said the Scotchman. “I search the books whenever I have a minute to spare, and in that way I gather up a good deal in the course of the year; but it is as a drop in the bucket when I think how much there is yet to be learned. It is good of God to give us an eternity in which to study his works, this life is such a speck of time.”

“Is that what we are to do by and by?” asked Ben.

“I think so,” said Gill; “part of our life hereafter at least, to look into the wonderful things of creation, the things that we cannot see here, and that we have not leisure to learn about.”

Sally was running along by the fence which separated the meadow from the field. She espied the children’s delight, “butter-and-eggs,” as little people call it.

“We say ‘toad-flax,’” said Gill, examining the pale-green, narrow leaves, and light-yellow blossoms with a touch of deep orange. “The plant is something like the flax plant, and they say the blossom resembles a toad’s mouth.”

“I shall keep to butter-and-eggs,” said little Sally, “that is what all the children call it.”

“Dobbin is whinnying,” said Gill. “He has finished his hay, and I must be off to town. I have errands enough to do to-night, and I must be up betimes in the morning to pick beans and peas, and get them to market in season.”

“Wake me at four o’clock, if you please,” said Ben, “and I’ll help you.”

“And I will get up and help you,” said the little girl. “‘Tis so lovely out here in the morning. I’ll put on my old frock and my thick shoes, and mother will not mind the dew. I can dress nicely before breakfast.”

Dolly was aroused from her nap, and the hay and the milking-stool were removed from the old cart, and Dobbin stood between the thills, and Ben and Sally watched the wheels go round and round, as Gill drove out of the big gate, and away toward the city.

CHAPTER III. THE PEASE FAMILY.

THE children had each a tin pail, which they filled with peas, and emptied into Gill’s large basket. How busy and happy they were in the early morning, amid the vines! The fresh green pods hung thick and full, and here and there was a delicate blossom of white, tinged with pink and purple.

“How pretty!” said Sally, picking a couple of flowers, and hanging them upon her ears, where they shone among her light-brown curls. Then she pressed the edge of a pod, and open sprung the doors, and showed the “seven little sisters, all dressed alike in pea-green,” and looking as happy and contented as could be in their narrow house. How they enjoyed their peep at the world, and their glimpse of little Sally Reed’s pretty plump face, I can not tell; but I know that the child was pleased enough, as she put her finger upon each round head, as a sort of gentle greeting to the pease children, who had never before looked outside their mother’s door.

Gill was full of life. He was glad to have the little people with him. Beside the help from their nimble hands, there was something refreshing in their cheerful prattle, and he was never weary of imparting what he knew; so that the big tongue and the little tongues were about as busy as the big hands and the little hands; and Gill and the children were all gainers, for a grown person forgets his knowledge unless he has somebody now and then to tell it to. Nothing can grow and flourish, if you shut it up from the light and air.

Thoughts as well as plants, need space for expansion, and should never be kept in a cramped and dark place. Gill told the children about the maritime pea, that grows wild upon the sea-shore, both in Europe and in the Northern part of the United States.

“It is like our cultivated vine in form,” he said, “but has large reddish or purplish flowers, in racemes or clusters. The seeds, as the peas are called, are bitter and disagreeable, but in times of scarcity have been used for food.”

“People eat almost any thing when they are hungry, starving hungry, I mean,” said Ben. “Do they not?”

“Yes, indeed, we don’t know what it is to lack bread. God has given us such a plenty in our country.”

“Do you like pea-soup, Gill?” asked Sally.

“When I can not get green peas,” said the Scotchman. “They make that mostly in winter. You know we get split dried peas at the grocer’s. You have to soak them over night, and boil your soup two hours at least, to have it nice. The dried peas are freed from the husks and split in a mill. When they are young and green, it takes very little time to cook them, not more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and you season them for the table with butter and salt and pepper, and a pinch of white sugar, and I don’t want a better vegetable. There is a kind which has a soft pod without the leathery lining. It is boiled pod and all, as we cook kidney beans.” Gill opened a pod, and showed the children why these that they were picking could not be eaten. He was never in too great haste to stop his work for a minute, if there was any thing to explain. “You’ll find the other sort in the old country,” he said.

“I’ve picked six kettles full already,” said little Sally, as she emptied her pail into the two-bushel basket.