Happy Days for Boys and Girls Part 21

"Well, Mary, let's go home, and see how they are getting along," said he, in a confident tone; for he instantly divined who her prisoners were, and that the Cave of Machpelah could not be far away.

Mrs. Pike was quite willing to go with him, and worried all the way home; for she said prisoners were always in mischief, and there were the robes hanging in the cave, which she had forgotten to put out of their reach. So when they arrived, her first act was to unlock the door of the children's prison. And her next was to pounce upon them with even more vigor than when she emerged from it in the afternoon.

For there they lay asleep on the carpet, Jane in a purple robe, and Sarah in a green, their hands and feet invisible by reason of the great length of their garments.

"Don't hurt them, Mary," said Mr. Pike. For she was hustling off the precious robes before the little girls were fairly awake; and they might have fared hardly, had not the kind man been present to see that justice was done; to wit, that they were compensated for their imprisonment by pockets full of cakes and fruit, and sent home to their mother without delay. That happy woman did not send them supperless to bed, nor say a word about punis.h.i.+ng them, either then or afterwards. Perhaps she guessed that their punishment had already been sufficiently severe.

"O, mother," said Jane, "at first we didn't dare to stir or speak, for fear the crazy lady was listening; and she seemed angry enough to kill us. I felt as if my hair was turning gray, and Sarah looked as white as the wall. Well, after a great many hours, we began to look about the room, and we saw those queer gowns she knits, hanging in a row; and we got up and looked at them. By and by we got so tired doing nothing, that we took them down and tried them on, and played we were the saints. We tried to fly, but the old things were so heavy and long, that we couldn't even jump. And after a while we were so tired that we lay down and went to sleep, and never woke till Mrs. Pike came home. O, but 'twas the lonesomest, longest, dreariest afternoon we ever, ever knew--wasn't it, Sarah?"

This was the story, with variations, which the Holmes girls had to tell to their mates the next day, and the next, and so on, until it ceased to be a novelty.

But Mrs. Pike's prisoners were heroines, in the estimation of the village girls and boys, for more than one year, and doubtless still remember and tell to their children the story of their afternoon in the Cave of Machpelah.

M. R. W.

WAR AND PEACE.

WAR.

The warrior waves his standard high, His falchion flashes in the fray; He madly shouts his battle-cry, And glories in a well-fought day.

But Famine's at the city gate, And Rapine prowls without the walls; The city round lies desolate, While Havoc's blighting footstep falls.

By ruined hearths, by homes defiled, In scenes that nature's visage mar, We feel the storm of pa.s.sions wild, And pluck the bitter fruit of war.

PEACE.

The cobweb hangs on Sword and belt, The charger draws the gliding plow; The cannons in the furnace melt, And change to gentle purpose now; The threshers swing their ponderous flails, The craftsmen toil with cheerful might; The ocean swarms with merchant sails, And busy mills look gay by night; The happy land becomes renowned, As knowledge, arts, and wealth increase, And thus, with plenty smiling round, We cull the blessed fruits of peace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAR.]

CHERRY-TIME.

"Oh, cherry-time is a merry time!"

We children used to say-- "The merriest throughout the year, For all is bright and gay."

"Oh, cherry-time is a merry time!"

The air is fresh and sweet, And fair flowers in the garden bloom, And daisies 'neath our feet.

"Oh, cherry-time is a merry time!"

For hanging on the tree, All round and glistening in the sun, The pretty fruit we see.

"Oh, cherry-time is a merry time!"

Up in the tree so high We children climbed, and, laughing, said, "Almost into the sky."

"Oh, cherry-time is a merry time!"

The robins thought so too, And helped themselves to "cherries ripe"

While wet with morning dew.

"Oh, cherry-time is a merry time!"

The suns.h.i.+ne and the showers Of G.o.d's rich mercy fall on us In happy childhood's hours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHERRY-TIME.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {The boys in the pond, fis.h.i.+ng with rods}]

THE DAVY BOYS' FIs.h.i.+NG-POND.

"Boys," said Mr. Davy, "how would you like to have a fis.h.i.+ng-pond?"

The five boys looked at him eagerly, to see if he were in earnest.

"O, splendid, papa!" say they in chorus; "but how _can_ we have a fis.h.i.+ng-pond?"

"You know that hollow down in the pasture," continued Mr. Davy, "and what a blemish it is upon the farm. I have wondered if we could not make it useful in some way, and at the same time improve the looks of things. I think we might build an embankment upon the open side, make the slope steeper all round, bring the water into it from the creek, and so have a fis.h.i.+ng-pond. We should have to make a race-way from the creek to the pond, and cut a channel through the meadow, in which the water could flow back to the creek again below the fall. I think it could be done," said Mr. Davy, after a pause, "only there would be a great deal of work necessary, and we could hardly afford to hire it done."

"O, father, _we_ can do the digging," shouted five voices in chorus; "we can do it with our spades and wheelbarrows. School doesn't begin for a month yet, and we can get it all done in that time."

"Hurrah for a fish-pond!" cried Percy, and in imagination he fairly felt the bites of the three-pound trout he was to catch before summer was over.

Mr. Davy is a practical farmer. By that I mean that he cultivates the land with his own hands. He, with his men, and those of the boys who are old enough, are in the fields every morning in summer by five o'clock, ploughing, planting, sowing, or milking the cows, and, later in the season, haying, harvesting, or thres.h.i.+ng. Tommy, the eldest of his sons, is thirteen years old; Clarence, the youngest, is five.

Mr. Davy had been thinking of the fis.h.i.+ng-pond for some time, and had matured the plan in his mind before speaking of it to the boys. The morning after the conversation of which I have told you, I saw the five boys standing in thoughtful silence upon the bank above the hollow in the pasture. I do not believe the engineer who is planning the bridge across the British Channel, to connect England and France, feels anymore responsibility than did the Davy boys that morning.

"May we begin to-day, father?" said they, eagerly, at breakfast-time.

"Yes; and Patrick can help you," was the reply.

The horses were harnessed to the plough, and driven to the hollow.

Patrick was instructed how to proceed. He put the reins round his neck, and took firm hold of the handles. "Go on wid ye, now!" he cried to the horses. A furrow was soon turned, and the fish-pond fairly begun.

"Your work," said Mr. Davy to the boys, "will be to wheel away the earth which Patrick ploughs out. The first thing is to lay a plank for your wheelbarrows to run upon."

Tommy and George soon brought the planks from the tool-house. Blocks were laid the proper distance apart to sustain them, and, after two or three hours' work, a line of plank, which looked to the boys as grand as the new Pacific Railway, stretched across the hollow. The little laborers went in to dinner flushed with excitement and hard work, but as happy, I dare say, as if they had been to Barnum's Museum, and seen the wax figures and wild animals.

Patrick had, during the forenoon, ploughed a good many furrows, and now the boys were busy enough carrying away the earth. Each had a wheelbarrow of his own--Clarence's a toy, which, with a tiny spade, his father had brought from the city with a view to the work now in progress. It required a steady hand to keep the wheelbarrows upon the plank. They _would_ run off once in a while, and then all hands halted, and lifted them upon the track again. The earth was to be deposited--"dumped," the boys said--upon the site of the new embankment. As the first loads were overturned, Mr. Davy made his appearance.

"This fish-pond must have an outlet, you know," said he, "at the point where the bottom is lowest. I will measure it off for you, and drive three stakes on either side. Here we will have a gate; for our pond will need emptying and cleaning occasionally. Fish will not live in impure water."