When Grandmamma Was New Part 2

"Some grown people are not tiresome," I essayed. "There's Mr. Frank Morton, now. I _like_ him!"

"Oh, you do--do you? Why?" still shredding the veil of curls between her and the sun.

"Well, one thing is, he talks _straight_. He doesn't talk 'round about, and sideways, and crossways, to children. Nor make fun of my questions.

He just answers right along and plain."

"I don't think I quite know what you mean, Namesake."

"Why, you see it's this way,--the other day I asked him if he didn't think you were a heap prettier than any other lady he ever saw, and he never so much as cracked a smile. He just put his arm 'round me--he never did that but twice before--and he said up-and-down, as serious as anything--'Yes, I do, Molly!' And he does make the beautifullest chinquapin whistles! They go on whistling after they are dry. You see, the trouble with the whistles other people make for me, is that they shrivel all up by next day, and there isn't a bit of whistle left in them."

"That's the way with most of my whistles, too, Namesake. And then I throw them away and want new ones. Heigh-ho! What's the use of a whistle when all the whistle has gone out of it? I must ask Mr. Frank Morton how he makes his."

I gave a jump and a little squeak.

"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle! there's a great, _big_ race-horse on you!"

He had tumbled out of the apple boughs upon the folds of her skirt and before I could capture him, a second fell after him. I was upon my feet in a twinkling, seized first one, then the other, by their attenuated middles, and held them up, all kicking and sprawling, between a thumb and finger of each hand. I knew the tricks and the manners of what I learned, many years later, that naturalists describe as the _mantis religiosa_, or praying-mantis, because in off-hours,--_i.e._ when they are not foraging or fighting--they will sit upon their hind quarters and "fold the stout anterior legs in a manner suggesting hands folded in prayer."

I had caught dozens of them and fed them for days in a box with coa.r.s.e lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison that forthwith became an arena, in which _duello_ and general scrimmage relieved one another in enchanting succession.

I explained now, to my diverted companion, that I held them by their backs so that they could not bite me, and pointed out the wicked heads turning almost quite around in their savage efforts to avenge their capture. I was sure, I said excitedly, that these two were fighting up in the tree, and that was the way they happened to drop so close together. Had she never seen devil's race-horses fight? Mother didn't like that name for them, so I 'most always said just "race-horses"

plain, _so_. Only, when they were very cross, the other word would slip out.

"If I were to let them go this minute, they'd begin to fight, 'stead of running away," I concluded. "S'pose we try them."

Entering into my humor, she improvised a c.o.c.kpit by spreading her pocket-handkerchief upon the ground, and I liberated the gladiators.

They more than justified my account of their ferocity by grappling on the instant, each rising to his full height and hurling himself at his opponent's throat.

"You see they are acquainted with one another," I commented, as umpire and manager. "They just begin where they left off up in the tree."

It was an exciting display. Cousin Molly Belle raised herself upon her elbow; I doubled tightly under me what I now let myself think of as my legs, and spread both hands flat on the gra.s.s, to lean over the arena.

In the hush that followed the onslaught the babbling song Bud crooned to himself as he crawled over the sun-and-shade dappled turf harmonized with the sleepy shaking of the leaves about us. Such another happy-hearted baby was never seen. And so wise, as I have said, for a yearling! never getting into mischief, and afraid of nothing.

I peeped through a kinetoscope last winter at a prize fight. I have never beheld anything that so closely and humiliatingly resembled the battle on the cambric square under the big sweeting. The wary advance after the recoil from the first encounter; the circling about at close quarters, each watching for his antagonist's weak point, the sudden clutch, embrace, and wrestle, which I, with umpiric instinct, interrupted, once and again, to prolong the combat,--none of these were wanting from either exhibition.

At length, I left the combatants to follow the bent of native savagery, and then came such warm and inartistic work as patrons of the human ring would decry as barbarous and out-of-date. They bit venomously, below the belt, they grabbed at and hung on to any part of the body that came handy; they rolled over and over, intertwined so closely as to appear like one convulsed, centipedal monster. Finally, one half of the creature gave a violent kick and was still. As the victor shook himself free of the carca.s.s we saw the head he had bitten from the other's neck roll from under the survivor. Withdrawing an inch or two from the remains, he sat up on his hind quarters, and "folded his stout anterior legs" sanctimoniously in a battle-prayer. His devotions ended, he proceeded to lick his wound and readjust himself generally.

"I'm sorry I didn't separate them," said Cousin Molly Belle, shaking her handkerchief with coy finger-tips. "I don't think I care to see such another fight. It gives me the creeps."

"I think it is very inter_es_ting," replied I. "'Tisn't as if they had souls, you see. They just die and don't go anywhere."

A disagreeable noise joined Bud's cooing and babbling, and made us turn quickly. Right before us, and within six feet of the helpless baby, who had sat up to regard the phenomenon with innocent wonder, was an enormous sow with a brood of hungry young ones at her heels. Her vicious grunt, her gloating eyes, her dripping jaws, and projecting tusks, bespoke her dangerous. Only yesterday I had seen her, prowling in the barn-yard, seize and devour, one after another, three downy ducklings before the stable-boys could beat her off. In the terror of this moment, the scene flashed back to me, and I seemed to hear again the crunching of those slavering jaws.

Cousin Molly Belle swooped down upon Bud, and had him upon her shoulder before I could join my piping cry to her shout that rang out like a silver trumpet. The huge beast halted, made as though she would turn, then gave an angry, squealing grunt, and lunged toward us. Not a loose stick or stone was within reach. If there had been, there was not time to pick it up.

"Run for the fence! Run!" called the brave girl to me, and met the voracious brute with a kick, so well aimed that the high heel of her shoe struck full upon the eye next to her. In the respite gained by the sow's stagger and recoil, our defender overtook me, caught my hand, and fled along the path traced in the trampled broom-straw, through which we had waded merrily awhile ago. We had not taken a dozen steps when we heard the enemy roaring behind us.

"Oh!" gasped I, running with all my might meanwhile. "She will eat up Bud! Like she--ate--up--the--little--ducks!"

"She shall eat me first!"

I knew she meant it, and that it was true. The fence was not more than fifty yards away. It looked a mile off, and the wild gra.s.s was as tough and treacherous as it had been pliant and sweet when we had danced through it. I was a swift runner and my limbs obeyed me well. I was conscious, moreover, of the strong upbearing of my companion's hand that lent wings to my feet. If I were to stumble, she would not let me fall.

This persuasion kept mind and heart in me.

Yet the sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the gra.s.s. The mother went back to rea.s.sure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very unlike those with which she renewed the chase.

We were at the fence. I scrambled over, spent and shaking, hardly able to receive the precious load that was lowered to me. As Cousin Molly Belle dropped after us, our pursuer's snout was poked between the lower rails in a last and futile attempt to get at the baby's fat legs.

"_Then_ I got mad all through!" Cousin Molly Belle told my mother, in recounting the adventure.

Her white face flamed scarlet in a second. A pile of disused pea sticks lay in the fence corner. She seized one, and jumped over the fence again. Wielding her weapon as if it were a flail, she brought it down upon the ugly head and raw-boned body; and as the sow turned tail to run, belabored her through the orchard to the gap by which she had entered.

The conqueror returned to me, flushed, but unsmiling. I had Bud tight in my arms, and was laughing and crying together.

"It was funny to see you lam her and to see her run," I sobbed between giggles that hurt me more than the sobs.

She sat down on the gra.s.s, and clasped the baby to her heart. He cooed joyously, and held up a sweet open mouth for a kiss. He got, not one, but twenty kisses upon his wet lips, his pink face, his curly head, and the bonny eyes that were bluer than the sky. Then she bent to give me one--so long and tender that it checked sob and giggle.

"We will never make devil's race-horses fight again, Namesake. They have a right to their lives. And a life is a very precious thing!"

Chapter III

Van Diemen's Land

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I learned to read that winter. How n.o.body knew, and I least of all.

Looking backward, I seem to have gone to sleep one night, an ignoramus, and awakened next morning knowing letters, yet never having learned.

Cousin Molly Belle's solution of the puzzle submitted to her by my mystified mother was characteristic:--

"It is the fable of Munchausen's frozen horn over again. All the learning you have been pumping into the poor child for two years has thawed out. I always told you that she had brains if you would wait until they woke up."

I might speak of that enchanted season as my birth-winter. My mental awakening was into another world, so much wider and fuller than that with which I had been well content up to this time, that life was a continual ecstasy. I discovered, early in December, that, as Mr. Wegg was to immortalize himself by saying a quarter-century later--"all print was open" to me. By the middle of February I had gone three times through the inimitable cla.s.sic, _Cobwebs-to-catch-Flies_, and read at least six other books through twice, besides being up to my eyes and over the head of my understanding in _Sandford and Merton_, that most fascinating of prosy impossibilities. Beside the cla.s.sic I have named, and _Rosamond_, _Harry and Lucy_, Berquin's _Children's Friend_, Mrs.

Sherwood's _Little Henry and His Bearer_ and _Fairchild Family_, _Anna Ross_ and _Helen Maurice_, we had no books that were written expressly for children. No prepared pap being at hand, we expressed real nourishment for the mind--relishful juices that made intellectual bone and muscle--from the strong meat upon which our elders fed.

Did we comprehend all, or one-third of what we read, or heard read?

Less, probably, than one-sixth, but we got far more than would seem credible to one who has been led up a graciously inclined plane of learning. Our manner of receiving and digesting mind-food was very much like Bud's way of testing unknown substances that might be edible. We rejected what hurt our teeth. What we got we kept.

The current of my outer life was quiet to apparent dulness. After breakfast Mary 'Liza and I had our lessons with my mother in "the chamber." In another year we would have a governess, but the mothers of that time always taught their children to read and write, to spell and cipher through Emerson's _First Arithmetic_. I have known several who never sent their boys and girls to school, even preparing the lads for college. We had our reading, beginning with a chapter in the Bible, then, our spelling and writing, and sums. After these, my mother read aloud from Grimshaw's _History of England_, simplifying the language when she considered it necessary, which was not often, while Mary 'Liza made up the first set of chemises (in the vernacular "s.h.i.+mmys,") she had undertaken for herself, and I knit twenty rounds on a stocking. My mother put in a "mark" of black silk every morning from which I could count the rounds upward. Mary 'Liza had knit a dozen pairs in all. In the tops of six, she had knit in openwork her initials "M. E. B." I had no ambitions in that direction. My views on the subject of ornamental initials and sampler autographs were put into pregnant English at a subsequent date by the elder Weller. He professed to have received at second-hand from the charity-boy, set to con the alphabet, what the retired stage-driver applied to matrimony--to wit, that it was not worth while to go through so much to get so little. Knitting delighted not me, nor st.i.tching either.

Lessons and work over, the day began for me in joyful earnest. The rest of the morning and all the evening were mine to use, or abuse, as I liked. We applied "evening" to the hours between the three o'clock dinner and bedtime. We may have caught the phrase from our Bible readings. The morning and the evening were the day.