Nature's Serial Story Part 8

"Oh dear!" cried Amy, "if I were left alone in the care of your flower-room, I should out-Herod Herod in the slaughter of the innocents."

"You will not be left alone, and you will be surprised to find how quickly the pretty mystery of life and growth will begin to reveal itself to you."

As the days pa.s.sed, Amy became more and more absorbed in the genial family life of the Cliffords. She especially attached herself to the old people, and Mr. and Mrs. Clifford were fast learning that their kindness to the orphan was destined to receive an exceeding rich reward. Her young eyes supplemented theirs, which were fast growing dim; and even plat.i.tudes read in her sweet girlish voice seemed to acquire point and interest. She soon learned to glean from the papers and periodicals that which each cared for, and to skip the rest. She discovered in the library a well-written book on travel in the tropics, and soon had them absorbed in its pages, the descriptions being much enhanced in interest by contrast with the winter landscape outside. Mrs. Clifford had several volumes on the culture of flowers, and under her guidance and that of Webb she began to prepare for the practical out-door work of spring with great zest. In the meantime she was a.s.siduous in the care of the house plants, and read all she could find in regard to the species and varieties represented in the little flower-room. It became a source of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt to start with a familiar house plant and trace out all its botanical relatives, with their exceedingly varied character and yet essential consanguinity; and she drew others, even Alf and little Johnnie, into this unhackneyed pursuit of knowledge.

"These plant families," she said one day, "are as curiously diverse as human families. Group them together and you can see plainly that they belong to one another, and yet they differ so widely."

"As widely as Webb and I," put in Burt.

"Thanks for so apt an ill.u.s.tration."

"Burt is what you would call a rampant grower, running more to wood and foliage than anything else," Leonard remarked.

"I didn't say that," said Amy. "Moreover, I learned from my reading that many of the strong-growing plants become in maturity the most productive of flowers or fruit."

"How young I must seem to you!" Burt remarked.

"Well, don't be discouraged. It's a fault that will mend every day," she replied, with a smile that was so arch and genial that he mentally a.s.sured himself that he never would be disheartened in his growing purpose to make Amy more than a sister.

CHAPTER XII

A MOUNTAINEER'S HOVEL

One winter noon Leonard returned from his superintendence of the wood-cutting in the mountains. At the dinner-table be remarked: "I have heard to-day that the Lumley family are in great dest.i.tution, as usual.

It is useless to help them, and yet one cannot sit down to a dinner like this in comfort while even the Lumleys are hungry."

"Hunger is their one good trait," said Webb. "Under its incentive they contribute the smallest amount possible to the world's work."

"I shouldn't mind," resumed Leonard, "if Lumley and his wife were pinched sharply. Indeed, it would give me solid satisfaction had I the power to make those people work steadily for a year, although they would regard it as the worst species of cruelty. They have a child, however, I am told, and for its sake I must go and see after them. Come with me, Amy, and I promise that you will be quite contented when you return home."

It was rather late in the afternoon when the busy Leonard appeared at the door in his strong one-horse sleigh with its movable seat, and Amy found that he had provided an ample store of vegetables, flour, etc. She started upon the expedition with genuine zest, to which every mile of progress added.

The clouded sky permitted only a cold gray light, in which everything stood out with wonderful distinctness. Even the dried weeds with their shrivelled seed-vessels were sharply defined against the snow. The beech leaves which still clung to the trees were bleached and white, but the foliage on the lower branches of the oaks was almost black against the hillside. Not a breath of air rustled them. At times Leonard would stop his horse, and when the jingle of the sleigh-bells ceased the silence was profound. Every vestige of life had disappeared in the still woods, or was hidden by the snow.

"How lonely and dreary it all looks!" said Amy, with a sigh.

"That is why I like to look at a scene like this," Leonard replied.

"When I get home I see it all again--all its cold desolation--and it makes Maggie's room, with her and the children around me, seem like heaven."

But oh, the contrast to Maggie's room that Amy looked upon after a ride over a wood-road so rough that even the deep snow could not relieve its rugged inequalities! A dim glow of firelight shone through the frosted window-panes of a miserable dwelling, as they emerged in the twilight from the narrow track in the growing timber. In response to a rap on the door, a gruff, thick voice said, "Come in."

Leonard, with a heavy basket on his arm, entered, followed closely by Amy, who, in her surprise, looked with undisguised wonder at the scene before her. Never had she even imagined such a home. Indeed, it seemed like profanation of the word to call the bare, uncleanly room by that sweetest of English words. It contained not a home-like feature. Her eyes were not resting on decent poverty, but upon uncouth, repulsive want; and this awful impoverishment was not seen in the few articles of cheap, dilapidated furniture so clearly as in the dull, sodden faces of the man and woman who kennelled there. No trace of manhood or womanhood was visible--and no animal is so repulsive as a man or woman imbruted.

The man rose unsteadily to his feet and said: "Evenin', Mr. Clifford.

Will yer take a cheer?"

The woman had not the grace or the power to acknowledge their presence, but after staring stolidly for a moment or two at her visitors through her dishevelled hair, turned and cowered over the hearth again, her elfish locks falling forward and hiding her face.

The wretched smoky fire they maintained was the final triumph and revelation of their utter s.h.i.+ftlessness. With square miles of woodland all about them, they had prepared no billets of suitable size. The man had merely cut down two small trees, lopped off their branches, and dragged them into the room. Their b.u.t.t-ends were placed together on the hearth, whence the logs stretched like the legs of a compa.s.s to the two further corners of the room. Amy, in the uncertain light, had nearly stumbled over one of them. As the logs burned away they were shoved together on the hearth from time to time, the woman mechanically throwing on dry sticks from a pile near her when the greed wood ceased to blaze.

Both man and woman were partially intoxicated, and the latter was so stupefied as to be indifferent to the presence of strangers. While Leonard was seeking to obtain from the man some intelligible account of their condition, and bringing in his gifts, Amy gazed around, with her fair young face full of horror and disgust. Then her attention was arrested by a feeble cry from a cradle in a dusky corner beyond the woman, and to the girl's heart it was indeed a cry of distress, all the more pathetic because of the child's helplessness, and unconsciousness of the wretched life to which it seemed inevitably destined.

She stepped to the cradle's side, and saw a pallid little creature, puny and feeble from neglect. Its mother paid no attention to its wailing, and when Amy asked if she might take it up, the woman's mumbled reply was unintelligible.

After hesitating a moment Amy lifted the child, and found it scarcely more than a little skeleton. Sitting down on the only chair in the room, which the man had vacated--the woman crouched on an inverted box--Amy said, "Leonard, please bring me the milk we brought."

After it had been warmed a little the child drank it with avidity.

Leonard stood in the background and sadly shook his head as he watched the scene, the fire-light flickering on Amy's pure profile and tear-dimmed eye as she watched the starved babe taking from her hand the food that the brutish mother on the opposite side of the hearth was incapable of giving it.

He never forgot that picture--the girl's face beautiful with a divine compa.s.sion, the mother's large sensual features half hidden by her snaky locks as she leaned stupidly over the fire, the dusky flickering shadows that filled the room, in which the mountaineer's head loomed like that of a s.h.a.ggy beast. Even his rude nature was impressed, and he exclaimed,

"Gad! the likes of that was never seen in these parts afore!"

"Oh, sir," cried Amy, turning to him, "can you not see that your little child is hungry?"

"Well,--the woman, she's drunk, and s'pose I be too, somewhat."

"Come, Lumley, be more civil," said Leonard. "The young lady isn't used to such talk."

"Oh, it all seems so dreadful!" exclaimed Amy, her tears falling faster.

The man drew a step or two nearer, and looked at her wonderingly; then, stretching out his great grimy hand, he said: "I s'pose you think I hain't no feelings, miss, but I have. I'll take keer on the young un, and I won't tech another drop to-night. Thar's my hand on it."

To Leonard's surprise, Amy took the hand, as she said, "I believe you will keep your word."

"That's right, Lumley," added Leonard, heartily. "Now you are acting like a man. I've brought you a fair lot of things, but they are in trade. In exchange for them I want the jug of liquor you brought up from the village to-day."

The man hesitated, and looked at his wife.

"Come, Lumley, you've begun well. Put temptation out of the way. For your wife and baby's sake, as well as your own, give me the jug. You mean well, but you know your failing."

"Well, Mr. Clifford," said the man, going to a cupboard, "I guess it'll be safer. But you don't want the darned stuff," and he opened the door and dashed the vessel against an adjacent bowlder.

"That's better still. Now brace up, get your axe and cut some wood in a civilized way. We're going to have a cold night. You can't keep up a fire with this s.h.i.+ftless contrivance," indicating with his foot one of the logs lying along the floor. "As soon as you get things straightened up here a little we'll give you work. The young lady has found out that you have the making of a man in you yet. If she'll take your word for your conduct to-night, she also will for the future."

"Yes," added Amy, "if you will try to do better, we will all try to help you. I shall come to see the baby again. Oh, Leonard," she added, as she placed the child in its cradle, "can't we leave one of the blankets from the sleigh? See, the baby has scarcely any covering."

"But you may be cold."

"No; I am dressed warmly. Oh! see! see! the little darling is smiling up at me! Leonard, please do. I'd rather be cold."

"Bless your good heart, miss!" said the man, more touched than ever.

"Never had any sich wisitors afore."