“Thank you, that sounds pleasant,” began Mr. Brooke,looking cheerful again,but before he could finish his speech, Ned,mounted on the old horse,came lumbering up to display his equestrian skill before the young ladies,and there was no more quiet that day.
“Don’t you love to ride?” asked Grace of Amy,as they stood resting after a race round the field with the others, led by Ned.
“I dote upon it. My sister, Meg,used to ride when Papa was rich,but we don’t keep any horses now, except Ellen Tree,” added Amy, laughing.
“Tell me about Ellen Tree. Is it a donkey?” asked Grace curiously.
“Why, you see, Jo is crazy about horses and so am I,but we’ve only got an old sidesaddle and no horse.Out in our garden is an apple tree that has a nice low branch,so Jo put the saddle on it,fixed some reins on the part that turns up,and we bounce away on Ellen Tree whenever we like.”
“How funny!” laughed Grace. “I have a pony at home,and ride nearly every day in the park with Fred and Kate.It’s very nice, for my friends go too,and the Row is full of ladies and gentlemen.”
“Dear, how charming!I hope I shall go abroad some day,but I’d rather go to Rome than the Row,” said Amy,who had not the remotest idea what the Row was and wouldn’t have asked for the world.
Frank, sitting just behind the little girls,heard what they were saying,and pushed his crutch away from him with an impatient gesture as he watched the active lads going through all sorts of comical gymnastics. Beth, who was collecting the scattered Author cards, looked up and said, in her shy yet friendly way, “I’m afraid you are tired. Can I do anything for you?”
“Talk to me, please. It’s dull, sitting by myself,” answered Frank, who had evidently been used to being made much of at home.
If he asked her to deliver a Latin oration,it would not have seemed a more impossible task to bashful Beth,but there was no place to run to,no Jo to hide behind now,and the poor boy looked so wistfully at her that she bravely resolved to try.
“What do you like to talk about?” she asked, fumbling over the cards and dropping half as she tried to tie them up.
“Well, I like to hear about cricket and boating and hunting,” said Frank, who had not yet learned to suit his amusements to his strength.
My heart!What shall I do?I don’t know anything about them, thought Beth,and forgetting the boy’s misfortune in her flurry,she said, hoping to make him talk,“I never saw any hunting,but I suppose you know all about it.”
“I did once, but I can never hunt again,for I got hurt leaping a confounded five-barred gate,so there are no more horses and hounds for me,” said Frank with a sigh that made Beth hate herself for her innocent blunder.
“Your deer are much prettier than our ugly buffaloes,” she said, turning to the prairies for help and feeling glad that she had read one of the boys’ books in which Jo delighted.
Buffaloes proved soothing and satisfactory,and in her eagerness to amuse another,Beth forgot herself,and was quite unconscious of her sisters’ surprise and delight at the unusual spectacle of Beth talking away to one of the dreadful boys, against whom she had begged protection.
“Bless her heart!She pities him, so she is good to him,” said Jo,beaming at her from the croquet ground.
“I always said she was a little saint,” added Meg,as if there could be no further doubt of it.
“I haven’t heard Frank laugh so much for ever so long,” said Grace to Amy,as they sat discussing dolls and making tea sets out of the acorn cups.
“My sister Beth is a very fastidious girl,when she likes to be,” said Amy,well pleased at Beth’s success. She meant ‘facinating’,but as Grace didn’t know the exact meaning of either word,fastidious sounded well and made a good impression.
An impromptu circus, fox and geese,and an amicable game of croquet finished the afternoon.At sunset the tent was struck, hampers packed,wickets pulled up, boats loaded,and the whole party floated down the river,singing at the tops of their voices. Ned,getting sentimental,warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain...
Alone, alone, ah!Woe, alone,
and at the lines...
We each are young, we each have a heart, Oh,why should we stand thus coldly apart?
he looked at Meg with such a lackadaisical expression that she laughed outright and spoiled his song.
“How can you be so cruel to me?” he whispered, under cover of a lively chorus.“You’ve kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day,and now you snub me.”
“I didn’t mean to, but you looked so funny I really couldn’t help it,” replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach,for it was quite true that she had shunned him,remembering the Moffat party and the talk after it.
Ned was offended and turned to Sallie for consolation,saying to her rather pettishly,“There isn’t a bit of flirt in that girl, is there?”
“Not a particle, but she’s a dear,” returned Sallie,defending her friend even while confessing her shortcomings.
“She’s not a stricken deer anyway,” said Ned,trying to be witty,and succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do.
On the lawn where it had gathered,the little party separated with cordial good nights and good-byes,for the Vaughns were going to Canada.As the four sisters went home through the garden,Miss Kate looked after them, saying,without the patronizing tone in her voice,“In spite of their demonstrative manners,American girls are very nice when one knows them.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Mr. Brooke.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN CASTLES IN THE AIR
Laurie lay luxuriously swinging to and fro in his hammock one warm September afternoon, wondering what his neighbors were about, but too lazy to go and find out. He was in one of his moods, for the day had been both unprofitable and unsatisfactory, and he was wishing he could live it over again. The hot weather made him indolent, and he had shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke’s patience to the utmost, displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself. Staring up into the green gloom of the horse-chestnut trees above him, he dreamed dreams of all sorts, and was just imagining himself tossing on the ocean in a voyage round the world, when the sound of voices brought him ashore in a flash. Peeping through the meshes of the hammock, he saw the Marches coming out, as if bound on some expedition.
“What in the world are those girls about now?” thought Laurie, opening his sleepy eyes to take a good look,for there was something rather peculiar in the appearance of his neighbors.Each wore a large, flapping hat,a brown linen pouch slung over one shoulder,and carried a long staff. Meg had a cushion, Jo a book,Beth a basket, and Amy a portfolio.All walked quietly through the garden,out at the little back gate,and began to climb the hill that lay between the house and river.
“Well, that’s cool,” said Laurie to himself,“to have a picnic and never ask me!They can’t be going in the boat,for they haven’t got the key. Perhaps they forgot it.I’ll take it to them, and see what’s going on.”
Though possessed of half a dozen hats,it took him some time to find one,then there was a hunt for the key,which was at last discovered in his pocket,so that the girls were quite out of sight when he leaped the fence and ran after them. Taking the shortest way to the boathouse, he waited for them to appear, but no one came, and he went up the hill to take an observation. A grove of pines covered one part of it, and from the heart of this green spot came a clearer sound than the soft sigh of the pines or the drowsy chirp of the crickets.