Cousin Lucy's Conversations

“O Royal, we have caught them! we have caught them! O, come and see! come, Miss Anne, come quick and see!”

And before they had time to speak to her, or even to ask what she meant, she was away again, calling, as she passed away from hearing, “Come, come, come!”

Royal left Miss Anne, and ran off after Lucy.

Miss Anne herself walked along after them, and found them looking through the bars of the hen-coop, and in a state of the highest delight at the sight of a hen and a large brood of chickens, which were walking about within.

“O, look, Miss Anne!” said Lucy, clapping her hands as Miss Anne came up. “A real hen, and ever so many chickens!”

“Where could they have come from?” said Miss Anne.

“O, we caught them,” said Lucy; “we caught them. I told you, Royal, that perhaps we should catch some.”

“How did they get here?” said Royal. “It is some of father’s sly work, I know. Do you know, Miss Anne, how they came here?”

“Let us see how many chickens there are,” said Miss Anne. “One, two, three,” – and so she went on counting up to thirteen.

“Thirteen,” said Lucy; “only think! More than Joanna’s, isn’t it, Royal? Thirteen is more than eleven, isn’t it?”

“Yes, two more,” said Royal; “but, Miss Anne, don’t you know how they came here?”

Miss Anne looked rather sly, but did not answer. She said to Lucy,

“Well, Lucy, let us go and see your garden.”

Lucy did not now care so much about her garden; she was more interested in the chickens; however, they all went to look at it, and Miss Anne praised it very highly. She said the flowers looked beautifully.

“And now, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “whenever I want any flowers, I can come out here and gather them out of my garden.”

“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “as long as they last.”

“O, they will last all the time,” said Lucy.

“Will they?” said Miss Anne, rather doubtfully.

“Yes,” said Lucy; “I am going to water them.”

“That will help,” replied Miss Anne, “I have no doubt.”

“I can keep them fresh as long as I want to, in that way,” said Lucy. “Royal said so.”

“Did you, Royal?” asked Miss Anne.

“No,” said Royal. “I said that they would keep fresh as long as she watered them.”

“That wasn’t quite honest, was it, Royal? for they won’t keep fresh more than two days.”

“Well,” said Royal, “and she won’t have patience to water them more than one day.”

“That’s equivocation,” said Miss Anne.

“Equivocation?” repeated Royal; “what do you mean by that?”

“It is when anything you say has two senses, and it is true in one sense, and not true in another; and you mean to have any person understand it in the sense in which it is not true.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Lucy.

“Why, I will give you an example. Once there was a boy who told his brother William, that there was a black dog up in the garret, and William ran up to see. His brother came up behind him, and, when they opened the garret door, he pointed to an old andiron, such as are called dogs, and said, ‘See! there he is, standing on three legs.’”

Royal laughed very heartily at this story. He was much more amused at the waggery of such a case of equivocation, than impressed with the dishonesty of it.

“Miss Anne,” said he, “I don’t see that there was any great harm in that.”

“Equivocation is not wrong always,” said Miss Anne. “Riddles are often equivocations.”

“Tell us one,” said Royal.

“Why, there is your old riddle of the carpenter cutting the door. He cut it, and cut it, and cut it, and cut it too little; then he cut it again, and it fitted.”

“Is that an equivocation?” said Royal.

“Yes,” said Miss Anne; “the equivocation is in the word little. It may mean that he cut too little, or that he cut until the door was too little. Now, when you give out that riddle, you mean that the person whom you are talking with, should understand it in the last sense; that is, that he cut until the door was too little, and then that he cut it more, and it was just right. But it cannot be true in that sense. It is true only in the other sense; that is, that he did not cut it enough, and then, when he cut it more, he made it fit. So that he cut it too little, has two senses. The words are true in one sense; but you mean to have them understood in the other sense, in which they cannot be true. And that is an equivocation.

“But, then,” continued Miss Anne, “equivocations in riddles are certainly not wrong; but equivocations in our dealings with one another certainly are.”

“I don’t think that the boy that said there was a dog up garret did any thing wrong,” said Royal.

“I do,” said Lucy, putting down her little foot with great emphasis. “I think he did very wrong indeed.”

“O no, Lucy,” said Miss Anne, “not very wrong indeed. Perhaps it was not quite right. But it is certainly wrong to gain any advantage from any person in your dealings with them, by equivocation.”

“Did I?” said Royal.

“Yes, I think you did, a little. You told Lucy that the flowers would keep fresh as long as she would water them. You meant her to understand it absolutely; but it is true only in another sense.”

“In what sense?” said Royal.

“Why, as long as she would be likely to water them; which is a very different thing. Perhaps she would not have been willing to make the bargain with you, if she had understood that she could not keep them fresh by watering them, more than a day or two.”

While they had been talking thus, they had gradually been walking towards the house, and they had now reached the door. Miss Anne went in, and Lucy and Royal went to the hen-coop to see the hen and chickens.

Lucy went to get some corn, but Joanna told her that crumbs of bread would be better, and then the old hen could break them up into small pieces, and feed her chickens with them. She accordingly gave her some small pieces of bread, which Lucy carried back; and she and Royal amused themselves for a long time, by throwing crumbs in through the spaces between the sticks.

While they were talking about them, Royal happened to speak of them as his hen and chickens, and Lucy said that she thought he ought not to have them all. She wanted some herself, – at least some of the chickens.

“O no,” said Royal; “they are altogether mine; it is my coop.”

“No,” replied Lucy; “I helped you make the coop, and I mean to have some of the chickens.”