Cousin Lucy's Conversations

“O, come out now,” said Royal, “and let the pricking go.”

“No,” said Lucy, “I must wait and finish my work.”

“That isn’t work,” said Royal; “it is nothing but play. It does not do any good.”

“Yes it does,” said Lucy; “I am doing it to earn money.”

“To earn money!” repeated Royal; and he began to laugh aloud at the idea of earning money in any such way as that.

Lucy explained to Royal that this was a way which Miss Anne had contrived for her to learn her letters herself, without troubling other people, and that she had told her that she should have sixpence for every three letters.

Royal then perceived that the plan was at least worthy of being treated with more respect than he had at first supposed; – but then he told Lucy that, in his opinion, she was beginning wrong.

“You ought to begin with some letter that you don’t know, Lucy,” said he; “you know o now, as well as I know my own thumb; and of course it’s of no use to prick it.”

Lucy did not know what to reply to this reasoning, – only that Miss Anne had told her to prick o, and Miss Anne knew best.

“At any rate,” said Royal, “you can finish it another time; so come out with me now, and help me get out the boxes for our boat.”

Lucy concluded that she would go out a few minutes with Royal, and then come back again, and finish her work. They accordingly went out together.

They found one long box, which Royal said would do very well indeed for a boat. The box was made to pack bedsteads in, and of course it was more than six feet long; but it was narrow, like a boat, and Royal said it was just the thing.

The children got this down upon a place where the ground was smooth and hard; and Lucy got so much interested in playing boat, that she entirely forgot her pricking for two hours; and then the first bell rang, to call them in to dinner.

The first bell always rang ten minutes before the second bell. This was to give Royal and Lucy time to come in and get ready. Lucy thought that she should just have time to finish the two lines, and she ran in to Miss Anne’s room to sit right down to her work. To her surprise, however, as soon as she got in, she saw that her chair was not before the little table, but had been set back; and the pin-cushion, pointer, and paper, had all entirely disappeared.

Lucy went into the parlor, and found Miss Anne placing the chairs around the dinner table.

“Miss Anne,” said she, in a tone of complaint, “somebody has taken away all my things.”

“That is some of my mischief, I suppose,” said Miss Anne.

“Did you take them away?” said Lucy.

“I put them away,” replied Miss Anne. “I went into my room, about an hour after I left you there, and found that you had gone away to play, and had left your work all out upon the table; and so I had to put it away.”

“Why, I was coming right back again,” said Lucy.

“And did you come right back?”

“Why, no,” said Lucy. “Royal wanted me to stay with him so much!”

“I thought you’d find it rather hard to earn money. You ought to have waited until you had finished your work, and then you could have gone out to play. – But I don’t mean that you did wrong. You had a right, if you chose, to give up the plan of earning money, and have your play instead.”

“Why, Miss Anne, I almost finished the work. I pricked all but two lines.”

“Yes, but then you left the work of putting the things away to me; and that gave me about as much trouble as all your pricking did good. So you did not earn any thing.”

“Well,” said Lucy, “I will try this afternoon, while Royal is at his studies; and then he won’t want me to go out and play.”

She took s for her letter that afternoon, and she pricked all that she could find on the page. Then she put her work carefully away, all except the page itself, which she brought to Miss Anne, so that she might examine it. Miss Anne found that she had done it very well. She had pricked almost every one. Miss Anne looked it over very carefully, and could only find two or three which Lucy had overlooked.

After this, Lucy persevered for several weeks in pricking letters. She took a new letter every day, and she generally spent about half an hour at each lesson. She learned to be very still while she was thus engaged, saying nothing except to pronounce aloud the name of the letter when she pricked it, which Miss Anne said was a very important part of the exercise.

In this way, in process of time, she learned all the letters of the alphabet; and her father paid her the eight sixpences. With one of these sixpences she bought a fine black lead pencil, to draw with, and a piece of India rubber, to rub out her marks when they were made wrong.

Miss Anne also taught her how to make a purse to keep the rest of her money in; and when the purse was done, Lucy put the money into it, and got Miss Anne to let her keep it in one of her drawers. She was afraid it would not be quite safe in her treasury.

CONVERSATION XIII

SKETCHING

Lucy asked Miss Anne if she would let her go with her the next time that she went out to make sketches, and let her try to see if she could not make sketches too, with her new pencil. Miss Anne had two or three pencils, which she kept in a little morocco case, and some small sheets of drawing paper in a portfolio. Sometimes, when she went out to walk, she used to take these drawing implements and materials with her, and sit down upon a bank, or upon a rock, and draw, while Lucy was playing around.

But now, as Lucy herself had a pencil, she wanted to carry it out, so that she could make sketches too.

Miss Anne said that she should like this plan very much; and accordingly, one pleasant summer afternoon, they set off. Miss Anne tied Lucy’s pencil and India rubber together, by a strong silk thread, so that the India rubber might not be so easily lost. The other necessary materials – namely, some paper, some pencils for Miss Anne, and two thin books with stiff covers, to lay their paper upon, while drawing – were all properly provided, and put in a bag, which Miss Anne had made, and which she always used for this purpose.

Lucy observed, also, that Miss Anne put something else in her bag. Lucy thought, from its appearance, that it was a square block; but it was folded up in a paper, and so she could not see. She asked Miss Anne what it was, and Miss Anne told her it was a secret.

They walked along without any particular adventure until they came to a bridge across a stream. It was the same stream where they had sat upon the rocks and seen George and the other boys fishing; but this was a different part of the stream, and the water was deep and still. Lucy and Miss Anne stopped upon the middle of the bridge, and looked over the railing down to the dark water far below.

“O, what deep water!” said Lucy.

“How could we get over this river if it were not for this bridge?”

“Not very conveniently,” said Miss Anne.

“We could not get over at all,” said Lucy.

“Perhaps we might,” said Miss Anne; “there are several ways of getting over a river besides going over upon a bridge.”

“What ways?” said Lucy.

“One is by a ferry.”

“What is a ferry?” said Lucy.

“It is a large boat which is always ready to carry persons across. The ferry-man generally lives in a house very near the bank of the river; and if any body wants to go across the river, they call at his house for him, and he takes them across in his boat. Then they pay him some money.”

“But suppose they are on the other side,” said Lucy.

“Then,” said Miss Anne, “they have to call or blow a trumpet. Sometimes they have a trumpet for people to blow when they want the ferry-man to come for them. But sometimes, where there are a great many travellers on the road that leads to the ferry, the boats are coming and going all the time; and then people don’t have to call or to blow any trumpet.”

“How much money do they have to pay,” said Lucy, “for carrying them across?”

“That depends upon circumstances,” said Miss Anne. “If a man goes alone, he does not have to pay so much as he does if he is in a chaise; and if he has a carriage and two horses, he has to pay more still.”