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PEAS AND RADISHES

Mr. Dillwyn, as I said, did not come near Shampuashuh. He took hisindemnification in sending all sorts of pleasant things. Papers andmagazines overflowed, flowed over into Mrs. Marx's hands, and made herlife rich; flowed over again into Mr. Hotchkiss's hands, andembroidered his life for him. Mr. Dillwyn sent fruit; foreign fruit, strange and delicious, which it was a sort of education even to eat, bringing one nearer to the countries so far and unknown, where it grew.He sent music; and if some of it passed under Lois's ban as "nonsense,"that was not the case with the greater part. "She has a marvellous trueappreciation of what is fine," Mrs. Barclay wrote; "and she rejectswith an accuracy which surprises me, all that is merely pretty andflashy. There are some bits of Handel that have great power over thegirl; she listens to them, I might almost say, devoutly, and is neverweary. Madge is delighted with Rossini; but Lois gives her adherence tothe German classics, and when I play Haydn or Mozart or Mendelssohn, stands rapt in her delighted listening, and looking like – well, I willnot tantalize you by trying to describe to you what I see every day. Imarvel only where the girl got these tastes and susceptibilities; itmust be blood; I believe in inheritance. She has had until now notraining or experience; but your bird is growing her wings fast now,Philip. If you can manage to cage her! Natures hereabout are not tame,by any means."

Mr. Dillwyn, I believe I mentioned, sent engravings and exquisitephotographs; and these almost rivalled Haydn and Mozart in Lois's mind.For various reasons, Mrs. Barclay sought to make at least this sourceof pleasure common to the whole family; and would often invite them allinto her room, or carry her portfolio out into their generalsitting-room, and display to the eyes of them all the views of foreignlands; cities, castles and ruins, palaces and temples, Swiss mountainsand Scotch lochs, Paris Boulevards and Venetian canals, together withremains of ancient art and works of modern artists; of all which Philipsent an unbounded number and variety. These evenings were unendinglycurious to Mrs. Barclay. Comment was free, and undoubtedly original, whatever else might be said of it; and character, and the habit of lifeof her audience, were unconsciously revealed to her. Intense curiosityand eagerness for information were observable in them all; but tastes, and the power of apprehension and receptiveness towards new and strangeideas, and the judgment passed upon things, were very different in thedifferent members of the group. These exhibitions had further one goodeffect, not unintended by the exhibitor; they brought the whole familysomewhat in tone with the new life to which two of its members wererising. It was not desirable that Lois should be too far in advance ofher people, or rather that they should be too far behind her. Thequestions propounded to Mrs. Barclay on these occasions, and theelucidations she found it desirable to give without questions, transformed her part into that of a lecturer; and the end of such anevening would find her tired with her exertions, yet well repaid forthem. The old grandmother manifested great curiosity, great admiration, with frequently an expression of doubt or disapproval; and very often astrange, slight, inexpressible air of one who felt herself to belong toa different world, to which all these things were more or less foreign.Charity showed also intense eagerness and curiosity, andinquisitiveness; and mingled with those, a very perceptible flavour ofincredulity or of disdain, the latter possibly born of envy. But Loisand Madge were growing with every journey to distant lands, and everynew introduction to the great works of men's hands, of every kind andof every age.

After receiving that letter of Mrs. Barclay's mentioned in the lastchapter, Philip Dillwyn would immediately have attacked Tom Caruthersagain on the question of his liking for Miss Lothrop, to find outwhether possibly there were any the least foundation for Mrs. Barclay'sscruples and fears. But it was no longer in his power. The Caruthersfamily had altered their plans; and instead of going abroad in thespring, had taken their departure with the first of December, after animpromptu wedding of Julia to her betrothed. Mr. Dillwyn did notseriously believe that there was anything his plan had to fear fromthis side; nevertheless he preferred not to move in the dark; and hewaited. Besides, he must allow time for the work he had sent Mrs.Barclay to do; to hurry matters would be to spoil everything; and itwas much better on every ground that he should keep away fromShampuashuh. As I said, he busied himself with Shampuashuh affairs allhe could, and wore out the winter as he best might; which was not verysatisfactorily. And when spring came he resolutely carried out hispurpose, and sailed for Europe. Till at least a year had gone by hewould not try to see Lois; Mrs. Barclay should have a year at least topush her beneficent influence and bring her educational efforts to somevisible result; he would keep away; but it would be much easier to keepaway if the ocean lay between them, and he went to Florence andnorthern Italy and the Adriatic.

Meanwhile the winter had "flown on soft wings" at Shampuashuh. Everyday seemed to be growing fuller and richer than its predecessors; everyday Lois and Madge were more eager in the search after knowledge, andmore ready for the reception of it. A change was going on in them, soswift that Mrs. Barclay could almost see it from day to day. Whetherothers saw it I cannot tell; but Mrs. Marx shook her head in the fearof it, and Charity opined that the family "might whistle for a garden, and for butter and cheese next summer." Precious opportunity of winterdays, when no gardening nor dairy work was possible! and blessed longnights and mornings, after sunset and before sunrise, when no houseworkof any sort put in claims upon the leisure of the two girls. There wereno interruptions from without. In Shampuashuh, society could not besaid to flourish. Beyond an occasional "sewing society" meeting, and amuch more rare gathering for purely social purposes, nothing more thana stray caller now and then broke the rich quiet of those winter days; the time for a tillage, and a sowing, and a growth far beyond inpreciousness all "the precious things put forth by the sun" in the moregenial time of the year. But days began to become longer, nevertheless,as the weeks went on; and daylight was pushing those happy mornings andevenings into lesser and lesser compass; and snow quite disappearedfrom the fields, and buds began to swell on the trees and take colour, and airs grew more gentle in temperature; though I am bound to saythere is a sharpness sometimes in the nature of a Shampuashuh spring, that quite outdoes all the greater rigours of the winter that has gone.

"The frost is out of the ground!" said Lois one day to her friend.

"Well," said Mrs. Barclay innocently; "I suppose that is a good thing."

Lois went on with her drawing, and made no answer.

But soon Mrs. Barclay began to perceive that less reading and studyingwere done; or else some drawing lingered on its way towards completion; and the deficits became more and more striking. At last she demandedthe reason.

"O," said Madge, "the cows have come in, and I have a good deal to doin the dairy now; it takes up all my mornings. I'm so sorry, I don'tknow what to do! but the milk must be seen to, and the butter churned, and then worked over; and it takes time, Mrs. Barclay."

"And Lois?"

"O, Lois is making garden."

"Making garden!"

"Yes; O, she always does it. It's her particular part of the business.We all do a little of everything; but the garden is Lois's specialprovince, and the dairy mine, and Charity takes the cooking and thesewing. O, we all do our own sewing, and we all do grandmother'ssewing; only Charity takes head in that department."

"What does Lois do in the garden?"

"O, everything. We get somebody to plough it up in the fall; and in thespring we have it dug over; but all the rest she does. We have a goodgarden too," said Madge, smiling.

"And these things take your morning and her morning?"

"Yes, indeed; I should think they did. Rather!"

Mrs. Barclay held her peace then, and for some time afterwards. Thespring came on, the days became soft and lovely, after March had blownitself out; the trees began to put forth leaves, the blue-birds weredarting about, like skyey messengers; robins were whistling, anddaffodils were bursting, and grass was green. One lovely warm morning, when everything without seemed beckoning to her, Mrs. Barclay threw ona shawl and hat, and made her way out to the old garden, which up tothis day she had never entered.

She found the great wide enclosure looking empty and bare enough. Thetwo or three old apple trees hung protectingly over the wooden bench inthe middle, their branches making pretty tracery against the tender, clear blue of the sky; but no shade was there. The branches only showeda little token of swelling and bursting buds, which indeed softened ina lovely manner the lines of their interlacing network, and promised aplenty of green shadow by and by. No shadow was needed at present, forthe sun was too gentle; its warmth was welcome, and beneficent, andkindly. The old cherry tree in the corner was beginning to open itswealth of white blossoms; everywhere else the bareness and brownness ofwinter was still reigning, only excepting the patches of green turfaround the boles and under the spreading boughs of the trees here andthere. The garden was no garden, only a spread of soft, up-turned brownloam. It looked a desolate place to Mrs. Barclay.

In the midst of it, the one point of life and movement was Lois. Shewas in a coarse, stout stuff dress, short, and tucked up besides, tokeep it out of the dirt. Her hands were covered with coarse, thickgloves, her head with a little old straw hat. At the moment Mrs.Barclay came up, she was raking a patch of ground which she hadcarefully marked out, and bounded with a trampled footway; she wasbringing it with her rake into a condition of beautiful levelsmoothness, handling her tool with light dexterity. As Mrs. Barclaycame near, she looked up with a flash of surprise and a smile.

"I have found you," said the lady. "So this is what you are about!"

"It is what I am always about at this time of year."

"What are you doing?"

"Just here I am going to put in radishes and lettuce."

"Radishes and lettuce! And that is instead of French and philosophy!"

"This is philosophy," said Lois, while with a neat movement of her rakeshe threw off some stones which she had collected from the surface ofthe bed. "Very good philosophy. Surely the philosophy of life isfirst – to live."

Mrs. Barclay was silent a moment upon this.

"Are radishes and lettuce the first thing you plant in the spring, then?"

"O dear, no!" said Lois. "Do you see all that corner? that's inpotatoes. Do you see those slightly marked lines – here, running acrossfrom the walk to the wall? – peas are there. They'll be up soon. I thinkI shall put in some corn to-morrow. Yonder is a bed of radishes andlettuce just out of the ground. We'll have some radishes for tea, before you know it."

"And do you mean to say that you have been planting potatoes? you?"

"Yes," said Lois, looking at her and laughing. "I like to plantpotatoes. In fact, I like to plant anything. What I do not always likeso well, is the taking care of them after they are up and growing."

Mrs. Barclay sat down and watched her. Lois was now tracing delicatelittle drills across the breadth of her nicely-prepared bed; littledrills all alike, just so deep and just so far apart. Then she went toa basket hard by for a little paper of seeds; two papers; and begandeftly to scatter the seed along the drills, with delicate and carefulbut quick fingers. Mrs. Barclay watched her till she had filled all therows, and began to cover the seeds in; that, too, she did quick andskilfully.

"That is not fit work for you to do, Lois."

"Why not?"

"You have something better to do."

"I do not see how I can. This is the work that is given me."

"But any common person could do that?"

"We have not got the common person to do it," said Lois, laughing; "soit comes upon an uncommon one."

"But there is a fitness in things."

"So you will think, when you get some of my young lettuce." The drillswere fast covered in, but there were a good many of them, and Lois wenton talking and working with equal spirit.

"I do not think I shall – " Mrs. Barclay answered the last statement.

"I like to do this, Mrs. Barclay. I like to do it very much. I am pulled a little two ways this spring – but that only shows this is goodfor me."

"How so?"

"When anybody is living to his own pleasure, I guess he is not in thebest way of improvement."

"Is there no one but you to do all the weeding, by and by, when thegarden will be full of plants?"

"Nobody else," said Lois.

"That must take a great deal of your time!"

"Yes," said Lois, "it does; that and the fruit-picking."

"Fruit-picking! Mercy! Why, child, must you do all that?"