1 files changed, 2356 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/43807-0.txt b/43807-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d468fa1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/43807-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2356 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43807 ***
+
+[Illustration: "They approached slowly, the little animal permitting
+them to come quite close, and then the children saw that it was indeed
+a squirrel."--p. 15.]
+
+
+
+
+    THE MARTIN AND NELLY STORIES.
+
+
+    LITTLE BESSIE, THE CARELESS GIRL,
+
+    OR
+
+    SQUIRRELS, NUTS, AND WATER-CRESSES.
+
+
+    BY
+    JOSEPHINE FRANKLIN,
+
+    AUTHOR OF "NELLY AND HER FRIENDS," "NELLY'S FIRST
+    SCHOOL-DAYS," "NELLY AND HER BOAT," ETC.
+
+
+    BOSTON:
+    PUBLISHED BY BROWN AND TAGGARD,
+    25 AND 29 CORNHILL.
+    1861.
+
+
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
+    BROWN AND TAGGARD,
+    in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
+          of Massachusetts.
+
+
+    RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+    STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF THE
+
+"MARTIN AND NELLY STORIES."
+
+
+       I. NELLY AND HER FRIENDS.
+      II. NELLY'S FIRST SCHOOL-DAYS.
+     III. NELLY AND HER BOAT.
+      IV. LITTLE BESSIE.
+       V. NELLY'S VISIT.
+      VI. ZELMA.
+     VII. MARTIN.
+    VIII. COUSIN REGULUS.
+      IX. MARTIN AND NELLY.
+       X. MARTIN ON THE MOUNTAIN.
+      XI. MARTIN AND THE MILLER.
+     XII. TROUTING, OR GYPSYING IN THE WOODS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                   PAGE
+    CHAPTER I.
+    GOING NUTTING     7
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+    THE RIDE HOME    27
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+    WATER-CRESSES    41
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+    HUNGRY FISHES    68
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+    LOST             98
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+    THE NEST        122
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BESSIE;
+
+OR,
+
+SQUIRRELS, NUTS, AND WATERCRESSES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+GOING NUTTING.
+
+
+BESSIE was the only child of a poor widow. The mother and daughter
+lived alone together in a small house, about half a mile from Nelly's
+home.
+
+Bessie's father died when she was quite young, so young that she did
+not remember him. There was a portrait of him, which her mother kept in
+her top bureau drawer in her own room. Occasionally the little girl
+was allowed to look at it. It made her feel very sad to do so, and the
+tears rose in her eyes whenever she thought of what her mother must
+have suffered in so great a loss. In the hard task which fell to that
+mother of supporting herself and her child, she did not murmur. Before
+her husband's death, she had lived in very comfortable circumstances,
+but this did not unfit her to work for her living afterwards.
+
+She gathered and sent fruit to market from her little place, she made
+butter and sold it to whomever cared to buy, she knit stockings for
+her neighbors' children, and, every winter, quilted to order at least
+one dozen patchwork counterpanes, with wonderful yellow calico suns in
+their centre. By these means she contrived to keep out of debt, and
+amass a little sum besides. At the commencement of our story, however,
+a severe fit of illness had so wasted her strength and devoured her
+little means, that the poor widow felt very much discouraged. The
+approach of winter filled her with dread, for she knew that it would be
+to her a time of great suffering.
+
+Still, feeble as she was, she managed to continue, but very
+irregularly, Bessie's reading and writing lessons. Bessie was not a
+promising scholar; she liked to do any thing in the world but study.
+She would look longingly out of the window a dozen times in the course
+of a single lesson, and when her mother reproved her by rapping her
+rather smartly on the head with her thimble, Bessie would only laugh,
+and say she guessed her skull must be thick, for the lesson _would not_
+get through, and the thimble did not hurt a bit!
+
+Bessie, and Nellie Brooks, of whom my readers have heard in the former
+stories of this series, were very much attached to each other. Bessie
+was younger than Nellie, but that did not stand in the way of their
+affection. Nellie, imperfect as she was herself, used to try sometimes
+to teach Bessie how to improve her wild ways. Bessie would listen and
+listen, as grave as a cat watching a rat hole, but her little eyes
+would twinkle in the midst of the reproof, and she would burst into a
+merry shout, and say, "I do declare, Nell, it isn't any use at all to
+talk to me about being any better. I'm like the little birds; they're
+born to fly and sing, and I'm born to be horrid and naughty, and dance,
+and cry, and laugh, just when I shouldn't,--there! I can't be good,
+anyway. Sometimes I try, and mother looks as pleased as can be, and
+all at once, before I know it, I flounder straight into mischief again."
+
+One beautiful autumn day, Nellie and Bessie went nutting in the woods.
+Each of the little girls had a basket on her arm, and Bessie had a bag
+besides; for they had great hopes of coming home heavily loaded. It was
+early in October. The leaves of the trees had begun to fall, but those
+that remained were bright with many colors, the crimson of the maple
+trees particularly, making the whole woods look gay. A soft, golden
+mist, such as we only see at this season of the year, hung over every
+thing, and veiled even the glitter of a little river which flowed past
+the village and coursed onward to the ocean.
+
+At first the children met with very little success. The first few
+nut-trees they encountered had evidently been visited by some one
+before. The marks of trampling feet were visible on the damp ground
+beneath, and the branches had been stripped in such rude haste as to
+take away both the leaves and the fruit.
+
+"We'll meet better luck further back in the woods," said Nell; "this is
+too near home. The village people can come here too easily for us to
+expect to find any thing."
+
+They walked further on in very good spirits, climbing over rocks when
+they came to them, and swinging their empty baskets in time to snatches
+of songs which they sang together. They had gone in this way about a
+mile, when suddenly Bessie stopped, and fixed her eyes searchingly on
+something near them in the grass.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Nellie.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Bessie, softly, "don't speak for a minute till I
+see! It's an animal!"
+
+"A bear?" exclaimed Nellie, in some alarm, quite unmindful of Bessie's
+request for silence, for Nelly was a little bit of a coward, and had
+a firm belief in all woods being full of wild animals. As she spoke,
+the noise seemed to startle whatever the creature was that Bessie was
+watching, for it ran quickly among the dried leaves that strewed the
+grass, and bounded on a high rock not far distant.
+
+"There!" said Bessie, in a vexed tone, "you've frightened him away. We
+might have tracked him to his hole if you had kept still."
+
+"I was afraid it was a bear," said Nelly, half ashamed.
+
+"A bear!" cried Bessie, in great scorn; "I'd like to see a bear in
+_these_ woods."
+
+"Would you? _I_ wouldn't," said Nelly.
+
+"I mean--well--I mean there isn't a bear around here for hundreds of
+miles. That was a squirrel you frightened away. Didn't he look funny
+springing up there?"
+
+"He's there now, looking at us. Don't you see his head sticking out of
+that bush? What bright eyes he has."
+
+Bessie found that it was so. There was the squirrel's head, twisted
+oddly on one side, in order to get a good view of his disturbers. His
+keen eyes were fixed anxiously on them, as though to discover the cause
+of their intrusion. Presently he leaped on a branch of a shrub, and sat
+staring solemnly at them.
+
+"It can't be a squirrel," said Bessie, "after all; its tail is not half
+bushy or long enough."
+
+"It jumps like one," said Nellie, "and its eyes and ears are just like
+a squirrel's too. See, it's gray and white!"
+
+They approached slowly, the little animal permitting them to come quite
+close, and then the children saw that it was indeed a squirrel, but
+that its tail had, by some accident, been torn nearly half away.
+
+"Perhaps it has been caught in a trap," suggested Nelly.
+
+"Or in a branch of a tree," said Bessie. "Well, anyway, little Mr.
+Squirrel, we shall know you again if we meet you."
+
+"I should say," exclaimed Nelly, "that there must be plenty of nuts
+somewhere near us, or that gray squirrel would not be likely to be
+here."
+
+The two girls now set about searching for a hickory nut-tree, quite
+encouraged in the thought that their walk was to be rewarded at last.
+Nelly was right in her conjecture. It was not long before they
+recognized the well-known leaf of the species of tree of which they
+were in quest. A small group of them stood together, not far distant,
+and great was the delight of the children to find the ground beneath
+well strewed with nuts, some of them lying quite free from their rough
+outer shells, others only partially opened, while many of them were
+still in the exact state in which they hung upon the tree. Of course
+the former were preferred by the little nut gatherers, but it was found
+that as these did not fill the bag and baskets, it was necessary to
+shell some of the remainder. Accordingly, Bessie selected a large flat
+stone, as the scene of operation, and providing herself with another
+small one, as a hammer, she began pounding the unshelled nuts, and by
+these means accumulated a second store; Nelly gathering them, and
+making a pile beside her, ready to be denuded of their hard green
+coverings.
+
+"There," triumphantly said Nelly, after a little while; "that dear
+little squirrel told the truth. Here is quite a pile of shells showing
+the mark of his teeth. See, Bessie, he has nibbled away the sides of
+all these, and eaten the meat. How neatly it is done, and what sharp
+little fangs he must have!"
+
+The bag and baskets were soon filled, and the two children turned
+homeward. The day was a warm one for that season of the year, and their
+burdens were very hard to carry on that account. Many a time they
+paused on the path to put down the baskets and rest.
+
+"I hope," said Nelly, "that when we get out to the open road, some
+wagon will come along that will give us a lift. Who would have thought
+that nuts could be so heavy? I am so warm and _so_ thirsty, I do not
+know how to get along, and there isn't a single brook about here that
+we can drink out of."
+
+"I'll tell you how we will fix it," said Bessie. "I remember, last
+year, when I came nutting, I saw a little house, a poor little
+concern,--not half as nice as ours, and dear knows that is poor
+enough,--standing in the edge of the wood, about half a mile below
+where we are now. We can stop when we get there, and I will go in and
+borrow a tin cup to drink out of the well."
+
+"A half mile!" echoed Nelly, in a tone of weariness; "I don't believe
+we shall get there in an hour, I am so very, very tired."
+
+They walked on slowly, the peculiar heaviness of the warm October
+day making each of them feel that to go nutting in such weather was
+very hard work. At last the little house presented itself. It was a
+poor place indeed. It was built of rough pine boards that had never
+been painted. A dog lay sleeping before the door, the upper half of
+which was open, and through which the sunshine poured into the room.
+The house stood, as Bessie had said, on the edge of the wood, large,
+fertile fields extending in the distance, on the opposite side from
+that by which the children had approached it.
+
+"You knock," said Bessie, getting struck with a fit of shyness, as the
+two walked up the path to the door.
+
+"No, _you_," said Nelly, "I don't know what to say."
+
+The dog got up, stretched himself, and gave vent to a low growl, as he
+surveyed the new comers.
+
+"Good fellow, nice fellow," said Bessie, coaxingly, putting out her
+hand towards him as she did so; but the good, nice fellow's growl
+deepened into a loud, savage bay. The children stood still, irresolute
+whether to retreat or not. Attracted by the noise, a pale, sickly girl
+about fifteen years of age, came to the door, and leaning over the
+lower half which was shut, seemed by looking at them to ask what they
+wanted.
+
+"Please," said Bessie, "would you mind lending me a tin dipper to drink
+out of at your well?"
+
+"Haven't got any well," said the girl; "but you can drink out of the
+spring if you've a mind to. There it is, down by that log: it runs
+right from under it. You'll find a mug lying 'long side. Do stop your
+noise, Tiger."
+
+The children set down their baskets, and moved towards the spring very
+gladly. They found the mug, and each enjoyed a drink of the pure, cold
+water. While doing so, they observed that near the little barn at the
+rear of the house, a man was harnessing a sleek, comfortable looking
+horse to a market wagon, laden with cabbages and potatoes. The man was
+thin and white looking, and it seemed to the children as if the proper
+place for him were his bed. He did not see the visitors, but went on
+with his work. The girls having finished drinking, returned to the
+front door, over which still leaned the sickly girl.
+
+"Much obliged to you," said Nelly, "it's a beautiful spring; clear and
+cold as ever I saw."
+
+"'Tisn't healthy though," said the girl; "leastways, we think it's that
+that brings us all down with the fever every spring and fall."
+
+"The fever!" echoed Bessie, "what fever?"
+
+"The fever'n nager," replied the girl. "Mother is in bed with it now,
+and though father is getting ready to go to town to market, the shakin'
+is on him right powerful. I'm the only one that keeps about, and that
+is much as ever, too."
+
+"What makes you drink it?" asked Bessie. "I wouldn't, if it made me so
+sick."
+
+"Have to," said the girl, "there is no other water hereabouts."
+
+"Can't your father _move_?" said Nelly.
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"Wouldn't he _like_ to, if he could?" continued Nelly.
+
+"I guess not," said the girl, "we mean to get used to it. We can't
+afford to move. Father owns the place, and he has no chance to sell it.
+The farm is good, too. We raise the best cabbages and potatoes around
+here. Guess you've been nutting, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Bessie, with some pride, "we have those two baskets and
+this bag _full_."
+
+"Is it much fun?" asked the girl pleasantly.
+
+"Splendid," said Bessie; "don't you ever try it?"
+
+"No; I'm always too sick in nut season--have the shakes. But I do
+believe I should like to some time. Are you two little girls going soon
+again?"
+
+"I don't know," said Bessie, "may be so. If we do, shan't we stop and
+see if you are able to go along? Your house isn't much out of the way;
+we can stop just as well as not."
+
+The pale girl looked quite gratified at these words of Bessie, but said
+that she didn't know whether the "shakes" would allow her.
+
+"Well," said Bessie, "we will stop for you, anyway. My mother would
+say, I am sure, that the walk would do you good. Good-by. I hope you
+will all get better soon."
+
+"Stop a moment," said the girl, "don't you live somewhere down by the
+Brooks' farm?"
+
+"Yes," said Nelly, "that is my home, and Bessie lives only a little way
+beyond."
+
+"I thought so," said the girl, smiling, "I think I've seen you when I
+have been riding by with father. He's going that way, now: wouldn't you
+like to get in the wagon with him? He will pass your house."
+
+"Oh, I guess his load is heavy enough already," said Nelly.
+
+"Nonsense," said the girl; "you just wait here, while I go ask him."
+
+She darted off before they could detain her, and in a short time more,
+the horse and wagon appeared round the corner of the house, the man
+driving the fat horse (which, as far as the children could see, was the
+only fat living creature on the place), and the girl walking at the
+wagon side.
+
+"There they are," the children heard her say, as she neared them.
+
+The man smiled good naturedly, and bade Bessie and Nelly jump in. He
+arranged a comfortable seat for them on the board on which he himself
+sat.
+
+"But isn't your load very heavy already, sir?" asked Nelly.
+
+"Not a bit of it," said the farmer; "my horse will find it only a
+trifle, compared to what we usually take. It isn't full market day
+to-morrow is the reason. Jump in! jump in!"
+
+The children needed no other bidding, but clambered up by the spokes of
+the great wheels and seated themselves, one on each side of the farmer,
+who took their nuts, and placed them safely back among his vegetables.
+
+Then he cracked his whip, and called out, "Good-by, Dolly. I'll be home
+about eleven o'clock to-night. Take good care of your mother."
+
+The next moment the little girls were in the road, going homeward as
+fast as the sleek horse could carry them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE RIDE HOME.
+
+
+"SO you've been nutting, eh?" said Mr. Dart (for that was the farmer's
+name), looking first on one side of him and then on the other, where
+his two companions sat.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Nelly, "and we have had real good luck too. Only see
+how full our baskets are."
+
+"Dolly told me you were going to stop for her some time, to go nutting
+with you," said the farmer, turning round as he spoke, and putting a
+cabbage that was jolting out of the wagon back into its place. "I am
+glad of that: I hope she will be able to accompany you. If you should
+chance to come on one of her well days, I guess she will."
+
+"Well days, sir?" asked Bessie.
+
+"Yes; she has the fever'n nager pretty bad, and that brings her a sick
+day and a well day, by turns. It's the natur' of the disease."
+
+"What! sick _every_ other day!" cried Bessie;--"well, if that is not
+too bad! And she seems so good too. Why, we owe this ride to her."
+
+"Yes," said the farmer, "Dolly is a pretty good little girl. Never
+had much trouble with Dolly in all her life. She's always willin' to
+help round the house as much as she can, and now that her mother is
+down with the nager, I couldn't get along without her, anyway. In the
+summer time Dolly makes garden with the best of us. Many is the field
+she's sowed with grain, after I've ploughed it up. Half of these ere
+cabbages Dolly cut and put in the wagon herself. You see that little
+basket back in the corner?"
+
+The children looked back in the wagon, and there, sure enough, was a
+small covered basket, jolting around among the potatoes.
+
+"That's Dolly's water cresses," said Mr. Dart. "I haven't taken a load
+to market for the last month without Dolly's basket of watercresses.
+She gathers them herself, down in our meadow, where the ground is wet
+and soft, and where they thrive like every thing. They seem to be
+getting poor now, and I don't believe Doll will be able to pick many
+more this year. Why, the money that girl has made off them cresses is
+wonderful. I always hand it right over to her, and she puts it by to
+save against a time of need. Cresses sell just like wildfire in our
+market-place,--I mean, of course, fine ones like my Dolly's are in
+their prime."
+
+"Cresses," said Bessie, with growing interest, "do people really pay
+money for _cresses_? Why, the field back of our house is full of 'em!
+They have great, thick, green leaves, and they look as healthy as
+possible."
+
+"Do they?" said the farmer, smiling at her kindly; "well, then I can
+just tell you your folks are fortunate. They ought to sell 'em and make
+money out of them."
+
+"I wish we could," said Bessie, clasping her hands at the thought, "how
+glad mother would be if we could! Mother is sick, sir, and cannot do
+all the work she used, to earn money."
+
+"Ah," said the former, with a look of concern; "I am sorry to hear
+that, my little girl. I know what it is to be sick, and have sick folks
+about me. What's the matter? has she got the nager too?"
+
+"No, sir," said Bessie, "we don't have that down our way. I don't know
+what _does_ ail mother. She sort o' wastes away and grows thin and
+pale."
+
+"Like enough it's the nager," said the farmer; "there is nothing like
+it for making a body thin and pale."
+
+"That's Bessie's house," cried Nelly, as a sudden turn in the road
+revealed their two homes, at the foot of the hill, "that white one with
+the smoke curling out of the left hand chimney."
+
+"And a nice little place it is too," said the farmer. "I pass right by
+it almost every day, and sometimes in the middle of the night, when
+all little girls are in their beds and asleep."
+
+Bessie looked at the kind-hearted farmer, and wondered to herself what
+could bring him so near her home in the nighttime. As her thoughts by
+this time were pretty well filled with what he called the "nager,"
+she concluded that it must be for the purpose of getting the doctor
+for himself and his family. The farmer, however, who seemed fond of
+talking, soon undeceived her.
+
+"You see," he began, "that it is a very long drive from my house to
+town, say eight miles, at the least, and when I start as I have to-day,
+about sundown, it takes me, with a heavy load, generally, till half
+past eight o'clock to get to the market. Well, then I unload, and sell
+out to a regular customer I have, a man who keeps a stand of all sorts
+of vegetables, and who generally buys them over night in this way. Then
+I turn round and come back. It is often eleven o'clock when I reach
+home and go to bed. Sometimes, again, according to the orders I have
+from town, Dobbin and I start--"
+
+"Dobbin?" interrupted Bessie, "is Dobbin the horse, sir?"
+
+The farmer nodded smilingly, and continued, "Dobbin and I start at five
+o'clock in the morning, and we go rattling into market, just in time to
+have the things hurriedly sorted and in their places, before the buyers
+begin to throng about the stalls. I stop there a while, but I get home
+before noon, and Dolly always has my dinner ready to rest me, while
+Dobbin eats his to rest _him_."
+
+"I wish Dolly could go to our school," said Nelly, after a pause. "Miss
+Milly, our teacher, is so good to us all. She lives in this little
+house that we are passing."
+
+The farmer looked round at the school-house, and Nelly thought she
+heard him sigh as he did so. "Dolly is a smart girl, and a nice girl,"
+said he, gravely, "but I am afraid her mother and I can't give her much
+book larnin'. Wish I could: but times are hard and money scarce. Dolly
+knows how to read and write, and I guess she will have to be content.
+Her health isn't strong, either, and she couldn't stand study."
+
+"Here we are, sir, this is our house," cried Nelly, as the wagon neared
+the farm-house gate. "I'm very much obliged to you for my lift."
+
+The farmer handed down her basket of nuts, and told her she was quite
+welcome. Bessie called out good-by, and the farmer drove on again. A
+short distance brought them to Bessie's house. As she in her turn was
+getting down, Mr. Dart asked her if she had any objections to show him
+the water-cress field of which she had spoken. Bessie was delighted to
+do it, so Dobbin was tied to a tree, and the little girl led the way to
+the back of the house.
+
+"Does the field belong to your mother?" asked the farmer.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Bessie, "this house and the garden and the wet meadow
+where the watercresses grow, mother owns them all. She's sick now, as I
+told you, sir, and oftentimes she lies in her bed and cries to think we
+can't get on better in the world. I'd help her, if I could, but I don't
+know any thing to do."
+
+It did not take long to reach the wet meadow, as Bessie called it.
+It lay only a stone's throw back of the house. It was called "wet,"
+because a beautiful brook coursed through it, and moistened the ground
+so much as to render it unprofitable for cultivation. The watercresses
+had it all their own way. They grew wild over nearly the whole field,
+and extended down to the very edge of the brook, and leaned their
+beautiful bright leaves and graceful stems into the little stream, as
+it flowed over the pebbles.
+
+Bessie led the farmer to a large, flat stone, where they could stand
+with dry feet and survey the scene. The sun was just setting; they
+could see the glow in the west through the grove of trees that skirted
+the outer edge of the field; the birds were just chirping their
+mournful October songs, as they flew about, seeking for a shelter for
+the coming night; the murmur of the brook added not a little to the
+serenity of the hour.
+
+The farmer stooped, and reaching his hand among the wet earth where the
+cresses grew, plucked one, and tasted it.
+
+"It is as fine as any I ever ate," said he, "and, as far as I see, your
+mother's meadow is full of just such ones. The frost and the cold winds
+have spoiled ours, but yours are protected by that hill back there, and
+are first-rate."
+
+"Do you think we could get money for them?" cried Bessie, jumping up
+and down on the loose stone on which they stood, until it shook so as
+almost to make her lose her balance and fall into the water; "do you
+think people will _buy_ them?"
+
+"Certainly," said the farmer, giving his lips a final smack over the
+remnant of the cress, "certainly I do, and they are so clear from weeds
+it will be no trouble to gather them. What is your name, little girl?"
+
+"Bessie, sir, and my mother's name is that too. Wouldn't you like to
+come in and see her for a moment, to tell her about the cresses?"
+
+"Not to-day," said the farmer, shaking his head, and looking at the
+sinking sun; "it grows late, and I have a long journey to go, but
+I'll tell you what I _will_ do. I go to market again the day after
+to-morrow, and I leave home at five o'clock in the morning, or
+thereabouts. Now, I'm sorry to hear of your mother's troubles, and
+I want to help her if I can. You tell her all I have said about the
+cresses bringing a good price, and see if she has any objections to
+your gathering a big basket full, and having it ready to send to market
+when I pass by. I can take one for you just as well as not, three or
+four times a week. Leave it just inside the gate, and I will get it,
+for it will be too early for you to be up."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Bessie, her face perfectly radiant with smiles; "how
+good you are to take so much trouble--how good you are! I'll tell
+mother all about you, be sure of that."
+
+"And now I must be off," said the farmer, stepping from the flat stone
+into the moist grass and picking his way as well as he could towards
+the house, and thence to the gate. Bessie followed him to the road, and
+watched him untie old Dobbin. The tears came in her eyes as she called
+out,
+
+"Good-by, sir, good-by."
+
+The farmer turned, half smiled to see how grateful the poor child
+looked, and said kindly,
+
+"Good-by, Bessie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WATER-CRESSES.
+
+
+BESSIE'S mother was both surprised and rejoiced to hear of the kindness
+of the farmer. It seemed to her a great stroke of good fortune. The
+little sum of money which she had saved in more prosperous days was
+almost exhausted, and it had been a bitter thought to her to know, that
+when this should be gone, they would have nothing. The little house in
+which they lived could be sold, it is true, but the widow had always
+looked upon it in the light of a _home_, and not as an article to be
+disposed of for support.
+
+A ready consent was given that Bessie should try what she could do with
+the water-cresses. The little girl was delighted at the prospect, and
+already she saw herself the future possessor of a great deal of money.
+
+Her mother wanted her to gather the cresses the night previous to the
+morning on which the farmer was expected, but in her enthusiasm, Bessie
+insisted that they would be far fresher and nicer when they reached
+market if she should do so at daybreak; and she promised faithfully to
+rise in sufficient time to accomplish the feat.
+
+"But, my child," said her mother, "it will not be light enough for you
+to choose the best cresses, and the farmer may come before you get
+through, and of course we could not ask him to wait. No, gather them
+late in the afternoon, carefully select the poor ones, and the dead
+leaves and grasses that may be mingled with them, and the rest put in
+the oak pail and cover them with clean water. In the morning you can
+rise as early as you please, and fasten them up securely in the large
+basket, and be ready to give them to the farmer yourself, if you would
+like to do so when he passes."
+
+Bessie acknowledged that this was wisest. Accordingly, towards the
+latter part of the day before the appointed morning, she provided
+herself with a basket and the garden scissors, to go down to the brook
+and begin her undertaking. Previous to doing so, however, she put her
+head in her mother's room and called out with a gay laugh, "good-by,
+mother, I am going to make a fortune for you yet, see if I don't!"
+
+Her mother smiled, and when Bessie shut the door and jumped lightly
+down the stairs, two at a time, she felt as though her child's courage
+and hopefulness were really infusing courage and hopefulness into
+herself.
+
+[Illustration: "She was clipping at the cresses, when she heard some
+one call her name."--p. 45.]
+
+Singing at the top of her lungs, Bessie set to work. Never had she felt
+as light-hearted and happy. She tucked up her calico dress a little
+way, into the strings of her apron, in order to keep it out of the wet,
+and drew off her shoes and stockings. Then arming herself with the
+scissors, she cut vigorously among the cresses; taking care, however,
+to choose only those that presented a fine appearance, for she was
+determined that the first specimens the farmer took with him, should be
+so fine as to attract the attention of the buyers, and thus induce them
+to come again. A shrewd little business woman was Bessie! She had her
+basket sitting on some stones near her, and when she moved further
+up and down the brook, she was careful always to move that also. She
+was singing away as loudly and heartily as she could, and clipping at
+the cresses, when she heard some one call her name. She looked up, and
+there stood a boy about fourteen years old, named Martin, who lived
+on Nelly's father's farm. He looked as though he wanted very much to
+laugh at the odd figure which Bessie cut; her sun-bonnet hanging by its
+strings to her neck, her dress tucked up to the knees, a pair of shears
+in one hand, an enormous basket in the other, and both of her bare feet
+in the brook.
+
+"Why, Bessie," said Martin, "what a noise you have been making! I
+called you four or five times _real loud_, and I whistled too, and yet
+you went on singing 'Old folks at home,' and 'Little drops of water,'
+as though your ears were not made to hear any voice but your own!"
+
+"That's 'cause I'm _so_ happy," said Bessie. "Why, Martin, I'm
+beginning to earn my own living,--think of _that_. Isn't it fun
+though?" and she splashed through the stream to have a nearer talk with
+her visitor.
+
+"Earning your living!" repeated Martin; "well, I should call playing in
+the brook, as you seemed to be just now, any thing but that."
+
+"Playing!" echoed Bessie, with some indignation, "I am a big girl of
+nine now, and I am not going to play any more; I am going to _work_.
+Don't you see these cresses?"
+
+"Yes," said Martin, "but they're not good for much, are they?"
+
+"Good!" laughed Bessie, capering about, quite unmindful of bare ankles,
+"Good! I shouldn't wonder _much_ if they were. Why, Martin Wray, I'm to
+sell 'em, and get _money_ for 'em--plenty of it--till my pockets are so
+full that they cannot hold any more--there!"
+
+"Money!" said Martin, "you don't mean to say people buy cresses? What
+can they do with them?"
+
+"Eat 'em," replied Bessie, promptly; "mother says rich folks buy them
+to make into salads,--mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, and all that sort
+of thing, you know. Mother says they are just in their prime now."
+
+Martin stooped and helped himself to a handful of the cresses. He did
+not seem to like their flavor, but made wry faces over them.
+
+"Dear, dear," he said, "how they bite! They will take my tongue off."
+
+"That's the beauty of 'em," said Bessie, coolly, "that's a proof that
+they are good. Mother says when they grow flat and insipid they don't
+bring a fair price."
+
+"But isn't this late in the year for them?" asked her visitor.
+
+"No," was the answer; "this is just the best of the fall crop, and they
+will last for a month or six weeks, and maybe all winter, if the season
+is mild. May is the great spring month for them, and October the one
+in the autumn. Mother told me she brushed the snow away from a little
+patch last Christmas, and there they were just as fresh and green as
+ever."
+
+"And who are you going to sell them to?" asked Martin.
+
+"A farmer," answered Bessie, "who lives up in the nutting woods has
+promised to take them to market."
+
+"Oh," said Martin, "that reminds me of what I came for. Nelly knew I
+had to pass by here to-day with a letter, and she asked me to inquire
+if you would go nutting with her and me to-morrow. She wants to stop
+for another little girl too, I believe."
+
+"Dolly?" said Bessie.
+
+"I don't know," replied Martin, "what her name was. She said it was a
+girl who had the fever and ague."
+
+"That's Dolly!" cried Bessie, joyfully, "Dolly has it _awful_. Just
+wait here a minute while I run ask mother if she can spare me."
+
+She went skipping in the house, and in a short time her bare feet were
+heard skipping out again.
+
+"Yes," she cried, triumphantly waving her sun-bonnet, "mother told me
+'yes.'"
+
+Martin now said he must go on and deliver his letter, and Bessie bade
+him good-by, and went back to her cresses. In a little while the basket
+was filled with the very finest the brook afforded, and she carried
+them in the house to place in water as her mother had directed.
+
+The next morning, as the gray dawn came through the window of the room
+where she and her mother slept, Bessie awoke suddenly, and before she
+knew it she was sitting up in bed, drowsily rubbing her eyes. She had
+borne so well on her mind the appointment with the farmer, that she had
+awakened long before her usual time. She was a lazy girl generally,
+and liked very much to lie luxuriously in bed and _think about_
+getting up, without making an effort to do so. It was at least three
+hours earlier than it was her habit to rise, yet she did not stop to
+think of that, but bounded out and began her morning's ablution; her
+mother having always striven to impress upon her the great fact that
+"cleanliness is next to godliness." It was but a short time when,
+leaving her mother, as she thought, soundly sleeping, Bessie crept
+noiselessly as possible down the stairs that led to the kitchen, and
+there carefully packed her cresses for market. When the basket was
+full, she wrapped hastily a shawl around her, to protect her from the
+chilly autumn air of the morning, and ran out to the gate to place it,
+ready for the farmer, when he should come along in his wagon. She
+stood on the cross bars of the gate, and looked eagerly up and down the
+road, but she saw nothing as yet. The thought crossed her mind that
+Mr. Dart might already have passed the house, and finding no basket
+prepared for him, had driven on without it. But when she looked around,
+and saw how early it still appeared, how the gray was not gone from the
+sky, and the sun had not risen, nor the soft white morning mists yet
+rolled away from the mountains that lay to the left of the village, she
+was quite sure that she was not too late. She went back to the open
+door sill of the kitchen, which, being built in a small wing, fronted
+on the road, and sat down quietly on the sill. Presently she thought
+she heard the rattle of wheels, and the snapping of a whip. She ran to
+the gate, and looked in the direction from which it was to be expected
+the farmer would come, and there he was, seated on top of a load of
+turnips, trotting down the road as fast as old Dobbin could go, under
+the circumstances. He saw Bessie, and shook his whip over his head as a
+sort of salutation.
+
+"Good morning," said Bessie, as soon as he was near enough to hear her
+voice.
+
+"Good morning," replied the farmer, holding Dobbin up, so as to stop.
+"Well now, this looks something like! I guess you're most as smart as
+my Dolly, who got up and fixed breakfast before I started. What does
+mother say about the water-cresses, eh?"
+
+"All right, sir," cried Bessie, joyfully, lugging into view the
+basket, "and here they are, sir, all ready,--beauties, _every one_ of
+'em."
+
+The farmer raised the cover, looked in, and whistled.
+
+"Yes," said he, "this is the pick of the whole lot, I guess. But you
+haven't half big enough a basket. You must send more next time, for
+the frost may come and nip them a little, before you sell enough to be
+worth your while. Haven't you ever heard of making hay while the sun
+shines, Bessie?"
+
+He took the basket and packed it nicely among the turnips, so that it
+would not jostle out with the movement of the wagon. As he did so,
+Bessie's mother, with a shawl hastily thrown around her, opened the
+window of her bedroom, and said sufficiently loud to be heard,
+
+"Good morning, sir; I am afraid you are putting yourself to a great
+deal of trouble for us."
+
+"Not at all, ma'am," said the farmer, quite surprised at her sudden
+apparition, and taking off his hat as he spoke; "on the contrary, it's
+quite a pleasure."
+
+"I am very much obliged to you, I am sure," said the widow, "and Bessie
+is too. It is very kind of you to help us, poor people as we are, along
+in the world."
+
+"Well, ma'am," said the farmer with a smile, "as far as that goes, I'm
+poor myself--poor enough, dear knows, and that's the very thing that
+sometimes makes me feel for other poor folks, particularly poor _sick_
+folks, for we 'most always have a spell of the nager at our house. But
+I must be off. I'll stop, ma'am, as I come back, about noon, to tell
+you what luck I have had with these ere cresses."
+
+He was just going to drive on when Bessie said, "Oh, sir, I almost
+forgot. Is to-day Dolly's _well_ day? Nelly and I thought of going
+nutting with her."
+
+"Yes," replied the farmer, "Doll is pretty smart to-day. Make no doubt
+she can go. Good morning, ma'am, good morning, Bessie;" and he touched
+up old Dobbin and trotted down the hill.
+
+Bessie stood with the shawl over her head to watch the wagon as it
+seemed to grow less and less in size, and finally was hid by a curve
+of the road. Then she pulled to the gate to keep out stray cows from
+the little garden which her mother prized so much, and reëntered the
+kitchen.
+
+She had a great many things to accomplish during the morning, because
+now that her mother was sick a number of household duties devolved upon
+her, with which she had nothing to do under ordinary circumstances.
+But, keep herself as busy as she could, the time still hung heavily. It
+seemed to her as if noon would never come. Her mother tried to hear her
+say her lessons in the intervals, when she had to sit up, but Bessie
+could not attend enough to repeat them well. She made many strange
+mistakes.
+
+The top of every page in her spelling-book was decorated with a picture
+which illustrated whatever word stood at the head of the column. Thus,
+_chandelier_, _work-box_, _bedstead_, were each represented in a pretty
+engraving. I suppose this was done in order to excite the interest
+of the scholar. Bessie's thoughts to-day were so far away with her
+water-cresses, however, that she could think of nothing else. At the
+head of her column for the morning was the word _ladle_, and at its
+side was the picture of a stout servant girl, ladling out a plate of
+soup from a tureen. The shape of the ladle so much resembled a skimmer
+which Bessie had often seen in use in her mother's kitchen, that
+with her thoughts following the farmer in his wagon, she spelled and
+pronounced in this wise:
+
+"L-a, skim, d-l-e, mer, _skimmer_!"
+
+"My patience," said her mother, "what nonsense is that, Bessie, which
+you are saying?"
+
+"L-a, skim, d-l-e, mer, skimmer," gravely repeated Bessie, quite
+unconscious of the droll mistake.
+
+Her mother could not but laugh, but she asked her if such inattention
+was kind to herself when she was so ill as scarcely to be able to
+speak, much less to question over and over again a girl who did not
+care whether she learned or not.
+
+"But I _do_ care, mother," cried Bessie, coloring.
+
+"Then why do you try me so? Take your book and study your spelling
+properly."
+
+Bessie did so, and this time, mastering her inclination to think of
+other things, soon accomplished her task.
+
+"It is not because you are a dull child," said her mother, "that you do
+not learn, but because you are a careless one. The least thing comes
+between you and your lessons. This morning, I suppose you are somewhat
+to be excused, but I cannot express to you how you weary me, day after
+day, by the same conduct."
+
+These words filled Bessie with shame. She really loved her mother, and
+there were few things she would not have done to please her. She did
+not realize how simple thoughtlessness can pain and annoy those whom we
+would not purposely wound.
+
+"Well, mother," said Bessie, casting down her eyes, "I _do_ wish I was
+good. Maybe I am not big enough yet, am I, mother?"
+
+Her mother smiled, saying, "You are plenty big enough, and plenty old
+enough too."
+
+Bessie smiled too, and was happy to see that her mother was not as
+vexed with her as she thought. She went up to her and gave her a
+little shy kiss on her cheek.
+
+"It is _such_ hard work to be good," she said, "and it does _so_ bother
+me to be thinkin' of it all the time. Wouldn't it be nice if we could
+be good without any trouble? When I am grown up I hope I'll be good,
+anyway."
+
+"Oh Bessie," said her mother, seriously, "do not wait till then. While
+you are young is the time to break yourself of bad habits and slothful
+ways. If you wait until you become a woman, they will have fastened
+themselves upon you so that you cannot shake them off."
+
+Just as Bessie's mother pronounced the last words, she heard a knock
+on one of the outer doors. Bessie heard it too, and ran down stairs to
+open it. It was now nearly time to expect Mr. Dart, and her heart beat
+with delight at the anticipation of the news she was so soon to hear.
+
+She opened the door, and saw, not the kind face of the farmer, but that
+of a small, ungainly boy, who lived in the next house. He was a sickly,
+spoiled child, and Bessie, never liking him much at the best of times,
+found him now rather an unwelcome visitor.
+
+"Our folks wants to know if your mother'll lend us some sugar," he
+said, at the same time handing out a cracked tea-cup.
+
+Bessie took the cup and invited the boy to go up and see her mother,
+while she brought the sugar. She had just filled the cup even full,
+when again she heard a knock. This time she felt sure it was the
+farmer, and indeed when she flew to the door, there he stood, smiling
+at her in the porch. One of his hands was extended towards her, and in
+its palm she saw three bright silver coins!
+
+"Take them, Bessie," he said, "they are your own. Them cresses o'
+your'n were the best in market. I'm coming along to-morrow morning at
+the same time, and if you like, you can have another lot for me. Here's
+your basket, but it isn't half big enough, as I told you before."
+
+Bessie stood holding the money in her hands, quite unable to utter a
+word. Her first thought was to dash up stairs and tell her mother, her
+next to run after the farmer and thank him. But he had already mounted
+into his seat and Dobbin, very glad to know that his nose was turned
+homeward, had taken the hint to start off at a pace that soon placed
+his driver out of hearing.
+
+"I am so sorry," said Bessie, gazing after the wagon in much the same
+way as she had done in the morning. "Mother will say I forgot my
+politeness _that_ time. And he so kind too!"
+
+She ran in the house again, and in a moment was in her mother's room.
+
+"Mother, mother," she cried, holding out the coins, "you can have every
+thing you want now! See, here's money, plenty of it! I don't believe
+I ever saw so much at once in all my life. How many goodies you shall
+have to make you well!"
+
+Her mother was lying partially dressed outside the bed-quilts, but she
+rose up slowly to share Bessie's joy. Bessie put the money in her hands
+and danced around the room like a wild girl, utterly regardless of the
+fire-tongs that she whirled out of place, and a couple of chairs, which
+she laid very neatly flat on their sides in the middle of the floor.
+Then she flew at her mother and gave her two monstrous, _sounding_
+kisses on each cheek. Her mother gave them right straight back to her,
+and I can assure you Bessie wasn't at all sorry to have them returned.
+
+"Why, Bessie," said the little boy, who had been a silent spectator all
+this time, "what is the matter with you? You act real crazy."
+
+"I _am_ crazy," said Bessie, good-humoredly, "just as crazy as can be.
+This is my water-cress money. Didn't you know I can earn money for
+mother? How much is there, mother?"
+
+The widow spread out the three coins in her hand, and after a moment's
+pause, said,
+
+"Here are two twenty-five cent pieces, and a ten cent piece; that makes
+just sixty cents."
+
+Bessie sat perfectly still, and when her mother looked at her,
+attracted by an unusual sound, she had her apron up to her eyes, crying
+as peacefully as possible.
+
+"Why, my foolish little girl," said her mother, "I can't have any tears
+shed in this way. Jump up like a good child and get Nathan his sugar."
+
+"I couldn't help it," sobbed Bessie, "I didn't know I was agoin' to
+till I did."
+
+"What are you thinking of doing with it all?" asked Nathan, eyeing the
+money with some curiosity.
+
+"Save it," answered Bessie, promptly, "till mother gets ready to use
+it." She went to a table standing at the head of the bed, and from its
+drawer she took out a large-sized Madeira nut, that had been given to
+her by her uncle the previous Christmas. The two halves were joined
+together by a steel hinge, and when a small spring was touched on the
+opposite side, they opened. Bessie touched it now, and advancing to her
+mother, said,
+
+"Let's keep the money in this nut, mother, for a purse, until you want
+to spend it."
+
+Her mother dropped the silver in the open shell, and Bessie closed it
+and replaced it in the drawer. Then she and Nathan went down to get the
+sugar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HUNGRY FISHES.
+
+
+IT was about two o'clock when Bessie, basket in hand, started to go on
+the nutting excursion which Nelly and Martin had planned for that day.
+
+She scarcely liked to be absent long, for she knew her mother was not
+quite as well as usual, and then, too, the water-cresses were to be
+gathered and prepared for the next day's market. At all events she made
+up her mind to get home early, long before the sun should set.
+
+It was but a short walk of a half mile to Nelly's home; Martin and
+Nelly were ready, so that no time was consumed in waiting.
+
+It was even a more beautiful day than the one on which the previous
+nutting had taken place. The woods were brighter colored than ever,
+and the golden autumn mist seemed to cover every thing with beauty. It
+hung in wreaths around the tops of the high trees, and swayed softly
+back and forth when the breeze stirred it. The boats on the river could
+scarcely be discerned through it, and the opposite shores were entirely
+hidden.
+
+"This is Dolly's _well_ day," said Bessie, "I asked her father and he
+told me so."
+
+"Martin says you are going to sell him some water-cresses," said Nelly;
+"at least, I suppose he was the one; did you?"
+
+"Yes," said Bessie; "that is, he sold them _for_ me, which is the same
+thing you know. He brought me three _big_ pieces of money for them at
+noon, and I put 'em in a nut-shell and shut 'em up."
+
+"A nut-shell?" repeated Martin, "that is a funny bank, I think."
+
+"It's a safe one," said Bessie, "and it will not break and keep the
+money like some of those I have heard of in town. Just look at those
+bitter-sweets, Nell, aren't they bright?"
+
+"I mean to get some," cried Nelly, as she paused to admire the red
+sprays of the berries that grew at the side of the short-cut path they
+were pursuing. "I will take them home to mother to put in her winter
+bouquets of dried grasses, that stand on the parlor mantle-shelf. They
+will enliven them and make them much handsomer."
+
+"Why not wait till we return?" said Martin; "you will have all the
+trouble of carrying them to the woods and back again, and perhaps lose
+them by the way."
+
+"I know too much for that," said Nelly, laughing; "we may not come
+back by this road, and then I should not get them at all. Last week I
+lost some in the same way: I went out walking with Miss Milly over the
+mountains, and we came to some beauties near Mulligan's little shanty.
+We thought to save ourselves trouble by leaving them till we returned.
+Something or other tempted us to strike into another path when we came
+back, so that our bitter-sweets are on the top of the mountain yet."
+
+"No," said Bessie, "I don't think they are. Did they grow over a big
+rock, and were there plenty of sumach bushes between them and the path?"
+
+"Yes," said Nelly, beginning to pull down the rich clusters of the
+bitter-sweets, and breaking them off, one by one.
+
+"Well," said Bessie, making a deep, mock courtesy, "I have the pleasure
+of having those berries in my own bedroom at this blessed minute. I
+went to Mulligan's on an errand of mother's, a few days ago, and I
+brought them down the mountain with me."
+
+"Her loss was your gain, wasn't it?" said Martin, as he aided Nelly to
+gather the berries.
+
+"I'll help too," said Bessie, "for I'm in a _dreadful_ hurry to get
+back, Nelly. I have all my cresses to pick for market," and she too
+broke off the bunches and laid them carefully in Nelly's basket.
+
+"What!" said Nelly, "_more_ cresses, Bessie?"
+
+"Yes," said Bessie, giving a joyful hop, and, as her mother called it,
+cutting a caper; "and that isn't all, for Dolly's father wants lots and
+lots _and_ lots more of 'em! Come, I guess you have plenty now, let's
+go on."
+
+Nelly consented to do so, but first Martin took out of his pocket a
+handful of tangled twine, and with a piece of it tied the bitter-sweet
+berries together by the stems, and suspended them in a bunch from her
+apron strings, so that her basket might be ready for the nuts.
+
+Martin was a farm boy who worked at Nelly's father's place. He was
+a good, steady lad, and the two girls liked very much to have his
+company in their excursions. It was not often, however, that he could
+be spared, and the present occasion was, therefore, quite a holiday in
+his estimation.
+
+[Illustration: "Martin told the girls that if they would place
+themselves with him on an old trunk of a tree, they would probably find
+it to be a better position from which to throw their lines."--p. 93.]
+
+When the children reached the little house near the wood, they were
+surprised to see Dolly standing in the gateway quite equipped for the
+ramble. She had a large basket on her arm, and a long hickory stick in
+her hands. Nelly introduced Martin, who stood a little aloof when the
+girls first met, and then Dolly asked them if they would not all come
+in and rest, but the children thought that it was best not to do so.
+Hearing voices, the farmer came to the door of the farm house to see
+them off. He looked pleased to find Dolly with the little girls.
+
+"That's right," he said, "I'm glad to have my Dolly tramping about like
+other folks' children. It will do her good. But don't stay late: the
+damp of the evening is very unwholesome for the nager."
+
+"Oh, we are coming back long before night, sir," said Bessie,
+cheerfully, "'cause I've got all my cresses to pick for to-morrow.
+Mother and I are _so_ much obliged to you, I can't really _tell_ how
+much!"
+
+"Quite welcome, quite welcome," said Mr. Dart; "I'll be on the look-out
+for another basket to-morrow then."
+
+As the four children walked briskly along the path through the woods,
+Nelly looked with some curiosity at Dolly's stick. She could not
+imagine for what purpose it was intended. It was not very stout, nor
+apparently very heavy; at the upper end it was a little curved. Dolly
+seemed to use it for a staff, and several times helped herself over
+some rough and stony places with it. When the walking was good she
+carried it carelessly over her shoulder, with her basket swinging at
+the crooked end.
+
+A short time brought the party to the place where they had found
+so many nuts only a day or two before. Much to their surprise and
+mortification the trees which were lately so loaded, were now
+perfectly bare. Some one had evidently been there during the time that
+intervened, and had carried away the prize. There were several large
+piles of the outer shells scattered about on the ground, but that was
+all.
+
+"What shall we do," asked Bessie, mournfully; "I don't think we can
+find another such spot as this was in the whole woods. This clump of
+trees was as full as it could be only the day before yesterday."
+
+Dolly took her stick and poked among the branches to see if any
+remained. She found about half a dozen, which she knocked down and put
+in her basket.
+
+"Now I know," said Nelly, "what Dolly brought that pole for,--to knock
+down the nuts."
+
+"Yes," said Dolly, surveying the stick in question with some pride,
+"it is splendid for that. I call it my cherry-tree hook, and I use it
+in cherry time to pull the branches towards me. But come, we must push
+on and seek our fortunes. Haven't an _idee_ of goin' home without my
+basket full."
+
+"I give up, for one," said Bessie, despondently, "I don't think we can
+find a thick place again."
+
+"Never mind, Bessie," said Martin, with good-nature, "we'll find a
+_thin_ one then. We'll do the best we can, you may be sure. Come,
+girls, I'll lead the way. Let us follow this little footpath and see
+where it will take us."
+
+He spoke in an encouraging tone, and suiting the action to the word,
+walked on ahead. The girls followed him in silence. The underbrush
+through which the path led was very thick and high, and for a short
+distance nothing could be discerned on either side. The thorns caught
+into the clothing of the little party, and they found this by no
+means an added pleasure. It was not long, however, before the track
+broadened into a wide, open space, something similar to the one they
+had just quitted, dotted here and there with trees, but, as fortune
+would have it, none of them were nut trees. They were on the point of
+penetrating still further towards the heart of the wood, when a loud
+rustling among the dead branches and dried leaves of the path made the
+children turn to discover what was the matter.
+
+A joyful barking followed, and a rough-looking dog bounded out, and
+began prancing about and leaping upon Dolly.
+
+"Oh, it's only our old Tiger," she exclaimed; "down, Tige, down, sir!"
+
+But Tiger was so delighted at having succeeded in finding his young
+mistress, that he did not cease indulging in his various uncouth
+gambols, until Dolly, stamping her foot and assuming an air of great
+severity, bade him _be quiet_, or she would send him immediately home.
+Tiger seemed to understand the threat, for he stopped barking and
+instantly darted several hundred feet in advance of the party.
+
+"He does that so that I cannot make him go back," cried Dolly, laughing
+at the sagacity of her favorite; "I never tell him I will send him
+home, but that he runs ahead so as to make it impossible for me to do
+as I say."
+
+They continued their wanderings for some distance further, but with
+very poor success.
+
+"I'll tell you what we can do," said Martin, with a laugh, as
+exclamations of vexation and disappointment were heard from the girls;
+"let's turn our nutting into a fishing excursion. Wouldn't it be nice
+if we should each go home with a string of fish?"
+
+"Fish!" cried Nelly, "what _do_ you mean, Martin?"
+
+"I never heard of anybody catchin' fish in the woods!" said Dolly.
+"There isn't a drop of water nearer than the pond the other side of
+Morrison's hill."
+
+"Well," said Martin, "I know there is not, but that is not so very far
+off. I was just thinking of the shortest way to get there."
+
+"I know every inch of the country," said Dolly, firmly, "and I'm _sure_
+Morrison's pond is at least a good two mile from here."
+
+"Oh, we can't walk _that_, Martin," cried Bessie; "we should all be
+tired, and get home after dark besides."
+
+"Now," said Martin, smiling, "I do not wish to contradict anybody, but
+I am acquainted with a path, a rather rough one to be sure, that will
+bring us, in about twenty minutes, to the edge of the pond. You know it
+is not as far away as people think, the crooked, winding road making it
+appear a long way off, when in reality it lies in a straight line only
+about half a mile from the village."
+
+"But if we conclude to go, we can't _fish_," said Dolly.
+
+"Why not?" quietly asked Martin.
+
+"We haven't a line or a hook among us," put forth Nelly, "at least I am
+sure _I_ haven't."
+
+"Well _I_ have," replied Martin, "provided you will not despise bent
+pins for hooks, pieces of the twine that is left of that I tied your
+bitter-sweet berries with for lines, a hickory stick like Dolly's for
+a rod, and earth worms for bait. There now, haven't I furnished the
+whole party with tackle? Come, don't let us go home without having
+_something_ to take with us."
+
+Dolly sat down on the stump of a tree and began to laugh.
+
+"The idee," she said, "of going nutting and bringing home _fish_. Well,
+I'm willing, for one, if it's only to find out the path. I thought I
+knew all the ins and outs around here."
+
+"And I'd like to go too," said Nelly.
+
+"I should _like_ to go well enough," added Bessie, "if it wasn't that
+I feel sure the extra walk will just bring me home too late for my
+cresses. Mother is sick, too, and she cannot be left alone very long;
+and Dolly, you know your father said you must not stay out late."
+
+"Yes," said Dolly, "I know he did, and I don't mean to disobey, but it
+can't be very late _yet_; I should think not more than half past three."
+
+Martin looked up at the sun and then down to the shadows on the ground.
+
+"No," said he, "it is not more than half past three. I am in the habit
+of telling time by the sun, and I know it is not later than that. Come,
+Bessie, three to one is the way the case stands. I guess you will be
+home time enough."
+
+Bessie stood irresolute. She wished to go fishing, and she wished to
+return home. It was hard to choose. At last she said,
+
+"It will be four at least when I get back. I must go."
+
+"Then you break up the party," said Nelly, in a dissatisfied tone.
+
+"And you spoil the pleasure," added Dolly, leaning on her stick and
+looking at Bessie.
+
+"And you send us all home with empty baskets when we might each have a
+string of fish," continued Martin. "_Do_ stay!"
+
+The children surrounded Bessie, and tried to persuade her. At length
+she ceased to resist. She endeavored to assure herself that she was
+acting right, but she felt uneasy as she did so, and the picture of
+her mother, lying so long alone in her sick room, rose up to her mind.
+Still the temptation was before her, and she yielded to it. The truth
+was, that Bessie had great confidence in Martin, and when he said that
+he thought there was plenty of time, she reasoned with herself that
+he was a great deal older than she was, and probably knew best; so she
+consented to join the fishing party. The moment she said "yes," Martin
+exclaimed,
+
+"This way then; follow me, all of you, and we will soon reach the
+short-cut track. It is about here somewhere. Let us hurry so as to lose
+no time."
+
+The path was speedily found as he had said, and the children walked as
+rapidly after him as the rough stones which lay in the way, and the
+projecting branches of blackberry bushes would permit.
+
+When they reached the pond, Martin took out the pocket knife which he
+usually carried about him, and cut down four slender young trees which
+he found growing between the pond and the public wagon-road at its
+side. He gave these to Nelly and asked her if she would tie the strings
+securely fast to the smallest ends, while he and Bessie overturned
+stones in search of worms, and Dolly bent the points of the pins so as
+to resemble hooks.
+
+"Why will not my staff do for a pole?" asked Dolly, as she hammered at
+the pins with a large pebble; "you said it would, Martin."
+
+"That was before I saw these little trees," replied Martin. "The moment
+I came upon them, growing here in a group among the bushes, I knew they
+were just the things I wanted. They are thin and tapering, and your
+stick is not."
+
+"What difference does that make?" said Dolly; "a pole is only for the
+purpose of casting the line out a good distance into the water, isn't
+it?"
+
+"That is one use for it," said Martin, "but not all. If a pole is
+properly proportioned, that is, if it is the right size at the handle,
+and tapers gradually to the point, the fisherman can feel the least
+nibble, and know the exact moment when to draw up the line. If he could
+not feel the movement, the fish might, in the struggles occasioned by
+his pain, carry off bait and hook too."
+
+"In our case that wouldn't be a great loss," laughed Dolly, and she
+held up the pins, neatly bent into shape.
+
+"Martin," said Bessie, in a low voice, as she stooped to raise a stone
+at his side, "I guess I don't care to fish, after all."
+
+Martin saw something was amiss. Instead of giving utterance to a rude
+exclamation, or calling the attention of the others, he said in a kind
+tone,
+
+"Why, Bessie, what is the matter now? Don't you feel right?"
+
+Bessie shook her head. Martin saw there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"I am sorry I coaxed you," he said. "I feel now as if I had not behaved
+as I ought."
+
+"I never _did_ like to go fishing," said Bessie; "it _hurts_ me to see
+the poor little things pant and flounder when they are brought up.
+The moment I heard you speak of their struggling with the pain, I was
+sorrier than ever that I had come, and that made me think of mother,
+staying home alone with _her_ pain. I do believe I ought to go back at
+once."
+
+"But you cannot find the way," said Martin; "you have never been here
+before."
+
+"That is true," said Bessie, sighing. "Well, I do not wish to be a
+spoil-pleasure. Don't mind me, then, but you and the others begin your
+fishing, and if I see a wagon come by on the road that is going our
+way, I can jump in. I need not stop your sport if I do that."
+
+Martin looked perplexed.
+
+"I hardly like you to try it," he said, "and yet I do not wish you to
+stay against your will."
+
+"Well," said Bessie, "I don't like to act _mean_, Martin. Go on fishing
+for a little while, at all events. I can wait half an hour or so, I
+suppose."
+
+Nelly now called to Martin that the lines were ready, for Dolly had
+just finished tying on the last pin. He gathered up the bait he had
+found beneath the stones, and went towards the two other girls. He
+thought, on consideration, that he might fish for a short time, while
+waiting to see if a wagon approached on the road. If none did so within
+the allotted half hour, he made up his mind to go home. He blamed
+himself now for having changed the destination of the party.
+
+"Here's my line," cried Dolly, holding it out at the end of her pole,
+"and now all that I and the fishes wait for is a worm."
+
+Martin fastened one on Dolly's pin, one on Nelly's likewise, and one on
+the line he intended for himself.
+
+"Come, Bessie," said Nelly, as she flung her line into the water, "come
+try _your_ luck."
+
+"Bessie does not care about fishing," said Martin kindly, "do not press
+her if she does not wish it."
+
+The pond was well stocked with a variety of small fishes, many of
+which were considered good eating by the farmers in the neighborhood.
+As scarcely any one ever took the trouble, however, to go after them,
+they were hardly acquainted with hooks or lines, and they were,
+consequently, all the more easily caught. Martin said he had never seen
+such hungry fishes before. They snapped at the bait the moment it was
+lowered to them, oftentimes carrying it entirely off, hook and all.
+
+Once, and the children could scarcely believe it when they saw it, a
+fish called a bull-head leaped at least an inch above the water and
+tried to swallow the end of Dolly's line, which she was in the act of
+raising, to replace the pin and worm which some of his greedy kindred
+had just taken away.
+
+Martin told the girls that if they would place themselves with him
+on an old trunk of a tree that apparently had fallen years before
+into the edge of the pond, they would probably find it to be a better
+position from which to throw their lines than the shore on which they
+had stood at first. "For," said he, "the larger fish do not like to
+venture into such shallow water." The trunk, however, was covered with
+moist moss, which made it very slippery, and Nelly came so near losing
+her balance and falling in, as she walked up it, that she concluded
+to remain where she was. Martin and Dolly did not meet with the same
+difficulty, however, and very soon they discovered that the nibbles
+were far more frequent than before. Martin kept a twig on which he
+slipped the fish as soon as caught, and then hung it on a branch of
+the moss-covered trunk. Bessie had begun to look on the proceedings
+with interest, feeling almost as sorry as her companions as a ravenous
+bull-head occasionally carried off the hooks, when she heard a noise
+on the road as of wheels. She ran to the bushes which, divided it from
+the pond, and putting her little face through, saw that the miller who
+lived in the village was passing with three or four large sacks of
+meal in a wagon drawn by a pair of horses. He was going the wrong way,
+but the thought occurred to her to stop him and ask how long it would
+be before he should return, and if he should do so by the same road.
+The miller was a stout, good-natured looking man, with an old hat and
+coat as white as his meal bags. He seemed astonished enough at seeing
+Bessie's head pop so suddenly out of the bushes in that lonely place.
+
+"Why, Bessie," said he, laughing, "if I hadn't been as bold as a lion,
+perhaps I might have mistaken you for a mermaid that had just sprung
+out of the pond to have a little private conversation with me. Yes,
+I shall come back by this road. I have got to deliver my meal at the
+first house on the left, and then I turn towards home again. Is that
+your party that I catch a glimpse of on the pond?"
+
+"Yes," said Bessie, "they're fishing. You wouldn't mind giving us a
+ride as far as you go, Mr. Watson, would you?"
+
+Mr. Watson laughed, and said no he wouldn't, and telling her he should
+return in fifteen minutes, he drove on. Bessie hurried back to the
+children and related her news. She was careful not to be so selfish as
+to ask them to leave the pond to go with her, but she told them for
+their own benefit that the miller was willing to take the whole party.
+Enticing as the fishing was, the two girls were now far too tired to
+desire to walk home when they could ride very nearly all the way.
+Martin for his part would have liked to remain longer, but he saw that
+it would be ungenerous to refuse to accompany them, even if it had been
+early enough to do so, which it was not, for already the day was on
+the wane. So it was decided to leave the pond.
+
+Martin put Dolly's share of the fishes on a separate twig, and very
+proud she was of them. She said she should fry them for her father's
+breakfast the next morning, before he started for market. The fishing
+poles were left lying near the old tree.
+
+When the miller drove up to the place where Bessie had hailed him, he
+found the children awaiting him. Dolly and Martin, fish in hand, Nelly
+carrying her bitter-sweet berries, and Bessie with an empty basket, but
+a light heart at the thought that now she should reach home in good
+season to gather the cresses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+LOST.
+
+
+"I CAN'T find it," said Bessie, about a month after the fishing party.
+"I have hunted high and low. I cannot find it anywhere."
+
+Her mother, whose health was now greatly improving, was sitting in the
+kitchen by the blazing fire, for the weather was gradually growing
+colder, and the logs were piled up a little higher on the hearth, day
+by day. She was busy finishing quilting a white counterpane for a
+neighbor who employed her frequently to sew for her family. It was full
+of quaint devices, stars and diamonds forming the border, while in the
+centre was a wonderful little lamb in the act of performing some very
+frisky gambols.
+
+"Cannot find what?" demanded Bessie's mother.
+
+"My Madeira nut!" exclaimed Bessie, in a tone of despair. "Oh, what
+shall I do? what shall I do?"
+
+Her mother stopped quilting and turned to look at her.
+
+"Where did you put it last?" she asked. "Surely, Bessie, you ought to
+remember that."
+
+"I have never put it in but one spot," replied Bessie; "I left it in
+the drawer of my little table. When you grew better, and the table
+wasn't needed any more in your bedroom for you to stand your medicines
+on, I got Nathan to help me take it up stairs in the garret, just
+as you bade me, that day last week when he was here spending the
+afternoon. I thought I would still keep the nut there, for I had grown
+used to the place, and I liked to go to the drawer and pull it out to
+look at it sometimes. Oh dear, oh dear!" and Bessie burst into tears.
+
+"Perhaps you haven't searched well," said her mother; "come, I'll go up
+stairs with you. I shouldn't wonder if it had got caught in the top of
+the drawer. I have heard of such things. I lost a handkerchief that way
+myself once."
+
+"But," sobbed Bessie, "it couldn't get caught like that without being
+broken, because it was so thin shelled, and then I should have seen
+some of the pieces; or the money would have fallen back into the
+drawer, and I would have found _that_."
+
+"How much was in it?" asked her mother. "There could not have been a
+great deal more than the very first silver Mr. Dart brought you for the
+cresses, for the rest we have spent from time to time as fast as it was
+received. I was sorry enough to do it too."
+
+"I wasn't," said Bessie, brightening up a little through her tears, "I
+was glad and thankful, mother, to have it to spend. If it had not been
+for the cresses, what would have become of us all the while you were so
+sick?"
+
+"God always provides for the poor and needy," said her mother gravely,
+"and I am certain that He who knows even when sparrows fall would not
+let us suffer. If this help had not sprung up for us through Mr. Dart,
+something else would have presented itself. Come, now, let us go to the
+garret and look for the money."
+
+Bessie darted ahead of her mother as they went up the stairs, with a
+bound and a spring that brought her to the head of the flight when her
+mother was on the second step. She was young and agile, and besides she
+was greatly excited and in haste to begin the search. She did not gain
+any thing by her speed, however, for she had to wait at the landing
+until her mother had toiled slowly up.
+
+"Now let us look at the drawer," said her mother, when, after pausing
+a moment to breathe, she moved towards the table. It was a poor little
+shaky thing, and of a very dilapidated appearance. It was not to be
+wondered at that as soon as her recovery made its presence unnecessary
+in her room, she had banished it to the garret whence it had been
+brought.
+
+"You see there is no trace of it," said Bessie, mournfully, as she
+watched her mother remove the articles the drawer contained one by one.
+
+No, it was not there indeed.
+
+Bessie pulled out the drawer, and even took the trouble to examine the
+aperture which contained it, but all was in vain.
+
+"It is certainly very strange," said her mother. "I do not see how, if
+it were really in this drawer, it could have got out without help."
+
+"Nor I either," added Bessie, half laughing at the idea of a nut
+walking off of itself. "Oh, if I could only find it! I do not mind the
+nut so much, although dear uncle James gave it to me last Christmas, as
+I do the money, for you know, mother, I asked you if I might not keep
+it forever, that is as long as I lived, to remember Mr. Dart's kindness
+by, and to show, when I grew up, as my first earnings. Oh, I was so
+proud of those three pieces of silver!"
+
+"What were they?" asked her mother, looking over the contents of the
+drawer again.
+
+"_Don't you remember?_" exclaimed Bessie, in a tone of great surprise,
+as though it were really remarkable to have forgotten. "Don't you
+remember? There were two twenty-five cent pieces and a ten cent piece!"
+and Bessie broke into fresh weeping again.
+
+"Don't cry about it, Bessie," said her mother, "you know crying cannot
+bring them back."
+
+"I wouldn't care," said the little girl, "if it had been _yesterday's_
+money, but it was the first, _the very first_ I ever earned of myself,
+and I meant to save it always!"
+
+"I think I can tell you exactly how it happened, my child. Just look at
+the untidy appearance of your drawer. There are scraps in it of a great
+many things that ought not to be there. Here is a broken slate, your
+worn-out work-basket, your summer sun-bonnet, empty bottles, spools of
+cotton, and last but not least, about a quart of hickory nuts,--a nice
+array, I am sure."
+
+Bessie hung her head. She was ashamed to have her disorderly ways
+remarked. A want of neatness was her greatest fault.
+
+"I was just going to clear it up to-morrow," she murmured, twitching
+rather uneasily at her apron strings.
+
+"Oh, my little girl, that 'just going' of yours is one of the saddest
+things I can hear you say. You are always '_just going_,' and yet the
+time seldom comes that you do as you intend. You are full of good
+intentions that you are either too lazy or too thoughtless ever to
+fulfil. If I did not watch over you very sharply, every thing you
+have would be like this miserable looking drawer, a complete mass of
+disorder."
+
+"Oh, I hope not!" cried Bessie, quite appalled at the news.
+
+"Now," continued her mother, "I can trace the losing of your money back
+to your want of neatness. In all probability, when you came to this
+drawer some time to get a few of your hickory nuts, you have caught
+up the Madeira among the others, carried it down stairs, and left the
+whole pile lying as you often do, somewhere around the garden till
+you feel in the humor for cracking them. I want to know, in the first
+place, why your hickory nuts were ever put in this drawer among your
+books and spools of cotton."
+
+Bessie had been growing warmer and warmer while her mother was
+speaking, until it seemed to her as though the tips of her ears were
+on fire. Conviction forced itself upon her mind that her Madeira nut
+must have gone in the way her mother described, for she remembered
+distinctly having often taken two or three handfuls of nuts and
+carried them in her apron down to the garden, leaving them lying
+carelessly about her favorite resorts, under the old apple-tree for
+instance, or on the big flat stone by the brook. She had many just such
+idle, unsystematic ways of managing. She felt she was in the wrong, so
+she scarcely knew how to defend herself.
+
+"I don't know why I put the nuts there, mother," she said, "unless it
+was to get them out of the way. They are those that are left of the
+basket full I found in the woods by Mr. Dart's farm, one day when Nelly
+and I went there together."
+
+"When _will_ you learn neatness, Bessie?"
+
+"I don't know," sobbed Bessie, "never, I 'spect. Seems to me I grow
+worse and worse. I don't believe I shall be half as good when I am ten
+as I am now when I'm only nine. I wish I had never gone nutting, and
+then this would not have happened."
+
+"No," said her mother, smiling, "it never would, for then in all
+probability you would not have met and become friendly with our good
+Mr. Dart. Don't make rash wishes, my little Bess, because you are
+vexed."
+
+"Oh, now I know," cried Bessie, as if struck with a sudden idea, "I put
+the nuts in that drawer, mother, for _safety_. Before that they were
+lying spread out to dry on the floor, over by that barrel. I remember
+thinking that they were thinning out pretty fast, and that the rats
+must have carried some away. I thought that if I put them in the
+drawer they would last until I used them up."
+
+"Well," said her mother, "that betters the case a little; but still I
+must insist that you could have found many more appropriate places. If
+you had put them in the barrel it would have been far better than among
+your spools, and I do not know but that it would have been quite as
+safe."
+
+Bessie's mother went up to the barrel in question, as she spoke, and
+scarcely knowing what she was doing, shoved it a little with her foot.
+It was empty, and yielded easily. This change in its position brought
+to view the space between it and the wall, and there, what did Bessie
+and her mother see but a nice little pile of hickory nut-shells!
+
+Bessie uttered an exclamation and sprang forward. She took up two or
+three, and found that a hole had been neatly nibbled in each and the
+meat subtracted.
+
+"I told you so," she said sorrowfully, letting the shells drop slowly
+back to the pile; "now I know why my nuts disappeared so fast. I
+thought at first that Nathan must have helped himself to a few, when
+he has been here. He often runs up stairs to get something or other to
+play with, when he stays the whole afternoon, and I guessed the nuts
+had tempted him. Poor Nathan! I ought to have known better."
+
+Bessie's mother stooped and examined every shell in the pile.
+
+"Perhaps," said she, "master rat has carried off the Madeira too."
+
+"Oh, I hope so," cried the little girl; "do you see any of the pieces
+of it, mother? He could not harm the money you know, and that is what I
+care most about getting back."
+
+"It is not here," said her mother, rising, "but perhaps we shall hear
+something of it yet. I want you to put on your sun-bonnet and look
+carefully about the garden. Take an hour, or two hours if necessary,
+but do it thoroughly. I must go down stairs now to my sewing."
+
+Bessie found it very tedious, sad work searching for her lost
+treasure that afternoon. She went to each of her favorite haunts, and
+examined them with great minuteness, but no trace of the nut was to
+be discovered. One thing seemed to her as very strange, however, and
+that was, that of all the small supplies of nuts which she had lately
+carried down to the garden, and of which she did not remember even to
+have cracked a single one, not so much as a fragment of a shell was
+now to be found. Only the day before she had left a little strawberry
+basket half filled, on the big stone by the brook, to which the reader
+remembers she once led Mr. Dart to survey the cresses. She had meant
+to sit there and crack and pick them out at once, at her leisure, but
+something attracting her attention as usual, she did not do so, but
+deserted both basket and nuts. The basket was there still, but to her
+surprise, it was quite empty. It lay on its side near where she had
+left it. No mark of any one having been there was to be seen in the
+muddy grass.
+
+Bessie took up the basket and gazed at it in silent astonishment. What
+could it mean? Who would help themselves to her nuts in this way? and
+why was the basket not carried off also? She was still sitting on the
+stone thinking the whole singular affair over, when she heard Nathan
+call to her from the next house, where he lived. She looked up, and
+there he was leaning over the fence. She had just been thinking of him,
+and it made her feel unpleasantly to see him.
+
+"Bess," cried he, "what do you think? father is going to give me a ride
+to town to-morrow."
+
+Bessie scarcely heard him as she rose, and holding up her empty basket,
+said reproachfully,--
+
+"Oh, Nathan, how could you climb over the fence and take my nuts?"
+
+"Nuts!" echoed Nathan, "what nuts? I don't know any thing about your
+nuts."
+
+"Somebody does," said Bessie, "for this basket was half full yesterday,
+and now it is empty. I left it here on the stone all night."
+
+"I never saw it," said Nathan; "that's mighty pretty of you to accuse a
+fellow of stealing. You had better be a little careful."
+
+"I didn't say you _stole_, Nathan, I only--"
+
+"Who cares for your old nuts?" interrupted Nathan, "they're not worth
+the carrying off. Next thing you'll be saying I meddle with your
+cresses."
+
+"No," said Bessie, a little sadly, "I shouldn't say that. There are
+only two or three baskets-full of nice ones left, and by next week Mr.
+Dart will have taken them all to market. I don't _care_ about my nuts,
+Nathan, it isn't that, but I should like to know who took them."
+
+"Well, _I_ didn't, anyhow," said Nathan, "and since you are so cross
+about it, I shan't stay to talk to you."
+
+He clambered down from the fence and walked away whistling, with his
+hands in his pockets.
+
+Some way, Bessie felt a presentiment that Nathan knew more than he said
+about the nuts. She concluded to go in and ask her mother if it could
+possibly be that he had taken the missing money.
+
+Her mother listened in silence to all she had to utter on the subject.
+Bessie told her that Nathan was aware, and had been aware from the
+beginning, where the Madeira nut was kept. She said he was present
+when she first put it in the drawer, which was indeed true, as the
+reader knows, and that often since, they had looked at it together.
+
+"My dear," said her mother, when Bessie concluded, "I do not see that
+you have any thing more than _conjecture_ on which to found your
+suspicions. It is very wrong to act on conjecture only."
+
+"But everybody thinks Nat is a bad boy," said Bessie eagerly; "the
+neighbors say he will do almost any thing. Only last Sunday he pinned
+the minister's coat tails to the shade of the church window, as he
+stood talking to Deacon Danbury, after meeting was over. When the
+minister went to walk off, down came the shade on his head and smashed
+his new hat. _I_ think that a boy who will do that would take things
+that do not belong to him."
+
+"Perhaps he might," said her mother quietly.
+
+"Well, shall I ask him about it," demanded Bessie.
+
+"My dear child," said her mother gravely, "your ideas of justice
+are one-sided. The world would not thrive if every one acted on the
+principles you seem to advocate. Many an honest man might be imprisoned
+as a thief if people should take mere _conjecture_ for proof of guilt,
+while at the same time, many a thief would pass for an honest man. In
+law, all persons are supposed innocent, until they are _proved_ guilty.
+You did not _see_ Nathan take any thing belonging to you, nor do you
+know any one who did. It would be the height of cruelty then, to
+accuse him without absolute proof."
+
+"Yes," said Bessie, "but suppose he _did_ take the nut after all."
+
+"Then," said her mother, "we can only leave the case to that Judge who
+doeth all things well. It is better for us to suppose him innocent even
+while he may be guilty, than to suppose him guilty when he is innocent."
+
+"I wish I _knew_," said Bessie, as she took up her shears and basket to
+go out to get the cresses for the next day's market.
+
+"The cold weather will soon put a stop to the cresses, I am afraid,"
+remarked her mother, after a pause.
+
+"Yes," said Bessie, "Mr. Dart says they are getting poor now; they do
+not grow fast after cutting, any more, on account of the frost."
+
+"Never mind," said her mother cheerfully, "in the spring, which after
+all is not so _very_ far off, they will become fine again, and then you
+can begin to sell as fast as ever. If I am well then, as I hope and
+trust I shall be, we must not touch a penny of your money, Bessie. It
+shall all be saved to send you regularly to Miss Milly's school, and
+buy books for you to learn out of, and perhaps, who knows, there will
+be something left to put in the bank besides. This fall the cresses
+have fed our poor, suffering bodies, but next spring, if nothing
+happens, they shall feed my Bessie's mind."
+
+"School!" cried Bessie, dropping both the basket and the scissors
+in her delight, "shall I _really_ go to school? And all through the
+water-cresses? Why, we never thought our dear little brook would make
+us so rich, did we, mother?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NEST.
+
+
+ONE clear and cold morning in winter, as Bessie was passing along the
+road that led by Nelly's home, she heard Martin call her from the barn
+where he was at work. He saw her passing and beckoned to her to come
+to him. Bessie had the singular habit which most children possess of
+stopping to ask why she was summoned, when at the same time she fully
+intended to answer the call in person. So she stood still, and in a
+loud voice cried,
+
+"Mar-TIN, what _is_ it? What do you want of me?"
+
+"Come and see!" replied Martin, "I've something nice to show you!" and
+then he resumed his place at the hay-cutting machine, at which he had
+been busy when he espied her. He was mincing the hay for the cattle to
+eat.
+
+Bessie still stood irresolute. She meant to come, but she desired her
+curiosity to be gratified before she did so.
+
+"Mar-TIN?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Can't you tell me _now_ what it is?"
+
+"No," replied Martin, going on with his hay chopping; "I guess you will
+have to come and see for yourself. It almost splits my throat to be
+calling out to you so."
+
+"I think you might tell me," said Bessie, opening the gate and walking
+towards him; "you could have done it in half the time that you have
+been talking about it. Mercy! have you cut all that pile of hay this
+morning?"
+
+[Illustration: "A couple of white sheep came running eagerly up to
+Martin's outstretched hand."--p. 125.]
+
+"Yes," said Martin; "it's for the horses. I sprinkle a little water on
+it, and they like it a great deal better than when it is dry and uncut.
+It's healthier for them too."
+
+"I am glad I don't live on it," said Bessie. "I should be like the
+horse that his master fed on shavings,--just as I got used to it I
+should die."
+
+"Very likely," said Martin, laughing. "Come, and I'll show you what I
+spoke about." Bessie followed him as he led the way across the yard to
+the part of the barn where the large folding-doors were situated. They
+were wide open, and the clear winter sunshine streamed on the floor. An
+old wagon and a ladder were placed across this opening, so that no
+one could come in or go out without climbing over.
+
+"What is this for?" asked Bessie. "This wagon don't belong here,
+Martin. I never saw it here before."
+
+"That's to keep the cows out," said Martin, smiling. "We have treasures
+in this part of the barn that it would not do for the cattle to get at.
+Here Nanny, here Jinny!"
+
+A pattering of little hoofs was heard on the wooden floor, and a couple
+of white sheep came running eagerly up to Martin's outstretched hand.
+They rubbed themselves against it, and showed in various other ways how
+glad they were to see him.
+
+"Aren't they pretty?" said Bessie admiringly. "Come here, Nanny."
+
+But Nanny would not touch Bessie's hand, and backed up the barn,
+shaking her head at the sight of it, and kicking her delicate little
+heels in the air.
+
+"They don't know you yet," said Martin, "but they are very tame, and
+would soon become acquainted if you were with them every day as I am.
+We have had them two weeks, and already they let me play with them.
+They are cossets."
+
+"_Cossets_, Martin?"
+
+"Yes; that means the pets of the flock. The cosset lamb means the pet
+lamb."
+
+"Pet is a prettier word than cosset," said Bessie; "I should never call
+them that. I do wish mother had two such nice sheep. But why do you
+keep them shut up here?"
+
+"You haven't seen all yet," said Martin, smiling; "just creep through
+this place and round by these wheels, and we will go in and find out
+why the cows are kept out and the sheep kept in."
+
+Martin helped Bessie through the obstructions, and led her to the
+back of the barn where, nestled in a heap of clean hay that was
+piled against the opposite folding doors, she saw a little bundle of
+something white, in which she could just detect two small, glittering
+eyes.
+
+"It's a lamb," cried Bessie, skipping about as if she were one herself.
+
+"Two of 'em," said Martin. "Only look here!" and he pulled apart
+the loose whisps of hay, and there lay revealed two of the fattest,
+whitest, and prettiest lambs that ever were seen. They did not seem to
+like being admired, but gave utterance to a little sharp cry very much
+like a baby's. Hearing it, one of the sheep trotted up, and pushing
+between them and Martin, quietly began to lick them.
+
+"That's their mother," said Martin. "They are twins, and only two days
+old. The other old sheep is a twin of this old one, and they are so
+fond of each other that we cannot keep them separate. At first we were
+afraid the aunty would injure the young ones, and we shut her out in
+the barn-yard, but she came and stood at the door, there by the wagon,
+and cried so piteously that Mr. Brooks told me she might stay in with
+her sister and her baby nieces. We could not bear to hear her bleat
+so."
+
+"Don't she bite or tread on them?" asked Bessie.
+
+"No," said Martin, "I think she is very tender with them. This morning
+one of the men threw a handful of hay accidentally in a lamb's face,
+and when it tried to push it off but couldn't, what does old aunty do
+but walk up and eat it away, every whisp. I thought that was quite
+bright of her, and kind too. On the whole I think they are a happy
+family."
+
+"Does Nelly like 'em?" asked Bessie, as she patted the head of the one
+Martin called the "aunty."
+
+"Yes," said Martin, "she thinks they are the handsomest animals on the
+place. They grow fonder of her every day."
+
+"I hope her father don't mean to have them killed," remarked Bessie, a
+little sadly.
+
+"No indeed," cried Martin, "he bought them for pets, and to look pretty
+running about the meadow in the summer time. He says they are too tame
+and loving to be killed. I shouldn't like to think of such a thing, I
+am sure. There,--do see old Moolly poking her head over the wagon! How
+she does want to come in! She always was our pet before, and I suppose
+it makes her a little jealous. Poor Moolly,--good little Moolly."
+
+Martin picked up a corn-cob and rubbed the cow's ears. She stood quite
+still to let him do it, and when he stopped she stretched out her head
+for more and looked at him as if she had not had half her share.
+
+"Are the little lambs named?" asked Bessie, as she got up from the hay
+to go.
+
+"No," said Martin; "Nelly's father told her she might call them any
+thing she wanted, but she thinks they are such funny little long-legged
+things that she cannot find names pretty enough. When they grow
+stronger they will frisk about and be full of play."
+
+"I mean to run over to the house to see her and ask her about it," said
+Bessie. "I am real glad you called me, Martin, to look at them."
+
+Martin went back to his hay-cutting, and Bessie bade him good-by, and
+skipped along the path to the house. Bessie always skipped instead of
+walking or running, when she was particularly pleased with any thing.
+On knocking at the farm-house door, she was told to her great sorrow
+that Nelly was not within, but when she heard that she had just started
+to pay a visit to herself, that sorrow was changed to joy, and she
+turned to go home with a very light heart and a pair of very brisk feet.
+
+"Perhaps I can overtake her," she said to herself; but go as fast as
+she could, she saw nothing of Nelly on the road. When she reached home,
+she was so warm with the exercise that it seemed to her as though the
+day were a very mild one indeed. As she pushed open the door of the
+kitchen, her eyes were so bright and her cheeks so red from her little
+run, that her mother looked up from her work and asked what she had
+been doing.
+
+"Only racing down the hill to find Nelly," panted Bessie, sinking into
+a chair as she spoke. "Isn't she here? I didn't overtake her."
+
+"No," replied her mother, "Nelly has been here and gone. She was sorry
+you were out."
+
+"Gone!" echoed Bessie. "Well, if that is not too bad! Mrs. Brooks said
+she had just started. I am so sorry. Did she tell you which way she was
+going?"
+
+"No," said her mother, "she did not, but she said perhaps she would
+stop on her way back. Come, take off your hat and shawl and hang them
+up, and then begin hemming one of these towels. I am in a great hurry
+to get them done. They are Mrs. Raynor's, and I promised to send them
+home to-morrow."
+
+Bessie loved to romp and play much better than to sew, and these words
+of her mother's did not consequently fill her with satisfaction. She
+knew, however, that by sewing their living was to be gained, so she
+choked down the fretful words that rose to her lips. She felt that it
+was hard enough for her mother to work, without having her repinings to
+endure also. The glow and cheerful effect of her walk, however, faded
+away as she slowly untied her hood, and hung it with her shawl on a peg
+behind the door. She was deeply disappointed at Nelly's absence.
+
+"I wish she would have waited a little while," she said; "I don't see
+her so often now the winter has set in, that I can afford to miss her.
+Mother, have you seen my thimble?"
+
+"What!" said her mother, "lost _again_, Bessie? What shall I do with
+this careless girl? There is my old one, you can use that for a little
+while."
+
+"Oh, now I remember," cried Bessie, springing up, "I left it in the
+garret, in the drawer of the old table, the last time I was there. I'll
+get it, and be down again in a moment."
+
+She opened the door at the foot of the stairs, and ran quickly up them.
+She did not notice that she left the door wide open, and that the cold
+air rushed into the warm kitchen, nor did she know that her mother,
+sighing, was obliged to rise from her work and shut it after her.
+
+On went Bessie, and turning the landing, began the second flight, two
+steps at a time, as usual. She was very lightfooted, and owing to her
+disappointment about Nelly, she did not feel quite gay enough to hum
+the little tunes which she generally did when going about the house,
+so that altogether she scarcely made any noise. Perhaps it was owing
+to this that, as she reached the head of the garret stairs, she saw
+something run across the floor, evidently alarmed at her unexpected
+appearance. She stood still for a moment, hardly knowing what it was,
+and not wishing to go any further in the fear of frightening it away
+before she could get a good look at it. She decided at once, however,
+from its size, that it was not a rat, for it was far too large. It had
+taken refuge behind some old furniture in a corner, and in the hope
+that if she kept perfectly still, it would venture out again, she sat
+down on the top step, and fixed her eyes intently on the spot where she
+had beheld it disappear. She had remained thus but a short time when
+she heard hasty footsteps coming from the kitchen, and a voice that
+she recognized as that of Nelly, called her name. She did not answer,
+for she wanted to unravel the mystery, whatever it might be, and when
+Nelly, still calling, followed her up to the stairs on which she sat,
+she put her finger on her lip by way of enjoining silence, and beckoned
+to her to come to her. Nelly understood in a moment, and slipping off
+her heavy winter walking shoes, crept up and sat down beside her.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Bessie, "don't make a sound. There is some sort of a
+little animal concealed behind that old fire-board, and I want to see
+it come out."
+
+She spoke so low that Nelly had difficulty in getting at the sense
+of what she said, but when she did, she nodded slightly, and the two
+little girls began the watch together.
+
+They sat there a long, long time.
+
+Once or twice they thought they heard a movement behind the fire-board,
+but they saw nothing. At last, just as they were becoming very weary of
+remaining so long in the cold, Nelly caught sight of a small pointed
+nose, projecting from one side of the board. As this nose moved slowly
+forward, a pair of bright little eyes came into view also, rolling
+restlessly about, as if seeking to espy danger. It was with difficulty
+the children could repress the exclamations that were on their lips,
+but with an effort they did so, and remained just as quiet as before.
+Encouraged by the dead stillness, the animal advanced still further
+from its retreat, peering all the while about it. Its body, as near
+as they could see, was spotted gray and white, and so were its pretty
+ears, which were long, and in constant motion. It ran cautiously from
+its place of concealment, and at last, with a graceful, hurried spring,
+landed on the top of Bessie's table. Arrived there, it sat down and
+looked about it again. The children did not move. The drawer of the
+table, as usual, was partially open, according to Bessie's careless
+habit, and the little creature put its mites of paws carefully in the
+crack, bringing them out again almost immediately with a nut, at which
+at once it commenced to nibble. It was an odd sight as it sat there
+on its hind legs, holding the nut in its front paws, and twisting and
+turning it from side to side in order to find a good place to plant
+its sharp teeth. Nelly glanced at Bessie and longed to burst into a
+laugh, but Bessie signified to her by a movement of her eye-brows and
+lips that she must not. It was plain enough by this time that the
+little thief was a squirrel. Bessie was quite bewildered at the thought
+that it had been able to get in the house without her or her mother's
+knowledge. She did not know that the race to which the animal belonged
+is proverbial for its cunning, and that often it steals a way into the
+habitations of men for no other purpose than to find seeds and grains
+on which to live.
+
+Some accidental movement which Bessie made, at length startled the
+squirrel from its sense of security. It leaped lightly from the table
+to the floor, and disappeared behind some loose blocks of wood, near
+the fire-board. As it did so, Nelly saw that part of its tail was
+missing, looking as if torn off at about half its length.
+
+"Bessie!" she exclaimed eagerly, as her companion made a dart for the
+blocks of wood, "Bessie, as sure as you're alive, that's the same
+squirrel we saw in the woods, the day we went nutting."
+
+"I know it," cried Bessie; "at least I am as sure as I can be, for
+that one was like this, spotted white and gray, and each of them had
+only a part of a tail. To think of the little thing being so hungry
+as to come after my nuts! If I can only find its hole, I'll feed it
+regularly every day."
+
+"What _could_ bring it so far from the woods?" cried Nelly, laughing.
+"I never heard of any thing more strange, even in a book."
+
+"You stay here and watch if it comes out again," said Bessie, "and I'll
+run tell mother. Perhaps she can help find its hiding-place."
+
+Nelly went with her as far as the foot of the stairs to get her shoes,
+for her feet were now growing very cold. Then she returned to the
+garret, but nothing more had been seen of the squirrel when Bessie
+appeared with her mother.
+
+"It was here, just here, that it went out of sight," cried Bessie;
+"somewhere by these blocks and this old fire-board."
+
+Her mother laughed, and said if there were nothing worse than a
+squirrel in the house, she should be glad.
+
+"We must look," she added, "and perhaps we can discover its nest; that
+is, if it has one here, for, Bessie, it has just occurred to me that
+this is the way your Madeira nut disappeared. If we can find the nest
+we may find your money too," and she began to move out the furniture
+from the wall.
+
+At the mention of the Madeira nut, Bessie colored deeply, and really
+seemed struck with true shame.
+
+"Oh, mother," she said, "to think that I have never, all this while,
+cleaned out that drawer! Some of the nuts are still in it, and the
+other things too, just as they were that day when I lost my money. I
+have meant to clear it out so many times!"
+
+Her mother turned and looked at her sorrowfully.
+
+"Bessie," she said, "I have for years done all I could do, to make
+a careful, neat little girl, out of a careless, untidy one. I am
+beginning now to leave you to yourself, hoping that time will help
+you to see yourself as others see you. I have noticed often that your
+drawer remained in the same condition, but I did not speak of it."
+
+"Oh, mother," cried Bessie, frightened, "don't leave me to myself,
+_don't_. I shall never learn to be good at all, that way. Oh, don't
+give me up yet."
+
+"My poor child," said her mother, "if you will only _try_, so that I
+can _see_ you trying, my confidence in you will come back, but not
+otherwise. I want something more than empty promises. You forget them
+as soon as you make them."
+
+"But I will try, I will _really_ try _this_ time," said Bessie with
+tears in her eyes. "I'm _lazy_, mother, I'm _real_ lazy, but I am not
+as bad as I might be. I'll clean the drawer just as soon as we look for
+the nest, _sure_."
+
+"Well," said her mother, half smiling at the little girl's doleful
+tone, "well, I will give you this one more chance. We will take the
+drawer for a new starting point. Come, Nelly, let us search now for the
+squirrel's hole. It must be somewhere about here, for it would never
+come up by the stairs, I think."
+
+They began a thorough hunt, lifting up every light article in the
+out-garret, where they were, and dragging the more ponderous furniture
+from their places. It was a sort of store-away place for things not in
+every-day use, and therefore it took some time to examine every thing.
+An occasional pile of nibbled nut-shells was all that was brought to
+light.
+
+"Well," said Nelly, laughing, as she looked under the last article, a
+little broken chair belonging to Bessie. "Well, I don't see but that
+Madame Squirrel has escaped us. I can't meet with a trace of her, for
+my part, beyond these nut-shells."
+
+"Nor I either," wofully added Bessie.
+
+"Yet how could it have run away from us, since we can find no hole in
+the floor, and Nelly did not see it run into any of these other rooms?"
+asked Bessie's mother.
+
+"Perhaps it is hidden in the furniture itself," remarked Nelly.
+
+"Stop a moment," said Bessie's mother, as Nelly began to pull out the
+drawers of an old bureau, "here are some crossbeams in the wall by the
+fire-board, that look very much as though a set of sharp teeth had
+nibbled a hole in them,--yes, it is so! Well, I think we've tracked the
+squirrel now! The place is such a little way from the floor, that it
+could jump in and scamper off through the walls, before any one could
+molest it. Perhaps it is far away in the woods, laughing at us, at this
+minute."
+
+The children drew near the beams in question, with strong curiosity. It
+was indeed as Bessie's mother said; there were the marks of teeth in
+the wood, and just where the beams joined was a hole quite large enough
+for a squirrel to pass through.
+
+"It is the same one we saw in the woods, I know it is," said Nelly,
+"but what should bring it here?"
+
+"Perhaps, in time, we can tame it; that is if we have not already
+frightened it away. _May_ I try to tame it, mother?"
+
+"Yes," said her mother. "I think Bunny will make a pretty pet. We can
+strew a few grains of corn, or a few nuts about its hole every day,
+until it learns to regard us as its friends; but a little girl that
+I know must get into the good habit of putting her things in their
+proper places, and shutting her table drawers _tight_, or it will
+continue to help itself to more valuable things, and make itself a
+plague to us. I do not doubt that Bunny has your money in its nest at
+this minute. It thought, probably, that it was carrying off a good,
+sound nut."
+
+"Yes," said Bessie, "and I dare say it was it that ran off with those
+in my basket, and all the others in the garden. Poor, dear Nathan! I
+must tell him about it, and ask him to forget my cross words. One of my
+Sunday-school hymns says, 'Kind words can never die.' I wonder if the
+unkind words live forever too. Do they, mother?"
+
+"I hope not," was the answer, "but many an unkind word leaves a sting
+in the mind of the person to whom it is said, long after the one who
+uttered it has entirely forgotten it. I don't believe Nathan, for
+instance, will soon cease to remember that you asked him why he took
+your nuts. You acted too impulsively."
+
+"Too _what_, mother?" asked Bessie, curiously.
+
+"Too _impulsively_. That is, you did not wait to consider the matter,
+but spoke out just as you felt, as soon as you saw him. You must
+certainly ask him to excuse you. If you are always very gentle to him
+in future, perhaps your offence will be forgotten. There is no end to
+the soothing effect of those 'kind words that never die!'"
+
+"He was cross enough with _me_ about it," said Bessie, reflectively.
+"I think a few kind words would not hurt _him_ to say."
+
+"We have nothing to do with Nathan as to that," said her mother. "If he
+chooses to be ill-tempered, it is his own business, while it is ours to
+bear it from him patiently. It is only by such means that we can teach
+him how wrong he is."
+
+"I think that is pretty hard to do," said Bessie, shaking her head,
+"don't you, Nelly? _I_ always want to answer right straight back."
+
+"And if you do," said her mother, "you will find that you invariably
+make the case worse than before. A noble poet, whose works you may read
+when you are older, has said, 'Be silent and endure!' and experience
+will prove to you both, that this silence and this endurance is the
+true key to happiness. Now, run down stairs, Bessie, and bring me up
+the little saw. The idea has just come to me, to saw away some of the
+board at the side of these beams. That will give us a good view of what
+is going on in the wall, and will not hurt its appearance much, either."
+
+Bessie soon reappeared with the saw, which, as it was small, her
+mother had no difficulty in handling. She took it from her and began
+operations at once, inserting the sharp end of it in a crevice in the
+wood, and moving it gradually across the grain, until the end of the
+board fell on the floor, where the sawdust already lay.
+
+"Oh, let me see!" cried Bessie, in wild delight at this exposure of the
+squirrel's haunt. And
+
+"Oh, let _me_ see _too_!" cried Nelly.
+
+But Bessie's mother said she thought she had better take a peep first,
+so she lowered her eyes to the aperture and looked in. It was dark,
+and her eyes, accustomed to the sun-light, at first could distinguish
+nothing. Gradually, however, she found that she could see a little way
+around the hole with great distinctness, and it was not long before a
+small heap of rags, apparently, attracted her attention on one of the
+corner beams.
+
+"What is it, mother? what do you find?" cried Bessie, as her mother put
+in her hand to feel what this heap could be. Something warm met the
+touch of her fingers, and she drew back, slightly startled.
+
+On examining further, she found that this was indeed the animal's nest,
+and that these soft, warm objects, curled up in it so nicely, were
+probably her little young ones.
+
+"There!" she said, laughing, "come see, children, what I have found!
+Here is the squirrel's nest, and two of her little babies!"
+
+The girls peered eagerly through the hole at these newly discovered
+treasures.
+
+"The darlings!" cried Bessie, "we can surely tame these little
+creatures, mother, they are so young. It will be no trouble at all."
+
+"We must not take them from the nest," replied her mother. "If we
+can tame them by kindness, and by gradually accustoming them to our
+harmless visits, I am very willing to make pets of them."
+
+"Oh, how pleasant that will be," exclaimed Bessie, in an ecstasy. "Do
+look, Nelly, at their pretty eyes. I don't know but that I shall be
+just as well satisfied with my two little squirrels as you are with
+your two lambs."
+
+As she spoke, she put in her hand to touch the tiny animals on the
+head, and smooth them softly, but something at the side of the nest
+suddenly arrested her attention, and she did not do so.
+
+"Oh, mother," she cried, "I do believe here is my Madeira nut, among
+this rubbish and empty hickory shells about the nest. I do believe
+it,--I do believe it! It _looks_ like it, I am positive of that. It
+seems whole, too. I don't think it has been nibbled at all! How glad I
+am!"
+
+"Can you reach it?" asked her mother; "if you can, do so."
+
+Bessie made what she called "a long arm," and in a moment more she
+seized the nut and brought it into open daylight.
+
+"Oh, mother," she said, dancing around the garret joyfully, "it _is_ my
+nut! Here is a little place in the side where the squirrel has bitten,
+and you can see the money right through it! She found that there was
+nothing good to eat in it, so she stopped just in time not to spoil it
+entirely. I am so glad--I am so glad!"
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired. The varied hyphenation of
+"watercress" and "water-cress" was retained.
+
+Page 20, "lewer" changed to "lower" (the lower half which)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Bessie, the Careless Girl, by 
+Josephine Franklin
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43807 ***