Natalie: A Garden Scout. Roy Lillian Elizabeth

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СКАЧАТЬ farming implements at Green Hill, so I managed to secure these for you,” added Janet laughingly.

      She held out a long package that defied guessing as to its contents, so Natalie took it and laughed merrily with the others.

      “And I brought your favorite nourishment, Nat. One of mother’s ‘chocklate’ layercakes,” said Norma.

      “Oh, my goodness! How shall I carry it without mashing the icing?” exclaimed Natalie, managing, however, to place the square box upon her arm where it was carefully balanced.

      “And I, Nat,” said Frances, “feared you would lack fruit on the farm, and so I tried to start you with a supply from the New York orchards.”

      It takes little to make a merry heart laugh, and at each silly schoolgirl speech made with the gift Natalie laughed so heartily that it was contagious.

      “All aboard!” called the conductor, consulting his timepiece and waving Mrs. James into the coach.

      “Good-by! Good-by!” shouted five girls, and Natalie was bundled into the train and found herself watching the girls as the train receded from the station.

      After she was seated and had tested the box of candies Belle had given her, Natalie saw Mrs. James deeply interested in a paper-covered book.

      “What’s the name of it?” asked she, handing the candy-box across the aisle to Rachel.

      “Looks like candy,” replied Rachel, thinking the girl was speaking to her.

      Natalie laughed. “I meant the book, Rachie,” explained she.

      Mrs. James looked up with a half absentminded manner. “What did you say about the book, dear?”

      “I asked you what it was. Who wrote it?”

      “Oh, it is the new book ‘Scouting for Girls,’ that Miss Mason gave me last night. It is certainly very interesting, Natalie.”

      “Is that the Scout Girls’ Manual?” said Natalie, surprised at the thickness of it.

      “Yes, and ever so good! It is filled, from cover to cover, with wonderful information. I never dreamed so much could be found in Nature that is so absorbing to read about or study.”

      “I wonder why Miss Mason did not give me a copy?” was Natalie’s rejoinder.

      “She spoke of it. She said she would send it by one of the girls this morning. Didn’t you get it?” asked Mrs. James.

      “I wonder if it is in that box?”

      As she spoke, Natalie began undoing the cord that wrapped the long box, and having removed the paper and then the box-cover, she found not only the Manual inside, but a hand-trowel and a weeder.

      “Of all things!” laughed she, as she held out the box to show Mrs. James. “A shovel and a rake for my garden.”

      Then it was Mrs. James’ turn to laugh. “That is not a shovel, nor is the other a rake, Natalie.”

      “Oh, isn’t it? What is it, then?”

      “The trowel is used when you wish to dig shallow holes, or loose-earth trenches. The so-called rake is a weeder that you can use about delicate roots, or in forcing deep roots to let go and come up. Both are very necessary for a farmer to use about his house-garden.”

      “Well, if I ever have occasion to use them, I shall remember Janet.”

      “Then you will be remembering her every day this summer, I think,” laughed Mrs. James. “Weeds are the pest of a farmer’s existence.”

      Natalie was soon absorbed in her Scout book also, and Rachel was the only one of the trio who could tell about the scenery they passed as the train sped on to the nearest station to the secluded little village near the farm.

      As the three travellers left the train and stood on the old platform of the country station, Natalie gazed about.

      “My goodness! What a desert for isolation. Not a human being in sight, and no sign of a house or barn. Nothing but glaring sign-boards telling us where to stop in New York for a dollar per night – private bath extra!” exclaimed she.

      Mrs. James laughed. It was true, but it sounded funny the way Natalie spoke.

      “We ain’t got to walk, has we, Mis’ James?” asked Rachel plaintively.

      “I don’t see anything else to do, Rachel. Do you?”

      “Not yet, but mebbe someone’ll come along. I’d jes’ as soon ride behin’ a mule es not. Th’ misery in my spine is that bad sence I’ve be’n packin’ and movin’ so hard all week.”

      “A mule would be welcomed, but there is none,” laughed Natalie.

      “Isn’t the landscape beautiful?” said Mrs. James, gazing about with admiring eyes.

      “As long as it is all that is beautiful to look at at this station, I must agree with you, Jimmy,” teased Natalie.

      But both of them now saw Rachel staring down at the dusty road that ran past the platform, and when she dropped her bags and started along the road, acting in a strange manner, Mrs. James whispered nervously to Natalie.

      “What can be the matter, Natalie? Can anything have made her brain turn?”

      Rachel kept on going, however, bending over and staring at the dust in the middle of the road. Natalie was dumbfounded at such queer behavior, and was about to call to the colored mammy, when Rachel suddenly stopped, straightened up and shouted at something hidden from the eyes of the two who were waiting with the bags.

      “Heigh dere! Come back foh us, yoh hackman!” was the echo that was wafted back to the station and the patient waiters.

      Both of them laughed heartily. And Natalie said: “That was what she was doing! Obeying Scout instructions the first thing, and ‘tracking a horse’ in the wilds of this land.”

      “Maybe that is the cab Mr. Marvin ordered to meet us. He said we must not be discouraged if it turned out to be a ‘one-horse chaise’ instead of a taxi,” remarked Mrs. James, highly amused at the experience.

      Natalie made a vicious slap at a green bottle-fly that had annoyed her ever since she alighted from the train. Now she laughed and said: “Not a one-horse chaise, Jimmy, but ‘one horse-fly’ is here to meet us.”

      It was such an opportune play on words that they both laughed merrily. Rachel was now found to be arguing with a man seated in an antique vehicle. He seemed to enjoy the conversation immensely, for he was comfortably stretched out with his feet up over the dashboard and his arms resting along the top of the back of his seat.

      “Let’s go over and add our persuasions to Rachel’s,” said Natalie, picking up her luggage and starting away.

      When they drew near enough to hear the conversation between Rachel and the man, the former was saying: “Yuh don’t know what I kin do to yoh! Do yuh want to see my pow’ful arm?”

      The driver sat up at that and looked at the doubled up thickness of that member of Rachel’s anatomy. Then he said: “But I always gits that much a head fer СКАЧАТЬ