The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for Children. Maria Edgeworth

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СКАЧАТЬ was one poor girl, amongst her former associates, to whom she had a peculiar dislike,—Susan Price, a sweet-tempered, modest, sprightly, industrious lass, who was the pride and delight of the village. Her father rented a small farm, and, unfortunately for him, he lived near Attorney Case.

      Barbara used often to sit at her window, watching Susan at work. Sometimes she saw her in the neat garden raking the beds or weeding the borders; sometimes she was kneeling at her beehive with fresh flowers for her bees; sometimes she was in the poultry yard, scattering corn from her sieve amongst the eager chickens; and in the evening she was often seated in a little honeysuckle arbour, with a clean, light, three-legged deal table before her, upon which she put her plain work.

      Susan had been taught to work neatly by her good mother, who was very fond of her, and to whom she was most gratefully attached.

      Mrs. Price was an intelligent, active, domestic woman; but her health was not robust. She earned money, however, by taking in plain work; and she was famous for baking excellent bread and breakfast cakes. She was respected in the village, for her conduct as a wife and as a mother, and all were eager to show her attention. At her door the first branch of hawthorn was always placed on May morning, and her Susan was usually Queen of the May.

      It was now time to choose the Queen. The setting sun shone full upon the pink blossoms of the hawthorn, when the merry group assembled upon their little green. Barbara was now walking in sullen state in her father's garden. She heard the busy voices in the lane, and she concealed herself behind the high hedge, that she might listen to their conversation.

      'Where's Susan?' were the first unwelcome words which she overheard. 'Ay, where's Susan?' repeated Philip, stopping short in the middle of a new tune that he was playing on his pipe. 'I wish Susan would come! I want her to sing me this same tune over again; I have not it yet.'

      'And I wish Susan would come, I'm sure,' cried a little girl, whose lap was full of primroses. 'Susan will give me some thread to tie up my nosegays, and she'll show me where the fresh violets grow; and she has promised to give me a great bunch of her double cowslips to wear to-morrow. I wish she would come.'

      'Nothing can be done without Susan! She always shows us where the nicest flowers are to be found in the lanes and meadows,' said they. 'She must make up the garlands; and she shall be Queen of the May!' exclaimed a multitude of little voices.

      'But she does not come!' said Philip.

      Rose, who was her particular friend, now came forward to assure the impatient assembly 'that she would answer for it Susan would come as soon as she possibly could, and that she probably was detained by business at home.'

      The little electors thought that all business should give way to theirs, and Rose was despatched to summon her friend immediately.

      'Tell her to make haste,' cried Philip. 'Attorney Case dined at the Abbey to-day—luckily for us. If he comes home and finds us here, maybe he'll drive us away; for he says this bit of ground belongs to his garden: though that is not true, I'm sure; for Farmer Price knows, and says, it was always open to the road. The Attorney wants to get our playground, so he does. I wish he and his daughter Bab, or Miss Barbara, as she must now be called, were a hundred miles off, out of our way, I know. No later than yesterday she threw down my ninepins in one of her ill-humours, as she was walking by with her gown all trailing in the dust.'

      'Yes,' cried Mary, the little primrose-girl, 'her gown is always trailing. She does not hold it up nicely, like Susan; and with all her fine clothes she never looks half so neat. Mamma says she wishes I may be like Susan, when I grow up to be a great girl, and so do I. I should not like to look conceited as Barbara does, if I was ever so rich.'

      'Rich or poor,' said Philip, 'it does not become a girl to look conceited, much less bold, as Barbara did the other day, when she was at her father's door without a hat upon her head, staring at the strange gentleman who stopped hereabout to let his horse drink. I know what he thought of Bab by his looks, and of Susan too; for Susan was in her garden, bending down a branch of the laburnum tree, looking at its yellow flowers, which were just come out; and when the gentleman asked her how many miles it was from Shrewsbury, she answered him so modest!—not bashful, like as if she had never seen nobody before—but just right: and then she pulled on her straw hat, which was fallen back with her looking up at the laburnum, and she went her ways home; and the gentleman says to me, after she was gone, "Pray, who is that neat modest girl——?" But I wish Susan would come,' cried Philip, interrupting himself.

      Susan was all this time, as her friend Rose rightly guessed, busy at home. She was detained by her father's returning later than usual. His supper was ready for him nearly an hour before he came home; and Susan swept up the ashes twice, and twice put on wood to make a cheerful blaze for him; but at last, when he did come in, he took no notice of the blaze or of Susan; and when his wife asked him how he did, he made no answer, but stood with his back to the fire, looking very gloomy. Susan put his supper upon the table, and set his own chair for him; but he pushed away the chair and turned from the table, saying—'I shall eat nothing, child! Why have you such a fire to roast me at this time of the year?'

      'You said yesterday, father, I thought, that you liked a little cheerful wood fire in the evening; and there was a great shower of hail; your coat is quite wet, we must dry it.'

      'Take it, then, child,' said he, pulling it off—'I shall soon have no coat to dry—and take my hat too,' said he, throwing it upon the ground.

      Susan hung up his hat, put his coat over the back of a chair to dry, and then stood anxiously looking at her mother, who was not well; she had this day fatigued herself with baking; and now, alarmed by her husband's moody behaviour, she sat down pale and trembling. He threw himself into a chair, folded his arms, and fixed his eyes upon the fire.

      Susan was the first who ventured to break silence. Happy the father who has such a daughter as Susan!—her unaltered sweetness of temper, and her playful, affectionate caresses, at last somewhat dissipated her father's melancholy.

      He could not be prevailed upon to eat any of the supper which had been prepared for him; however, with a faint smile, he told Susan that he thought he could eat one of her guinea-hen's eggs. She thanked him, and with that nimble alacrity which marks the desire to please, she ran to her neat chicken-yard; but, alas! her guinea-hen was not there—it had strayed into the attorney's garden. She saw it through the paling, and timidly opening the little gate, she asked Miss Barbara, who was walking slowly by, to let her come in and take her guinea-hen. Barbara, who was at this instant reflecting, with no agreeable feelings, upon the conversation of the village children, to which she had recently listened, started when she heard Susan's voice, and with a proud, ill-humoured look and voice, refused her request.

      'Shut the gate,' said Barbara, 'you have no business in our garden; and as for your hen, I shall keep it; it is always flying in here and plaguing us, and my father says it is a trespasser; and he told me I might catch it and keep it the next time it got in, and it is in now.' Then Barbara called to her maid, Betty, and bid her catch the mischievous hen.

      'Oh, my guinea-hen! my pretty guinea-hen!' cried Susan, as they hunted the frightened, screaming creature from corner to corner.

      'Here we have got it!' said Betty, holding it fast by the legs.

      'Now pay damages, Queen Susan, or good-bye to your pretty guinea-hen,' said Barbara, in an insulting tone.

      'Damages! what damages?' said Susan; 'tell me what I must pay.' 'A shilling,' said Barbara. 'Oh, if sixpence would do!' said Susan; 'I have but sixpence of my own in the world, and here it is.' 'It won't do,' said Barbara, turning her back. 'Nay, but hear me,' cried Susan; 'let СКАЧАТЬ