Chapter 15

_THE TENT AND THE LOCUSTS_.

There came a bright balmy day in May when the children found a delightful surprise awaiting them. The tent in the woods, which had been proposed on the day when birch-twigs were found to be eatable, was almost forgotten--or if thought of, it was as a thing that could not possibly be--when, on the day in question, Miss Harson took her charges out as usual, and led them to a very pretty cleared space with a fringe of rocks and trees all around it. But on this spot, which hitherto had been quite bare, there now stood some sort of a little house different from other houses and quite pretty.

"It's a tent!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Who put it there, I should like to know, on _our_ land?"

"Are there gypsies here, Miss Harson?" whispered Clara, rather fearfully.

But the young lady walked deliberately up to the entrance of the tent and invited her little flock to come inside.

"I know the gentleman who had it put here," she said, "and he is quite willing that we should use it; but he will not give any one else this liberty."

"I think I know him too," said Malcolm as he walked in after Miss Harson.

"And I!"--"And I!" exclaimed the little girls. "It is our own papa. How very kind of him!"

"Yes," replied their governess; "he said, when I spoke of a tent, that it would be a good thing for the wood-ramblers to have a place of shelter when they were over-taken by a sudden shower, and also a place in which to rest comfortably when they were tired; and this pretty tent, you see, is all ready for us at any time."

It was a very nice tent indeed, having a long cushioned seat inside, two little rocking-chairs that were at once appropriated, a small table, and a bracket with books on it. On the table there was a round basket of oranges, which made every one thirsty at once.

"I do believe," said Malcolm, suddenly, "that it's made of India-rubber."

"Not the orange, I hope?" replied Miss Harson, while the little sisters looked up in surprise.

An India-rubber orange was a thing to be laughed at, though not to be eaten, and the children were in such a state of glee over this pleasant surprise that they were ready to laugh almost at nothing.

Presently their governess said,

"Malcolm means the tent, of course; and he is quite right, for the covering is India-rubber cloth."

"But why isn't it dark and ugly, like the waterproofs?" was the next question.

"Simply because it need not be so, and it is prettier to have it white or of this pale gray. But these shades are too conspicuous for overshoes or waterproof cloaks, so the latter are made as dark as possible. The caoutchoue, you know, is naturally white or very light colored."

"How do they make the cloth?" asked Malcolm.

"It is first made as cloth," was the reply; "then a thin coating of India-rubber is spread over two layers of it. The cloth is then put together and pressed between rollers, so that the two pieces firmly adhere, with the caoutchoue between them. No rain can penetrate such a screen as this,"

It was delightful to know that they would be safe and dry in case of a shower, and the children thought it must be just the prettiest tent that ever was made. The cushioned seat was covered with scarlet, and so were the little chairs, which Clara and Edith knew were meant for them; the edges of the cloth were scalloped with the same bright color, and there was even a rug to match spread in front of the "divan," as Miss Harson laughingly said the cushioned seat must be called.

"Haven't we 'most come to the end of the trees?" asked Clara. "I never thought that there were so many different kinds,"

"Look around and see if you feel acquainted with them all," replied her governess.

They had left the tent after quite a long "sitting," and were now on their way to the house.

Clara's first glance, on doing as she had been directed, fell on three trees by the side of a fence, that were different from any they had yet studied.

"What do you notice about them?" continued Miss Harson; "for I wish you to use your own eyes and thoughts as much as possible."

"Why, the trunk is dark gray, and it isn't smooth, but it looks as if some one had dug out long, thin pieces of bark."

"We will call it 'deeply furrowed,'" said her governess, "as that is a better expression; but your description is very good indeed."

"The leaves are ever so pretty," said Malcolm--"so many of 'em on one stem!--and the green looks as if it was just made."

"You mean by that, I suppose," replied Miss Harson, "that it is a very fresh tint; and we are seeing it in its first beauty now. This is the locust tree, and May is its time for leafing out in the tenderest of greens. The pinnate--from _pinna_, Latin for feather'--leaves are composed of from nine to twenty-five leaflets, which are egg-shaped, with a short point, very smooth, light green above and still lighter beneath. These leaves are much liked by cattle, and they are said to be very nutritious to them."

"How can you remember everything so, Miss Harson?" asked Malcolm, lost in wonder, as the young lady, looking up at the trees, said these things as if they had been written there. John had declared that she talked like a book, and this seemed more like it than ever.

"Oh no," was the laughing reply; "I do not remember _everything_, Malcolm, and perhaps it is just as well that I do not. But I will not tax my memory any more about the locust just now; we can take it up again this evening."

"I should like to know," exclaimed Clara, after some thought, "why a tree is called _locust_, when a locust is such a disagreeable insect?"

"I am afraid that I cannot tell you," replied Miss Harson, "unless the color of the leaves is similar to that of the 'disagreeable insect,' which is really very handsome, or unless the insects are very partial to the tree; I have seen no explanation of it. But the tree itself is very much admired, with its profusion of pinnate leaves and racemes of flowers that fill the air with the most agreeable odors."

"What color are the flowers, Miss Harson?" asked Malcolm.

"This description will tell you," was the reply. "The tree is not pretty in winter, and has no promise of beauty until 'May hangs on these withered boughs a green drapery that hides all their deformity; she infuses into their foliage a perfection of verdure that no other tree can rival, and a beauty in the forms of its leaves that renders it one of the chief ornaments of the groves and waysides. June weaves into this green foliage pendent clusters of flowers of mingled brown and white, filling the air with fragrance and enticing the bee with odors as sweet as from groves of citron and myrtle.'"

"That sounds pretty," said Clara, who liked imposing sentences, "but brown and white are not very handsome colors for flowers."

"The white is certainly prettier without the mixture of brown," replied her governess, "but we have to take our flowers ready-made, and can hardly expect them to be beautiful and fragrant too. The separate blossoms are shaped like those of the pea and bean; they hang in long clusters somewhat resembling bunches of grapes. The leaves--or, rather, leaflets--are very sensitive and have a habit of folding over one another in wet and dull weather, and also in the night--a habit that is peculiar to all the members of the acacia family, to which the locust belongs."

"I should think it ought to belong to the pea family," said Malcolm, "if the flowers are shaped like pea-blossoms."

"So it does," replied Miss Harson--"or, rather, to the bean family, of which the pea is a member, on account of its blossoms; but the acacia, like many others, is a brother, or sister, on account of its leaves as well as its blossoms. The peculiar distinction of this family is that its flowers are butterfly-shaped or its fruit in pods, and it often possesses both these characters. By one or the other all the plants of the family are known, and the butterfly-shaped flowers are of a character not to be mistaken, as they are found in no other family. It includes herbs, shrubs and trees--an immense and perfectly natural family, distributed throughout almost every part of the globe. There are at present in all not less than thirty-seven hundred species. So you see that the locust tree is certainly rich in relations."

The children thought that it must have some family claim on almost every plant in the world.

"Do you remember that in the story of the Prodigal Son, told by our Lord, it is said that the bad son became so poor that he wanted to eat the 'husks' that the swine ate? Those 'husks' were the fruit of a Syrian member of this family. The tree is the carob tree, of which you have here a picture--a fine large tree bearing a sweet pod containing the seeds. I have seen these pods for sale in this country, and foolishly called St. John's bread, as if the 'locusts' eaten by John the Baptist were pods of a locust tree, and not insect locusts."

"Yes," said Malcolm, "I have tasted those pods, and they are real sweet; but I wouldn't care to make a breakfast from them."

"I like calling the flowers 'butterfly-shaped,'" said Clara, "because that is just what the pea and bean-blossoms look like; though Kitty calls 'em 'little ladies in hoods.' Isn't that funny, Miss Harson?"

"It is very quaint, I think, but I do not dislike it: it is like seeing faces in pansies; and some people are full of these odd imaginations. There is a kind of locust, called the clammy-barked, found in the Southern parts of the United States, which is a smaller tree than the common locust and has large pale-pink flowers, while the rose acacia is a very beautiful flowering shrub. The sweet, or honey, locust is another variety, which is also called the three-thorned acacia, because the thorns consist of one long spine with two shorter ones projecting out of it, like little branches, near its base. This is said to display much of the elegance of the tropical acacia in the minute division and symmetry of its compound leaves. These are of a light and brilliant green and lie flat upon the branches, giving them a fan-like appearance such as we observe in the hemlock."

"But why is it called honey-locust?" asked Malcolm. "Do the bees make honey in the trunk?"

"No," replied his governess; "the name comes from the sweetness of the pulp around the seeds, which ripen in large flat pods, and of which boys and girls are fond. But the flowers of this species are only small greenish aments. Locust-wood is very durable, and, as it will bear exposure to all kinds of weather, it is much used in shipbuilding and as posts for gates. It is thought that the shittah and shittim wood of the Bible, of which Moses made the greater part of the tables, altars and planks of the tabernacle, was the same as the black acacia found in the deserts of Arabia and about Mount Sinai and the mountains which border on the Red Sea, and is so hard and solid as to be almost incorruptible.

"And now," added Miss Harson, "reading of the numerous relations of the locust, considering that 'the acacia, not less valued for its airy foliage and elegant blossoms than for its hard and durable wood; the braziletto, logwood and rosewoods of commerce; the laburnum; the furze and the broom, both the pride of the otherwise dreary heaths of Europe; the bean, the pea, the vetch, the clover, the trefoil, the lucerne--all staple articles of culture by the farmer--are so many species of Leguminosae, and that the gums Arabic and Senegal, kino and various precious medicinal drugs, not to mention indigo, the most useful of all dyes, are products of other species,--it will be perceived that it would be difficult to point out an order with greater claims upon the attention.'"