Chapter 13

"You see," explained Ellen, "the afternoon before we make up a party, and go on a long jaunt up hill and down dale, through the woods and over the meadows, picking all the spring blossoms we can find. Finally, we come home with what we have succeeded in getting, and put them in water to keep fresh for the following day. Then what an excitement there is hunting up baskets for them! Tiny ones are best, because with them you can make the flowers go farther. Strawberry baskets--the old-fashioned ones with a handle--are nice, especially if you paint or gild them. Burr baskets are pretty too; and those made of fir cones. Joe has a knack of putting such things together. He made some elegant ones for me last year."

"Are you trying to kill two birds with one stone?" asked her brother, with a laugh. "Your compliment is also a hint that you would like me to do the same now, I suppose?"

"I never kill birds," rejoined Ellen, taking the literal meaning of his words, for the purpose of chaffing him. "Nor do you; for you told me the other day you did not understand how some boys could be so cruel."

"No, but you do not mind their being killed if you want their wings for your hat," continued Joe, in a bantering tone.

"Not at all," said Ellen, triumphantly. "In future I am going to wear only ribbons and artificial flowers on my _chapeau_. I have joined the Society for the Prevention of the Destruction of the Native Birds of America."

"Whew!" ejaculated Joe, with a prolonged whistle. "What a name! I should think that by the time you got to the end of it you'd be so old that you wouldn't care any more for feathers and fixings. I suppose it is a good thing though," he went on, more seriously. "It is just as cruel to kill birds for the sake of fashion as it is for the satisfaction of practising with a sling; only you girls have somebody to do it for you; and you don't think about it, because you can just step into a store and buy the plumes--"

"But what about the May-baskets?" protested Frances, disappointed at the digression.

"Oh, I forgot!" said Ellen. "Bright and early May-morning almost every boy and girl in the village is up and away. The plan is to hang a basket of wild flowers at the door of a friend, ring the bell or rattle the latch, and then scamper off as fast as you can. You have to be very spry so as to be back at home when your own baskets begin to arrive; then you must be quick to run out and, if possible, catch the friend who knocks, and thus find out whom to thank for the flowers."

"How delightful!" cried Frances, charmed at the prospect.

"It is so strange that you did not know about it!" added Ellen.

"Not at all," said Mrs. Moore, who had come out on the veranda where the young folks were chatting,--Frances swinging in the hammock, Ellen ensconced in a rustic chair with her fancy-work, and Joe leaning against a post, and still busy whittling. "Not at all," repeated Ellen's mother. "In America it is but little observed outside of the Eastern States. This is one of the beautiful traditionary customs of Catholic England, which even those austere Puritans, the Pilgrims, could not entirely divest themselves of; though among them it lost its former significance. Perhaps it was the gentle Rose Standish or fair Priscilla, or some other winsome and good maiden of the early colonial days, who transplanted to New England this poetic practice, sweet as the fragrant pink and white blossoms of the trailing arbutus, which is especially used to commemorate it. In Great Britain, though, it may have originated in the observances of the festivals which ushered in the spring. On the introduction of Christianity it was retained, and continued up to within two or three hundred years,--no doubt as a graceful manner of welcoming the Month of Our Lady. That it was considered a means of honoring the Blessed Virgin, as well as of expressing mutual kindness and good-will, we can see; since English historians tell us that up to the sixteenth century it was usual to adorn not only houses and gateways, but also the doors as well as the interior of churches, with boughs and flowers; particularly the entrances to shrines dedicated to the Mother of God."

"And the 1st of May will be the day after to-morrow!" remarked Frances, coming back to the present.

"Yes. And to-morrow, right after school--that will be about three o'clock, you know,--we shall start on our tramp," said Ellen. "As you do not have to go to school, Frances, you will be able to prepare the baskets during the morning. Come into the house with me now, and I'll show you some which I have put away."

II.

The next afternoon many merry companies of young people explored the country round about Hazelton in quest of May-flowers. That in which we are interested numbered Frances, Ellen, her brother Joe, their little sister Teresa, and their other cousins, Elsie and Will Grey.

"I generally have to join another band," Ellen confided to Frances, as they walked along in advance of the rest; "because Joe does not usually care to go. He is very good about making the baskets for me; but, as he says, he 'don't take much stock in hanging them.' Yet, to-day he seems to be as anxious to get a quantity of the prettiest flowers as any one. Will comes now because Joe does. But Joe has some notion in his head. I wish I could find out what it is!"

Frances speculated upon the subject a few minutes; but, not being able to afford any help toward solving the riddle, she speedily forgot it in the pleasure of rambling through the fields, so newly green that the charm of novelty lingered like dew upon them; and among the lanes, redolent with the perfume of the first cherry blossoms,--for the season was uncommonly advanced.

Before long everybody began to notice how eager Joe was in his search.

"What are you going to do with all your posies?" queried Will, twittingly.

"They must be for Frances," declared Elsie.

"Maybe he is going to give them to Aunt Anna Grey," ventured Teresa.

"Perhaps to mother," hazarded Ellen.

"Yes: some for mother," admitted Joe; "and the others for--don't you wish you knew!" And Joe's eyes danced roguishly as he darted off to a patch of violets.

"He has some project. What can it be?" soliloquized Ellen, looking after him.

Joe, unconscious of her gaze, was bending over the little blue flowers, and humming an air which the children had learned a few days before.

"That tune is so catchy I can't get it out of my mind," he remarked to Will.

Suddenly Ellen started up. "I know!" she said to herself. Then for a time she was silent, flitting to and fro with a smile upon her lips, her thoughts as busy as her fingers. "Ha, Master Joe! I believe we'll all try that plan!" she exclaimed at length, laughing at the idea of the surprise in store for him. Presently she glanced toward Teresa and Elsie, who were loitering under a tree, talking in a low tone. Ellen laughed again. "Those two children are always having secrets about nothing at all," mused she.

Ellen was a lively girl, and greatly enjoyed a joke. After a while, when she discovered Elsie alone, she whispered something to her. The little girl's brown eyes grew round with interest. She nodded once or twice, murmuring, "Yes, yes!"

"And you must not breathe a word of it to anybody--not even to Teresa!" said Ellen.

"Oh, no!" said Elsie, quite flattered that such a big girl should confide in her.

Then--ah, merry Ellen!--did she not go herself and tell Teresa, charging her also not to reveal it? Later she took occasion to say a word to Frances upon the same topic.

"Splendid!" cried the latter. "I'll not speak of it, I promise you."

Finally, Ellen suggested the very same thing to Will, who chuckled, looked at Joe, and asked:

"Are you sure you're on the right track?"

"You'll see if I'm not!" replied Ellen.

"Well, all I say is," he went on, condescendingly, "you've hit upon a capital scheme; and you may bet your boots on it that I won't do anything to spoil it."

The girl looked down at her strong but shapely shoes (she was a bit vain of her neat foot), and thought that she would not be so unladylike as to 'bet her boots' on anything. But, as Will's observation was entirely impersonal, and intended as a pledge that he would follow her instructions, she made no comment. Moreover, she had now brought about the state of affairs which she had mischievously designed. Each of the party except Joe supposed that he or she had a secret with Ellen which the others knew nothing about; to each she had whispered her conjecture regarding Joe's purpose, and planned that they, the two of them, should please him by joining in it, without intimating their intention to him or any one. What a general astonishment and amusement there would be when it came out that all had known what each had been enjoying as a secret!

Meantime they had been active, and each had gathered a fair quantity of pretty flowers--arbutus, violets, anemones, and cherry blooms; to which Teresa and Elsie insisted upon adding buttercups and even dandelions. Now the sun was going down, and they gaily turned their steps toward home.

III.

"A happy May-day!" the children called to one another the next morning, as they set out, at a very early hour, upon their pleasant round of floral gift-leaving. Before doing so, however, each had held a special conference with Ellen.

"Yes, I've managed it. Won't everybody be surprised?" she quietly agreed again and again. And yet _how_ surprised everybody would be only sportive Ellen knew.

At half-past seven they reassembled for breakfast, which Elsie and Will took with their cousins. What a comparing of notes there was during the meal! Teresa had been caught hanging a basket at her little friend, Mollie Emerson's. Will's mother had seen him dodging round the corner after fastening one on the front gate for her.

"O Joe! what did you do with that beautiful basket you arranged with so much care,--the large one with the freshest flowers, I mean?" asked Frances, with an ingenious air.

"Never mind!" answered Joe laconically, helping himself to another glass of milk.

Everyone stole a knowing look at Ellen, without noticing that everyone else was doing so; but that young lady imperturbably buttered a second muffin, and studiously fixed her eyes on the tablecloth.

"Come, there is the Mass bell ringing!" called Mr. Moore from the hall. A stampede followed. To be late for Mass on May-day would be inexcusable.

Shortly afterward, our friends filed into the Moore's family pew in the village church. As Joe knelt down he turned his gaze with a gentle, happy expression to the Blessed Virgin's shrine. The next moment he started, and cast a glance of pleased inquiry toward Ellen. His sister smiled back at him, then bowed her head to recover her gravity. Hanging from the altar-rail, directly before the statue of Our Lady, was Joe's handsomest May-basket, just as he knew it would be; for he had fastened it there himself the first thing in the morning. But there also were five other pretty baskets,--the offering which each of his sisters and cousins had made, unknown to one another. The pleasant discovery created a momentary flutter in the pew, but that was all--then.

So this was Ellen's surprise! Each silently admitted that it was a good one. When they left the church, however, they had a merry time over it.

"But, Ellen, how did you know what I was going to do with my basket?" asked Joe at last.

"I didn't until I heard you humming the new May hymn which we learned last Sunday," replied Ellen; "that reminded me of what mother said about the old May customs. I wondered if you were thinking of this too, and presently it all flashed upon me."

"Well, if you are not a true Yankee at guessing!" was his only answer.