Chapter 5

In a few minutes, therefore, she went out of the room, and took from the store closet an apple and a pear. They were both good, but the pear was particularly fine. It was large, mellow, and juicy. She then went back to her seat, and called, “Rollo.”

Rollo came running to her.

“Here,” said she, “is an apple and a pear for you.”

“Is one for me and one for Lucy?” said he.

“That is just as you please. I give them both to you. You may do what you choose with them.”

Rollo took the fruit, much pleased, and walked slowly back, hesitating what to do. He thought he must certainly give one to Lucy, and as he had just been boasting that he preferred another’s pleasure to his own, he was ashamed to offer her the apple; and yet he wanted the pear very much himself.

If he had had a little more time, he would have hit upon a plan which would have removed all the difficulty at once, by dividing both the apple and the pear, and giving to Lucy half of each. But he did not think of this. In fact his mother knew that, as he was going directly bark to Lucy, he would not have much time to think but must act according to the spontaneous impulse of his heart.

But though he did not think of dividing the apple and the pear, he happened to hit upon a plan, which occurred to him just as he was going back into the entry, that he thought would do.

He held the fruit behind him; the apple in one hand, and the pear in the other. Lucy saw him coming, and said,

“What have you got, Rollo?”

“Which will you have, right hand or left?” said he in reply.

“Right.”

Rollo held forward his right hand, and, lo! it was the pear. But he could not bear to part with it, and he brought forward the other, and said,

“No, you may have the apple.”

“No,” said Lucy; “the pear is fairly mine; you asked me which I would have, and I said the right.”

“But I want the pear,” said Rollo; “you may have the apple. Mother gave them both to me.”

“I want the pear too,” said Lucy; “it is mine, and you must give it to me.”

Just then a voice called from the bedroom,

“Children!”

“What, mother?” said Rollo.

“I want you both to come here.”

Rollo and Lucy would both have been ashamed of their contention, were it not that the pear looked so very rich and tempting, that they were both very eager to have it.

“What is the difficulty?” said Rollo’s mother, as soon as they stood before her.

“Why, Lucy wants the pear,” said Rollo, “and you gave them both to me, and said I might do as I pleased with them. I am willing to give her the apple.”

“Yes, but he offered me my choice,” said Lucy, “right hand or left, and I chose the right, and now he ought to give it to me.”

“And are you willing that I should decide it?” said the lady.

“Yes, mother,” and “Yes, aunt,” said Rollo and Lucy together.

“You have both done wrong; not _very_ wrong, but a little wrong; and I think neither ought to have the whole of the pear. So I shall divide the pear and the apple both between you; and I will tell you how you have done wrong.

“You, Rollo, by asking her which she would have, implied that you would leave it to chance to decide, and that you would let her have her fair chance. Then you ought to have submitted to the result. If she had chosen the left hand, she ought to have been content. If she had got the apple, you would have had the credit of giving her an equal chance with you, and she ought therefore to have had the full benefit of the chance.

“And then you, Lucy, did wrong, for, although Rollo asked you to choose, he did not _actually promise_ you your choice, and as he was under no obligation to give you either, you ought not to have insisted upon his fulfilling his _implied promise_. Is it not so?”

The children both saw and admitted that it was.

“The best way, I think,” she continued, “would have been for you, Rollo, to have given the _pear_ to Lucy, as she was your visitor, and a young lady too. Then she would have given you half in eating it. However, you were not very much in the wrong, either of you. It was a sort of a doubtful case. But I hope you see from it, Rollo, what I wanted to teach you, that you are no more inclined to prefer other persons’ pleasure to your own, than other children are. Remember Jonas’s couplet hereafter. I think it is a very good one. Now go and get a knife, and cut the fruit; and see, it does not rain but little; you can go and get your pea-pods now.”

Away went the children out into the kitchen after a knife. Rollo wanted to cut the apple and the pear himself, and Lucy made no objection; and we must do him the justice to say that he gave rather the largest half of each to Lucy. They then went out into the shed, Rollo taking with him a dipper of water to wash his feet when he came back from the garden. Rollo then took off his shoes, and gave Lucy his share of the fruit, to keep for him, and then sallied forth into the yard, holding the umbrella over his head, as a few drops of rain were still falling.

He waded into the little pond at the garden gate, and then turned round to look at Lucy and laugh. He began, too, to caper about in the water, but Lucy told him to take care, or he would fall down, and they could not wash his _clothes,_ as they could his feet, with their dipper of water.

So he went carefully forward till he came to the peas, and gathered as many as he wanted, and then returned.

As he was coming back, he saw Jonas in the barn. Jonas called out to him to ask what he had got.

“I have been to get some pea-pods,” said he, “to make boats with.”

“Where are you going to sail them?” said Jonas.

“O, in this little pond, when it is done raining.”

“But you had better have a little pond _now_, in the shed.”

“How can we?” said Rollo.

“You might have it in a milk-pan.”

“So we can. Could you come and get it for us?”

“Yes, in a few minutes—by the time you get your boats made.”

Rollo and Lucy were much pleased with this, and they sat down, one on each side of the milk-pan pond, and sailed their boats a long time. He cut small pieces of the apple and of the pear for cargo, and Rollo put in the stem of the pear for the captain of his boat. Each one was good-humored and obliging, and the time passed away very pleasantly, until it was near dinner-time. When they came in to dinner, they observed that it was raining again very fast.

THE PRINCIPLES OF ORDER.

“Father,” said Rollo, at the dinner-table, “do you think it will rain all the afternoon?”

“It looks like it,” replied his father, “but why? Do you not enjoy yourselves in the house?”

“O yes, sir,” said Rollo, “we have had a fine time this morning; but Lucy and I thought that, if it did not rain this afternoon, we might go out in the garden a little.”

“It may clear up towards night; but, if it does, I think it would be better to go down to the brook and see the freshet, than to go into the garden.”

“The freshet? Will there be a freshet, do you think?”

“Yes, if it rains this afternoon as fast as it does now, I think the brook will be quite, high towards night.”

Rollo was much pleased to hear this. He told Lucy, after dinner, that the brook looked magnificently in a freshet; that the banks were brimming full, and the water poured along in a great torrent, foaming and dashing against the logs and rocks.

“Then, besides, Lucy,” said he, “we can carry down our little boats and set them a sailing. How they will whirl and plunge along down the stream!”

Lucy liked the idea of seeing the freshet, too, very much; though she said she was afraid it would be too wet for her to go. Rollo told her never to fear, for his father would contrive some way to get her down there safely, and they both went to the back entry door again, looking out, and wishing now that it would rain faster and faster, as they did before dinner that it would cease to rain.

“But,” said Lucy, “what if it should not stop raining at all, to-night?”

“O, it will,” said Rollo, “I know it will. Besides, if it should not, we can go down to-morrow morning, you know, and then there will be a bigger freshet. O how full the brook will be by to-morrow morning!”

And Rollo clapped his hands, and capered with delight.

“Yes,” said Lucy, soberly, “but I must go home to-night.”

“Must you?” said Rollo. “So you must. I did not think of that.”

“But I think,” continued he, “that it will certainly clear up to-night. I will go and ask father if he does not think so too.”

They both went together back into the parlor to ask the question.

“I cannot tell, my children, whether it will or not. I see no indications, one way or the other. I think you had better forget all about it, and go to doing something else; for if you spend all the afternoon in watching the sky, and trying to guess whether it will clear up or not, you cannot enjoy yourselves, and may be sadly disappointed at last.”

“Why, we cannot help thinking of it, father.”

“You cannot, if you stand there at the back door, doing nothing else; but, if you engage in some other employment, you will soon forget all about it.”

“What do you think we had better do?” said Lucy.

“I think you had better go up and put your room and your desk all in order, Rollo; Lucy can help you.”

“But, father, I have put it in order a great many times, and it always gets out of order again very soon, and I cannot keep it neat.”

“That is partly because you do not put it in order right. You do not understand the principles of order.”

“What are the principles of order?” said Lucy.

“There are a good many. I will tell you some of them, and then you may go and apply them in arranging Rollo’s things.

“One principle is to have the things that are most frequently used in the most accessible place, so that they can be taken out and returned to their proper places easily.

“Another good principle for you is to distinguish between the things which you wish to _use_, and those you only wish to _preserve_. The former ought to be in sight, and near at hand. The latter may be packed away more out of view.

“Another principle is to avoid having your desk and room encumbered with things of little or no value, as stones you have picked up, and papers, and sticks. The place to keep such things is in the barn or shed, not in your private room.

“Then you must arrange your things systematically, putting things of the same nature together. Once I looked into your desk after you had put it in order, and I found that, in the back side of it, you had piled up hooks, and white paper, and pictures, and a slate, and a pocket-book or two, all together. You thought they were in order, because they were in a _pile_. Now, they ought to have been separated and arranged; all the white paper by itself in front, where you can easily get it to use; the pictures all by themselves in a portfolio; and the books should be arranged, not in a _pile_, but in a _row_, on their edges, so that you can get out any one without disturbing the others. Those are some of the principles of order.”

“Well, come, Rollo,” said Lucy, “let us go and see your things, and try to put them in order, right.”

Rollo went, but, as he left the room, he turned round to ask his father if he would not come with them, and just show them a little about it. His father said he could not come very well then, but if they would try and do as well as they could, he would come and look over their work after it was done, and tell them whether it was right or not.

Rollo and Lucy went up into Rollo’s room, and, true enough, they found not a little confusion there. But they went to work, and soon became very much interested in their employment. A great many of the things were new to Lucy, and as they went on arranging them, they often stopped to talk and play. In this way several hours passed along very pleasantly; and when, at last, they had got them nearly arranged, Rollo went to the window to throw out some old stones that he concluded not to keep any longer, when he exclaimed aloud,

“O, Lucy, Lucy, come here quick.”

Lucy ran. Rollo pointed out to the western horizon, and said, “See there!”

There was a broad band of bright golden sky all along the western horizon—clear and beautiful, and extending each way as far as they could see. The dark clouds overhead reached down to the edge of this clear sky, where they hung in a fringe of gold, and the dazzling rays of the sun were just peeping under it. The rain had ceased.

Rollo and Lucy gazed at it a moment, and then ran down stairs as fast as they could go, calling out,

“It is clearing away! It is clearing away! Father, it is clearing away. We can go and see the freshet.”

CLEARING UP.

They went out upon the steps to look at the sky. A few drops of rain were still falling, but the clouds appeared to be breaking in several places, and the tract of golden sky in the west was rising and extending. The air was calm, and the golden rays of the sun shone upon the fields and trees, and upon the glittering drops that hung from the leaves and branches. Rollo and Lucy both said it was beautiful.

They went in and urged their father to go with them down to the brook to see the freshet, but he said they must wait till after tea. “It is too wet to go now,” said he.

“But, father,” said Rollo, “I do not think it will be any better after tea. The ground cannot dry in half an hour.”

“No,” said his father; “but the water will run off of the paths a great deal, so that we can get along much better.”

“Well, but then it will run off from the brook a great deal too, and the freshet will not be so high.”

“It is a little different with the brook,” his father replied, “for that is very long, and the water comes a great way, from among the hills. Now, while we are taking tea, the water will be running into the brook back among the hills, faster than it will run away here, so that it will grow higher and higher for some hours.”

Rollo had no more to say, but he was impatient to go. He and Lucy went out and stood on the steps again. The clouds were breaking up and flying away in all directions, and large patches of clear blue sky appeared everywhere, giving promise of a beautiful evening.

“Hark!” said Rollo; “what is that?”

Lucy listened. It was a sort of roaring sound down in the woods. Rollo at first thought it was a bear growling.

“Do you think it is a bear?” said he to Lucy, with a look of some concern.

“A bear!—no,” said Lucy, laughing. “That is not the way a bear growls. It is the freshet.”

“The freshet!” said Rollo.

“Yes; it is the water roaring along the brook.”

Rollo listened, and he immediately perceived that it was the sound of water, and he jumped and capered with delight, at thinking how fine a sight it must be.

At the tea-table Rollo’s father explained the plan he had formed for their going. He said it was rather a difficult thing to go and see a freshet without getting wet—especially for a girl. He and Rollo, he said, could put on their good thick boots, but Lucy had none suitable for such a walk, as it would probably be very wet and muddy in some places.

“What shall we do then?” said Rollo.

“I believe I shall let Jonas go down and draw Lucy in his wagon,” said his father. “How should you like that, Lucy?”

Lucy said she should like it very well, and after tea they went out to the garden-yard door, where they found Jonas with his wagon all ready. This wagon was one which Jonas had made to draw Rollo upon. It was plain and simple, but strong and convenient, and perfectly safe. They helped Lucy into it, and she sat down on the little seat. Rollo, with his hoots on, took hold behind to push, and Jonas drew. Rollo’s father walked behind, and thus they set off to view the freshet.

They moved along carefully through the yard, and then turned by the gate and went into the field. The path led them by the garden fence for some distance, and they went along very pleasantly for a time, until at length they came to a large pool of water covering the whole path. There were high banks on each side, so that the wagon could not turn out.

“What shall we do now?” said Rollo.

“I can go right through it,” said Jonas; “it is not deep.”

“And we can go along on the bank, by the side,” said Rollo.

“Very well.” said his father, “if you are not afraid, Lucy.”

Lucy did feel a little afraid at first, but she knew that if her uncle was willing that she should go, there could not be any danger; so she made no objection. Besides, she knew that, as Jonas was to walk along before her, she could see how deep it was, and there could not be any deep places without his finding it out before the wagon went into them.

Jonas was barefoot, and did not mind wetting his feet; so he waded in, drawing the wagon after him. It was about up to his ankles all the way. Lucy looked over the side of the wagon, and felt a little fear as she saw the wheels half under water; but they went safely through.

Presently they began to descend a path which led them into the woods. They heard the roaring of the water, which grew louder and louder as they drew nigh, and then Rollo suddenly stopped and said,

“Why, father, it is raining here in the woods now.”

Lucy listened, and they heard the drops of rain falling upon the ground all around them; and yet, looking up, they saw that the sky was almost perfectly clear. Presently they thought that this was only the drops falling off from the leaves of the trees.

Rollo said he meant to see if it was so, and he ran out of the path, and took hold of a slender tree with a large top of branches and leaves, and, looking up to see if any drops would come down, he gave it a good shake; and, true enough, down came a perfect shower of drops all into his face and eyes. At first he was astonished at such an unexpected shower-bath, but he concluded, on the whole, to laugh, and not cry about it; and he came back wiping his face, and looking comically enough. All the party laughed a little at his mishap, and then went on.

In a few minutes more, they came in sight of the foaming brook. The water was very high; in some places, the banks were overflowed, and the current swept along furiously, dashing against the rocks, and whirling round the projecting points.

The children stopped, and gazed upon the scene a little while, and then Rollo said he was going to sail his boats, which he had brought in his pocket.

Just then Jonas saw a plank which was lying partly on the bank and partly in the water, a little up the stream. It had been placed across the brook some distance above, for a bridge; but the freshet had brought it away, and it had drifted down to where it then was.

Jonas said he would find a place for Lucy to stand upon with it. So he went and pushed off this plank, and let it float down to where the children were standing; and then he drew it up upon the shore, and laid it along, so that Lucy could stand upon it safely, and launch the pea-pod boats.

These boats were soon all borne away rapidly down the stream, out of sight; and then they threw in sticks and chips, and watched them as they sailed away, and whirled around in the eddies, or swept down the rapids. Thus they amused themselves a long time, and then slowly returned home.

BLUEBERRYING.

OLD TRUMPETER.

Rollo’s mother advised him, when he went to bed the evening before the day fixed upon for the blueberrying, to rise early the next morning, and take a good reading lesson before breakfast. She said he would enjoy himself much more, during the day, if he performed all his usual duties before he went. Rollo accordingly arose quite early, and, when he came in to breakfast, had the satisfaction of telling his father that he had read his morning lesson, and prepared his basket, and was all ready to go.

He wanted Jonas to go too, and as, the last time when he asked his father’s permission that he should go, he lost his request by asking it in an improper manner, he determined to be careful this time.

So he was silent at breakfast time while his father and mother were talking, and then, watching an opportunity when they seemed disengaged, he asked his father if Jonas might not go with them.

“I do not think he can very well, for there is no room for him. Both the chaises will be full.”

“But could not he ride on Old Trumpeter?” said Rollo.

Old Trumpeter was a white horse, that had served the family some time, but was now rather old, and not a very good traveller.

Rollo’s father hesitated a moment, and then said, perhaps he might. “You may go and tell him that we are going, and that if he thinks Old Trumpeter will do to carry him, he may go. He will be of great help to us, if we should get into any difficulty.”

Rollo thought of the bears that he expected to see on the mountain, and ran to tell Jonas. Jonas was glad to go. So he went and gave Old Trumpeter some oats, and got the saddle and bridle ready. He also got out a pair of saddle-bags that he always used on such occasions, and put into them a hatchet, a dipper, a box of matches, and some rope. On second thoughts, he concluded it would be best to put these things into the chaise-box, and to put the saddle-bags on his horse empty, as he might want them to bring something home in.

After breakfast, Lucy and her father, Rollo’s uncle George, drove up to the door, for they were going too; and in a short time you might have seen all the party driving away from the door—Rollo’s father and mother in the first chaise, uncle George, and Rollo, and Lucy, in the second, and Jonas on Old Trumpeter behind.

They rode on for a mile or two, and then turned off of the main road into the woods, and went on by a winding and beautiful road until they came in sight of a range of mountains, one of which seemed very high and near.

“Is that Benalgon?” said Rollo.

“I do not know,” said his uncle; “I have never been to it before; but I suppose Jonas can tell.”

“I will call him,” said Rollo. So he turned round, and kneeled up upon the seat, so that he could look out behind the chaise, for the back curtain was up. Lucy did the same, but Jonas was not to be seen. They looked a little longer, and presently saw him coming along round a curve in the road. They beckoned to him, and as he rode up, they saw he had a bush in his hand. He came up to the side of the chaise, and handed it to Rollo. It was a large blueberry-bush, covered with beautiful ripe blue berries. Rollo took them, and admired them very much; and at first he was going to divide them between Lucy and himself; but they concluded, on the whole, to send them forward to his mother. Jonas told them the mountain before them _was_ Benalgon, and rode on to carry the blueberry-bush to the other chaise. Presently he came back, bringing it with him, except a small sprig which Rollo’s mother had taken off. The rest she had sent back to the children.

“Well, Jonas,” said uncle George, when he got back, “I do not see but that Old Trumpeter is strong enough to carry you yet.”

“O yes, sir,” said Jonas, “he is strong enough to carry half a dozen like me.”

“O, uncle George,” said Rollo, “let him carry me too with Jonas. I can ride behind.”

“Very well; if you want to ride with him a little while, you may, if Jonas is willing.”

Jonas was, and Rollo got out, and climbed up upon a stump, by the side of the road. Jonas drove up to the stump, and Rollo clambered up behind him, with a switch in his hand.

“Now, Jonas,” said he, “whenever you want him to go any faster, you just speak to me, and I will touch him up with my switch.”

Jonas said he would, and they jogged along behind the chaise. Lucy kneeled upon the cushion, and looked out behind, talking with Rollo.

DEVIATION.