Mary's Meadow, and Other Tales of Fields and FlowersEwing, Juliana Horatia
General
Mary's Meadow, and Other Tales of Fields and Flowers
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature; Gardening -- Juvenile literature
Sunflowers are alive, I know; they look so different when they are
dead. And I am sure they go to sleep, and wake up with candles, or Dr.
Brown would not have said so. But it is rather a quiet kind of being
alive and awake, I think. Something like Grandmamma, when she is very
stiff on Sunday afternoon, and goes to sleep upright in a chair, and
wakes up a little when her book drops. But not alive and awake like
Margery's black cat, which must have heard me open the side-door, and
followed me without my seeing it. It did frighten me, with jumping out
of the bushes, and looking at me with yellow eyes!
Then I saw another eye. The eye of a moth, who was on one of the
leaves. A most beautiful fellow! His coloured wings were rather tight,
like the Sunflower's glory leaves, but he was wide awake--watching the
candle.
I should have got back to bed quicker if it had not been for Margery's
black cat and the night-moths. I wanted to get the cat into the house
again, but she would not follow me, and the moths would; and I had
such hard work to keep them out of the Rushlight.
There was nothing to drown the noise the key made when I locked the
side-door again, and when I got to the bottom of the back-stairs, I
saw a light at the top, and there was Grandmamma in the most awful
night-cap you can imagine, with a candle in one hand, and the
watchman's rattle in the other.
CHAPTER IV.
HEADS OFF!--JAEL AND MASTER JOHN--FAREWELL--A FRIEND IN
NEED--A FREE PARDON.
The worst of it was, I caught such a very bad cold, I gave more
trouble than ever; besides Grandmamma having rheumatism in her back
with the draught up the back-stairs, and nothing on but her night
things and the watchman's rattle. I knew I deserved to be punished,
but I did not think my punishment would have been such a terrible one.
I hoped it might have been lessons, or even, perhaps, not having the
Rushlight again, but I did not think Grandmamma would think of hurting
the Sunflowers.
She waited till I was well enough to go out, and I really began to
think she was going to be kind enough to forgive me, with a free
forgiveness. But that day she called me to her, and spoke very
seriously, and said, that to punish me for my misconduct, and to try
and cure me of the babyish nonsense I gave way to about things, she
had decided to have all the Sunflowers destroyed at once, and not to
have any seed sown for new ones, any more. The gardener was to do it
next morning, and I was to be there to see. She hoped it would make me
remember the occasion, and teach me better sense for the future.
I should have begged and prayed, but it is no use begging and praying
to Grandmamma; Jael attends more to that. There was no comfort
anywhere, except in thinking that Margery would be at home in two
days, and that I could pour out all my sorrow to her.
As I went crying down the passage I met Jael.
"What's the matter now?" said she.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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