Harper's Young People, May 3, 1881 / An Illustrated Weekly

GATHERING THE MAY-FLOWERS.
'Across the little covered bridge, and then along the village street about quarter of a mile.' Do go on, mother.
Pidgie Mullen looked up at her pale mother with a sweet, flushed eagerness, which brought her a trembling kiss, as Mrs. Mullen answered, You know the story better than I do now, dear!

Yes, said little invalid Belle from her pillow on the lounge, and then you turned up the narrow north road—a very, very shady, cold road—and went up hill, and up hill, and up hill. Oh, you tell it, mother, you make it so much nicer!
So the tired little mother, working hard from day to day for her fatherless young brood, waited a few moments before lighting the evening lamp for her sewing, and told the girls for the five-hundredth time the lovely story of how she used to go May-flowering when she was a little girl. Just as she was closing, a light step was heard on the stairs, and in came Cherry. Cherry was fifteen, and she took care every day—coming home at night—of the children of Mrs. Lester, in the big house around the corner.
I heard you before I opened the door, she began, laughing, and kissing her mother. I knew it was the same old story, and that you had just about got to the place where you fell into the brook, and the arbutus went sailing off down stream. I declare I'd enjoy hearing it over again myself.
Not to-night, said her mother, smiling. I must go to work now, and you will have to rub Belle, and give her her medicine, and put her to bed.
The short hour of rest was over, and Mrs. Mullen turned wearily again to her sewing. Pidgie took up her books and began to study, and Cherry and Belle went into the little bedroom close by, where Cherry gently undressed her feeble little sister.
Oh, Cherry, said Belle, who, though only two years younger than Cherry, was no taller than ten-year-old Pidgie, and not nearly so heavy— oh, Cherry, it seems as though if I could only go up to that dear little village where mother used to live, and get some May-flowers, and smell them, and the fresh earth! Oh, Cherry! —the tears streamed down the child's thin cheeks— I wouldn't tell mother for the world, for I know she would feel so badly; but I'm so very, very tired of the city, and I seem to grow sicker and sicker.