V.—STYLE AND FAULTS.
he question of style is a ghost that will not down. There are those who say that form is the all-important point, and that if you get the swing right all the rest will follow. And there are others who as stoutly affirm that the only thing to do is to thump away at the ball, and trust to nature and the laws of mechanics. Now it is certainly true that style by itself will never drive a ball, and it may be laid down as an axiom that whenever the mind is intent upon some point of how to strike rather than upon the actual business of hitting, a miss more or less palpable is sure to follow. But it is just as true that hands or feet or body may be in such a position that a fair stroke is utterly impossible, and this is surely not golf. Evidently truth lies between the two extremes.
There can be no question but that in all games the right way is easier and productive of better results than the wrong way, and golf cannot claim to be entirely independent of this general principle. Therefore it is wise to begin our practice on the general lines laid down by the wisdom of the ages, subject of course to the necessary modifications due to age, sex, or previous conditions of servitude to tennis, baseball, and other obsolete forms of amusement. Undoubtedly the most satisfactory method is instruction from a competent coach. The beginner may think that he is following faithfully the instructions given him in these papers, and yet be unconsciously going wrong in a dozen ways, imperceptible perhaps except to an expert eye. By all means seek the counsel and instruction of a professional golfer or expert amateur, if there be one within reach, for he can certainly save you many false steps.
BEGINNING OF FULL SWING—INCORRECT.
But supposing that there is no way of obtaining this practical assistance, must we give up golf as unattainable and book knowledge as untrustworthy? Not at all. Study and digest the instructions and hints given in these papers as thoroughly as you can, and do your best to put them into practice. There is only one thing to guard against, and that is the tendency of exaggeration in any or all points. For instance, I tell you that the left wrist must be kept taut, and this is indeed necessary. But if you go to work with the idea that in a stiff wrist lies the secret of all golf, you are turning a caution into a fetich, and the result must be unsatisfactory. Even the italicized injunction at the end of each article, about the necessity of keeping the eye upon the ball, is not the whole of golf, and, important as it is, it must not absorb the whole of your attention. All these things work together for golf, and the moment that you exalt any one of them above the others you destroy both your mental and your physical balance, and the result is no game. Finally, let the forming of style be reserved for practice play. Once engaged in a tournament (and, by-the-way, you should enter as many regular competitions as possible), you must let your style take care of itself, and devote the whole of your attention and energy to hitting the ball clean. If you begin to think how you are going to hit it, or how far you will drive it, or anything about it except the simple duty of hitting it, you will fail altogether. In practice let your aim be style; in a match let it be the hitting of the ball.
The detection and cure of specific faults are difficult tasks on paper, for very often different causes may produce what is apparently the same effect, and it is obvious that the particular remedy depends upon the specific disease.
For example, the ball has a great tendency to go off to the right of the line instead of straight. Now the reason may be that the player is putting a cut on the ball by drawing in his arms ("slicing" proper), or he may have the face of the club turned back (wrong grip), or he may be hitting off the heel of the club ("heeling") and at the same time putting a "slice" on the ball. Evidently the same corrective will not answer in every case. For "slicing" proper it will be well to attend to the precept of "slow back," so that the body muscles may be used, and the arms allowed to go freely out both in the up swing and in the "follow on." Perhaps the right foot is too far advanced, and a change in position (not distance) may encourage the loins and shoulders to get in the work. Try drawing the right foot back in proportion to the amount of "skid." Laying the face back is the result of a wrong grip. The left hand may be too far under, and the right hand may be holding too loosely. Look up the instructions for the proper grip. "Heeling," or hitting off the heel, is due to poor aim. Stand up and hit more carefully.
END OF FULL SWING—INCORRECT.
"Pulling" or "hooking," which sends the ball off to the left of the proper line, is not so common a fault. Generally it is the result of having the club face turned in, and this in turn comes of "pressing," or trying to strike too hard and without the proper swing. Give up the idea that you are hitting at a baseball, and guard against stooping forward.
When a ball is "topped" or hit above the centre it is nearly always due to carelessness, or overdue concentration on some point of style. If your swing is too straight up and down, and you are drawing in your arms across the line of fire, a "top" is pretty sure to follow. Let your arms go out so that the curve of your swing may be longer, or rather flatter, and try to look at the side of your ball, and not straight down upon it. If you are looking persistently at the top of your ball, and your "eye is in," the club head must perforce obey its instructions. It is not only the ball but the side of the ball that you want to hit. Another reason why players "top" is because they are afraid of the ground and of breaking their clubs. Now, as a matter of fact, an honest "sclaff" or scrape does no harm either to the club or to the flight of the ball, except perhaps when the ground is frozen, and the game cannot properly be played at all. Therefore get down to the ball always.
In the approach stroke "slicing" is the most troublesome fault to mend. It is a great help in the shorter shots to keep the right arm rubbing lightly against the body, for the sake of its support, and, indeed, without some such aid steadiness is impossible. And keep the left wrist taut.
INCORRECT "STANCE."
When a player goes off in his putting, the case is pretty sure to be mental, i.e., lack of patience and concentration. And this is particularly true of the short holing-out puts of thirty inches or so. Still, the sin may be one of commission: the player is playing with a jerk, or he is looking at the hole instead of at the ball, or both of his arms are hanging clear of his body, and consequently deprived of its support, or, finally, his putter may be badly balanced. Once the cause is discovered, the remedy is easy of application.
The beginner will do well to study carefully the illustrations that have appeared in the preceding articles. The professional Willie Dunn, who appears in most of them, is not only a fine player himself, but his form is especially good, and a safe model upon which to pattern. The incorrect positions illustrate faults in stand and swing into which the beginner is particularly liable to fall, and a study of them may save him from many misconceptions.
It is to be noted that no distinction has been made in these articles between the girl's game and that of her brother's, and, indeed, none is necessary. The same instructions apply, and virtually the same results should follow. The girl may not be able to drive so far, but there is no reason why she should not hold her own in approaching and putting, and a sensible costume will obviously be of advantage.
Left-handed players must of course make the necessary correction in the instructions, but if possible they should try to play in the ordinary style. It is a curious fact that, unlike tennis, billiards, or baseball, first-class golf is seldom acquired by left-handers.
Finally, don't think the game too easy, and so play carelessly, and, on the other hand, don't get discouraged and give it up as too difficult. In the words of an old-time hero of the green, "It's dogged as does it."
[CATCHING SHAD FOR MARKET.]
BY J. PARMLY PARET.
Hooks and lines are about as useless in shad-fishing as nets would be if eels were wanted. Not one of those long rows of shad you see in the markets was caught with a hook. They were all foolish enough to swim straight into nets spread out to trap them, and they hadn't sense enough to swim out again. So when you see Mr. Shaddie served up before you for your breakfast, you may remember that it is because he has more bones than brains that you have a chance to eat him. Mr. Shaddie inherits two fatal features—his lack of brains and the breadth of his shoulders. One gets him tangled up in fish-nets, and the other prevents his getting out again. Were it not for this, shad would be as scarce in the market as terrapin.
Just as soon as the last ice has left the rivers the shad-fishermen begin to prepare for the fishing season. They must make the most of the few weeks while it lasts, so they never fail to have all their nets ready as soon as the shad begin to "run"—as they call it when the fish commence to swim up the rivers.
There are two ways of catching shad—by small nets set on poles, and with "seine" nets. Most of the fish we see in the markets are taken in the small nets, as the poles are always used in the rivers where the current runs too fast for the "seines." These poles are simply long saplings, like telegraph poles, with their lower ends sharpened so as to stick up in the muddy bottom. The fishermen pick out some part of the river where their nets are not likely to be torn and broken up by passing boats, and then drive down their poles in long rows.
DRIVING A STAKE.
These poles are generally "planted" in water forty or fifty feet deep, so it is not easy to drive them into the bottom so far under the water. Pontoon boats, built by joining two scows or row-boats together, are anchored at the place selected for the row, and the sharpened ends of the long saplings are pushed into the ground. A crossbar is fastened to one of the poles, high out of water, and the fishermen jump up and down on this until the sapling is driven down firmly into the mud. There are anywhere from twenty to forty of these poles in a row, and they are placed about thirty feet from each other.
At the first sign of the fish the nets are set out on these poles. These shad-nets are like enormous fly-traps, open at one end. The meshes are large enough to let the shad put their foolish heads in the nooses, but not big enough to let their shoulders through. The top and bottom of each net are fastened to two long ropes, and the ends of these ropes are tied to wooden rings like barrel hoops, slid over the poles, and sunk down under the surface of the water by weights. So the open end of each net is stretched between two poles, and the meshes belly out with the swift current like a big bag. All along the row these nets are fixed by the fishermen soon after the tide has turned, and then they go ashore to wait for the next tide.
DRAGGING THE NETS.
Along comes Mr. Stupid Shaddie, swimming rapidly with the current. Suddenly he runs against the net, and before he knows what has happened his head is thrust through one of the openings in its meshes. Mr. Shaddie foolishly tries to push through the barrier, and soon finds his gills tangled up with the thin cords that hold him. He has not sense enough to turn around when he first finds himself in the net and swim out again the way he came in. The door is still open, but he hates to swim against the tide, so he goes on trying to push ahead until he is hopelessly caught in the net, and the more he struggles the tighter he is held. Mr. Shaddie's brothers, too, are equally stupid. They follow his silly example, and soon there are a number of them struggling in each net.
The fishermen in the mean time have waited patiently on shore. Just before the tide turns again they row out to their nets and haul them up. If they waited too long, Mr. Shaddie and his foolish friends would get out, for the turn of the tide would swing the net in the opposite direction and soon release the struggling fish. The long fishing-boat is manned by four men, and they row out to the nets. The boat is tied at each end to one of the poles, and the "haul" begins. Long notched sticks or boat-hooks are thrust down under the water beside the poles, and the net-ropes pulled up to the surface.
THE FIRST CATCH OF THE SEASON.
Slowly and cautiously the fishermen, two at each end, pull in the ropes that hold the net. They soon reach the mouth of the bag, and pulling this over the edge of the boat, they quickly haul up the rest of the meshes; for it is then too late for any of the fish to get away. As the net comes up to the surface, Mr. Shaddie and his companions seem too stupid or too much dazed to struggle. When they are jerked out of the water, however, and into the boat, they hop around excitedly for a few minutes, but it is then too late to escape. The fishermen throw their catch into the bottom of the boat, and cast the net back into the water. Then they push along to the next poles, and repeat the same work with the next net.
Down the long row they go, the boat's bottom gradually filling up with the big shad. Sometimes a net will have only one or two in it, while fifteen or twenty are occasionally caught in a single net when the season is at its height. A good haul will often yield three hundred shad, and the fishermen hurry ashore to pack them off to the markets. But shad are not the only fish they get in the nets. Catfish are often pulled up with shad, as well as many other varieties. Some of them are taken ashore and cooked, and others are thrown back into the water.
Then, too, there are the "blackfish," as the fishermen jokingly call the pieces of drift-wood that get tangled up in the meshes. Sometimes these are so heavy as to tear open the nets, and then the shad escape with the "blackfish." Careless captains of passing boats often tear them, too, and occasionally pull down the poles in steering through the fishermen's rows. Extra nets are always carried in the fishing-boats, and when a torn one is found it is taken ashore to be mended, and a whole net is put in its place.
The shad-fisherman's life is not an easy one. During the short season when his trade is profitable he works both night and day. He must live close by the water, and sleep only between the tides. When the boat first comes in after hauling the nets, the men must take out their fish and pack them for the market. Then there are the torn nets to be mended; and when all this is finished, and the meals are cooked and eaten, the fishermen may get a few hours' sleep, perhaps; but they never lie down without first setting an alarm-clock for an hour before the tide turns again. For, rain or shine, by night and by day, those nets must be hauled up at every turn of the tide, and the tide turns every six hours. "Time and tide wait for no man."
[PARTS OF A FLOWER.]
Whenever we study science we have some hard names to learn. One advantage that scientific people have over others is that they know how to apply precise names to things. A botanist, for example, does not speak of flower leaves. He says sepals if he means the outside green leaves; petals, if the inside, colored. A complete flower has four distinct parts or organs.
In early spring the big trees and little plants awake out of a long nap and bestir themselves to grow. They have a good deal to do, and they set to work very industriously. Ants and bees are not busier than plants in spring. At first the awakened plant thinks only of forming fresh branches and lovely expanding green leaves. But after a time it seems to say to itself, "I must not forget to make seed, so that if I should die in the autumn my race may not die with me, but live on and on."
The plant may not be going to die in autumn. It may be a perennial, living year after year. But it always acts as if it might perish, and provides against contingencies. Plants which live one year only are called annuals.
In order to produce a flower, the branch stops growing in length. The end becomes a receptacle. First, upon the receptacle comes a circle of small green leaves, called a calyx; separately, sepals. Sometimes the calyx is not cut up into sepals, but makes a little round vase, notched or pointed, in which the rest of the flower is held. Inside the calyx, and just a bit higher up, appear the colored petals, the beautiful and fragrant parts of a flower. It is the corolla. Like the calyx, sometimes the corolla is a vase or cup, and it is a monopetalous corolla.
If you want to speak of both calyx and corolla in one word, you may say perianth. Floral envelopes mean the same thing. The purpose of these parts of a flower is, mainly, to cover and protect the seed while ripening. A second purpose, and probably the reason why they are so prettily colored and sweetly fragrant, is to attract insects. This we will talk about later. But we shall smell of a rose and admire it just as much, as if it were made for our special enjoyment. All the same, if the plant did not protect its seed, and invite insects to crawl into its tubes, I fear all flowers would be like the lizardtail to secure which I once nearly fell into the water. I had to cross an old rotten mill-dam, over and through which water was trickling, step on slippery stones, catch hold of a tree with one hand, and reach away down with the other. One foot got wet, but that was a trifle. I plucked my lizardtail, and have it now in my herbarium. It has no calyx and corolla, only the two organs essential to making seed, called stamens and pistils.
Next to the petals, and slightly higher, the stamens stand like little soldiers with caps on, in a circle, or two or more circles. The stem is called filament, a word meaning thread-like. The cap is an anther, containing in one or two pockets a fine yellow or brown dust—the pollen. You may get pollen on your nose if you smell of a lily; for when the anther-pockets split open, the pollen lies around loose, and gets on anything that touches it. Bees collect it in pouches on their legs, and make bread of it for their winter use.
[AN "OLD-FIELD" SCHOOL-GIRL.]
BY MARION HARLAND.
CHAPTER X.
Felicia Grigsby sat alone by the fire in her room on the afternoon of December 24. A book was open upon her lap, but she was not reading. Her hands were thin and white; her gray eyes were unnaturally large and dark in a face that had wasted until it looked like an elf's. She had lain in bed for six weeks, and was still so weak that her father had carried her up and down stairs to her meals.
He had been very kind to her throughout her illness, but never tender, and he was always grave nowadays. Flea was thinking of these and other puzzling things this afternoon. While she thought, two tears arose and enlarged in her eyes, until their weight carried them over the lower lids, and they plashed down upon the book. The first snow-storm of the season was driving at a sharp slant past the windows; the wind cried in the chimney in a low-spirited, feeble-minded way; the fire kept up heart, and spat snappishly as stray hailstones and snowflakes flew down the throat of the chimney.
Flea kicked one foot out of the blanket shawl laid over her lap, and moaned fretfully: "I don't care for anything or anybody, and nobody cares whether I live or die!"
The door opened and her father came in. He looked unusually grave even for him. He laid more logs on the fire, and stirred the coals below the blazing fore-stick. "Is it too hot for you?" he asked, as the fire leaped up with a greedy roar.
"A little," Flea said, shielding her eyes with her hand.
Her father took hold of her rocking-chair with one hand, the cricket on which her feet rested with the other, and lifted her away from the flaring flames. Then he rearranged the covering over her knees and feet. It was a checked blanket shawl, red and green, that belonged to Mrs. Grigsby. It was always brought out when an invalid was able to sit up, or not quite ill enough to be put to bed. In Flea's mind it was joined with the remembered taste of jalap, Epsom-salts, castor oil, and tansy tea. The checks were just two inches square. She had measured them a hundred times. Her mother used to give her medicine; her father read aloud to her when she had the measles, and chills and fever after the measles.
She got hold of his hand and laid her face against it with a sob that seemed to bring her heart up with it.
"Father! you haven't called me 'lassie' all the time I've been sick. Don't you love me any more?"
He let her keep his hand, but he did not press hers. He stood bolt-upright, his eyes upon the driving snow; his tone was constrained: "A father never stops loving his children, my daughter, let them do what they may."
Flea twisted around to get a good view of his face.
"Have I done anything to displease you, father? Maybe 'twas some silly thing I said when I was out of my head. Mother says I talked dreadfully sometimes. You know I didn't mean it. Won't you forgive it, and let me be your own lassie again?"
She was crying fast, clinging to his hand and covering it with kisses. He drew it away gently, and put his thumb and finger into the pocket of his waistcoat, bringing out with them a paper, creased and worn by much handling.
"Look at that!" he said, in a tone that arrested her tears.
FLEA UNFOLDED IT AND GAVE A CRY OF SURPRISE.
Flea unfolded it, and gave a cry of surprise.
"My report! Where did it come from?"
"You ought to know."
"But I don't! We looked for it all the way to school that last day. I thought likely that I had dropped it on the step of the old cabin—the haunted house, you know. I sat down there the day before to look at the report, and staid there ever so long. When I saw what was in it I just hated to bring it home. I didn't think how late it was, until Mrs. Fogg—the old Mrs. Fogg—came round the corner of the house and scared me. I scared her too"—laughing nervously at the recollection; "and although I was sure that I had put the paper back into my geography, it wasn't there when I got home. We hunted all about the door-step—Dee and I—next morning, but couldn't find it. We supposed the wind must have blown it away, if I dropped it there."
Her father drew up a chair and sat down beside her, a little back of her, so she could not study his face. He tried to speak carelessly.
"What was Mrs. Fogg doing there at that time of day?"
"I don't know, I am sure. She is a funny old woman, always turning up just where you wouldn't expect to see her."
"Did she go into the house?"
"Why, no, sir. It's nailed up, I think—windows and doors too. She said that she mistook me for a ghost—h'ant,' she called it. Father!"
She had his hand again, and again raised it to her cheek. Her voice was tremulous.
"Well?" watching her out of the corners of his eyes.
"I did something wrong and foolish that day. I told her once that I'd ask Major Duncombe to let her grandchildren go to school. I was sorry for the little fellows. I told her that day that she'd better send them to the Old Harry than to Mr. Tayloe. You see, I was as mad as fire about my report."
"And then?"
"I ran home, and left her there sitting on the step."
"Did you ever see her again?"
She hesitated visibly; the color came and went in the thin sensitive face. She dropped her voice:
"She came to the spring next day. Mr. Tayloe sent me for a bucket of water—after school, you know. He said you did help me with that awful sum, and made me stay in and do it all over again. I never felt so angry before. I wished that I could kill him. And Mrs. Fogg began palavering, and I tried to get away from her. She would help me up the hill with the bucket, and I wasn't decently polite to her. When I got into the school-house, there was my slate on the bench where Mr. Tayloe had put it while I was gone, and he had rubbed out the sum I had done. Then—I think it was like being possessed of a devil, for my head went round and round, and I got hot all over. For there he sat, with that horrid smile on his face, as if he were making fun of me, when I had done my very best, and been disgraced for nothing at all. I jumped up and threw the bucket on him, and ran away as fast as I could. That's all. Oh, father, please don't let us talk any more about that horrible day!" Her voice arose into a piteous cry.
"No, lassie, never again!"
He gathered her into his arms, and held her there as he had in that wonderful ride through the woods the night he found her asleep in the school-house, and she sobbed herself calm upon the heart where there was always love for his children, and where she knew at last the warmest place was for her.
When he appeared belowstairs he found his sister in the chamber alone, but for the sleeping baby whom she had offered to look after, while the other children in a gale of spirits superintended and hindered the frying of the doughnuts.
"Does that amuse you, David?" asked Mis. McLaren, smiling at the pains he took to tear a scrap of white paper into bits, all exactly the same size, and to throw them one by one into the fire. Each was seized by the hot draught and whirled up the chimney.
"It pleases me—mightily!" he rejoined, his face as sunny as hers. "I am disposing of the last objection I had to putting my bit lassie into your hands. I can trust her the world over now."
He sat down by his sister, stretching his long legs in front of him, and locking his hands at the back of his head, with the air of one who has shaken off a burden.
"I've had a long talk with the bairnie, Jean. I'm willing to trust her away from me. You'll do better for her than I can."
"It will be a trial to your mother and myself to let you go," he said to Flea on Christmas day, in telling her of Aunt Jean's wish to take her and Dee home with her. "We will bear it for the sake of the good you'll get."
What the trial was to himself nobody comprehended. All through the quiet winter that shut down upon the river-lands early in January the most momentous events to the father's heart were the weekly arrival of the letters from his daughter. They were long and, to him, wonderful. He was kept in touch with her home life, her school, her reading, her sight-seeing, her growth in knowledge and her burning thirst for more knowledge. She sent him books now and then; his sister provided him with two weekly papers and a monthly magazine, but the short days and long evenings wore away tediously.
The months seemed like as many years in looking back upon them on a certain June morning, when he and Flea set out for a ride on horseback. She had been at home but eighteen hours, and he had still to persuade himself from time to time that he was not dreaming.
He looked her over pridefully as they rode off from the house.
"You are more like yourself this morning, lassie. Last night you were paler and quieter than seemed just natural. I suppose you were tired after the journey."
Flea blushed and averted her face. "I feel beautifully rested out to-day," she said. Honest as ever, she could not say more without revealing what would have pained his loyal heart.
I have made no secret of her faults, and I do not excuse what her father was never allowed to guess. Her homecoming had been a dismay as well as a disappointment to her. Nothing had come to pass as she had expected and planned, except the look on her father's face when he had espied her on the deck of the boat, waving her hand to him on the wharf, and the long, silent hug she received as she sprang into his arms. She had never heard the word "disillusion," or she would have known better what the next few hours meant. Mr. Grigsby had come to the landing in a blue-bodied "carryall." A plank laid across the front served him for a seat. Two splint-bottomed chairs were set for the children, leaving room behind them for their trunks. It was not heroineic, but it was natural that, seeing her late fellow-passengers eying the equipage from the boat, Flea grew hot with embarrassment, and wished that her father had thought of borrowing a better-looking vehicle from Greenfield.
The road over which they jolted was rutty and straggling, the fences ungainly. Nothing was trimmed and well-kept to eyes used, for five months, to spick-and-span Philadelphia. Her own home was sadly unlike her recollection of it. It had been newly whitewashed in honor of her coming, but she had forgotten that there never were shutters at the windows. They stared at her like eyes without lids and lashes. The calico half-curtains were "poor-white-folksy," the furniture was scanty and common. Her mother wore a purple calico. She was "partial to purple calico"; it kept its color, did not show dirt, and looked so clean when it was clean. She did not bethink herself, or she had never known, that purple is, of all colors, most trying to women of no particular complexion. Her hair was pulled back tightly from her temples, and done at the back of her head in a knot that would not come undone of itself in a week. On her head was a cap of rusty black cotton lace. Bea had bedecked her fair self in a light blue lawn, short-sleeved, and low upon the shoulders. A double string of wax beads was about her neck, and a single string upon each wrist. Her yellow hair was braided and tucked up. Bea was fifteen, and quite the young lady now. About her head was a narrow band of black velvet, fastened above her forehead with a breast-pin containing a green glass stone. Bea thought it was an emerald. Flea knew that it was not, yet felt horribly ashamed that she could notice all these things and that they dampened her spirits.
They had a "big supper," to which Dee's boyish appetite did abundant justice. Flea berated and despised herself for seeing that the coffee-pot was tin and was the boiler in which the coffee had been made, and that the handles of the two-tined forks were of bone; that her mother poured her coffee into her saucer to cool before drinking it, and that everything—fried chicken, ham, fish, preserves, cake, pudding, pie, frozen custard, and waffles—was put on the table at once.
It was unkind, ungrateful, undaughterly, and every other "un" she could think of, to let such trifles destroy the comfort of the first evening at home.
Her pillow was moistened with remorseful tears, and the more she hated herself for such meanness, fickleness, and ingratitude, the more plentiful was the flow of briny drops.
Things were more tolerable in the morning. With the elasticity of youth she adjusted ideas and feelings to suit her circumstances, or, as she put it to herself, she "came to her senses." She donned the neat habit her Aunt Jean had ordered for her, and tripped down stairs when the horses were ready, radiant with pleasurable anticipation. The habit found little favor in the sight of her mother and sister. They called the gray linen braided with black "Quakerish." To her father's eyes she looked the little lady from crown to toe.
The clover-fields were aflush with bobbing blooms, and a thousand bees were swinging and humming above these; the hay was ripe for cutting; the corn-fields shook glossy lances in the face of the sun; in the woods every bird that could sing was swelling his throat and heart with music; hares scampered fearlessly in the open road under the horses' feet; and striped ground-squirrels raced on the top rails of the fences for a mile at a time, just ahead of the riders.
"I must have been tired last night," repeated Flea, filling her lungs with the scented air. "I didn't feel a bit like myself. I am all right again. How dear and beautiful everything is to-day! There's nothing like the country, after all, especially the country in Old Virginia."
With that her tongue was loosened, and she opened to her indulgent confidante her hopes, aspirations, and plans. Aunt Jean was as gentle and tender as a mother to her; her teachers were wisdom and goodness personified; she was doing well in all her classes, and had taken two prizes on Examination day, the first for composition, the second for history.
"It's like a fairy-tale," she prattled on, happily. "When I was young and foolish I used to dream of such things as are coming to pass every day, and I take them as a matter of course, until I stop to think how wonderful and nice it all is. I often call Aunt Jean my fairy godmother.'"
In return, her father talked of his hope of being his own master and a land-owner by the time her school days should be over, hopes he had shared with no one else, he said, not even her mother, who might be disappointed if they came to nothing. "My canny little lassie can always be trusted," he said, with fondness.
Happy, honored little Flea! Riding close beside him, his hand on the neck of her horse, her eyes, moist and beaming, upturned to his, she would not have exchanged places with a princess of the blood. The weakness and false pride of yesterday were recalled only to brighten by contrast the joys of to-day.
As the day neared noon the bird-music ceased, and the stir of green leaves in the weak wind did not rise above the thud of hoofs upon the dead leaves that had fallen and lain on the bridle-road for fifty winters. The crash of a falling tree, that might have been a mile away, boomed and echoed like the report of a cannon, and was a long time in dying upon the distant hills. From the virgin forest, where oaks and hickories locked arms above their heads, they emerged upon a swampy spot through which a fire had swept in April, leaving a deserted track behind it. Ferns and wild flowers were springing up as though eager to hide the blackened ruins.
"The Major is having this swamp cleared," remarked Mr. Grigsby. "The men are about other work to-day, but they have been cutting in here all the week."
Rounding an evergreen thicket, they saw a horse harnessed to a low gig, which the riders recognized at once. The carriage was empty, and the gray mare was tethered to the stump of a sapling. She neighed long and wistfully at sight of Mr. Grigsby. He patted her in passing.
"The Major cannot be far off," he said. "He is looking to see what we have been doing, I suppose. I am glad to see him show interest in plantation work once more. He never opens his lips to me on the subject, of course, but there is something heavy on his mind. The gossips say that he is bitterly opposed to Miss Emily's marrying Mr. Tayloe."