After a while Meg slipped quietly down into the bottom of the carriage, and said she had a charming seat there on the baby’s strong basket. She did not say that she saw sister Hatty was weary, and wished to relieve her. Little Meg was learning something of Christian kindness; so true is it that where one child in a family is really trying to do right, all the others soon catch something of her spirit.
It was a real treat to the children to be fairly outside the town, among green fields and pleasant woods. Mrs. Lee had to keep her head bobbing this way and that way, to see a flock of turkeys that made Meg laugh; or a wild flower that pleased Hatty; or a “pretty moo cow” that Harry thought quite extraordinary.
Marcus, meanwhile, was sitting up beside his father, and trying to talk learnedly of “crops and fallow-land, good timber, and pretty fair orchards.” His father listened when he spoke, and quietly corrected his mistakes, without showing him the least sign of contempt, or making him feel his youth unnecessarily.
Mr. Lee saw that Marcus was bent upon appearing like a man, and he only tried to make him a sensible, accurate little man, instead of putting him down in a way likely to provoke him.
All Marcus’ mannish ways went off, suddenly, when the carriage drew up at Mr. Sparrow’s door. He leaped from his seat, and without waiting to hand out the ladies and children, he gave a merry shout, and started off for the brook at a pace that most men find neither easy nor comfortable.
Good farmer Sparrow was away in the orchard; but stout Mrs. Sparrow helped Aunt Barbara out as well as if she had been a man; and by that time Mr. Lee had tied the horses, and was ready to lift down the children; Meg came out with a flying skip, and Hatty bounded down cheerfully; but Harry was so sleepy, that his father had to lift him as if he were a bag of meal.
The sight of the peach orchard was enough to fill the children with astonishment,—the rich fruit looked so beautifully, hanging on the bending boughs. Aunt Barbara was placed on a comfortable chair by the window; Mrs. Lee took the baby,—and then Jane and the children went out into the peach orchard, with Mrs. Sparrow.
The farmer’s wife knew exactly to what trees to take them; and she reached up and picked two of the largest peaches Hatty had ever seen, and placed one in the little girls’ hands. Away went Hatty back to the house with her treasures, and when she had given them to Aunt Barbara and her mother, she was ready for her own pleasure.
Hatty was learning to think of others first, even in trifles.
Mrs. Lee had told the children just how many peaches they must eat; and after they had come up to the number she named, they enjoyed going about with Mrs. Sparrow, and watching her while she filled the large basket that had been placed in the carriage, in front of Mr. Lee, for the purpose. Hatty could not help thinking, as she looked at the trees loaded with the beautiful fruit, how kind it was in our Heavenly Father to make so much that is “pleasant to the eye and good for food,” that we may take without breaking any of his commandments. She pitied poor Eve, if the forbidden fruit looked anything like those tempting peaches, and was glad that there was no “serpent” at farmer Sparrow’s that pleasant day.