Tell Me Another Story: The Book of Story Programs

by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

The next morning my parents were gone. I cried sadly, but was comforted at hearing they would return in a month and fetch me home. Grandmamma gave me a little basket to gather my flowers in. I went out to the orchard, and before I had half filled my basket I forgot all my troubles.

The time I passed at my grandmamma's farm is always in my mind. Sometimes I think of the good-natured, pied cow that would let me stroke her while the dairy-maid was milking her. Then I fancy myself running after the dairy-maid into the nice, clean dairy, and see the pans full of milk and cream. Then I remember the wood-house; it had once been a barn, but being grown old, the wood was kept there. I used to peep about among the fagots to find the eggs the hens sometimes left there. A hen, grandmamma said, is a kindly bird, always laying more eggs than she wants on purpose to give them to her mistress for puddings and custards.

Nothing could have been more pleasant than the day the orchard was mowed. The hay smelled so sweet and I might toss it about as much as ever I pleased. It was green at first, and then turned yellow and dry, and was carried away in a cart to feed the horses.

When the currants and gooseberries were quite ripe, grandmamma had a sheep-shearing. All the sheep stood under the trees to be sheared. They were brought out of the field by old Spot, the shepherd dog. I stood at the gate and watched him drive them all in. When the shearers had cropped off all their wool, the sheep looked very clean, and white, and pretty. But, poor things, they ran shivering about with cold, so that it was a pity to see them.

Great preparations were being made all day for the sheep-shearing supper. Grandmamma said a sheep-shearing was not to be compared to a harvest-home, that was so much better. Then the oven was quite full of plum pudding, and the kitchen was very hot indeed with roasting beef; yet I can assure you that there was no want at all of either roast-beef or plum pudding at the sheep-shearing.

I was allowed to sit up until it was almost dark, to see the company at supper. They sat at a long oak table, which was finely carved, and as bright as a looking glass. After the happiest day, bed time will come. I sat up late, but at last grandmamma sent me to bed. Yet, though I went, I heard the company singing. The sound of their voices was very sweet indeed as they sang of the meadows and the sheep.

The common supper that we had every night was just as cheerful. Before the men came in out of the field, a large fagot was flung upon the fire. The wood used to crackle, and blaze, and smell delightfully. And then the crickets, who loved the fire, began to sing. The old shepherd loved the fire almost as well as the crickets did, and he would take his place in the chimney corner at supper time. He had a seat near the fireplace, quite under the chimney, and over his head the bacon hung.

When the shepherd was seated the milk was hung in a skillet over the fire, and then the men used to come and sit down at the long white table.

Sometimes, when I was at my grandmamma's farm house, I thought about London, how the houses stood close to each other, and what a noise the coaches made, and how many people there were in the streets. Then I usually went out into the old wood-house and played at being in London. I set up bits of wood for houses, and in one corner I made a little garden with grass and daisies, and that was the Draper's Garden.

I was sorry to have to go away from my grandmamma's farm before the harvesting but if I am allowed to return for it next year, I will tell you all about it.