Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

by Eleanor Farjeon

"What, none of you?" said Martin. "Did I not say so?"

And they were very provoked, not knowing what to answer for fear it might be on the tip of her neighbor's tongue. So they said nothing at all, and with one accord tossed their heads and turned their backs on him. And Martin laughed, leaving them to guess why. On which, greatly put out, every girl without even consulting one another they decided to have nothing further to do with him, and each girl went and sat under a different apple-tree and began to do her hair.

"Heigho!" said Martin. "Then this morning I must divert myself." And he began to spin his golden penny in the sun, sometimes spinning it very dexterously from his elbow and never letting it fall. But the girls wouldn't look, or if they did, it was through stray bits of their hair; when they could not be suspected of looking.

"I shall certainly lose this penny," communed Martin with himself, quite audibly, "if somebody does not lend me a purse to keep it in." But nobody offered him one, so he plucked a blade of Shepherd's Purse from the grass, soliloquizing, "Now had I been a shepherd, or had the shepherd's name been Martin, here was my purse to my hand. And then, having saved my riches I might have got married. Yet I never was a shepherd, nor ever knew a shepherd of my name; and a penny is in any case a great deal too much money for a man to marry on, be he a shepherd or no. For it is always best to marry on next-to-nothing, from which a penny is three times removed."

Then he went on spinning his penny in the air again, humming to himself a song of no value, which, so far as the girls could tell for the hair over their ears, went as follows:

If I should be so lucky
As a farthing for to find.
I wouldn't spend the farthing
According to my mind,
But I'd beat it and I'd bend it
And I'd break it into two,
And give one half to a Shepherd
And the other half to you.
And as for both your fortunes,
I'd wish you nothing worse
Than that YOUR half and HIS half
Should lie in the Shepherd's Purse.

At the end of the song he spun the penny so high that it fell into the Well-House; and endeavoring to catch it he flung the spire of wild-flower after it, and so lost both. And nobody took the least notice of his song or his loss.

Then Martin said, "Who cares?" and took a new clay pipe and a little packet from his pocket; and he wandered about the orchard till he had found an old tin pannikin, and he scooped up some water from the duckpond and made a lather in it with the soap in the packet, and sat on the gate and blew bubbles. The first bubble in the pipe was always crystal, and sometimes had a jewel hanging from it which made it fall to the earth; and the second was tinged with color, and the third gleamed like sunset, or like peacocks' wings, or rainbows, or opals. All the colors of earth and heaven chased each other on their surfaces in all the swift and changing shapes that tobacco smoke plays at on the air; but of all their colors they take the deepest glow of one or two, and now Martin would blow a world of flame and orange through the trees, or one of blue and gold, or another of green and rose. And, as he might have watched his dreams, he watched the bubbles float away; and break. But one of the loveliest at last sailed over the Well-House and between the ropes of the swing and among the fruit-laden boughs, miraculously escaping all perils; and over the hedge, where a small wind bore it up and up out of sight. And Martin, who had been looking after it with a rapt gaze, sighed, "Oh!" And six other "Ohs!" echoed his. Then he looked up and saw the six milkmaids standing quite close to him, full of hesitation and longing. So he took six more pipes from his pockets, and soon the air was glistening with bubbles, big and little. Sometimes they blew the bubbles very quickly, shaking the tiny globes as fast as they could from the bowl, till the air was filled with a treasure of opals and diamonds and moonstones and pearls, as though the king of the east had emptied his casket there. And sometimes they blew steadily and with care, endeavoring to create the best and biggest bubble of all; but generally they blew an instant too long, and the bubble burst before it left the pipe. Whenever a great sphere was launched the blower cried in ecstasy, "Oh, look at mine!" and her comrades, merely glancing, cried in equal ecstasy, "Yes, but see mine!" And each had a moment's delight in the others' bubbles, but everlasting joy in her own, and was secretly certain that of all the bubbles hers were the biggest and brightest. The biggest and brightest of all was really blown by little Joan: as Martin, in a whisper, assured her. He whispered the same thing, however, to each of her friends, and for one truth told five lies. Sometimes they played together, taking their bubbles delicately from one pipe to another, and sometimes blew their bubbles side by side till they united, and made their venture into the world like man and wife. And often they put all their pipes at once into the pannikin, and blew in the water, rearing a great palace of crystal hemispheres, that rose until it hit their chins and cheeks and the tips of their noses, and broke on them, leaving on their fair skin a trace of glistening foam. And as the six laughing faces bent over the pannikin on his knees, Martin observed that Joscelyn's hair was coiled like two great lovely roses over her ears, and that Joyce's was in clusters of ringlets, and that Jane's was folded close and smooth and shining round her small head, and that Jessica's was tucked under like a boy's, while Jennifer's lay in a soft knot on her neck. But little Joan's was hanging still in its plaits over her shoulders, and one thick plait was half undone, and the loose hair got in her own and everybody's way, and was such a nuisance that Martin was obliged at last to gather it in his hand and hold it aside for the sake of the bubble-blowers. And when they lifted their heads he was looking at them so gravely that Joyce laughed, and Jessica's eyes were a question, and Jane looked demure, and Jennifer astonished, and Joscelyn extremely composed and indifferent. And little Joan blushed. To cover her blushing she offered him another penny.

"I was thinking," said Martin, "how strange it is that girls are so absolutely different."

Then six demure shadows appeared at the very corners of their mouths, and they rose from their knees and said with one accord, "It must be dinner-time." And it was.