T must not be imagined that our entire summer was given over to works of charity and mercy. There were times when we quite forgot the Home of the Elder Brother in merry romping and girlish enjoyment; and one of the pleasantest experiences of that season was an excursion in two tin-peddler's carts, or rather, in two carts belonging to one tin-peddler; a pilgrimage which was undertaken solely and simply as a lark, and most successfully realized its aims.
Toward the end of June, while Miss Prillwitz was still with us, father fell into a state of body or mind which he called "the malary." It was the fashion for everyone in our region to dub every disease with which they might be afflicted, from indigestion to inherited insanity, malaria; and the prescription given by our wise old physician for this disease of many manifestations was always the same.
"I don't know exactly what has caused this trouble," he would say, "but I know what will cure it. You need a change. If you've been living high, diet. If you've been starving yourself, have Thanksgiving dinner every day. Take a change of air and a change of scene, a change of occupation, and, above all, a change of habits, and somewhere we'll hit the nail on the head that has done the mischief."
The prescription pleased my father. He decided that he needed a change from the coast to the interior, and from exercise to a sedentary life. "Instead of tramping around this farm," he said, "I would like to be driving over the western Massachusetts hills. I am as sick of this eternal pound, pound of the surf on the shore as of the sea-fog in my throat."
"Take the horses, father," said mother, cheerfully, "and drive through Connecticut up to your brother Asahel's farm in Hawley. I can run this household well enough without you."
"It would be a rather lonesome drive," father demurred, though his eyes shone with longing.
"Zen why not to take us wiz you, Mr. Smiss?" asked Miss Prillwitz. "We would each stand her share of ze expenses, and such a tour of diligence would be most delightful."
Upon this the matter was thoroughly canvassed, and it was finally decided that mother should remain at home with the five little boys, whom Ethel Stanley and the Helpful Ten had agreed to amuse during our absence; and that Miss Prillwitz, Miss Sartoris, Winnie, Mr. Stillman, and I should accompany father. Mr. Stillman was a summer-boarder from New York, who came to us every season to fish and hunt. Hearing that Miss Prillwitz was fond of ornithology, and that the lighthouse-keeper sent her dead birds, he tried to please her by shooting others and bringing them to her, but she soon made him understand that she preferred studying them alive and at liberty.
"Zese poor leetle tears zat haf cast zemself on ze lighthouse," she explained, "zey have not been kill for me, zey could not else, but I wish I could hinder zem of it."