“But, Charlie,” Daisy reasoned, “don’t you know that was a tableau-party, and they were playing ‘The Old Woman in her Shoe?’”
“Well, perhaps it was; only I believe Mother Goose was real-for-fair. Why, Daisy, don’t you know Auntie’s picture of your father that hangs in the dining-room? Well, isn’t he sure-enough-alive, I should like to know?”
“Oh, but Charlie,” remonstrated little Jack, “you ought to believe my sister Daisy. Papa says it isn’t nice manners to conterdict a lady, and ’sides that, my Daisy ought to know, for she studies French and definitions.”
Where this hot little dispute would have ended, is not very clear, for Charlie was always loath to be convinced against his will, and the Owl had no idea of having her superior wisdom questioned by a youngling, but just then a sudden jolt, as the carriage-wheel passed over a stone, caused a scream of fright from the little Monkeys, and Mother Goose, Singing Bird, and ugly Portulak, were all forgotten as the young city folk gazed admiringly at the country landscape before them.
A few moments before, they had seen blocks of houses, and pretty villas, with their well-kept lawns, bright with midsummer glories, whilst pillars of cloudy smoke loomed up from the many manufactories in the distance.
Now they are travelling at quick pace along the smoothest of roads. Meadows of deepest green, gemmed with gay dandelions and wild daisies, with a background of woodland, are hemmed in by old fences, whose defects are changed to beauties by the Eglantine and Grape-vines which cling about them.
Behind these draped old fences graze gay goats, ungainly young colts, with their bright eyes and long stilty legs; and little calves, with their sweet “June breath” and shaggy coats, who spring up to greet the travellers, and follow them to the full extent of their tether.
Hugh’s gentle horses drink in refreshment from the pure country air, whose perfumes whisper to them of abundant pastures and well-filled barns, while their pricked ears and quivering nostrils give promise of a breezy pace, very different from their languid walk through the heated city streets.
A few moments later, and the merry party near that bit of woody road, the joy and pride of every true Nature-loving inhabitant of Providence.