Then the mother told her how the footprints leading into the water had frightened her.
“Did you think I would walk right into the water and be drowned?” exclaimed Ella in disgust. “A baby a week old wouldn’t be so silly as to do that. I walked ever so far close to the water, but I suppose it washed the footprints away.” This was just what had happened, but no one had noticed that the wind was blowing toward the land. As to the French class, the mother had told her that it would meet at two in the afternoon, and when the hour was changed to twelve, she had forgotten to notify the small pupil, and then in the fear and confusion forgot that she had forgotten.
So they all went back through the lane to the seminary to gather up the fragments of the great day. The French class never welcomed its guests with a “Comment vous portez-vous, mesdames et messieurs?” but the collation was still palatable, the speeches were made, the valedictory and the salutatory were read, the band played the pieces they had been practicing, and the two students were as thoroughly graduated as if a little girl in a Red Riding Hood cloak had not interfered with the proceedings.
The mother had decided to return to the city, and this was Ella’s last day at the seminary, and the end of her first year of school life. She would have been broken-hearted over leaving, had it not been that she was going to visit her grandmother; and a month with a grandmother will make up to little girls for many losses.
CHAPTER V
ON THE WAY TO GRANDMOTHER’S
There were two grandmothers. The one with white curly hair that glistened in the sunshine lived in the village where Ella was born. It was a pretty village with hills and brooks and winding roads and meadows of flowers, and old-fashioned houses with piazzas and tall white pillars. Back of Ella’s home was a hill where great apple trees grew, and the very first thing that she remembered in the world was her father’s lifting her up into one of them, all sweet and dainty with pink-and-white blossoms, and telling her to pick as many as she pleased.
When they went to the grandmother’s, they walked straight up the village street, where a line of houses stood on one side and woods on the other. They were beautiful woods. Columbines grew in the clefts of the rocks, delicate pink windflowers blossomed in the little glades and the brave and cheery dandelions came out to the very edge of the road to give a welcome to those who loved them.
The mother had told her little daughter that one of the names of the columbine was Aquilegia Canadensis; of the windflower was Anemone Nemorosa; and of the dandelion was Taraxacum Officinale, just for the pleasure of seeing how so small a child would manage the long names. Ella felt especially well acquainted with those flowers whose “company names,” as she said, she had learned; and when she was alone with them and talked to them, she often called them by these names and pretended that she had come to make a call. “Miss Anemone Nemorosa,” she would say, “are you sure that you are feeling quite well to-day?” or, “Miss Aquilegia Canadensis, I think I saw a cousin of yours in the garden just now. Your dress is red and yellow, but hers was pink. Maybe she was your sister.” She fancied that they liked the little formality, and she was almost surprised that they did not answer her questions.
Beyond the woods was a bridge hanging high over a deep black river. Ella did not like dark, still water; and when they were crossing this bridge, she always held fast to her mother’s or her father’s hand. After they had crossed the bridge, they went up a little hill, not by the road, but through a field and over ledges where the sweet-smelling saxifrage grew; and then they came to grandmother’s little wooden gate that always closed of itself after they had gone through it.
They passed the balm of Gilead tree with its sticky buds, the black currant bush, and the great bush of white roses with creamy centers. Then Ella ran across the grass to the door, for grandmother was almost sure to see them and to come to the doorway to give them a welcome.