CHAPTER III. THE PEASE FAMILY.
THE children had each a tin pail, which they filled with peas, and emptied into Gill’s large basket. How busy and happy they were in the early morning, amid the vines! The fresh green pods hung thick and full, and here and there was a delicate blossom of white, tinged with pink and purple.
“How pretty!” said Sally, picking a couple of flowers, and hanging them upon her ears, where they shone among her light-brown curls. Then she pressed the edge of a pod, and open sprung the doors, and showed the “seven little sisters, all dressed alike in pea-green,” and looking as happy and contented as could be in their narrow house. How they enjoyed their peep at the world, and their glimpse of little Sally Reed’s pretty plump face, I can not tell; but I know that the child was pleased enough, as she put her finger upon each round head, as a sort of gentle greeting to the pease children, who had never before looked outside their mother’s door.
Gill was full of life. He was glad to have the little people with him. Beside the help from their nimble hands, there was something refreshing in their cheerful prattle, and he was never weary of imparting what he knew; so that the big tongue and the little tongues were about as busy as the big hands and the little hands; and Gill and the children were all gainers, for a grown person forgets his knowledge unless he has somebody now and then to tell it to. Nothing can grow and flourish, if you shut it up from the light and air.
Thoughts as well as plants, need space for expansion, and should never be kept in a cramped and dark place. Gill told the children about the maritime pea, that grows wild upon the sea-shore, both in Europe and in the Northern part of the United States.
“It is like our cultivated vine in form,” he said, “but has large reddish or purplish flowers, in racemes or clusters. The seeds, as the peas are called, are bitter and disagreeable, but in times of scarcity have been used for food.”
“People eat almost any thing when they are hungry, starving hungry, I mean,” said Ben. “Do they not?”
“Yes, indeed, we don’t know what it is to lack bread. God has given us such a plenty in our country.”
“Do you like pea-soup, Gill?” asked Sally.