The Pleasures of the Country: Simple Stories for Young People

by Harriet Myrtle

All this time the rain poured down, and the thunder rolled; but it became more distant, and gradually the storm ceased. At the first gleam of sunshine the children began to think of going home, for they knew their mama must be uneasy about them; but they felt as if it was cruel to leave the old woman all alone, though they could do her no good. Meanwhile she tried to make them understand which way they ought to go; but it seemed difficult to make it out.

While they stood waiting and hesitating what to do, footsteps were heard outside, and Mary Jones's daughter and grandson came in, wet through, for they had walked home through the pelting rain.

"Ah! here's little Davy now, can take you the right way," said Mary.

They could not bear to take him out, but he made nothing of it; he said he should soon be home again; so they set off with true feelings of gratitude to these kind people, and glad to see that Mary Jones would soon have some tea and be attended to; for her daughter began to prepare things directly.

They were surprised to find how short a distance it was to get home, now they knew the way. They were soon there; but they found that their mama had been very uneasy about them, and she told them they must not wander so far away any more. They had begged of Davy to wait for a little while; and when they told their mama all about poor Mary Jones, and how kindly Davy had led them home in his wet clothes, she ordered him a good hot supper, and gave him a nice thick warm jacket to put on instead of his wet one; and she put up in a basket a piece of meat and bread, and some tea and sugar, to take to his grandmother.

Still, though all this was a great pleasure to Walter and Lucy, they thought very much about poor old Mary. When little Lucy lay down in her warm bed she sighed, and looked very sad, and when her mama came to give her a kiss, the last thing before she went to sleep, she said, "I wish poor Mary Jones's cottage was warm and dry." Walter dreamed that the lake overflowed, and the water came into the cottage; but just as it grew so deep that it would have drowned the old woman in her bed he started up and awoke. Next morning they could not help thinking of her when it was time for her daughter and Davy to go out to work and leave her, and they determined to ask their mama to let them go and see her when they had done their lessons.

When they went with this request to their mama she told them that their papa had already gone to Mary Jones's cottage, and that she would take them to meet him on his return. They soon saw him coming over the hill when they went out, and ran to meet him; and he told them he had proposed to let Mary have one of his cottages that was now empty, rent-free for the first year; and that she had gratefully accepted this offer. Her daughter, Peggy Davids, Davy's mother, was a good worker in the fields, he said, and Davy had got a place at one of the farmers near, that he was to go to next week; so he expected they would be able to live very comfortably, if they were placed in a cottage that was fit for people to live in, instead of their wretched damp one with only one dark room, and not a morsel of garden.

The children were quite delighted to hear all this; and Mrs. Lewis said she knew old Mary Jones used to make something herself, by knitting the soft Welsh wool into socks and stockings; she remembered buying some of her. Mr. Lewis said she had told him so, and that, if she could get the use of her hands again, she could get her work back.

They went to see the cottage. It was a nice little place, standing high and dry on a hill side, with its garden in front, and white and clean inside and out. Mary Jones, Peggy Davids, and Davy were established in it before a week was over. Mrs. Lewis gave them several little things to help them to furnish it; and, as Davy's wages soon began to come in, and his mother had constant work, they bought more things, and it looked as bright and comfortable as the old place had looked dismal.

But the greatest change was in Mary Jones herself. She had not been three days in her new abode when she declared the pain had all gone out of her joints, and that she was able to sleep instead of lying awake all night. In a week she could turn on her side and use her hands; and a few days afterwards Walter and Lucy went to see her, and found her sitting by the fire knitting.