“Why, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “can they carry over a carriage and two horses in a boat?”
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “a stage-coach and six horses, if necessary. They have large, flat-bottomed boats for the carriages and carts, and small, narrow boats for men, when they want to go alone.”
While this conversation had been going on, Miss Anne and Lucy had walked along to some distance beyond the bridge. They took a road which led to an old, deserted farm-house, and some other buildings around it, all in a state of ruin and decay. The man who owned it had built himself a new house, when he found that this was getting too old to be comfortable to live in. The new house was upon another part of his farm, and it was another road which led to it; so that these old buildings had been left in a very secluded and solitary position. Miss Anne liked very much to come to this place, when she came out to make sketches, for she said that in all the views of the buildings, on every side, there were a great many beautiful drawing lessons.
The roof of the house in one place had tumbled in, and the shed had blown down altogether. There was one barn, however, that was pretty good; and, in fact, the farmer used it to store his surplus hay in it.
Lucy sat down, with Miss Anne, under the shade of some trees, at a little distance from the buildings, and they began to take out their drawing materials.
“Now, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “what shall I draw?”
“I think that the well will be the best lesson for you.”
There was an old well at a little distance from the house, upon the green, with a group of venerable old lilac bushes near it. The water had been raised by a well-sweep, but the sweep itself had long since gone to decay, though the tall post with a fork at the top, which had supported the sweep, was still standing.
So Miss Anne recommended that Lucy should attempt to draw the well.
“But, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “I want to draw the same thing that you do.”