It was as he had feared: their grief was distressing to see, all the more so when they found who had done this injury to them. Their father had wished to keep this secret, but they begged so to go and see the gardens, that he thought it best to take them and let them know the worst at once; and they were so astonished when they saw the utter desolation of their own beds, and the difference between them and those which lay around, and asked so many questions, that he was obliged to tell them.
The two brothers, with Hafed and Bob, were already on the spot, spades and rakes in hand, to see what could be done; but, alas! there was little or nothing.
It was indeed sad to see the ruin of what had, but yesterday, looked so neat and pretty. The tiny fences were pulled up, and scattered far and wide; lady-slippers, mignonette, verbenas, and all the other simple flowers which had flourished so well, and given such pride and delight to the little gardeners, were rooted up and trampled into the earth; and, worse than all, the beloved heliotrope and geranium were torn leaf from leaf and sprig from sprig, while their main stems had been twisted and bent, till no hope remained that even these could be revived.
The boys' gardens had suffered some, but not so much as those of the little girls; whether it was that Dolly fancied Maggie and Bessie had been the most to blame for Lem's imprisonment, and so chose first to revenge herself on them; whether it was that their gardens lay nearer to her hand and she had been interrupted in her wicked work before she had quite destroyed the boys',—could not be known.
The grief of the children was pitiful to see. Bessie's could not find words, but she clung about her father's neck, and sobbed so violently that he feared she would be ill, and carried her back to the house to see if mamma could not comfort her. Maggie's was not less violent, but it was more outspoken, and she said and thought many angry things of Lem and Dolly, as she gathered up the bruised leaves and stalks of her own geranium and Bessie's heliotrope. The boys were quite ready to join her in all, and more than all, that she said.
"What are you going to do with that, pet?" asked Uncle Ruthven, coming down to see the ruin, and finding Maggie sitting on an upturned flower-pot, her hot tears still falling on the remains of the two favorite plants.
"Oh! Uncle Ruthven!" sobbed poor Maggie, "I could not bear to see them lying there in the mud and dirt. It seems to me 'most as if they were something live, and we were so fond of them. I don't think I can bear it. And, oh! I am so sorry we asked Mr. Porter to let Lem out, just so he could do this,—the bad, wicked boy!"
"I do not think it was Lem's doing, dear," said Mr. Stanton; and then he told Maggie how John Porter had taken Lem home last night just before the storm began, and that it was scarcely possible that the boy could have made his way back in the darkness and worked all this mischief.