“Hush! dear papa. Hush one moment!—I am almost sure I hear a willow-wren in the hedge; and those wagtails! I declare they are catching flies already; and look! there are the little tadpoles all gathering round that green mossy stone, how merry they are in the clear water! But here we are at Davies’s cottage, and there’s a thrush singing; and old Molly says the thrushes sing earlier in the copse behind their house than anywhere else. Do you think it’s true, papa?”
“I don’t know, my dear. But run in and settle it with Molly, while I step on to the overseer’s; and by the time you are ready to go home, I will call for you.”
Now, this was just what Mary liked. She went into the house by herself, and felt very important as she opened her basket and gave Jane directions about the needle-work to be done for her mamma, and then helped her to spread the cloth on Molly’s little deal table, that she might eat some of the jelly, to do her good directly, as Mary said.
Meantime, the flowers were laid out in due order by the two little girls; and as soon as Molly was at leisure, a hundred questions were asked at once, but as she declared she could only answer one by one, Mary was obliged to curb her impatience.
“Well, then,” she said, “do tell me why this pretty yellow flower is called pile-wort?”
“I have been told,” said Molly, “that wort means root or plant in general; as for the pile you know that is an old word for cross, and as you have brought a bit of the root, I can shew you why this is called pile-wort, or cross-root. Look, I will cut the root across, and you will see a number of black spots in the form of a cross, upon the white part. In former days this root was used in washes and salves, for healing many kinds of sores. This pretty little green leaf, whose flower is just budding, lying close by, is adder’s-tongue; and I still often boil it with sweet oil and wax to make salve for the wounds and cuts that mowers and reapers are apt to meet with in the course of their work.”
“And what do you do with the lady’s-smocks?” cried Mary. “I see such a store of dried ones hanging up there!”
“They are the remains of last year’s gathering, Miss. The powder made of them is given for agues. The bundles of roots hanging by them belong to your pasque-flower: they are good in powders and in drinks for obstinate coughs; and this pinkish wood-sorrel makes a sort of tea which is very good for colds. In short, you have not brought anything but the pretty primroses that I do not remember using or seeing used to cure some ailment or other.”
“What, Molly, even the violets?”
“Oh yes, Miss! The syrup of violets makes people sleep as well as the laudanum the doctors are so fond of now-a-days. But next month and the one after it are those of all the year that bring forth most of the plants of which the leaves and flowers are good for physic. August and September ripen such as have most virtue in the seeds and roots. If your mamma likes it, I shall be very glad to tell you all I know about these things, and Jane can shew you all the plants I use in the fields.”