Then she laughed outright. "When I grow up, I will make songs, too," she said, as she stooped to pick the meadow-sweet. "I will make the words, and Rosin shall make the music; and we will go through the village singing, till everybody comes out of the houses to listen:—
Meadow-sweet is a treat;
Columbine's a fairy;
Mallow's fine, sweet as wine,—
What rhymes with fairy, I wonder. Dairy; but that won't come right.
Airy, hairy,—yes, now I have it!—
Mallow's fine, sweet as wine,
To feed my pet canary.
I'll sing that to Neddy," said Melody, laughing to herself as she went along. "I can sing it to the tune of 'Lightly Row.' Dear little boy!" she added, after a silence. "Think, if he had been blind, how dreadful it would have been! Of course it doesn't matter when you have never seen at all, because you know how to get on all right; but to have it, and then lose it—oh dear! but then,"—and her face brightened again,—"he isn't going to be blind, you see, so what's the use of worrying about it?
The worry cow
Might have lived till now,
If she'd only saved her breath.
She thought the hay
Wouldn't last all day,
So she choked herself to death."
Presently the child stopped again, and listened. The sound of wheels was faintly audible. No one else could have heard it but Melody, whose ears were like those of a fox. "Whose wagon squeaks like that?" she said, as she listened. "The horse interferes, too. Oh, of course; it's Eben Loomis. He'll pick me up and give me a ride, and then it won't take so long." She walked along, turning back every now and then, as the sound of wheels came nearer and nearer. At last, "Good-morning, Eben!" she cried, smiling as the wagon drove up; "will you take me on a piece, please?"
"Wal, I might, perhaps," admitted the driver, cautiously, "if I was sure you was all right, Mel'dy. How d'you know't was me comin', I'd like to know? I never said a word, nor so much as whistled, since I come in sight of ye." The man, a wiry, yellow-haired Yankee, bent down as he spoke, and taking the child's hand, swung her lightly up to the seat beside him.
Melody laughed joyously. "I should know your wagon if I heard it in Russia, Eben," she said. "Besides, poor old Jerry knocks his hind feet together so, I heard him clicking along even before I heard the wagon squeak. How's Mandy, Eben?"
"Mandy, she ain't very well," replied the countryman. "She's ben havin' them weakly spells right along lately. Seems though she was failin' up sometimes, but I dono."