“Father is going to take some chickens to town, to-morrow, and there will be a good deal of spare room in the wagon. That’s half. He passes right by the house where a good city missionary lives. That’s the other half. And the whole is, that if two little people I know would pick up all those early apples that the wind blew down last night, in the orchard, and make some nice big bunches of daisies and clover, with a sweet-william or a marigold in the middle of each, father would leave them at Mr. Thorpe’s door, to be given round to the poor people.”
Tiny and Johnny went nearly as wild over this announcement as they had gone over the news that they were to spend the summer in the inner circle—and then they went to work. By great good fortune, two of the grand-children came that very day, and asked nothing better than to help; and when, the next morning, at the appointed hour, which was five o’clock, these four conspirators brought out their treasures, there was a barrel of apples, and another barrel of bouquets.
Uncle Isaac laughed, and said he had no idea what a “fix” he was getting himself into, when he let Mercy make that speech, but he took the fruit and flowers, all the same. And after that, it was really surprising to see the number of things which, it was found, “might as well go to those poor little ones as to the pigs.”
Wild raspberries, dewberries, blackberries, whortleberries, were all to be had for the picking; Johnny was told that it was only fair for him to keep one egg out of every dozen for which he had hunted, and these eggs, which he at first refused to take, and afterward, when he found that Aunt Mercy was “tried” about it, accepted, were very carefully packed, and plainly labelled, “For the sickest children.” Then a very brilliant idea occurred to Tiny.
“Do the pigs have to eat all that bonny-clabber, Aunt Mercy?” she asked, one morning, as David, the “hired man,” picked up two buckets full of the nice white curds, and started for the pig-pen.
“Why no, deary,” Aunt Mercy replied, “I was saying to father, only yesterday, that I was afraid we were over-feeding them, but we don’t know what else to do with it. Had thee thought of anything, dear?”
