JESSIE GRAHAM:
OR,
FRIENDS DEAR, BUT TRUTH DEARER.
CHAPTER I.
SPRING—MRS. GRAHAM.
Spring is here. The sun is shining brightly, and the air is warm, and the breeze is scented with the blossoms of the apple and the pear. The trees whose branches have been bare all winter, except when the snow wrapped them in a white mantle, have now put on a dress of the lightest and liveliest green. The gardens, too, are beginning to look gayly. There is in my garden one bed which is especially bright. This is Harriet's. Here she digs and plants and manages all in her own way, and here, at this season, she and her little friends may be often seen with heads bent down to the ground, searching for the first appearance of a crocus or a hyacinth. If one is seen, a joyful clapping of hands and a general call for Aunt Kitty announces the discovery.
Doubtless all my little readers have noticed the changes which this season brings. How pleasant is the first walk which you can take without cloaks or shawls! And the first violet or buttercup which is found,—we never think any other half so pretty. And the brooks which have been frozen up all winter, now prattle away over the stones, as noisily as little girls who have just got out from a schoolroom where they have been obliged to be very still for two or three hours. And the little birds which have spent their winter in a southern climate, sing as merrily as if they were glad to get back again to their old homes, or as if, as Jessie Graham says her grandmother told her, they were thanking God for giving them such pleasant weather. I wish all little girls would remember this, and imitate the birds,—thanking their Heavenly Father for his goodness to them, not only in words when they kneel down to say their prayers, but in bright looks and cheerful tones through the whole day.
Jessie Graham is a very clever little girl, and very like a bird herself as she goes singing and jumping about when she is out of doors, though at home she is the most quiet, orderly, housewifely little thing you can imagine. Her grandmother, of whom I have just spoken, is a Scotchwoman. She is a widow, her husband having died soon after they came to this country, and when her only child, Jessie's father, was still a little boy. Mrs. Graham seemed to have nothing to live on but what she could make by her own spinning and knitting, her gardening and poultry yard. Yet she never asked alms, or even received them when offered, saying to those who would have given them, "I am thankful to God for showing me that when the time of need comes I shall have such kind friends, but still more thankful to Him that it has not come yet." Her garden was small, but in it were often the earliest and best vegetables that were to be seen for miles around. Some of these she would send by little Donald to the market of a neighboring town. Donald too had his bed of flowers, from which he was sometimes able to sell slips of roses or a few choice bulbous roots. Seeds and slips and roots to plant were given him by my brother's gardener, who had employed the lad, and had, as he said, "taken a liking" to him, because he had found him honest, industrious, and intelligent. With his instructions, Donald became a capital gardener, and when he afterwards removed to the city, was employed by my brother in his place. With the wages which he thus received, Donald was able to add to his garden, till with some work from himself and constant watchfulness from his mother, it became quite profitable. He enlarged their cottage, too, so that when he brought home a wife there was room enough for her without taking any thing from his mother's comfort. His wife was a good-tempered and kind-hearted young woman whom he had known from a boy. They have six children, of whom Jessie is the eldest. She is named after her grandmother; and as she is almost always at her side, has learned many useful things from her besides imitating the birds in keeping a thankful and a cheerful heart. She is constantly busy,—sometimes helping her grandmother in her housekeeping, or counting her eggs, or feeding her chickens for her,—sometimes sewing beside her mother, or taking care of her young brothers and sisters,—sometimes—and I think this is what Jessie likes best—running after her father, and by his direction weeding a bed or tying up a branch, picking the strawberries or making up into bouquets the flowers which he is to take to market. She has the family taste for gardening, and has already learned from her father a great deal more about plants than their names. Harriet goes to her always for instruction about the management of her flowers, and if a friend sends me a rare plant, is never quite satisfied till Jessie has approved the soil in which it is placed. It is from Jessie that I learn, in the spring, where the most beautiful wild-flowers are to be found.
A stroll in the woods after these wild-flowers is one of the greatest treats I can offer to my young favorites; and when, about a year ago, I sent to several of them to come to my house on a fine, bright morning, prepared for one of these rambles, with thick shoes which would keep their feet dry if we went into low or damp places, and little baskets in which to put their flowers, I was very sure there was not one who would disappoint me. They all came, and Jessie the earliest and the gayest among them. She had brought her father's trowel to take up the roots, and away we all went,—the little ones talking as fast and laughing as loud as they could, and Aunt Kitty listening, as much pleased as any of them. Away we went,—not by the road, but through the woods,—now moving swiftly and pleasantly along under the high trees, with the sunlight falling only here and there in patches on our path,—then suddenly hedged up by the tangled brushwood, and obliged to climb or jump over, or to creep through, as some of the smallest of the party managed to do,—the children now filling their baskets with buttercups, then throwing them all away because they had found a piece of ground covered with violets. At last, when the baskets were filled with the roots of violets and wood-geraniums, and each one had gathered branches of the wild-rose and clusters of the rich and graceful columbine, Aunt Kitty remembering that they had yet to walk home, gave the signal to return, and half unwillingly it was obeyed. After leaving the wood, we followed a road which enabled me to leave my young companions at their different homes before I went on to mine. Mr. Graham's was the last house on our way, and there Harriet and Mary Mackay and I stopped with Jessie, as I saw her father was at home and wanted to speak to him about some seeds. Old Mrs. Graham was seated in the low, shaded porch, knitting, and there I left the children showing her their treasures, while I stepped into the garden where Mr. Graham was at work. Having finished my talk with him I went into the house again. The children were still in the porch; and as I entered the parlor that opened on it, I heard Mary Mackay's earnest tone wishing that she could walk in the woods and pick flowers every day.