The Little Fig-tree Stories

by Mary Hallock Foote

Those up-lying fields were rather far away for daily rambles. Jack knew them less and so cared less for them than for the home acres, which were as familiar to him as the rooms of grandfather’s house.

But when grandfather’s children were children, the spring lambs wintered at the upper barn; and beauteous creatures they were by the following spring, with broad foreheads and curly forelocks and clear hazel eyes and small mouths just made for nibbling from the hand. Often, of a keen April morning, when the thawed places in the lane were covered with clinking ice, the children used to trudge at their father’s side to see the lambs get their breakfast of turnips, chopped in the dark cold hay-scented barn, while the hungry creatures bleated outside and crowded against the door.

Half the poetry of the farm life went into the care of the sheep and the anxieties connected with them. They were a flock of Cotswolds, carefully bred from imported stock. Their heavy fleeces made them the most helpless of creatures when driven hard or worried by the dogs, and every neighbor’s dog was a possible enemy.

On moonlight nights in spring, when watch-dogs are restless, and vagabond dogs are keen for mischief, the spirit of the chase would get abroad. The bad characters would lead on the dogs of uncertain principles, and now and then one of unspotted reputation, and the evil work would begin. When the household was asleep, a knock would be heard upon the window, and the voice of one hoarse with running would give the alarm:—

“The dogs are after the sheep!”

The big brother would get down his shot-gun, and the father would hunt for the ointments, the lantern, and the shears (for cutting the wool away from bleeding wounds), and together they hurried away—the avenger and the healer. Next day, more than one of the neighbors’ children came weeping, to identify a missing favorite. Sometimes the innocent suffered for being found in company with the guilty. There were hard feelings on both sides. Even the owners of dogs caught with the marks of guilt upon them disputed the justice of a life for a life.

There is one more gate, and then we come to the last one—the gate of the burying-ground.

A path went over the hill which divided grandfather’s house from that of his elder brother, whose descendants continued to live there after him. Uncle Edward’s children were somewhat older, and his grandchildren were younger than grandfather’s children; but though slightly mismatched as to ages the two households were in great accord. The path crossed the “line fence” by a little gate in the stone wall, and this was the gate of family visiting.

That way the mothers went of an afternoon with their sewing, or the last new magazine, or the last new baby; or in the morning to borrow a cupful of yeast, or to return the last loan of a bowlful of rice, or to gather ground-ivy (it grew in Uncle Edward’s yard, but not in grandfather’s) to make syrup for an old cough. That way came the groups, of a winter evening, in shawls and hoods, creaking over the snow with lantern-light and laughter to a reading circle, or to one of those family reunions which took place whenever some relative from a distance was visiting in the neighborhood. Along that path went those dear women in haste, to offer their help in sudden, sharp emergencies; and with slower steps again when all was over, they went to sit with those in grief, or to consult about the last services for the dead.

That was the way the young people took on their walks in summer—the stalwart country boys and their pretty city cousins in fresh muslins, with light, high voices, pitched to the roar of the street. That way went the nutting parties in the fall and the skating parties in winter. All the boys and girls of both houses grew up opening and shutting that gate on one errand or another, from the little white-headed lad with the mail, to the soldier cousin coming across to say good-by.