Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal

by Mary Lowell Putnam

"Shall I put it into the box?"

Harry received the little object respectfully, and deposited it in the tin case with care. He then relieved Dr. Borrow's shoulders of the knapsack and took it on his own, having first withdrawn the umbrella and placed it in the hands of the owner, who watched its extrication with interest, and received it in a way which showed it to be an object of attachment. The Doctor gathered up some inferior spoil which lay in a circle round the place where he had been at work. Harry found room for all in the box. He had entered so fully into his companion's success, that I thought he might after all be a botanist himself; but he told me, as we walked towards the house, that he knew nothing of plants except what he had learned in journeying with Dr. Borrow.

"But I know what it is to want to complete your collection," he added, laughing. "We have been all the morning looking for this particular kind of grass. Dr. Borrow thought it must grow somewhere in this neighborhood, and here it is at last. The Doctor has a great collection of grasses."

"The largest, I think I may say, on this continent,—one of the largest, perhaps, that exists," said the Doctor, with the candor of a man who feels called upon to render himself justice, since there is no one else qualified to do it. And then he entered upon grasses; setting forth the great part filled by this powerful family, in the history of our earth, and vindicating triumphantly his regard for its humblest member.

When we came within sight of the house, Harry walked rapidly on. By the time the Doctor and I rejoined him at the door, he had disencumbered himself of the knapsack, had taken his flowers from their hiding-place, and stood ready to follow us in.

I introduced Dr. Borrow to my mother in form, and was about to do the same by Harry, who had stood back modestly until his friend had been presented; but he was now already taking her extended hand, bowing over it with that air of filial deference which we hear that high-bred Frenchmen have in their manner to elder women. I wondered that I had before thought him so young; his finished courtesy was that of a man versed in society. But the next moment he was offering her his wild-flowers with the smile with which an infant brings its little fistful of dandelions to its mother, delighting in the pleasure it has been preparing for her. His name had made more impression on my mother than on me. She called him by it at once. This redeemed all my omissions, if, indeed, he had remarked them, and I believe he had not.

The Doctor, in the mean while, had lifted his spectacles to the top of his head. You have not seen a man until you have looked into his eyes. Dr. Borrow's, of a clear blue, made another being of him. His only speaking feature, they speak intelligence and good-will. I felt that I should like him, and I do. He did not, however, find himself so immediately at home with us as Harry did. He took the chair I offered him, but sat silent and abstracted, answering absently, by an inclination of the head, my modest attempts at conversation. Harry, interpreting his mood, brought him the green tin case. He took it a little hastily, and looked about him, as if inquiring for a place where he could give himself to the inspection of its contents. I offered to conduct him to his room. Harry went out promptly and brought in the well-stuffed russet knapsack,—took the respectable umbrella from the corner where it was leaning, and followed us up-stairs,—placed his load inside the chamber-door, and ran down again. I introduced the Doctor to the chair and table in my little study, where he installed himself contentedly.

When I came down, I found Harry standing by my mother. He was putting the flowers into water for her,—consulting her, as he arranged them, now by a look, now by a question. She answered the bright smile with which he took leave of her, when his work was done, by one tender, almost tearful. I knew to whom that smile was given. I knew that beside her then stood the vision of a little boy, fair-haired, dark-eyed, like Harry, and full of such lovely promise as Harry's happy mother could see fulfilled in him. But the sadness flitted lightly, and a soft radiance overspread the dear pale face.

The name of our little Charles had been in my mind too, and my thoughts followed hers backward to that sweet infancy, and forward to that unblemished maturity, attained in purer spheres, of which Harry's noble and tender beauty had brought us a suggestion.