Home Again.
Time passed away, and Bobby Frog said to his mother one morning, “Mother, I’m going to England.”
It was a fine summer morning when he said this. His mother was sitting in a bower which had been constructed specially for her use by her son and his friend Tim Lumpy. It stood at the foot of the garden, from which could be had a magnificent view of the neighbouring lake. Rich foliage permitted the slanting sunbeams to quiver through the bower, and little birds, of a pert conceited nature, twittered among the same. Martha Mild—the very embodiment of meek, earnest simplicity, and still a mere child in face though almost a woman in years—sat on a wooden stool at Mrs Frog’s feet reading the Bible to her.
Martha loved the Bible and Mrs Frog; they were both fond of the bower; there was a spare half-hour before them;—hence the situation, as broken in upon by Bobby.
“To England, Bobby?”
“To England, mother.”
Martha said nothing, but she gave a slight—an almost imperceptible—start, and glanced at the sturdy youth with a mingled expression of anxiety and surprise.
The surprise Bob had expected; the anxiety he had hoped for; the start he had not foreseen, but now perceived and received as a glorious fact! Oh! Bobby Frog was a deep young rascal! His wild, hilarious, reckless spirit, which he found it so difficult to curb, even with all surroundings in his favour, experienced a great joy and sensation of restfulness in gazing at the pretty, soft, meek face of the little waif. He loved Martha, but, with all his recklessness, he had not the courage to tell her so, or to ask the condition of her feelings with regard to himself.
Being ingenious, however, and with much of the knowing nature of the “stray” still about him, he hit on this plan of killing two birds with one stone, as it were, by briefly announcing his intentions to his mother; and the result was more than he had hoped for.
“Yes, mother, to England—to London. You see, father’s last letter was not at all satisfactory. Although he said he was convalescent and hoped to be able to travel soon, it seemed rather dull in tone, and now several posts have passed without bringing us a letter of any kind from him. I am beginning to feel anxious, and so as I have saved a good bit of money I mean to have a trip to old England and bring Daddy out with me.”