Jane Lends A Hand

by Shirley Watkins

“Your father,” said Mrs. Lambert complacently, “was a great catch. He was older than the rest of us, and so dignified. At that time, I remember, he wore a big moustache—and such a lovely brown. I was quite afraid of him, and I was sure that he thought me a very frivolous girl, as I certainly was. But—he didn’t seem to mind. And that night, there was a lovely big moon, and the hay had just been cut—and he took me home.”

That seemed to be the end of the story; Mrs. Lambert stopped, and a thoroughly sentimental smile spread over her youthful face. Lisa sighed. She was, if possible, even more sentimental than her mother, and in the hours that her flaxen head was bent over her incessant handiwork, it was filled with imaginings of romantic scenes, and dashing young gentlemen like Walter Scott’s heroes. She liked the portion of her mother’s artlessly told romance that touched on the moon and the new-mown hay, but for herself she would have preferred a smooth-shaven hero to one with the dragoon’s moustache that her mother so greatly admired.

“Now, Carl, you drive along this road to the left,” said Mrs. Lambert. “It’s all changed very little. I remember that rock, perfectly! And we can lead Dinah off from the road and hitch her to a tree. And here we all get out.”

So out they got, and Carl tied Dinah to a tree, while his sisters took the impedimenta out of the wagon. Mrs. Lambert holding a twin with each hand, lead the way along a shady path that skirted the bank of a meandering stream. The shadow of a grove of trees lay over the long grass; on each side of the stream stretched meadows colored with patches of golden-rod, and red pepper-grass; in the apple-trees the fruit was already bright red among the green leaves; the sun was warm, and the wind caressing.

“This is the very place—these are the very trees,” said Mrs. Lambert. “And now we shall all have lunch,”—this in a brisk, practical voice, for notwithstanding her romantic memories, Mrs. Lambert was hungry.

Elise spread a white cloth out on the grass, weighting it at the corners with three large stones and “The Vicar of Wakefield.” Carl went to put the bottles of loganberry juice in the stream to cool, and the others unloaded the hamper. Then they all sat down to eat. And when they had eaten all they wanted—that is, until there was nothing left to want—Aunt Gertrude took a book, pretending that she was going to read, and went to sleep, Elise took her sewing—pretending that she was going to be industrious, when she was really going to sit and dream—the twins, took off their shoes and stockings, and made for the shallow stream like a pair of ducks; Carl, who had recently acquired some enthusiasm for natural history, began to look around for specimens of the local flora and fauna—in the shape of mulberry leaves, and spiders, and Jane rambled off to see what she could see.

With her hands clasped behind her, she wandered through the trees, sometimes stopping to smell the ferns that grew in the moist rocks. At length she reached the edge of the little wood, where the stream, as if it had been playing a game with her, chuckled pleasantly at having appeared where she had not expected to find it. Again, on the opposite bank was the meadow, where now a few brown cows were to be seen in the distance, placidly munching the grass.

But it was not the cows that interested Jane at that moment; her curiosity was piqued immediately by a certain peculiar figure under an oak-tree on the far side of the stream.

This figure was seated on a little camp stool, beneath a green umbrella—as if the oak tree did not come up to the mark in furnishing the amount of shade required.

“What can he be doing?” wondered Jane. The odd character had his back to her so that she could not make out exactly what his occupation was, and therefore left her no alternative but that of picking her way across the stream on the stones, and ascertaining his business for herself.