“The children loved us, and listened for our voices. Their bright, untired eyes could perceive us, as we swung from the blue-bells.”
Wherever Thekla went, her pets went too. The little maid in gray kirtle and scarlet jacket, with a yellow chicken on each shoulder, and the white lamb following close behind, rubbing its cold, soft nose against her hand, made so pretty a picture that it seemed sad it should ever grow old or in any way alter. But little girls cannot always be little, nor is it desirable they should; and, for the lamb, practical Thekla had no notion of keeping him for a useless plaything. Already she had begun to talk of the stockings Grandfather was to have out of the first shearing when lammie should become a sheep, and the comforter which she would knit for Max to tie about his throat on cold days. And, as if to please her, lammie made haste to be big.
As the days came one by one, long and beautiful, it seemed hard to let them go. “Oh, not yet!” the children cried each night to the sun as he dipped below the horizon; and each night he tarried longer and longer, as if in answer to their prayer. But in the end he always had to go. And so, too, the sweet Month finally said “Good-by;” and it was time for July to make her appearance.
The few sticks which boiled the porridge had blackened into ashes upon the hearth, and the children sat hand in hand in the open doorway. A breeze was stirring. Sweet smells came on its wings from the woods. It was the warmest evening yet, and the first upon which the fire had been suffered to go utterly out.
By and by they saw July coming. She had taken off her hat for coolness, and was fanning herself with the broad brim. It was made of the leaves of some foreign tree, and shaded her bright, sunburnt face like a green roof. Thekla privately thought that it must have been taken off a good many times before, or July wouldn’t be so brown.
“Well, I’m glad to get here,” she said, seating herself and flapping the hat to and fro: “it’s almost too warm for long walks. Not that I can afford to sit still in any case: I’m too active a person for that. But just here it is really quite comfortable. I supposed I should find you all burnt up, like the people outside there,” pointing to the wood; “so by way of a present I brought these,” and she produced two palm-leaf fans.
The children were delighted. They had never seen any before. “Are they really made of leaves?” they asked.
“To be sure,” said July. “How odd that you shouldn’t know! Why, over in America every man, woman, and child has one. They are plenty as blackberries,—babies cry for them. And, speaking of blackberries, here is a pocketful I picked as I came along. You can be eating them to keep yourselves from getting impatient; for I’m all out of breath, and can’t begin yet.” Saying which, she turned the pocket inside out on the door-step.
This was good fun. Blackberries grew too far off to be things of every day, and these were the first of the season. One after another, the shining black beads disappeared down the little throats. By the time the last had vanished, July was rested, and ready to commence.