"He couldn't have said it! for he said I might have the chaise this afternoon, and that Loupe wanted exercise. So, I am going to give him some. He wouldn't get it with you."
"Ransom," said Daisy trembling, "I have got business at Crum
Elbow, and I must go, and you must not."
"Fiddlesticks!" said Ransom, snapping his fingers at her. "Business! I guess you have. Girls have a great deal of business! Here, Sam ride round mighty quick to Mr. Rush's, and tell Hamilton to meet me at the cross road."
And without another word to Daisy, Ransom sprang into the chaise, cracked his whip over Loupe's head and started him off in a very ungraceful but very eager waddling gallop. Daisy was left with one glove on and with a spirit thoroughly disordered. A passionate child she was not, in outward manner at least; but her feelings once roused were by no means easy to bring down again. She was exceedingly offended, very much disturbed at missing her errand, very sore at Ransom's ill- bred treatment of her. Nobody was near; her father and mother both gone out; and Daisy sat upon the porch with all sorts of resentful thoughts and words boiling up in her mind. She did not believe half of what her brother had said; was sure her father had given no order interfering with her proceedings; and she determined to wait upon the porch till he came home, and so she would have a good opportunity of letting him know the right and the wrong of the case. Ransom deserved it, as she truly said to herself. And then Daisy sorrowed over her lost expedition, and her missing strawberry baskets. What should she do? for the next morning would find work enough of its own at home, and nobody else could choose the baskets to please her. Ransom deserved
In the midst of the angry thoughts that were breaking one over the other in Daisy's mind, there suddenly came up the remembrance of some words she had read that day or the day before. "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." This brought Daisy up short; her head which had been leaning on her hands suddenly straightened itself up. What did those words mean? There could be no doubt, for with the question came the words in the Lord's Prayer which she knew well, but had never felt till then. Forgive Ransom out and out? say nothing about it? not tell her father, nor make her grievance at all known to Ransom's discomfiture? Daisy did not want to yield. He deserved to be reproved and ashamed and made to do better. It was the first time that a real conflict had come up in her mind between wrong and right; and now that she clearly saw what was right, to her surprise she did not want to do it! Daisy saw both facts. There was a power in her heart that said, "No, I will not forgive," to the command from a greater power that bade her do it. Poor Daisy! it was her first view of her enemy; the first trial that gave her any notion of the fighting that might be necessary to overcome him. Daisy found she could not overcome him. She was fain to go, where she had just begun to learn she might go, "to the Strong for strength." She ran away from the porch to her room, and kneeled down and prayed that the King would give her help to keep His commandments. She was ashamed of herself now; but so obstinate was her feeling of displeasure against her brother, that even after she thought she had forgiven him, Daisy would not go downstairs again nor meet him nor her father, for fear she should speak words that she ought not, or fail of a perfectly gentle and kind manner.
But what to do about her baskets? A bright and most business- like thought suddenly came into her head. The breakfast-hour was always late; by being a little earlier than usual she could have plenty of time to go to Crum Elbow and return before the family were assembled. Splendid! Daisy went down the back stairs, and gave her orders in such a way that they should not reach Ransom's ear. If not put on the alert he was sure to be down to breakfast last of anybody. So Daisy went to bed and to sleep with her mind at rest.
It was so pleasant when she came out at half past six the next morning, that Daisy almost thought it was the prettiest time of all.
The morning air smelt so fresh, with the scent of the trees and flowers coming through the dew; and the light, was so cool and clear, not like the hot glow of later hours, that Daisy felt like dancing for very gladness. Then it was such a stroke of business to go to Crum Elbow before breakfast!
The pony and the chaise came up presently, and Sam and the black pony, all right, and every one of them looking more brisk and fresh than usual. And off they went; under the boughs of the dew-bright trees, where the birds seemed to be as glad as Daisy, to judge by the songs they were singing; and by and by out from the beautiful grounds of Melbourne, into the road. It was pleasanter there, Daisy thought, than she had ever seen it. The fields looked more gay in that clear early light, and the dust was kept down by the freshness in the air. It was delightful; and Loupe never went better. Daisy was a very good little driver, and now the pony seemed to understand the feeling in her fingers and waddled along at a goodly rate.
Crum Elbow was not a great many miles off, and in due time they reached it. But Daisy found that other people kept earlier hours than her father and mother at Melbourne. She saw the farmers were getting to work as she went on; and in the houses of the village there were signs that everybody was fully astir to the business of the day. It was a scattering village; the houses and the churches stood and called to each other across great spaces of fields and fences between; but just where the crossing of two roads made a business point, there was a little more compactness. There was the baker's, and the post-office, and two stores and various other houses, and a blacksmith's shop. Up to the corner where the principal store stood, came the pony and his mistress, and forthwith out came Mr. Lamb the storekeeper, to see what the little pony chaise wanted to take home; but Daisy must see for herself, and she got out and went into the store.