"True enough," said Bessie; "perhaps I'm making my mother or dear Aunt Annie wait,—and they are so good! I'd better let the basket wait; take care of it, birdie!—and none of your trampling down my flowers, Mr. Toad!" And she climbed back again from bush to bush, and skipped along among the trunks of the great tall trees, and out by the brook through the meadow, hedge, garden,—up the steps, calling, "Mother, mother! Aunt Annie! who wants me?"
"I, dear," said her mother's voice; "I am going away for a long visit, and if you had not come at once, I couldn't have bidden my little girl good by." So Bessie's mother kissed her, and told her to obey her kind aunt, and then asked what she would like brought home for a present.
"O, bring yourself, dear mother; come home all well and bright," said Bessie, "and I won't ask any more." For Bessie's mother had long been sick, and was going now for her health.
Her mother smiled and kissed her. "Yes, I will bring that if I can, but there must be something else; how would you like a set of tools for this famous garden?"
Bessie's eyes shone with joy. "What! a whole set,—rake, and hoe, and trowel, such as the gardener uses?"
"Exactly, only they'll be small enough for your little hands; and there'll be a shovel besides, and a wheelbarrow, and a water-pot."
So Bessie did not cry when her mother went away, though she loved her as well as any one possibly could. She thought of all the bright things, of the pleasant journey and the better health; and then,—then of her pretty set of tools, and the handsome garden they would make!
It was too late to go back to the hill that evening; and on the morrow Bessie awoke to find it raining fast. She went into her Aunt Annie's room with such a mournful face. "O aunty, this old rain!"
"This new, fresh, beautiful rain, Bessie; what are you thinking about? How it will make our flowers grow! and what a good time we can have together in the house!"
"I know it, Aunt Annie, but you'll think me so careless!"