MAYING.
Phil says he thinks it is a great pity when the May isn’t out till June, because you can’t go Maying if there isn’t any May, and it’s so stupid to go Maying in June. Phil is eleven months and fourteen days younger than I am, and his birthday is on the fourteenth of February and mine is on the first of March; so for fourteen days we are the same age, and when it’s Leap Year we are the same age for fifteen days.
I don’t understand why it should be a day more some years and not others, but mother says we shall learn about it by-and-by. Phil says he will like learning all that, but I don’t think I shall, because I like playing better.
Phil and I have a little dog of our own, and he belongs between us. His name is Dash. He came from the Home for Lost Dogs, and we didn’t know his name, so Phil and I sat on the grass, and we called him by every name we could think of, until Phil thought of Dash, and when Dash heard that name he jumped up, and ran to Phil, and licked his face. We don’t know what kind of dog he is, and father called him a ‘terrier spaniel;’ but he laughed as he said it, and so we’re not quite sure that he wasn’t in fun. But it doesn’t matter what kind of dog Dash is, because we are all fond of him, and if you’re fond of any one if doesn’t matter what they’re like, or if they have a pretty name.
Dash goes out with us when we take a walk, and I’m sure he knew yesterday when we went out without leave, because we wanted to go Maying. There’s a beautiful hedge full of May blossoms down the lane and across the meadow, and we did want some May very badly. So Phil and I went without asking mother, and Dash went with us.
We found the place quite easily, and had pulled down several boughs of it, when we heard a gruff voice calling to us, and the farmer came up, asking what we were doing to his hedge.
I said, “Please, we didn’t know it was yours, and we want some May very much, because to-morrow’s the first of June, you know, and Phil says we can’t go Maying then.”
The farmer didn’t say any thing until he caught sight of Dash, and then he called out, angrily,—“If that dog gets among my chickens, I shall have him shot!”
We were so frightened at that, that we ran away; and Dash ran too, as if he understood what the farmer said. We didn’t stop for any May blossoms though we had picked them, and we did want them so, because of its being the thirty-first of May.