"Carry them in your apron. They won't hurt;" and as she held it up, he heaped it full of moist green bunches.
"That's just like you, Frank Hillborn," said Dave, when the girl had gone. "What's the good of our owning the only water-cress brook for miles if you're going to give 'em away to everybody that comes along?"
"Everybody that comes along?" repeated Frank, with a cheery laugh. "I've only given a basketful to Ezra Lee—he lent us his fishing-line when we lost ours—and an apronful to Cissy Mount. Poor Cissy! Guess there's hard times at her house since her father was killed on the railroad and her mother got lame. And you know she's going to ask for work, and it most always puts folks in good-humor if you carry 'em something nice."
"All right," said Dave; "but don't you give away any more, for we want to make five dollars out of 'em this season, anyhow."
Cissy Mount walked bravely on mile after mile, until half of her journey had been accomplished. Then she stopped and looked around for a place where she might rest awhile. A pleasant little lane, on either side of which stood a row of tall cedar-trees, branched off from the main road. Into this lane she turned, and sat down on the grass near the side gate of a fine garden. And as she sat there peeping through a hole in the hedge at some lovely beds of hyacinths and tulips, radiant in the sunshine, a queer-looking little old gentleman, with no hat on, but having a wonderful quantity of brown hair, came scolding down the garden path, followed by a man carrying a camp-chair. The old gentleman as he talked grew more and more excited, and at last, to Cissy's great astonishment, grasped the abundant brown locks, lifted them completely off his head, waved them in the air an instant, and then gravely replaced them. As he came near, the child could hear what he was saying: "I sent word from Europe when this place was bought that if there were no water-cress stream upon it, one was to be made at once. That's a year ago."
"Beg pardon, sir," said the man, humbly, "but I did my best, sir. It isn't my fault, sir. Sometimes you can't make water-cresses grow, all you can do, sir."
"And what's to be done with the puddle—for it's nothing but a puddle, though a big one—that you've disfigured my grounds with?" asked the old gentleman.
"Miss Grace says it will be a capital place for raising water-lilies, sir," said the man.
"Oh, indeed! Very fine. But I can't eat water-lilies. There's no pepper about them, and it's the pepper I want."
"Perhaps I can find some cresses for sale somewhere near, sir. Shall I go and look, sir?"