Several other little boys and girls were to come to our house and go with us. We had long been in the habit of going to the meadows to fish and play, where we had the merriest and happiest of times. Sometimes, though the meadows were only half a mile from us, we took a slice or two of bread-and-butter in a little basket, to serve for dinner, so that we could stay all day; for the meadows and ditches extended several miles below the city, and we wandered and played all the way down to the Point House. On these trips we caught sun-fish, roach, cat-fish, and sometimes perch, and always brought them home. We generally got prodigiously hungry from the exercise we took, and sat down on the thick grass under a tree to eat our scanty dinners. These dinner-times came very early in the day; and long before it was time to go home in the afternoon, we became even more hungry than we had been in the morning,—but our baskets had been emptied.
I think these young days, with these innocent sports and recreations, were among the happiest of my life. I do not think the fish we caught were of much account, though father was always glad to see them; and I remember how he took each one of our baskets, as we came into the kitchen, looked into it, and turned over and counted the fishes it contained. My brother Fred generally had the most, and I had the fewest: but it seems that even for other things than fishes I never had a taking way about me. Father was very fond of them, for mother had a way of frying their little thin bodies into a nice brown crisp, which made us all a good breakfast. So father had made us lines, with corks and hooks, tied them to nice little poles, and showed us how to use them and keep them in order, and had a corner in the shed in which he taught us to set them up out of harm's way. Occasionally he even went with us to the meadows himself.
But while I am speaking of these dear times, I must say that we always came home happy, though tired and dirty. Sometimes we got into great mud-holes along the ditch-bank, so deep as to leave a shoe sticking fast, compelling us to trudge home with only one. Then, when we found a place where the fish bit sharply, all of us rushed to the spot, and pushed into the wild rose-bushes that grew in clumps upon the bank: for I generally noticed, that, where the bushes overhung the water and made a little shade, the fish were most abundant. In the scramble to secure a good foothold, the briers tore our clothes and bonnets, sometimes so as to make us fairly ragged, besides scratching our hands and faces terribly. Occasionally one of us slipped into the ditch, and was helped out dripping wet; but we never mentioned such an incident at home. Then more than once we were caught in a heavy shower, with nothing but a rose-bush or a willow-tree for shelter; and there were often so many of us that it was like a hen with an unreasonably large brood of chickens,—some must stay out in the wet, and all such surplusage got soaked to the skin.
But we cared nothing for any of these things. Indeed, I am inclined to think that we were happy in proportion as we got tired, hungry, wet, and dirty. Mother never scolded us when we came home in this condition. Though we smelt terribly of mud and fish, and were often smeared over with the dried slime of a great slippery eel which had swallowed the hook, and coiled himself in knots all over our lines, and required three or four of the boys to cut off his head and get the hook out, yet all she did was to make us wash ourselves clean, after which she gave us a supper that tasted better than all the suppers we get now, and then put us to bed. We were tired enough to go right to sleep; but it was the fatigue of absolute happiness,—light hearts, light consciences, no care, nothing but the perfect enjoyment of childhood, such as never comes to us but once.
This is a long digression, but it could not be avoided. I said, that, when mother told me I was to make a shirt for father, we were that very afternoon to go down among these dear old meadows and dirty ditches to fish and play. Our lines were all in order, and a new hook had been put on mine, as on the last excursion the old one had caught in what the boys call a "blind eel," that is, a sunken log,—and there it probably remains to this day. Fred had dug worms for us, and they had coiled themselves up into a huge ball in the shell of an old cocoa-nut, ready to be impaled on our hooks. Everything was prepared for a start, and we were only waiting for dinner to be over: though I can remember, that, whenever we had such an afternoon before us, we had very little appetite to satisfy. The anticipation and glee were such that the pervading desire was not to eat, but to be off.
But when mother gave me the shirt to make, I felt so proud of the trust, that all desire to go to the meadows left me. I felt a new sensation, a new ambition, a new pride. It was very strange that I should thus suddenly give up the ditches, the fishing, the scratching, and the dirt; for none of us loved them more dearly than myself. But they were old and familiar, and father's shirt was a novelty; and novelty is one of the great attractions for the young. So they went without me, and after dinner I sat down to make my first shirt.
It was to be made in the plainest way; for father had no pride about his dress. I cut it out myself, basted it together, then sewed it with my utmost care. There was to be no nice work about collar or wristband,—no troublesome plaits or gussets,—no machine-made bosom to set in,—only a few gathers,—and all plain work throughout. My mother looked at me occasionally as the shirt progressed, but found no fault. She did not once stop me to examine it; but I feel sure she must have scrutinized it carefully after I had gone to bed. I was so particular in this, my first grand effort to secure the honors of a needlewoman, that quite two days were occupied in doing it.
When all done, I took it to mother, proud of my achievement, telling her, that, if she had more cotton, I was ready to begin another. She looked over it with a slowness that I am sure was intentional, and not at all necessary. The wristbands were all right, the buttons in the proper places, the hemming she said was done well. Then, taking it up by the collar, and holding the garment at full length before her, so that I could see it all, she asked me if I saw anything wrong. I looked closely, but could see no mistake. At last she exclaimed,—
"Why, my dear Lizzie, this is only a bag with arms to it! How is your father to get into it?"
She turned it all round before me, and showed me that I had left no opening at the bosom and neck,—father could never get it over his head! I cannot tell how astonished and mortified I felt. I cried as only such a child could cry. I sobbed and begged her not to show it to father, and promised to alter it immediately, if she would only tell me how. But, oh, how kind my dear mother was in soothing my excited feelings! There was not a word of blame. She made me comparatively calm by immediately opening the bosom as it should have been done, and showing me how to finish it. I hurried up to my chamber to be alone and out of sight. They called me to dinner, but my appetite had gone. Though my little heart was full, and my hand trembled, yet long before night the work was done.