"I don't know how I ever got here," she said piteously. "The last recollection I have is of that horrid creature ruffling himself all up and coming at me. Then I came right up. And that's all I know. But I can't get down again."
I got a little ladder and helped Blanch down from her dangerous perch, while Sally kept the turkey-gobbler at bay, standing, broom in hand, in that position called in heraldry rampant-regardant.
"He doesn't like scarlet very well," she remarked. "It isn't his favorite color."
Then we went to see Mrs. Partington, a large gray hen, which was that morning taking her first airing with a new brood. She had been set on goose-eggs, which had, naturally, hatched out goslings; but she did not know it.
"Now," said Sally, "if you want to see an astonished hen, come along."
There was a duck-pond near, and some instinct in the goslings led them that way. Mrs. Partington yielded, like a fond, indulgent mother, and clucked along full of naïve consequence and good-nature. But at a little distance from the margin she paused, called her brood about her, and began to talk to them in a gray, comfortable, complacent voice. I suppose she was telling them how dangerous water is. They listened first with one side of their heads, then with the other, and two of them winked at each other, and made little irresistible shies toward the pond. They looked like green eggs on two sticks. The hen left off her lecture, clucked loudly, spread her wings, and ran after them. But the next instant a shriek broke from her bill; for, as every body knows, of course, the goslings all plunged headlong into the pond.
Poor Mrs. Partington was, indeed, an astonished hen. She was more: she was a transfixed hen. She stood gazing at them in horror, evidently expecting to see every one of them keel over and go to the bottom. But no; the little voyagers floated about quite at their ease, striking out with their tiny paddles, their downy backs and absurd little heads shedding the water beautifully.
"She must know now that they are goslings," said Blanch.
"Goslings? Not she!" answered Sally. "Ten to one she thinks that she is a goose. No, that hen will go down to the platter without finding out that she has been cheated."
We had a busy day. We went to see the frame-house that Mr. Smith had begun to raise, and Sally's dairy in the cellar of it; we promoted our straw-bed, filled our fireplace with pine boughs, thus cutting off the view through the chimney-back; unpacked our trunks and set up our graven images; and, when sunset was near, went out into the woods at the foot of Spruce Mountain to get a pail of water from a little Johannisberger of a spring there. The mountain was between us and the sunset, and the woods were in shadow; but up over the lofty tree-tops the red and golden lights floated past, and every little pool, among its treasures of reflected foliage, airy nest of bird, and bending flower, held warmly its bit of azure sky, and crimson or golden cloud. Presently we came to where, at the foot of a spruce-tree, our spring lay like a fire-opal, with that one spark down among its haunting shadows. A cool green darkness fell into it from the overhanging boughs, velvet mosses growing close rimmed it with a brighter emerald, gray of trunk, branch, and twig melted into it, milky little flowers nodded over at their milky little twins below, and in the midst burned that live coal of the sunset. When we plunged our tin pail into this spring, it was as though we were going to dip up jewels. But instantly we touched the water, it whitened all over with a silvery-rippled mail, the colors disappeared, and we brought up only crystal clearness. The next moment, though, the throbbing waters subsided, and the many-tinted enchantment stole tremulously back again.