Jack and Jill, Louisa May Alcott [books to read for self improvement txt] 📗

  “A little bird I am,
  Shut from the fields of air,
  And in my cage I sit and sing
  To Him who placed me there:
  Well pleased a prisoner to be,
  Because, my God, it pleases Thee!

  “Naught have I else to do;
  I sing the whole day long;
  And He whom most I love to please
  Doth listen to my song,
  He caught and bound my wandering wing,
  But still He bends to hear me sing.”

“Now we are ready for you, so bring on your flowers,” said Molly to the boys, as she and Merry added their store of baskets to the gay show Jill had set forth on the long table ready for the evening's work.

“They wouldn't let me see one, but I guess they have had good luck, they look so jolly,” answered Jill, looking at Gus, Frank, and Jack, who stood laughing, each with a large basket in his hands.

“Fair to middling. Just look in and see;” with which cheerful remark Gus tipped up his basket and displayed a few bits of green at the bottom.

“I did better. Now, don't all scream at once over these beauties;” and Frank shook out some evergreen sprigs, half a dozen saxifrages, and two or three forlorn violets with hardly any stems.

“I don't brag, but here's the best of all the three,” chuckled Jack, producing a bunch of feathery carrot-tops, with a few half-shut dandelions trying to look brave and gay.

“Oh, boys, is that all?”

“What shall we do?”

“We've only a few house-flowers, and all those baskets to fill,” cried the girls, in despair; for Merry's contribution had been small, and Molly had only a handful of artificial flowers “to fill up,” she said.

“It isn't our fault: it is the late spring. We can't make flowers, can we?” asked Frank, in a tone of calm resignation.

“Couldn't you buy some, then?” said Molly, smoothing her crumpled morning-glories, with a sigh.

“Who ever heard of a fellow having any money left the last day of the month?” demanded Gus, severely.

“Or girls either. I spent all mine in ribbon and paper for my baskets, and now they are of no use. It's a shame!” lamented Jill, while Merry began to thin out her full baskets to fill the empty ones.

“Hold on!” cried Frank, relenting. “Now, Jack, make their minds easy before they begin to weep and wail.”

“Left the box outside. You tell while I go for it;” and Jack bolted, as if afraid the young ladies might be too demonstrative when the tale was told.

“Tell away,” said Frank, modestly passing the story along to Gus, who made short work of it.

“We rampaged all over the country, and got only that small mess of greens. Knew you'd be disgusted, and sat down to see what we could do. Then Jack piped up, and said he'd show us a place where we could get a plenty. 'Come on,' said we, and after leading us a nice tramp, he brought us out at Morse's greenhouse. So we got a few on tick, as we had but four cents among us, and there you are. Pretty clever of the little chap, wasn't it?”

A chorus of delight greeted Jack as he popped his head in, was promptly seized by his elders and walked up to the table, where the box was opened, displaying gay posies enough to fill most of the baskets if distributed with great economy and much green.

“You are the dearest boy that ever was!” began Jill, with her nose luxuriously buried in the box, though the flowers were more remarkable for color than perfume.

“No, I'm not; there's a much dearer one coming upstairs now, and he's got something that will make you howl for joy,” said Jack, ignoring his own prowess as Ed came in with a bigger box, looking as if he had done nothing but go a Maying all his days.

“Don't believe it!” cried Jill, hugging her own treasure jealously. “It's only another joke. I won't look,” said Molly, still struggling to make her cambric roses bloom again.

“I know what it is! Oh, how sweet!” added Merry, sniffing, as Ed set the box before her, saying pleasantly,—

“You shall see first, because you had faith.”

Up went the cover, and a whiff of the freshest fragrance regaled the seven eager noses bent to inhale it, as a general murmur of pleasure greeted the nest of great, rosy mayflowers that lay before them.

“The dear things, how lovely they are!” and Merry looked as if greeting her cousins, so blooming and sweet was her own face.

Molly pushed her dingy garlands away, ashamed of such poor attempts beside these perfect works of nature, and Jill stretched out her hand involuntarily, as she said, forgetting her exotics, “Give me just one to smell of, it is so woodsy and delicious.”

“Here you are, plenty for all. Real Pilgrim Fathers, right from Plymouth. One of our fellows lives there, and I told him to bring me a good lot; so he did, and you can do what you like with them,” explained Ed, passing round bunches and shaking the rest in a mossy pile upon the table.

“Ed always gets ahead of us in doing the right thing at the right time. Hope you've got some first-class baskets ready for him,” said Gus, refreshing the Washingtonian nose with a pink blossom or two.

“Not much danger of his being forgotten,” answered Molly; and every one laughed, for Ed was much beloved by all the girls, and his door-steps always bloomed like a flower-bed on May eve.

“Now we must fly round and fill up. Come, boys, sort out the green and hand us the flowers as we want them. Then we must direct them, and, by the time that is done, you can go and leave them,” said Jill, setting all to work.

“Ed must choose his baskets first. These are ours; but any of those you can have;” and Molly pointed to a detachment of gay baskets, set apart from those already partly filled.

Ed chose a blue one, and Merry filled it with the rosiest may-flowers, knowing that it was to hang on Mabel's door-handle.

The others did the same, and the pretty work went on, with much fun, till all were filled, and ready for the names or notes.

“Let us have poetry, as we can't get wild flowers. That will be rather fine,” proposed Jill, who liked jingles.

All had had some practice at the game parties, and pencils went briskly for a few minutes, while silence reigned, as the poets racked their brains for rhymes, and stared at the blooming array before them for inspiration.

“Oh, dear! I can't find a word to rhyme to 'geranium,'” sighed Molly, pulling her braid, as if to pump the well of her fancy dry.

“Cranium,” said Frank, who was getting on bravely with “Annette” and “violet.”

“That is elegant!” and Molly scribbled away in great glee, for her poems were always funny ones.

“How do you spell anemoly—the wild flower, I mean?” asked Jill, who was trying to compose a very appropriate piece for her best basket, and found it easier to feel love and gratitude than to put them into verse.

“Anemone; do spell it properly, or you'll get laughed at,” answered Gus, wildly struggling to make his lines express great ardor, without being “too spoony,” as he expressed it.

“No, I shouldn't. This person never laughs at other persons' mistakes, as some persons do,” replied Jill, with dignity.

Jack was desperately chewing his pencil, for he could not get on at all; but Ed had evidently prepared his poem, for his paper was half full already, and Merry was smiling as she wrote a friendly line or two for Ralph's basket, as she feared he would be forgotten, and knew he loved kindness even more than he did beauty.

“Now let's read them,” proposed Molly, who loved to laugh even at herself.

The boys politely declined, and scrambled their notes into the chosen baskets in great haste; but the girls were less bashful. Jill was invited to begin, and gave her little piece, with the pink hyacinth basket before her, to illustrate her poem.