Better than Play Part 3

It is so uncomfortable, and I thought I would like to go out in service.

I know I am very young, but----"

Mrs. Langley was looking at her with a grave face, but very kindly eyes.

"I know how you felt, dear; but it seems to me plain enough that your place is at home. You see, you're the eldest, and the others are but little things, and if you want Margery to know anything about her dear mother, you must teach her, and 'tis you must help to train her up to be what her mother would have wished her to be."

Bella's bright, eager eyes filled with tears. "I wish mother was here,"

she cried, "it's all so different now, and so miserable!"

"I know, I know; but, child, you must try and remember how it would have grieved your poor mother, if she could know that her children's home was unhappy, and then tell yourself that it is going to be your work to make it different--to make it what she would wish it to be."

Bella's tears gradually ceased. "But how can I begin, and when?" she asked hopelessly.

"Begin to-day, and with the first chance you see. Be content to begin with little things in a little way. Don't expect to make great changes, and set all right at once. You have to take these words as your motto, 'Patience, Pluck, and Perseverance.'"

Bella's face brightened. It cheered her heart to feel that she could do something, and do, too, what her mother would have had her do. It was with less reluctance than usual that she got up to go back to her home.

"I often wish, Aunt Maggie," she said affectionately, "that I could live with you, but it would never do, would it?"

"I often wish so, too, dear. Good-bye now. Run home quickly, you may be wanted."

Bella ran up the lane with a very much lighter heart than she usually bore. She was fired with the thought of her new endeavours, and anxious to begin. She would keep her eyes always open to see things that she could do,--and almost as the thought was pa.s.sing through her mind her chance came, for as she opened her own gate she saw that the fowl-house door was standing wide, and that the hens were scattered all over the garden, scratching up the beds.

"Tom promised to put a nail in the latch of that door," she sighed, "and he has never done it." Then the thought flashed through her mind that here was a beginning! Here she could help. By the aid of a long pea-stick she collected the greedy hens and drove them all into their run again, and fastened them in securely; but it took her some time.

"Wherever have you been?" demanded Aunt Emma coldly; "here's tea-time nearly, and you've been out all the afternoon."

"I was down at Aunt Maggie's part of the time, and when I got back I found the hens all out and all over the garden, and I drove them in and shut them up."

"Oh!" Aunt Emma was visibly mollified. If there was one thing she disliked more than another, it was struggling with stupid, obstinate hens, as she called them, and she was really thankful now that she had been spared the task of getting them out of the garden. In her relief at this she forgot her annoyance at Bella's having been down at Mrs. Langley's.

"If there's time before tea I'll go and put the nail in the latch,", said Bella, "for it won't stay shut very long, unless the latch is mended."

The hammer, though, was not to be found, and the only nail was a crooked one, so the latch-mending was put off till after tea. The children came in from the orchard, and went to the pump to wash their hands and faces.

Bella spread the cloth and arranged the cups and plates and mugs.

As a rule, she put them down in any haphazard fashion, but to-day she did try to arrange the things nicely.

Miss Hender was busily taking out cake and cutting bread and b.u.t.ter.

Bella knew it would be of no use to offer to do either of these, but she did ask if she might put some water in the teapot to warm it, and, to her astonishment, her aunt said, "Yes, you may if you like."

The meal would have been a very silent one if it had not been for the children, but with their chatter it pa.s.sed off pleasantly enough, and when it was over they all made a hunt for the lost hammer and another nail, and then trooped out with Bella, to mend the latch of the hen-house door.

"That's easy enough," exclaimed Tom, as he watched Bella; "I could have done that."

"Then why didn't you?" retorted his sister. "That bit of latch has been hanging loose for weeks, and the hens were always getting out."

"I didn't think about it. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think about it, either," admitted Bella; "but I am going to try and remember things better. Tom, if you want a job, there's one of the palings of the pigsty broken away. If it isn't mended, the pig'll break it away more, and get out, and there's no knowing what trouble we shall have. You can mend that, I'm sure."

Tom, well pleased, went off at once. It made him feel manly to be doing real work. Charlie, of course, followed his brother. Bella was strolling back through the untidy garden with Margery by her side, when a sudden thought sent her hurrying back to the house.

"Aunt Emma, can I help you wash up the tea-things?"

She put her question rather nervously, and her cheeks were rosy red, but she had broken through her shy reserve, and was glad of it.

Miss Hender was standing at the table with a pan of water in front of her.

"I've nearly finished," she said shortly, in her usual ungenial tone, but added, a moment later, "leastways I soon shall have."

Bella had seen that although several cups and plates were washed, none of them were wiped, so she took up the tea-cloth lying on the table, and began to dry the things and put them away. She was very anxious to do it all carefully and well, so that her aunt might have no cause for complaining.

It almost seemed as though Miss Hender did not want to find fault if she could help it, for when Bella hung the cups on the wrong hooks on the dressers, she only said, "I don't know that it matters;" which was so unlike her usual self that Bella marvelled.

"I s'pose you didn't see any sage in the garden when you were there just now?" she asked presently. "I wanted some sage and onions to cook for supper, and I don't believe we've got either. There doesn't seem to be scarcely anything in the garden."

"I'll go and see," said Bella, "but I don't believe there's any."

She walked down the rambling old garden, and all over it, and looked in all directions, but not a leaf of sage or any other herb could she see.

The herb-bed was empty and trampled flat, a few onions lay ungathered in the onion-bed, and there were some potatoes, but that was all, except some gooseberry bushes and roots of rhubarb.

When Bella remembered what their garden used to be, and all that they used to get out of it, she, young though she was, was startled. She was more than startled, she was shocked too, for if this was the state of things now, what were they going to do for vegetables all the rest of the year?

There was nothing to come on for the winter, no carrots or turnips, no onions or cabbages, leeks or celery,--and they used to have all in abundance. The difference between care and neglect, thrift and waste, plenty and want, were brought home to her very plainly at that moment.

She had always been so much with her father and mother and other grown-up people, that she understood as well as a woman how much they depended on the garden for food.

Tom and Charlie came up and joined her, wondering what she was looking at so solemnly.

"What's wrong?" they asked. "What are you looking for?"

"Sage," said Bella, gravely, "and there isn't a bit; there isn't anything.

Whatever we shall do all the winter, I don't know."

"Where's the herb-bed?" asked Tom.

"Here, we're looking at it. Mother used to keep it nice and full, she used to see how many kinds of herbs she could grow. Oh, you remember, Tom, don't you?"

"Yes," said Tom; "she had thyme and lemon-thyme, parsley, and sage, and endive and borage, and--oh, I forget. She used to make me say them over, and tell her which was which. I wish we'd taken more care of it," he added, with sudden shame for his neglect.

A brilliant idea flashed into Bella's mind, filling her with pleasure, "Oh!" she cried, excitedly, "I know what I'll do, I'll make it nice again, I'll take care of it, and plant herbs in it, just as mother used to do.

Where's the fork, Tom? I want to begin."

"I'll get it, but let me help. Let me dig it over the first time; shall I, Bella?"

Bella agreed, but reluctantly. She wanted to do it all herself.

"I wonder where I can get parsley seed, and all the rest of it.

Oh, I know, Aunt Maggie will give me a little sage-bush, she has lots; and p'raps she'll be able to give me some lemon-thyme too!" and away she ran through the garden and out of the gate and down May Lane as fleet as a hare.

Miss Hender saw her dash past the house, and pressed her lips tightly together. "Forgotten all about what I sent her for, of course," she said sourly. "I thought that new broom was sweeping too clean."

When Bella returned in about ten minutes' time, carrying a basket full of roots, and a sage-bush on the top, her aunt came to the door to greet her.