Oscar Part 20

"No you won't--father has got plenty of steel pens."

After breakfast, Mr. Preston told Oscar to follow him. They went up stairs, and Mr. P. took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door of what was known by the name of "the private room." It was a very small apartment, and was originally designed for a closet or store-room; but Mr. Preston now used it as a sort of office. Here he kept his business papers, and here he did what little writing he had to do. There was one window in the room, which looked out upon the garden in the rear of the house. The furniture consisted of a chair, a small portable desk, placed upon a table, an old map of the State of Maine, a dictionary, almanac, and several other odd volumes and pamphlets.

"There," said Mr. Preston, "you may sit right down to my desk, and write as long as you please, if you won't disturb my papers. There are paper, ink, pens, and wafers--you can use what you want. When you get done, lock the door, and give the key to your aunt."

Oscar found there was no backing out from a letter this time; so he sat down, and tried to make up his mind to face the dreaded duty. He heard his uncle tell the children not to interrupt him, till he had finished his letter; and when Mr. Preston and his man James went off to work, Jerry accompanied them. Oscar was thus left to himself. After thinking about the matter a few moments, he dipped his pen in the ink-stand, and, having consulted the almanac, wrote the proper date for the letter, together with the address, "Dear Mother." Here he came suddenly to a stand. He was at a loss how to commence. He sat uneasily in his chair, now nibbling the end of the pen-holder, and now running his fingers slowly through his hair, as if to coax out the thoughts he wished to express.

At length he got started, and wrote several lines without stopping.

Now he thought he should go ahead without further trouble; but he soon found himself again brought to a dead halt. He began to scribble and draw rude figures upon a piece of waste paper, hoping the next sentence, in continuance of his letter, would soon pop into his head; but instead of anything popping in, his ideas began to pop out, so that he almost forgot the letter, amid the unmeaning flourishes his pen was making. Then, suddenly thinking of the scarcely-commenced task before him, he read and re-read the few lines he had written, but could not determine what to say next. Lifting up the lid of the desk, he found a variety of bills, receipts, accounts and letters scattered about.

Disregarding the injunction of his uncle, and in violation of one of the plainest rules of good breeding, he concluded to open one of the letters, and see if he could not gain some hint from it, to aid him in completing his own. The letter he opened proved to be a short business message, and it was written in such a difficult hand, that he could not read half the words. He then looked into several other letters, but none of them afforded him any aid.

After idling away half an hour in this manner, he resumed his letter, and began to make some progress upon it, when the lively chirping and twittering of a party of birds in an apple-tree near the window, attracted his attention. He laid down his pen, and watched their movements awhile. They were swallows; and from their actions, Oscar soon discovered that the old birds were teaching their little ones how to fly. There were several nests of these swallows, under the rafters of Mr. Preston's barn; and as they had recently had accessions to their families, Oscar concluded this must be the first appearance of the new-comers in public. The old birds fluttered back and forth, twittering and talking to the young ones all the while, and trying to entice them to commit themselves again to their wings. The little fearful things looked doubtingly, first one way and then another, as though they would gladly launch away upon their destined element, if they were only sure they should not tumble ingloriously to the ground.

The clamor of the old ones increased every moment. They called and coaxed more earnestly, and fluttered more impatiently, until at length the young birds worked up their courage to the requisite point, and away the whole flock darted, towards the barn.

Now that the swallows were out of his way, Oscar returned to his letter once more. Had he learned a lesson of self-confidence from the example of the little swallows, the few minutes he spent in watching their movements would have been well employed. But instead of his confidence increasing, he was now almost sick of the sight of the letter, and began to doubt whether he should ever finish it. While he was hesitating whether he had better tear it up, or try once more to go on with it, a sweet childish voice from the garden engaged his attention.

He looked from the window, and saw little Mary sitting down upon the gra.s.s, in a shady spot, with a large book open before her. She was looking at the engravings in the volume, and was talking very earnestly to herself, and to the figures in the pictures.

"There is Emily," she was saying, "and there is father with a shovel; and this one is me, and that is Jerry, and that's Oscar, carrying a basket. I guess they 're going to dig potatoes. O, what lots of houses over the other side of the pond; and there 's one, two, three, five, ten, eight meeting-houses, too. It must be Boston, I guess, there are so many houses there. And there's a great boat coming--O what a smoke it makes!--and it's got wheels, too. Now we'll get right into it, and go and see Uncle Henry and all the folks. Stop, stop, you boat! Now that's too bad--it goes by, and we can't go to Boston."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mary and the Picture-Book.]

Thus little Mary continued to talk to the pictures and to herself, unconscious that any one was listening to her. She was a pretty child, and, all unknown to herself, she made almost as attractive a picture as any in her book, with her fair face, her flowing hair, and her clean dress, set off by the green gra.s.s and climbing vines around her. Oscar sat listening to her childish prattle for some time, when the striking of the kitchen clock reminded him that he had been seated at the desk an hour, and had not yet written a dozen lines. He was about to tear up the sheet of paper over which he had sat (but not labored) so long, and give up the attempt. Then he thought of his promise to write, and how ashamed he should feel to have his uncle's folks know that he had tried a whole hour, and could not write a letter to his own mother. He finally determined to make one more attempt.

Finding that the sound of Mary's voice disturbed him, Oscar now shut down the window, and thus cut off all communication with the outer world, except by the eye. He soon got under way again with his letter, and, to his own surprise, he went along quite easily and with considerable rapidity. The reason of this was, he was now really in earnest, and had given his mind wholly to the letter. Before, his thoughts were flitting from one trifle to another; now they were directed to the object he wished to accomplish. Before the clock struck the next hour, the letter was finished, sealed, and directed.

It was quite a respectable sort of a letter, too. When he had got through, Oscar was himself surprised to find that he could write so good an epistle. The spelling, punctuation, and penmanship might have been improved, but in other respects the letter was creditable to him.

I will print it as he intended it should read, and not precisely as he wrote it:

"BROOKDALE, June 15, 185--.

"DEAR MOTHER:

"I suppose you are looking for a letter from me, and I meant to have written before this, but somehow I have neglected it. I got here safe the next day after I left home. We stopped one night in Portland, and put up at the ---- Hotel. The next day we rode in the cars all the forenoon, and in the stage all the afternoon. The stage does not go within five miles of uncle's, but Jerry went over with a horse and wagon to get us. I like Brookdale first-rate. It is a real countryfied place, but I like it all the better for that. The nearest house to uncle's is half a mile off; and, by the way, tell Ralph that a cousin of Whistler's lives there. His name is Clinton Davenport. I have got acquainted with him, and like him very much. I like Jerry, too. We have capital times together. All the boys here are rather 'green,' as we say in Boston; and you would laugh at the ideas they have of city things; but I suppose they think I am green about country things, and so we are square. I have lots of rides, and good long walks, too. A few days ago, Jerry and I walked four or five miles through the woods and pastures, to an old hut where a hermit used to live. They say he was a miser, and buried his money there, and people have dug for it, but n.o.body has found it. We carried our provisions, and made a fire, and ate dinner there. There is a fine pond close by, where we got our water to drink.

"There are lots of birds here. We are going to set some snares in the woods, and catch some. There are some swallows' nests in uncle's barn, just over the door. You can look right up into them, and see the birds. They are quite tame. They are just making their young ones learn how to fly. It is real amusing to see them.

"Uncle has quite a large farm. I forget how many acres he told me there was, but it is a good many. They have cows, and pigs, and hens, and live in real country style. I have learned how to make b.u.t.ter, but I have not learned to like b.u.t.termilk yet. I can't bear it, but all the other folks think it is a great treat. The schools don't keep here but three months in the winter, so Jerry and I are together about all the time. We sleep together, too. I almost forgot to tell you that I have got quite strong and hearty again. My cough is gone, and aunt says I look a good deal better than I did when I came here. I want to hear from home, but I hope you won't send for me to go back just yet.

But I am tired of writing, and must close up my letter. Excuse errors and bad writing. Give my love to all the family, including Tiger.

"Your affectionate son,

"OSCAR."

Oscar felt quite relieved when his letter was ready for the post-office. Having locked up the little room, he carried the key to his aunt.

"Have you written your letter?" inquired Mrs. Preston.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Oscar.

"Where is it? You 're going to let me read it, aint you?" inquired Emily.

"There it is," said Oscar, taking the letter from his jacket pocket; "but I guess you won't read it, miss."

"Yes, do let me read it," persisted Emily, who really had an undue proportion of inquisitiveness in her nature.

"No, I can't; it's sealed up," replied Oscar.

"Then tell me what you wrote, won't you?" continued Emily.

"Why, you silly child, what business is it to you what he wrote?" said her mother. "Don't ask any more such foolish questions; Oscar will think you have n't got common sense if you do."

"Did you write anything about me?" continued Emily, in a lower tone.

"Did you hear me, Emily?" inquired Mrs. Preston, in a sharper tone.

"O no, I did n't write much," said Oscar, in reply to Emily; "there's nothing in the letter that you would care about seeing."

"I did n't know you were going to seal up the letter so soon. I wanted to send a message to Alice and Ella," continued Emily.

"You are too late now," replied Oscar; "but I 'll give you a chance next time. What message do you want to send?"

"You must n't be so inquisitive," said Emily, with a laugh; "just as though I were going to tell you, when you would n't let me read the letter!"

"Well, I can tell you one thing,--I don't want to know," replied Oscar.

"Aunt Eliza, do you know where Jerry is?"

"He has gone with his father down to the meadow lot," replied Mrs.

Preston. "I guess they will be back before a great while."

Oscar set out for the "meadow lot," which was a quarter of a mile from the house, on the other side of the river. He had not gone far, however, when he met Mr. Preston and Jerry returning.

"I 've written my letter, uncle, and it's all ready to go to the post-office," said Oscar; "can't Jerry and I carry it over?"

"I 'll see about that this afternoon," said Mr. Preston; "I 've got something else for Jerry to do now."

"I 'm going over to the old wood-lot to get a load of mulching," said Jerry to Oscar; "and you can go too, if you want to."

"Mulching--what is that?" inquired Oscar.

"It's stuff that they put around young trees, to keep the roots from drying up in summer," replied Jerry. "You know all those small apple and pear trees back of the barn? well, it's to put around them."

Having reached the house, the boys ate some luncheon, and then proceeded to tackle Billy into the hay-cart. After Mr. Preston had given Jerry sundry cautions and directions, which the latter seemed to think quite unnecessary, the boys hopped into the cart, and drove off towards the woods. Mr. Preston owned several tracts of woodland in Brookdale. The lot to which the boys were going, was called the "old"

one, because the wood had all been cut off once, and it was now covered with a young growth, not large enough for firewood. It was but a short distance from the house, and the boys soon reached the spot, and commenced operations. They were each provided with large jack-knives, and with these they proceeded to lop off the young and tender ends of the birches, which trees were quite abundant in that spot; for birches are very apt to spring up after a pine forest has been cleared away.

Many of the trees were yet so small, that the boys did not have to climb up to reach the branches.

Though all this was really work, it seemed so much like play to Jerry and Oscar, that they actually _forgot to be lazy_. The consequence was, the job was done before they thought of it. Gathering up the heaps of small twigs scattered around them, they threw them into the cart, and found they had quite a respectable load; respectable in bulk at least, though not a very heavy burden for Billy. Taking their seats upon the top of the mulching, which was almost as soft as a load of hay, they drove back to the barn, and alighted. Mr. Preston now appeared, and led the horse into the orchard, where, with the aid of the boys, he scattered the birch twigs around the young trees, so as to protect their roots from the fierce heat of the sun. There was not enough for all the trees, but he told them they need not get any more at that time.