Wonder-Box Tales Part 5

THE WATER-LILY

My father and mother were gone out for the day, and had left me charge of the children. It was very hot, and they kept up a continual fidget. I bore it patiently for some time, for children will be restless in hot weather, but at length I requested that they would get something to do.

"Why don't you work, or paint, or read, Hatty?" I demanded of my little sister.

"I'm tired of always grounding those swans," said Harriet, "and my crochet is so difficult; I seem to do it quite right, and yet it comes wrong."

"Then why don't you write your diary?"

"Oh, because Charlie won't write his."

"A very bad reason; his not writing leaves you the more to say; besides, I thought you promised mamma you would persevere if she would give you a book."

"And so we did for a long time," said Charlie; "why, I wrote pages and pages of mine. Look here!"

So saying, he produced a copy-book with a marbled cover, and showed me that it was about half-full of writing in large text.

"If you wrote all that yourself, I should think you might write more."

"Oh, but I am so tired of it, and besides, this is such a very hot day."

"I know that, and to have you leaning on my knee makes me no cooler; but I have something for you to do just now, which I think you will like."

"Oh, what is it, sister? May we both do it?"

"Yes, if you like. You may go into the field to gardener, and ask him to get me a water-lily out of the stream; I want one to finish my sketch with."

"You really do want one? you are not pretending, just to give us something to do?"

"No, I really want one; you see these in the gla.s.s begin to wither."'

"Make haste then, Hatty. Sister, you shall have the very best lily we can find."

Thereupon they ran off, leaving me to inspect the diary. Its first page was garnished with the resemblance of a large swan with curly wings; from his beak proceeded the owner's name in full, and underneath were his lucubrations. The first few pages ran as follows:

"_Wednesday._ To-day mamma said, as all the others were writing diaries, I might do one too if I liked, so I said I should, and I shall write it every day till I am grown up. I did a long division sum, a very hard one. We dined early to-day, and we had a boiled leg of mutton and an apple pudding, but I shall not say another time what we had for dinner, because I shall have plenty of other things to say."

"_Friday._ Gardener has been mending the palings; he gave me five nails; they were very good ones, such as I like. He said if any boy that he knew was to pull nails out of his wall trees when _he'd_ done them, he should certainly tell their papa of them. Aunt f.a.n.n.y came and took away Sophy to spend a fortnight. Uncle Tom came too; he said I was a fine boy, and gave me a shilling."

"_Sat.u.r.day._ My half-holiday. Hurrah! I went and bought two hoop-sticks for me and Hatty; they cost fourpence each."

"_Sunday._ On Sunday I went to church."

"_Monday._ To-day I had a cold, and after school I was just going to bowl my hoop when Orris said to mamma it rained, and ma said she couldn't think of my going out in the rain, and so I couldn't go. After that Orris called me to come into her room, and gave me a fourpenny piece and two pictures, so now I've got eightpence. Orris is very kind, but sometimes she thinks she ought to command, because she is the eldest."

"_Tuesday._ I shall not write my diary every day, unless I like."

"_Wednesday._ I dined late with papa and mamma and the elder ones: it rained. If the others won't tell me what to say, of course I don't know."

"_Friday._ I went to the shop and bought some tin _tax_. I don't like writing diaries particularly. It will be a good thing to leave off till the holidays."

I had only got so far when the children ran in with a beautiful water-lily. They had scarcely deposited it in my hand when they both exclaimed in a breath:

"And what are we to do now?"

"You may bring me a gla.s.s of water to put it in."

This was soon done, and then the question was repeated. I saw there was but one chance of quiet, so I resolved to make a virtue of necessity, and say that if they would each immediately begin some ordinary occupation, I would tell them a story. What child was ever proof against a story?

"But we are to choose what it shall be about?" said one of them.

"Why?"

"Oh, never mind why. Shall we tell her, Harriet? Well, it's because you tell cheating stories: you say, 'I'll tell you a story about a girl, or a cottage, or a thimble, or anything you like,' and it really is something about us."

"You may choose, then."

"Then it shall be about the lily we got for you."

"Give me ten minutes to think about it, and collect your needles and pencils."

Upon this they brought together a heap of articles which they were not at all likely to want, and after altering the position of their stools and discussing what they would do, and changing their minds many times, declared at length that they were quite ready.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LIVED ON THE BORDERS OF ONE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORESTS."]

"Now begin, please. _There was once--_" So I accordingly began. "There was once a boy who was very fond of pictures. There were not many pictures for him to look at, for his mother, who was a widow, lived on the borders of one of the great American forests. She had come out from England with her husband, and now that he was dead, the few pictures hanging on her walls were almost the only luxuries she possessed.

"Her son would often spend his holidays in trying to copy them, but as he had very little application, he often threw his half-finished drawings away, and once he was heard to say that he wished some kind-hearted fairy would take it in hand and finish it for him.

"'Child,' said the mother, 'for my part I don't believe there are any such things as fairies. I never saw one, and your father never did; but by all accounts, if fairies there be, they are a jealous and revengeful race. Mind your books, my child, and never mind the fairies.'

"'Very well, mother,' said the boy.

"'It makes me sad to see you stand gazing at the pictures,' said his mother, coming up to him and laying her hand on his curly head; 'why, child, pictures can't feed a body, pictures can't clothe a body, and a log of wood is far better to burn and warm a body.'

"'All that is quite true, mother,' said the boy.

"'Then why do you keep looking at them, child?'

"The boy hesitated, and then answered, 'I don't know, mother.'

"'You don't know! nor I neither. Why, child, you look at the dumb things as if you loved them. Put on your cap and run out to play.'

"So the boy went out, and wandered toward the forest till he came to the brink of a sheet of water. It was too small to be called a lake, but it was deep, clear, and overhung with crowds of trees. It was evening, and the sun was getting low. There was a narrow strip of land stretching out into the water. Pine-trees grew upon it; and here and there a plane-tree or a sumach dipped its large leaves over, and seemed intent on watching its own clear reflection.

"The boy stood still, and thought how delightful it was to see the sun red and glorious between the black trunks of the pine-trees. Then he looked up into the abyss of clear sky overhead, and thought how beautiful it was to see the little frail clouds folded over one another like a belt of rose-colored waves. Then he drew still nearer to the water, and saw how they were all reflected down there among the leaves and flowers of the lilies; and he wished he were a painter, for he said to himself, 'I am sure there are no trees in the world with such beautiful leaves as these pines; I am sure there are no other clouds in the world so lovely as these; I know this is the sweetest piece of water in the world, and, if I could paint it, every one else would know it too.' He stood still for awhile, watching the water-lilies as they closed their leaves for the night, and listening to the slight sound they made when they dipped their heads under water. 'The sun has been playing tricks with these lilies as well as with the clouds,' he said to himself, 'for when I pa.s.sed by in the morning they swayed about like floating s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and now there is not a bud of them that has not got a rosy side. I must gather one, and see if I cannot make a drawing of it.' So he gathered a lily, sat down with it in his hand, and tried very hard to make a correct sketch of it in a blank leaf of his copy-book. He was far more patient than usual, but he succeeded so little to his own satisfaction, that at length he threw down the book, and, looking into the cup of his lily, said to it, in a sorrowful voice, 'Ah, what use is it my trying to copy anything so beautiful as you are? How much I wish I were a painter!'

"As he said these words he felt a slight quivering in the flower; and, while he looked, the cl.u.s.ter of stamens at the bottom of the cup floated upward, and glittered like a crown of gold; the dewdrops which hung upon them changed into diamonds before his eyes; the white petals flowed together; the tall pistil was a golden wand; and the next moment a beautiful little creature stood upon his hand, clad in a robe of the purest white, and scarcely taller than the flower from which she sprung.