Protecting his hands with buckskin gloves, the boy applied mutton suet to our wounded owl’s wing. It was eventually healed, and the bird was given its liberty. It gradually became sprightly and tame, and sociable in the evening, affording the children and Junior much amusement.
By the 7th of April there was a prospect of warmer and more settled weather, and Mr. Jones told us to lose no time in uncovering our Antwerp raspberries. They had been bent down close to the ground the previous winter and covered with earth. To remove this without breaking the canes, required careful and skillful work. We soon acquired the knack, however, of pushing and throwing aside the soil, then lifting the canes gently through what remained, and shaking them clear.
“Be careful to level the ground evenly,” Mr. Jones warned us, “for it won’t do at all to leave hummocks of dirt around the hills;” and we followed his instructions.
The canes were left until a heavy shower of rain washed them clean; then Winnie and Bobsey tied them up. We gave steady and careful attention to the Antwerps, since they would be our main dependence for income. I also raked in around the hills of one row a liberal dressing of wood ashes, intending to note its effect.
XXVI
A Country Sunday
Hitherto the Sabbaths had been stormy and the roads bad, and we had given the days to rest and family sociability. But at last there came a mild, sunny morning, and we resolved to find a church home. I had heard that Dr. Lyman, who preached in the nearest village had the faculty of keeping young people awake. Therefore we harnessed the old bay horse to our market wagon, donned our “go-ter-meetin’s,” as Junior called his Sunday clothes, and started. Whatever might be the result of the sermon, the drive promised to do us good. The tender young grass by the roadside, and the swelling buds of trees, gave forth delicious odors; a spring haze softened the outline of the mountains, and made them almost as beautiful as if clothed with foliage; robins, song sparrows, and other birds were so tuneful that Mousie said she wished they might form the choir at the church. Indeed, the glad spirit of Spring was abroad, and it found its way into our hearts. We soon learned that it entered largely also into Dr. Lyman’s sermon. We were not treated as strangers and intruders, but welcomed and shown to a pew in a way that made us feel at home. I discovered that I, too, should be kept awake and given much to think about. We remained until Sunday school, which followed the service, was over, and then went home, feeling that life both here and hereafter was something to be thankful for. After dinner, without even taking the precaution of locking the door, we all strolled down the lane and the steeply sloping meadow to our wood lot and the banks of the Moodna Creek. My wife had never seen this portion of our place before, and she was delighted with its wild beauty and seclusion. She shivered and turned a little pale, however, as she saw the stream, still high and swift, that had carried Bobsey away.
Junior joined us, and led the children to a sunny bank, from which soon came shouts of joy over the first wildflowers of the season. I placed my wife on a rock, and we sat quietly for a time, inhaling the fresh woody odors, and listening to the murmurs of the creek and the song of the birds. Then I asked: “Isn’t this better than a city flat and a noisy street? Are not these birds pleasanter neighbors than the Daggetts and the Ricketts?”
Her glad smile was more eloquent than words could have been. Mousie came running to us, holding in her hand, which trembled from excitement, a little bunch of liverworts and anemones. Tears of happiness actually stood in her eyes, and she could only falter, “O mamma! just look!” and then she hastened away to gather more.
“That child belongs to nature,” I said, “and would always be an exile in the city. How greatly she has improved in health already!”
The air grew damp and chill early, and we soon returned to the house. Monday was again fair, and found us absorbed in our busy life, each one having plenty to do. When it was safe to uncover the raspberries, Merton and I had not lost a moment in the task. At the time of which I write we put in stakes where they were missing, obtaining not a few of them from the wood lot. We also made our second planting of potatoes and other hardy vegetables in the garden. The plants in the kitchen window were thriving, and during mild, still days we carried them to a sheltered place without, that they might become inured to the open air.
Winnie already had three hens sitting on their nests full of eggs, and she was counting the days until the three weeks of incubation should expire, and the little chicks break their shells. One of the hens proved a fickle biddy, and left her nest, much to the child’s anger and disgust. But the others were faithful, and one morning Winnie came bounding in, saying she had heard the first “peep.” I told her to be patient and leave the brood until the following day, since I had read that the chicks were stronger for not being taken from the nest too soon. She had treated the mother hens so kindly that they were tame, and permitted her to throw out the empty shells, and exult over each newcomer into a brief existence.
Our radishes had come up nicely; but no sooner had
