Books: Nature\'s Serial Story

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"I agree with you. The glazed pots are too artificial to be associated
with flowers. They suggest veneer, and I don't like veneer," Amy replied.
Then she asked Webb: "Are you ready for a fire of questions? Any one with
your ability should be able to talk and work at the same time."

"Yes; and I did not require that little diplomatic pat on the back."

"I'll be as direct and severe as an inquisitor, then. Why do you syringe
and wash the foliage of the plants? Why will not simple watering of the
earth in the pots answer?"

"We wash the foliage in order that the plants may breathe and digest
their food."

"How lucid!" said Amy, with laughing irony. "Then," she added, "please
take nothing for granted except my ignorance in these matters. I don't
know anything about plants except in the most general way."

"Give me time, and I think I can make some things clear. A plant breathes
as truly as you do, only unlike yourself it has indefinite thousands of
mouths. There is one leaf on which there are over one hundred and fifty
thousand. They are called _stomata_, or breathing-pores, and are on
both sides of the leaf in most plants, but usually are in far greater
abundance on the lower side. The plant draws its food from the air and
soil--from the latter in liquid form--and this substance must be
concentrated and assimilated. These little pores introduce the vital
atmosphere through the air-passages of the plant, which correspond in a
certain sense to the throat and lungs of an animal. You would be sadly
off if you couldn't breathe; these plants would fare no better. Therefore
we must do artificially what the rain does out-of-doors--wash away the
accumulated dust, so that respiration may be unimpeded. Moreover, these
little pores, which are shaped like the semi-elliptical springs of a
carriage, are self-acting valves. A plant exhales a great deal of
moisture in invisible vapor. A sunflower has been known to give off three
pounds of water in twenty-four hours. This does no harm, unless the
moisture escapes faster than it rises from the roots, in which case the
plant wilts, and may even die. In such emergencies these little stomata,
or mouths, shut up partly or completely, and so do much to check the
exhalation. When moisture is given to the roots, these mouths open again,
and if our eyes were fine enough we should see the vapor passing out."

"I never appreciated the fact before that plants are so thoroughly
alive."

"Indeed, they are alive, and therefore they need the intelligent care
required by all living creatures which we have removed from their natural
conditions. Nature takes care of her children when they are where she
placed them. In a case like this, wherein we are preserving plants that
need summer warmth through a winter cold, we must learn to supply her
place, and as far as possible adopt her methods. It is just because
multitudes do not understand her ways that so many house plants are in a
half-dying condition."

"Now, Amy, I will teach you how to water the pots," Mrs. Clifford began.
"The water, you see, has been standing in the flower-room all night, so
as to raise its temperature. That drawn directly from the well would be
much too cold, and even as it is I shall add some warm water to take the
chill off. The roots are very sensitive to a sudden chill from too cold
water. No, don't pour it into the pots from that pitcher. The rain does
not fall so, and, as Webb says, we must imitate nature. This watering-pot
with a fine rose will enable you to sprinkle them slowly, and the soil
can absorb the moisture naturally and equally. Most plants need water
much as we take our food, regularly, often, and not too much at a time.
Let this surface soil in the pots be your guide. It should never be
perfectly dry, and still less should it be sodden with moisture; nor
should moisture ever stand in the saucers under the pots, unless the
plants are semi-aquatic, like this calla-lily. You will gradually learn
to treat each plant or family of plants according to its nature. The
amount of water which that calla requires would kill this heath, and the
quantity needed by the heath would be the death of that cactus over
there."

"Oh dear!" cried Amy, "if I were left alone in the care of your
flower-room, I should out-Herod Herod in the slaughter of the innocents."

"You will not be left alone, and you will be surprised to find how
quickly the pretty mystery of life and growth will begin to reveal itself
to you."

* * * * *

As the days passed, Amy became more and more absorbed in the genial family
life of the Cliffords. She especially attached herself to the old people,
and Mr. and Mrs. Clifford were fast learning that their kindness to the
orphan was destined to receive an exceeding rich reward. Her young eyes
supplemented theirs, which were fast growing dim; and even platitudes read
in her sweet girlish voice seemed to acquire point and interest. She soon
learned to glean from the papers and periodicals that which each cared for,
and to skip the rest. She discovered in the library a well-written book on
travel in the tropics, and soon had them absorbed in its pages, the
descriptions being much enhanced in interest by contrast with the winter
landscape outside. Mrs. Clifford had several volumes on the culture of
flowers, and under her guidance and that of Webb she began to prepare for
the practical out-door work of spring with great zest. In the meantime she
was assiduous in the care of the house plants, and read all she could find
in regard to the species and varieties represented in the little
flower-room. It became a source of genuine amusement to start with a
familiar house plant and trace out all its botanical relatives, with their
exceedingly varied character and yet essential consanguinity; and she drew
others, even Alf and little Johnnie, into this unhackneyed pursuit of
knowledge.

"These plant families," she said one day, "are as curiously diverse as
human families. Group them together and you can see plainly that they
belong to one another, and yet they differ so widely."

"As widely as Webb and I," put in Burt.

"Thanks for so apt an illustration."

"Burt is what you would call a rampant grower, running more to wood and
foliage than anything else," Leonard remarked.

"I didn't say that," said Amy. "Moreover, I learned from my reading that
many of the strong-growing plants become in maturity the most productive
of flowers or fruit."

"How young I must seem to you!" Burt remarked.

"Well, don't be discouraged. It's a fault that will mend every day," she
replied, with a smile that was so arch and genial that he mentally
assured himself that he never would be disheartened in his growing
purpose to make Amy more than a sister.

CHAPTER XII

A MOUNTAINEER'S HOVEL

One winter noon Leonard returned from his superintendence of the
wood-cutting in the mountains. At the dinner-table be remarked: "I have
heard to-day that the Lumley family are in great destitution, as usual.
It is useless to help them, and yet one cannot sit down to a dinner like
this in comfort while even the Lumleys are hungry."

"Hunger is their one good trait," said Webb. "Under its incentive they
contribute the smallest amount possible to the world's work."

"I shouldn't mind," resumed Leonard, "if Lumley and his wife were pinched
sharply. Indeed, it would give me solid satisfaction had I the power to
make those people work steadily for a year, although they would regard it
as the worst species of cruelty. They have a child, however, I am told,
and for its sake I must go and see after them. Come with me, Amy, and I
promise that you will be quite contented when you return home."

It was rather late in the afternoon when the busy Leonard appeared at the
door in his strong one-horse sleigh with its movable seat, and Amy found
that he had provided an ample store of vegetables, flour, etc. She
started upon the expedition with genuine zest, to which every mile of
progress added.

The clouded sky permitted only a cold gray light, in which everything
stood out with wonderful distinctness. Even the dried weeds with their
shrivelled seed-vessels were sharply defined against the snow. The beech
leaves which still clung to the trees were bleached and white, but the
foliage on the lower branches of the oaks was almost black against the
hillside. Not a breath of air rustled them. At times Leonard would stop
his horse, and when the jingle of the sleigh-bells ceased the silence was
profound. Every vestige of life had disappeared in the still woods, or
was hidden by the snow.

"How lonely and dreary it all looks!" said Amy, with a sigh.

"That is why I like to look at a scene like this," Leonard replied.
"When I get home I see it all again--all its cold desolation--and it
makes Maggie's room, with her and the children around me, seem like
heaven."

But oh, the contrast to Maggie's room that Amy looked upon after a ride
over a wood-road so rough that even the deep snow could not relieve its
rugged inequalities! A dim glow of firelight shone through the frosted
window-panes of a miserable dwelling, as they emerged in the twilight
from the narrow track in the growing timber. In response to a rap on the
door, a gruff, thick voice said, "Come in."

Leonard, with a heavy basket on his arm, entered, followed closely by
Amy, who, in her surprise, looked with undisguised wonder at the scene
before her. Never had she even imagined such a home. Indeed, it seemed
like profanation of the word to call the bare, uncleanly room by that
sweetest of English words. It contained not a home-like feature. Her eyes
were not resting on decent poverty, but upon uncouth, repulsive want; and
this awful impoverishment was not seen in the few articles of cheap,
dilapidated furniture so clearly as in the dull, sodden faces of the man
and woman who kennelled there. No trace of manhood or womanhood was
visible--and no animal is so repulsive as a man or woman imbruted.

The man rose unsteadily to his feet and said: "Evenin', Mr. Clifford.
Will yer take a cheer?"

The woman had not the grace or the power to acknowledge their presence,
but after staring stolidly for a moment or two at her visitors through
her dishevelled hair, turned and cowered over the hearth again, her
elfish locks falling forward and hiding her face.

The wretched smoky fire they maintained was the final triumph and
revelation of their utter shiftlessness. With square miles of woodland
all about them, they had prepared no billets of suitable size. The man
had merely cut down two small trees, lopped off their branches, and
dragged them into the room. Their butt-ends were placed together on the
hearth, whence the logs stretched like the legs of a compass to the two
further corners of the room. Amy, in the uncertain light, had nearly
stumbled over one of them. As the logs burned away they were shoved
together on the hearth from time to time, the woman mechanically throwing
on dry sticks from a pile near her when the greed wood ceased to blaze.
Both man and woman were partially intoxicated, and the latter was so
stupefied as to be indifferent to the presence of strangers. While
Leonard was seeking to obtain from the man some intelligible account of
their condition, and bringing in his gifts, Amy gazed around, with her
fair young face full of horror and disgust. Then her attention was
arrested by a feeble cry from a cradle in a dusky corner beyond the
woman, and to the girl's heart it was indeed a cry of distress, all the
more pathetic because of the child's helplessness, and unconsciousness of
the wretched life to which it seemed inevitably destined.

She stepped to the cradle's side, and saw a pallid little creature, puny
and feeble from neglect. Its mother paid no attention to its wailing, and
when Amy asked if she might take it up, the woman's mumbled reply was
unintelligible.

After hesitating a moment Amy lifted the child, and found it scarcely
more than a little skeleton. Sitting down on the only chair in the room,
which the man had vacated--the woman crouched on an inverted box--Amy
said, "Leonard, please bring me the milk we brought."

After it had been warmed a little the child drank it with avidity.
Leonard stood in the background and sadly shook his head as he watched
the scene, the fire-light flickering on Amy's pure profile and
tear-dimmed eye as she watched the starved babe taking from her hand the
food that the brutish mother on the opposite side of the hearth was
incapable of giving it.

He never forgot that picture--the girl's face beautiful with a divine
compassion, the mother's large sensual features half hidden by her snaky
locks as she leaned stupidly over the fire, the dusky flickering shadows
that filled the room, in which the mountaineer's head loomed like that of
a shaggy beast. Even his rude nature was impressed, and he exclaimed,

"Gad! the likes of that was never seen in these parts afore!"

"Oh, sir," cried Amy, turning to him, "can you not see that your little
child is hungry?"

"Well,--the woman, she's drunk, and s'pose I be too, somewhat."

"Come, Lumley, be more civil," said Leonard. "The young lady isn't used
to such talk."

"Oh, it all seems so dreadful!" exclaimed Amy, her tears falling faster.

The man drew a step or two nearer, and looked at her wonderingly; then,
stretching out his great grimy hand, he said: "I s'pose you think I
hain't no feelings, miss, but I have. I'll take keer on the young un, and
I won't tech another drop to-night. Thar's my hand on it."

To Leonard's surprise, Amy took the hand, as she said, "I believe you
will keep your word."

"That's right, Lumley," added Leonard, heartily. "Now you are acting like
a man. I've brought you a fair lot of things, but they are in trade. In
exchange for them I want the jug of liquor you brought up from the
village to-day."

The man hesitated, and looked at his wife.

"Come, Lumley, you've begun well. Put temptation out of the way. For your
wife and baby's sake, as well as your own, give me the jug. You mean
well, but you know your failing."

"Well, Mr. Clifford," said the man, going to a cupboard, "I guess it'll
be safer. But you don't want the darned stuff," and he opened the door
and dashed the vessel against an adjacent bowlder.

"That's better still. Now brace up, get your axe and cut some wood in a
civilized way. We're going to have a cold night. You can't keep up a fire
with this shiftless contrivance," indicating with his foot one of the
logs lying along the floor. "As soon as you get things straightened up
here a little we'll give you work. The young lady has found out that you
have the making of a man in you yet. If she'll take your word for your
conduct to-night, she also will for the future."

"Yes," added Amy, "if you will try to do better, we will all try to help
you. I shall come to see the baby again. Oh, Leonard," she added, as she
placed the child in its cradle, "can't we leave one of the blankets from
the sleigh? See, the baby has scarcely any covering."

"But you may be cold."

"No; I am dressed warmly. Oh! see! see! the little darling is smiling up
at me! Leonard, please do. I'd rather be cold."

"Bless your good heart, miss!" said the man, more touched than ever.
"Never had any sich wisitors afore."

When Amy had tucked the child in warm he followed her and Leonard to the
sleigh and said, "Good-by, miss; I'm a-going to work like a man, and
there's my hand on it agin."

Going to work was Lumley's loftiest idea of reformation, and many others
would find it a very good beginning. As they drove away they heard the
ring of his axe, and it had a hopeful sound.

For a time Leonard was closely occupied with the intricacies of the road,
and when at last he turned and looked at Amy, she was crying.

"There, don't take it so to heart," he said, soothingly.

"Oh, Leonard, I never saw anything like it before. That poor little
baby's smile went right to my heart. And to think of its awful mother!"

They paused on an eminence and looked back on the dim outline of the
hovel. Then Leonard drew her close to him as he said, "Don't cry any
more. You have acted like a true little woman--just as Maggie would have
done--and good may come of it, although they'll always be Lumleys. As
Webb says, it would require several generations to bring them up. Haven't
I given you a good lesson in contentment?"

"Yes; but I did not need one. I'm glad I went, however, but feel that I
cannot rest until there is a real change for the better."

"Well, who knows? You may bring it about"

The supper-table was waiting for them when they returned. The gleam of the
crystal and silver, the ruddy glow from the open stove, the more genial
light of every eye that turned to welcome them, formed a delightful
counter-picture to the one they had just looked upon, and Leonard beamed
with immeasurable satisfaction. To Amy the contrast was almost too sharp,
and she could not dismiss from her thoughts the miserable dwelling in the
mountains.

Leonard's buoyant, genial nature had been impressed, but not depressed,
by the scene he had witnessed. Modes of life in the mountains were
familiar to him, and with the consciousness of having done a kind deed
from which further good might result, he was in a mood to speak freely of
the Lumleys, and the story of their experience was soon drawn from him.
Impulsive, warm-hearted Burt was outspoken in his admiration of Amy's
part in the visit of charity, but Webb's intent look drew her eyes to
him, and with a strange little thrill at her heart she saw that he had
interpreted her motives and feelings.

"I will take you there again, Amy," was all he said, but for some reason
she dwelt upon the tone in which he spoke more than upon all the uttered
words of the others.

Later in the evening he joined her in the sitting-room, which, for the
moment, was deserted by the others, and she spoke of the wintry gloom of
the mountains, and how Leonard was fond of making the forbidding aspect a
foil for Maggie's room. Webb smiled as he replied:

"That is just like Len. Maggie's room is the centre of his world, and he
sees all things in their relation to it. I also was out this afternoon,
and I took my gun, although I did not see a living thing to fire at. But
the 'still, cold woods,' as you term them, were filled with a beauty and
suggestiveness of which I was never conscious before. I remembered how
different they had appeared in past summers and autumns, and I saw how
ready they were for the marvellous changes that will take place in a few
short weeks. The hillsides seemed like canvases on which an artist had
drawn his few strong outlines which foretold the beauty to come so
perfectly that the imagination supplied it."

"Why, Webb, I did not know you had so much imagination."

"Nor did I, and I am glad that I am discovering traces of it. I have always
loved the mountains, because so used to them--they were a part of my life
and surroundings--but never before this winter have I realized they were so
beautiful. When I found that you were going up among the hills, I thought I
would go also, and then we could compare our impressions."

"It was all too dreary for me," said the young girl, in a low tone. "It
reminded me of the time when my old life ceased, and this new life had
not begun. There were weeks wherein my heart was oppressed with a cold,
heavy despondency, when I just wished to be quiet, and try not to think
at all, and it seemed to me that nature looked to-day just I felt."

"I think it very sad that you have learned to interpret nature in this
way so early in life. And yet I think I can understand you and your
analogy."

"I think you can, Webb," she said, simply.

CHAPTER XIII

ALMOST A TRAGEDY

The quiet sequence of daily life was soon interrupted by circumstances
that nearly ended in a tragedy. One morning Burt saw an eagle sailing
over the mountains. The snow had been greatly wasted, and in most places
was so strongly incrusted that it would bear a man's weight. Therefore
the conditions seemed favorable for the eagle hunt which he had promised
himself; and having told his father that he would look after the wood
teams and men on his way, he took his rifle and started.

The morning was not cold, and not a breath of air disturbed the sharp,
still outlines of the leafless trees. The sky was slightly veiled with a
thin scud of clouds. As the day advanced these increased in density and
darkened in hue.

Webb remarked at dinner that the atmosphere over the Beacon Hills in the
northeast was growing singularly obscure and dense in its appearance, and
that he believed a heavy storm was coming.

"I am sorry Burt has gone to the mountains to-day," said Mrs. Clifford,
anxiously.

"Oh, don't worry about Burt," was Webb's response; "there is no more
danger of his being snowed in than of a fox's."

Before the meal was over, the wind, snow-laden, was moaning about the
house. With every hour the gale increased in intensity. Early in the
afternoon the men with the two teams drove to the barn. Amy could just
see their white, obscure figures through the blinding snow, Even old Mr.
Clifford went out to question them. "Yes, Mr. Burt come up in de mawnin'
an' stirred us all up right smart, slashed down a tree hisself to show a
new gawky hand dat's cuttin' by de cord how to 'arn his salt; den he put
out wid his rafle in a bee-line toward de riber. Dat's de last we seed ob
him;" and Abram went stolidly on to unhitch and care for his horses.

Mr. Clifford and his two elder sons returned to the house with traces of
anxiety on their faces, while Mrs. Clifford was so worried that,
supported by Amy, she made an unusual effort, and met them at the door.

"Don't be disturbed, mother," said Webb, confidently. "Burt and I have
often been caught in snowstorms, but never had any difficulty in finding
our way. Burt will soon appear, or, if he doesn't, it will be because he
has stopped to recount to Dr. Marvin the results of his eagle hunt."

Indeed, they all tried to reassure her, but, with woman's quick instinct
where her affections are concerned, she read what was passing in their
minds. Her husband led her back to her couch, where she lay with her
large dark eyes full of trouble, while her lips often moved in prayer.
The thought of her youngest and darling son far off and alone among those
cloud-capped and storm-beaten mountains was terrible to her.

Another hour passed, and still the absent youth did not return. Leonard,
his father, and Amy, often went to the hall window and looked out. The
storm so enhanced the early gloom of the winter afternoon that the
outbuildings, although so near, loomed out only as shadows. The wind was
growing almost fierce in its violence. Webb had so long kept up his
pretence of reading that Amy began in her thoughts to resent his seeming
indifference as cold-blooded. At last he laid down his book, and went
quietly away. She followed him, for it seemed to her that something ought
to be done, and that he was the one to do it. She found him in an upper
chamber, standing by an open window that faced the mountains. Joining
him, she was appalled by the roar of the wind as it swept down from the
wooded heights.

"Oh, Webb," she exclaimed--he started at her words and presence, and
quickly closed the window--"ought not something to be done? The bare
thought that Burt is lost in this awful gloom fills me with horror. The
sound of that wind was like the roar of the ocean in a storm we had. How
can he see in such blinding snow? How could he breast this gale if he
were weary?"

He was silent a moment, looking with contracted brows at the gloomy
scene. At last he began, as if reassuring himself as well as the agitated
girl at his side:

"Burt, you must remember, has been brought up in this region. He knows
the mountains well, and--"

"Oh, Webb, you take this matter too coolly," interrupted Amy, impulsively.
"Something tells me that Burt is in danger;" and in her deep solicitude she
put her hand on his arm. She noticed that it trembled, and that he still
bent the same contracted brow toward the region where his brother must be
if her fears were true. Then he seemed to come to a decision.

"Yes," he said, quietly, "I take it coolly. Perhaps it's well that I can.
You may be right, and there may be need of prompt, wise action. If so, a
man will need the full control of all his wits. I will not, however, give
up my hope--my almost belief--that he is at Dr. Marvin's. I shall
satisfy myself at once. Try not to show your fears to father and mother,
that's a brave girl."

He was speaking hurriedly now as they were descending the stairs. He
found his father in the hall, much disturbed, and querying with his
eldest son as to the advisability of taking some steps immediately.
Leonard, although evidently growing anxious, still urged that Burt, with
his knowledge and experience as a sportsman, would not permit himself to
be caught in such a storm.

"He surely must be at the house of Dr. Marvin or some other neighbor on
the mountain road."

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