CONVERSATION XII
LUCY’S SCHOLAR
After this, Lucy often “played boat” for amusement. She built her boat of chairs and crickets, and had the hearth brush for a paddle.
One evening, just after tea, when she was playing in this way, in the parlor, Royal looking on, she said to Miss Anne,
“I wish we had a real boat.”
“A real boat,” said Miss Anne, “would do no good, unless you had a place to sail it in.”
“Couldn’t we sail it in our brook?” asked Lucy.
“No, indeed,” said Royal; “there is scarcely water enough in our brook to float my turtle.”
“O Royal,” said Lucy, “it is a great deal too deep for your turtle.”
“In some places,” said Miss Anne; “but to sail a boat, you must have a long extent of deep water. I should think, however, that you might have a better boat than you can make of chairs and crickets.”
“How could we make it?” said Lucy.
“Why, Royal might find a long box, out behind the barn; or two common boxes, and put them together, end to end, out in the yard. You might put two boards across for seats, and have poles for paddles.”
“But it would not sail any,” said Royal.
“If you want it to sail, you must put some rollers under it, and then you can push it along a little.”
Royal said that that was an excellent plan, and that he meant to go and make such a boat the very next day. He said he did not believe but that he could put a mast in, and hoist up a sail; or at least a flag or a streamer.
“Well,” said Lucy, “we will.”
“I mean to go now and see if there is a box,” said Royal; “it is just light enough.”
So Royal went off out of the room.
“Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “how much does a real boat cost?”
“I don’t know, exactly, how much,” said Miss Anne.
“I don’t suppose I should have money enough to buy a boat, even if we had a deep brook to sail it in,” added Lucy.
“I don’t know,” said Miss Anne; “how much money have you got?”
“I have not got but a little; it is a dollar, or else a half a dollar; or a sixpence; I don’t know exactly. Royal has got more than I.”
Miss Anne merely said, “Has he?” and then the conversation dropped. She had just taken her seat at her work table, and began to be busy.
“I wish I knew of some way that I could earn money,” said Lucy. “Do you know of any way, Miss Anne?”
“What did you say?” asked Miss Anne.
“Don’t you know of some way that I could earn money?”
“Why, I don’t know; earning money is rather hard work, as I’ve heard people say. I believe young ladies generally earn money by teaching.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “if I could only get any scholars.”
“Why, you must be your own scholar; teach yourself to read. Come, I think that will be an excellent plan.”
“Can I earn any money so?” said Lucy.
“Yes, I should think so. It would take you three months, at a school, to learn your letters, and three months is twelve weeks. Now, I suppose that your father would have to pay about sixpence a week for you to go to school, and that would make twelve sixpences; and I presume he would be willing to give you as much as eight of the sixpences, if you would learn to read yourself.”
“Why not all the twelve?” asked Lucy.
“Because you would not do quite all yourself. Somebody would have to answer your questions, and show you what the letters were, at first; so that you could not do it all yourself. I should think that perhaps you might earn eight out of the twelve sixpences. That would be one sixpence for every three letters.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I mean to try.”
“If you think you would like to try,” said Miss Anne, “I’ll form a plan for you, so that you can begin to-morrow.”
Lucy said she should like to try, and accordingly Miss Anne reflected upon the subject that evening, endeavoring to contrive some plan by which Lucy might sit down by herself and study her letters, half an hour every day, until she had learned them all. She thought of a plan which she hoped might answer pretty well; and the next morning she made preparations for carrying it into execution.
First she got Lucy’s little table, and set it near one of the windows in her room; she also put her little chair before it. Then she got a large flat pin-cushion, and put upon the table.
“Why, Miss Anne!” said Lucy, who stood by looking at all these preparations, “what is the pin-cushion for? I never heard of studying with a pin-cushion.”
“You’ll see,” said Miss Anne. “I am going to have you learn to read on the pin-cushion method.”
Then Miss Anne opened an ebony box, which she had upon her table, and took out a very large pin, and also a stick of red sealing-wax. She carried these into the kitchen, Lucy following her; then she lighted a lamp, and melted some of the sealing-wax, and stuck it upon the head of the pin, turning it round and round, and then warming it, and pressing it with her fingers, until at last she had made a little ball of sealing-wax, about as big as a pea, which covered and concealed the original head of the pin.
“There,” said Miss Anne, “that is your pointer.”
“Let me take it, Miss Anne,” said Lucy. “I want to take it.”
Miss Anne handed the pointer to Lucy, and she looked at it carefully, as she walked slowly along back into Miss Anne’s room. When she got there, Miss Anne took it, and stuck it into the pin-cushion, and requested Lucy not to touch it.
Then she went and found some of the scattered leaves of an old picture-book, which had once been Royal’s, but was now nearly worn out and almost destroyed. She took one of these leaves, and spread it out upon the pin-cushion. Then she seated Lucy before it, and put the pointer in her hands.
“Now, Lucy,” said she, “what letter do you know?”
“I know o the best,” said Lucy.
Then Miss Anne pointed to the upper line, and in the third word there was an o.
“There,” said she – “prick it with your pointer.”
Lucy pricked through the o with great force, so as to sink the pin for half its length into the pin-cushion.
“That will do,” said Miss Anne. “Now look along until you find another o.”
Lucy found one about the middle of the line.
“Now,” said Miss Anne, “prick him too, – only do it gently, so as just to put the point in a little way; and when you are doing it, say, o.”
Lucy did so. She pressed the point of the pin through the letter, and at the instant that it went through, she said, o.
“Now,” said Miss Anne, “the plan is for you to go on in that way. Look all through that line, and prick every o you can find. Then take the next line, and the next, and so on regularly through the whole, and prick every o. After you have done, put the pointer into the pin-cushion, and the pin-cushion into your drawer. Then set your chair back, and bring the paper to me.”
Lucy was very ready to go on with this work. In fact, while Miss Anne was speaking, she had found another o, and was just going to prick; but Miss Anne stopped her, and told her that it was not rulable to begin to obey her orders until she had finished giving them.
At last, Miss Anne went out of the room, and left Lucy at her work. Lucy pricked away, very industriously, for nearly half an hour. She had then got almost to the bottom of the page. There she found a capital o, thus, O, at the beginning of a sentence; and she did not know whether she ought to prick such a one as that or not. While she was considering, she heard Royal’s voice in the entry way, calling her.
Lucy answered, in a loud voice,
“Here I am, Royal, – here, in Miss Anne’s room.”
Royal advanced to the door of Miss Anne’s room, and looked in. He had his cap on, and seemed to be in haste.
“Come, Lucy,” said he, “let’s go and make our boat.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “just wait till I have pricked two more lines.”
“Pricked,” said Royal, – “what do you mean by pricking?”
Royal came up to the little table where Lucy was at work, and looked over her shoulder, while she explained to him what she was doing.
“I am going to find every o there is on this page, and prick them all. I have pricked down to here already, and now I have got only two lines more to prick, and then I shall come out.”
“O, come out now,” said Royal, “and let the pricking go.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I must wait and finish my work.”
“That isn’t work,” said Royal; “it is nothing but play. It does not do any good.”
“Yes it does,” said Lucy; “I am doing it to earn money.”
“To earn money!” repeated Royal; and he began to laugh aloud at the idea of earning money in any such way as that.
Lucy explained to Royal that this was a way which Miss Anne had contrived for her to learn her letters herself, without troubling other people, and that she had told her that she should have sixpence for every three letters.
Royal then perceived that the plan was at least worthy of being treated with more respect than he had at first supposed; – but then he told Lucy that, in his opinion, she was beginning wrong.
“You ought to begin with some letter that you don’t know, Lucy,” said he; “you know o now, as well as I know my own thumb; and of course it’s of no use to prick it.”
Lucy did not know what to reply to this reasoning, – only that Miss Anne had told her to prick o, and Miss Anne knew best.
“At any rate,” said Royal, “you can finish it another time; so come out with me now, and help me get out the boxes for our boat.”
Lucy concluded that she would go out a few minutes with Royal, and then come back again, and finish her work. They accordingly went out together.
They found one long box, which Royal said would do very well indeed for a boat. The box was made to pack bedsteads in, and of course it was more than six feet long; but it was narrow, like a boat, and Royal said it was just the thing.
The children got this down upon a place where the ground was smooth and hard; and Lucy got so much interested in playing boat, that she entirely forgot her pricking for two hours; and then the first bell rang, to call them in to dinner.
The first bell always rang ten minutes before the second bell. This was to give Royal and Lucy time to come in and get ready. Lucy thought that she should just have time to finish the two lines, and she ran in to Miss Anne’s room to sit right down to her work. To her surprise, however, as soon as she got in, she saw that her chair was not before the little table, but had been set back; and the pin-cushion, pointer, and paper, had all entirely disappeared.
Lucy went into the parlor, and found Miss Anne placing the chairs around the dinner table.
“Miss Anne,” said she, in a tone of complaint, “somebody has taken away all my things.”
“That is some of my mischief, I suppose,” said Miss Anne.
“Did you take them away?” said Lucy.
“I put them away,” replied Miss Anne. “I went into my room, about an hour after I left you there, and found that you had gone away to play, and had left your work all out upon the table; and so I had to put it away.”
“Why, I was coming right back again,” said Lucy.
“And did you come right back?”
“Why, no,” said Lucy. “Royal wanted me to stay with him so much!”
“I thought you’d find it rather hard to earn money. You ought to have waited until you had finished your work, and then you could have gone out to play. – But I don’t mean that you did wrong. You had a right, if you chose, to give up the plan of earning money, and have your play instead.”
“Why, Miss Anne, I almost finished the work. I pricked all but two lines.”
“Yes, but then you left the work of putting the things away to me; and that gave me about as much trouble as all your pricking did good. So you did not earn any thing.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I will try this afternoon, while Royal is at his studies; and then he won’t want me to go out and play.”
She took s for her letter that afternoon, and she pricked all that she could find on the page. Then she put her work carefully away, all except the page itself, which she brought to Miss Anne, so that she might examine it. Miss Anne found that she had done it very well. She had pricked almost every one. Miss Anne looked it over very carefully, and could only find two or three which Lucy had overlooked.
After this, Lucy persevered for several weeks in pricking letters. She took a new letter every day, and she generally spent about half an hour at each lesson. She learned to be very still while she was thus engaged, saying nothing except to pronounce aloud the name of the letter when she pricked it, which Miss Anne said was a very important part of the exercise.
In this way, in process of time, she learned all the letters of the alphabet; and her father paid her the eight sixpences. With one of these sixpences she bought a fine black lead pencil, to draw with, and a piece of India rubber, to rub out her marks when they were made wrong.
Miss Anne also taught her how to make a purse to keep the rest of her money in; and when the purse was done, Lucy put the money into it, and got Miss Anne to let her keep it in one of her drawers. She was afraid it would not be quite safe in her treasury.
CONVERSATION XIII
SKETCHING
Lucy asked Miss Anne if she would let her go with her the next time that she went out to make sketches, and let her try to see if she could not make sketches too, with her new pencil. Miss Anne had two or three pencils, which she kept in a little morocco case, and some small sheets of drawing paper in a portfolio. Sometimes, when she went out to walk, she used to take these drawing implements and materials with her, and sit down upon a bank, or upon a rock, and draw, while Lucy was playing around.
But now, as Lucy herself had a pencil, she wanted to carry it out, so that she could make sketches too.
Miss Anne said that she should like this plan very much; and accordingly, one pleasant summer afternoon, they set off. Miss Anne tied Lucy’s pencil and India rubber together, by a strong silk thread, so that the India rubber might not be so easily lost. The other necessary materials – namely, some paper, some pencils for Miss Anne, and two thin books with stiff covers, to lay their paper upon, while drawing – were all properly provided, and put in a bag, which Miss Anne had made, and which she always used for this purpose.
Lucy observed, also, that Miss Anne put something else in her bag. Lucy thought, from its appearance, that it was a square block; but it was folded up in a paper, and so she could not see. She asked Miss Anne what it was, and Miss Anne told her it was a secret.
They walked along without any particular adventure until they came to a bridge across a stream. It was the same stream where they had sat upon the rocks and seen George and the other boys fishing; but this was a different part of the stream, and the water was deep and still. Lucy and Miss Anne stopped upon the middle of the bridge, and looked over the railing down to the dark water far below.
“O, what deep water!” said Lucy.
“How could we get over this river if it were not for this bridge?”
“Not very conveniently,” said Miss Anne.
“We could not get over at all,” said Lucy.
“Perhaps we might,” said Miss Anne; “there are several ways of getting over a river besides going over upon a bridge.”
“What ways?” said Lucy.
“One is by a ferry.”
“What is a ferry?” said Lucy.
“It is a large boat which is always ready to carry persons across. The ferry-man generally lives in a house very near the bank of the river; and if any body wants to go across the river, they call at his house for him, and he takes them across in his boat. Then they pay him some money.”
“But suppose they are on the other side,” said Lucy.
“Then,” said Miss Anne, “they have to call or blow a trumpet. Sometimes they have a trumpet for people to blow when they want the ferry-man to come for them. But sometimes, where there are a great many travellers on the road that leads to the ferry, the boats are coming and going all the time; and then people don’t have to call or to blow any trumpet.”
“How much money do they have to pay,” said Lucy, “for carrying them across?”
“That depends upon circumstances,” said Miss Anne. “If a man goes alone, he does not have to pay so much as he does if he is in a chaise; and if he has a carriage and two horses, he has to pay more still.”
“Why, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “can they carry over a carriage and two horses in a boat?”
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “a stage-coach and six horses, if necessary. They have large, flat-bottomed boats for the carriages and carts, and small, narrow boats for men, when they want to go alone.”
While this conversation had been going on, Miss Anne and Lucy had walked along to some distance beyond the bridge. They took a road which led to an old, deserted farm-house, and some other buildings around it, all in a state of ruin and decay. The man who owned it had built himself a new house, when he found that this was getting too old to be comfortable to live in. The new house was upon another part of his farm, and it was another road which led to it; so that these old buildings had been left in a very secluded and solitary position. Miss Anne liked very much to come to this place, when she came out to make sketches, for she said that in all the views of the buildings, on every side, there were a great many beautiful drawing lessons.
The roof of the house in one place had tumbled in, and the shed had blown down altogether. There was one barn, however, that was pretty good; and, in fact, the farmer used it to store his surplus hay in it.
Lucy sat down, with Miss Anne, under the shade of some trees, at a little distance from the buildings, and they began to take out their drawing materials.
“Now, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “what shall I draw?”
“I think that the well will be the best lesson for you.”
There was an old well at a little distance from the house, upon the green, with a group of venerable old lilac bushes near it. The water had been raised by a well-sweep, but the sweep itself had long since gone to decay, though the tall post with a fork at the top, which had supported the sweep, was still standing.
So Miss Anne recommended that Lucy should attempt to draw the well.
“But, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “I want to draw the same thing that you do.”
“Very well,” said Miss Anne; “then we will both draw the well.”
“So we will,” said Lucy; “but, Miss Anne, you must tell me how. I don’t know how to draw, myself.”
Miss Anne gave Lucy some instructions, according to her request. She told her that she must mind the shape of the things more than anything else. “All depends upon the proportions,” said Miss Anne.
“What is proportion?” said Lucy. “Royal told me something about it, but I could not understand him very well.”
“Suppose you look over me a few minutes, and see how I do it,” said Miss Anne.
Lucy liked this proposal very much; and she stood very still, for some time, while Miss Anne, with her paper upon her book, and her book upon her knee, began to make her drawing, talking all the time as follows: —
“First, there is the post; I will draw that first. I must make it look just as long upon the paper as it does in reality. And do you think it stands quite upright?”
“No,” said Lucy, “it leans.”
“Which way does it lean?” asked Miss Anne.
“It leans towards the well, I think,” said Lucy.
“So it does; and I must draw a line for one side of the post, and make this line lean over towards the place where my well is going to be, just as much as the post really leans.”
Miss Anne then drew the line, and asked Lucy to look at it carefully, and see whether it leaned any more, or any less, than the real post did.
Lucy looked at it very carefully, but she could not see that there was any difference.
“Now,” continued Miss Anne, “I must begin to draw the well; and I must have it at just the right distance from the post.”
Then Miss Anne put down her pencil very near to the post, and asked Lucy if she thought that that was about right.
“O no,” said Lucy, “that is a great deal too near.”
Miss Anne then moved the point of her pencil off almost to the end of the paper.
“Would that be right?” said Miss Anne.
“O no; that is too far.”
“But it is not so far as it is in reality, on the ground, from the post to the well.”
“No,” said Lucy, “but you are not going to have the picture so large as the real well.”
“That is it, exactly,” said Miss Anne. “The picture itself is all going to be smaller than the reality; and the drawing of the well must be just as much smaller than the real well, as the drawing of the post is than the real post. Then it is all in proportion.”
“Now,” said Miss Anne, “I will move my pencil up nearer, and you may tell me when it is too far off, and when it is too near, for the proper place for me to draw the side of the well. Is that right?” she added, after placing the point of the pencil in a new position.
“That is too near,” said Lucy.
“And that?” said Miss Anne.
“That is about right,” said Lucy.
“Look again, carefully.”
“Hark! what’s that?” said Lucy.
“It sounds like thunder,” said Miss Anne; “but I rather think it is only a wagon going over the bridge.”
A few minutes afterwards, however, the sound was repeated, louder and more distinct than before, and Miss Anne said it was thunder, and that they must go home, or that they should get caught in a shower. They looked around, and saw that there were some large, dark-looking clouds rising in the west; and Miss Anne said that they must put away their things, and go home as fast as they could.
“But, Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “it is a great way home. I am afraid it will rain on us before we get there.”
“Why, if we can get across the bridge,” said Miss Anne, “we can go into some of the houses.”
“Are there no houses before we come to the bridge?” asked Lucy.
“No,” said Miss Anne; “but I think we shall have time to go farther than that.”
By this time they had put up their drawing materials, and began to walk along towards the main road. Miss Anne said that she presumed that they should have ample time to get home; for showers seldom came up so very suddenly as to prevent their getting home from a walk.
But when they had gone about half way to the bridge, Miss Anne began to be afraid that they should not get home. There was a large, black cloud spreading along the western sky, and the low and distant peals of thunder came oftener, and grew gradually louder and louder. Miss Anne walked very fast, leading Lucy, who ran along by her side.
Just as they came to the bridge, the great drops of rain began to fall.
“There!” said Lucy, – “it’s beginning.”
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “and I have a great mind to go under the bridge.”
Miss Anne had just time to say “under the bridge,” when there came another heavy clap of thunder, which sounded louder and nearer than any which they had heard before. This decided Miss Anne at once. She turned off from the entrance to the bridge, and began to walk down the steep bank, leading Lucy. When they had descended to the margin of the stream, they found a narrow strip of sand between the water and the foundation of the bridge.
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “here is plenty of room for us to stand.”
They found a good place to stand, with the water of the stream before them, and the great wall, which the bridge rested upon, behind them. There were also some large, smooth stones lying there, which they could sit down upon. A very few minutes after they had fixed themselves in this place of shelter, the rain began to come down in torrents. The thunder rolled and reverberated from one part of the heavens to another, and once or twice Lucy saw a faint flash of lightning.
Lucy was very much amused at the curious effect produced by the drops of rain falling upon the water. They covered the water all over with little bubbles. She kept calling upon Miss Anne to see; but Miss Anne looked anxious and afraid. By and by, the rain began to come down through the bridge, and they had to move a little to keep from getting wet. But they succeeded in getting a dry place, and keeping pretty comfortable.
“But what shall we do,” said Lucy, “if it rains all night? We can’t stay here all night.”
“Thunder showers don’t last long,” said Miss Anne. “I presume it will be pleasant by and by, only we shall get our feet wet going home; for the roads will be very wet, and full of pools of water.”
Just then they heard the noise of wheels in the road, as if a chaise or carriage of some sort were coming along towards them. The horse travelled very fast, and soon came upon the bridge, and went along over it, passing directly above their heads with great speed, and with a noise which sounded louder to them than any clap of thunder which they had heard. Lucy was sure that they would break through, and come down upon their heads; and even Miss Anne was a little frightened. They little knew who it was in the chaise. It was Royal going to find them, to bring them home. He thought it probable that they had gone into the old, ruined buildings, to be sheltered from the rain, and that he should find them there.
After looking there for them in vain, he came back, and he happened to come to the bridge just as Miss Anne and Lucy were coming out from under it. They were very glad to see him. The shower was over. The sun had come out; the grass and trees were glittering with the reflection of the bright light from the drops of rain; and there were two great rainbows in the east, one bright, and the other rather faint. Royal said that he would have the faint rainbow, and Lucy might have the bright one for hers. Lucy’s rainbow lasted until some time after they got home.