Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  His mother then came to the little table, by which Frank was standing; and she looked at the flower-pot, and saw that it was cracked, through, from top to bottom; and the moment she took it in her hands, it fell to pieces.

  “This flower-pot was not broken yesterday evening,” said his mother; “I remember seeing it without any crack in it yesterday evening, when I took the dead mignionette out of it.”

  “So do I, mamma; I was by at that time.”

  “I do not ask you, my dear Frank,” said his mother, “whether you broke this flowerpot; I think, if you had broken it, you would come and tell me, as you did when you broke the pane of glass in this window.”

  1 “But, mamma,” said Frank, eagerly looking up in his mother’s face, “I did not break this flower-pot; I have not meddled with it; have been playing with my soft ball, as you desired; look, here is my soft ball,” said he; “this is what I have been playing with, all this morning.”

  “My dear Frank,” said his mother, “I believe you. You told me truth before, about the window that you broke.”

  Frank’s father came into the room at this moment; and Frank asked him if he had broken or cracked the flower-pot.

  He said, “No, I have not; I know nothing about it.” —

  Frank’s mother rang the bell, and, when the maid-servant came up, asked the maid whether she had cracked the flower-pot.

  The maid answered, “No, madam, I did not.” And after she had given this answer, the maid left the room.

  “Now, my dear Frank,” said his father, “you see what an advantage it is to speak the truth; because I know that you told the truth about the window which you broke, and about the horse which you said you had seen going down the lane, I cannot help believing that you speak the truth now. I believe that you did not break this flower-pot, because you say that you did not.”

  “But, papa,” said Frank, “I wish that the person who did crack it would tell you, or mamma, that they cracked it, because then you would be quite sure that I did not do it. Do you think the maid did it?”

  “No, I do not; because she says she did not; and I have always found that she tells the truth.”

  Frank’s mother, whilst he was speaking, was looking at the broken pieces of the flower-pot; and she observed that, near the place where it was cracked, one side of the flower-pot was blackened; and she rubbed the black, and it came off easily; and she said, “This looks as if it had been smoked.”

  “But smoke comes from the fire,” said Frank; “and there has been no fire in this room, mamma.”

  “And did you never see smoke come from any thing but from the fire in the fireplace?” —

  “Not that I remember, mamma,” said Frank—”O yes, I have seen, smoke, a great deal of smoke, come from the spout of the tea-kettle, and from the top of the urn.”

  “That is not smoke,” said his father; “but I will tell you more about that another time. Cannot you recollect seeing smoke come from—”’

  “From what, papa?”

  “Last night you saw smoke coming from—”

  “O, now I recollect — from the candle, papa,” said Frank.

  “And now I recollect,” said Frank’s father, “that, late last night, I was sealing a letter at this little table; and I remember that I left the green wax candle burning very near this flower-pot, whilst I went out of the room, to give the letter, which I had been sealing, to a man who was waiting for it. When I came back again, I put out the candle; I did not observe that the flower-pot was smoked, or cracked; but I now think it is very probable that the heat of that candle cracked it.”

  “Let us look whether there is any melted green wax,” said Frank, “upon the pieces of the flower-pot; because wax, when it was melting, might drop upon the flower-pot, as it did upon my fingers once.”

  Frank examined all the pieces of the flower-pot, and on one bit, near the place where it was blackened with smoke, he found a round spot of green wax.

  “Then,” said his father, “I am now pretty sure that it was I who was the cause of cracking the flower-pot, by putting the lighted candle too near it.”

  “I am very glad we have found out the truth,” said Frank; “and now, papa,” added he, “will you be so good as to tell me about the smoke — no, not the smoke, but the thing that looks so like smoke, which comes out of the top of the urn, and out of the spout of the tea-kettle?”

  “I have not time to explain it to you now, Frank,” said his father; “but if I am not busy at tea-time, this evening, you may put me in mind of it again.” — And at teatime his father showed him the difference between smoke and steam.

  “The bread, mamma, is very good this morning,” said Frank, one morning at breakfast.

  “It is new bread.”

  “New bread, mamma! What is meant by new bread?” —

  “Bread that has been newly made.’

  “Bread is made of flour, I remember you told me, mamma, and flour comes from — O mamma, do not you recollect telling me that, some time or other, you would show me corn growing in the fields? When we walk out this morning, I will put you in mind of it again.” And when he walked out with his mother in the fields, Frank put her in mind of it again; and she said, “I see some men at work, yonder, in a cornfield; let us go and see what they are doing.” So they went to the field; and Frank’s mother showed him some corn growing; and she showed him some that had been cut down; she showed him some that was ripe, and some that was not ripe. And then they walked farther on, to the part of the field where the men were at work. —

  Frank saw that they had a kind of sharp, bright hooks in their hands, with which they were cutting down the com. His mother told him that these hooks are called reaping-hooks, or sickles.

  He saw that, after the corn was cut down, the men tied up bundles of it, which they set upright in the field, at regular distances from each other. His mother told him that each of these bundles was called a sheaf of corn; and she pulled out a single stalk, and put it into his hand, and said, “This is called an ear of corn; what grows upon a single stalk is called an ear of corn.”

  Whilst Frank was looking at the men tying up the sheaves of corn, a person came up to him, and said, “You are welcome, here, master — You are he that was so good as to tell me which road my horse strayed some time ago.”

  Frank looked in the face of the person who was speaking to him; and he recollected this to be the man who carried him up the steep hill, upon his horse.

  This man was a farmer; and he was now overlooking some laborers, who were reaping his corn. He pointed to a small house, amongst some trees at a little distance; and he told Frank’s mother that he lived in that house; and that, if she would like to walk there, he could show Frank how the men were threshing some corn in his barn.

  Frank’s mother thanked the farmer; and they walked to his house. It was a thatched, whitewashed house, and it looked very neat. There were some scarlet flowers in the kitchen garden, which looked very pretty. As they passed through the garden, Frank asked the name of these flowers; and his mother fold him that these were called scarlet runners; and she said to him, “On this kind of plant grow kidney beans, of which you are so fond, Frank.”

  Frank saw cabbages, and cauliflowers, and lettuce, in this garden; but his mother said. “Come, Frank, you must not keep us waiting;” and he followed his mother through a yard, where there were a great number of ducks, and fowl, and geese, and turkeys; and they made a great noise; and several of them clapped their white wings; and the geese and turkeys stretched out their long necks.

  “You need not squeeze my hand so tight, Frank,” said his mother; “you need not squeeze yourself up so close to me; these geese and turkeys will not do you any harm, though they make so much noise.”

  So Frank walked on stoutly; and he found that the geese and turkeys did not hurt him; and when he had crossed this yard, the farmer led them through a gate, into a large yard, where there were ricks of hay; and there were several cows in this yard; a
nd, as he passed by them, Frank observed that their breath smelt very sweet.

  “Come this way, into the barn,” said the farmer; “ here are the men who are threshing.”

  The barn, on the inside, looked like a large room, with rough walls, and no ceiling; but it had a floor. Two men were at work in this bam; they were beating some corn, that lay upon the floor, with long sticks; they made a great noise, as they struck the floor with their sticks; so that Frank could neither make his mother hear what he said, nor coula he hear her voice.

  The sticks seemed to be half broken in two, in the middle; and they seemed to swing with great violence, as the men struck with them; and Frank was afraid that the sticks should reach to where he stood, and would hit him; but, after he had been in the barn for a little while, he became less afraid; he observed that the sticks did not swing within reach of him.

  The farmer asked the men to stop working; and they stopped; and the farmer took one of the things, with which they had been working, out of their hands, and showed it to Frank.

  His mother told him that it was called a flail. It was made of two sticks, tied together with a bit of leather.

  The farmer showed Frank the corn, which lay upon the floor; and his mother showed him, that the loose, outside cover of the corn, was beaten off by the strokes of the flail.

  The farmer said, “You may take some of the corn, master, in your hand; and some of the chaff; and then you will see the difference.”

  The chaff was the outside covering.

  “And how is this corn made into bread?” said Frank.

  “O, master,” said the farmer, “a great deal must be done to it, before it is made into bread. It must go to the mill, to be ground.”

  “I should like to see the mill, mamma,” said Frank; “but I do not know what he means by to be ground.”

  “That you will see, when you go to the mill.”

  “Shall we go to the mill now, mamma?” said Frank.

  “No, my dear,” said his mother; “I would rather that you should wait till some day when your father can have time to go with you to the mill; because he can explain it to you much better than I could.”

  Then Frank and his mother thanked the farmer for what he had shown them; and they had a pleasant walk home.

  “Ah, spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain:

  He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain.”

  Frank was always careful not to hurt insects, nor any sort of animals. He liked to observe spiders in their webs, and ants carrying their white loads, but he never teased them; even those animals which he did not think were pretty, he took care not to hurt.

  One evening, when he was walking with his father and mother upon a gravel-walk near the house, he saw several black snails He did not think them pretty animals, but, whenever he came near one, he took care not to tread upon it. He stooped down to look at one of these black snails, which was drawing in its black horns.

  “I believe, mamma,” said Frank, “that it drew in those horns, because he is afraid I am going to hurt him.”

  “Very likely.”

  “But that is foolish of the snail, mamma, because you know I am not going to hurt it.”

  “I know that, Frank; but how should the snail know it?”

  “He lies quite still; he will not put out his black horns again; I will go away and leave him, that I may not frighten him any more. I should not like to be frightened myself, if I was a snail,” said Frank. So he ran on, before his father and mother, and left the snail; and he saw some pretty brown and green moss upon a bank; and he asked his mother if he might gather some of it.

  She said, “Yes;” and he climbed up the bank; and he gathered some of the moss; and in the moss, at the foot of a tree, he found a pretty shell. It was striped with purple, and green, and straw color, and white; and it was smooth, and very shining. He got down from the bank, as fast as he could; and he ran, and asked his mother if he might keep this pretty shell, and carry it into the house, when he came home from walking. His mother looked at the shell, as Frank held it upon the palm of his hand; and she told him that he might have it; and that he. might carry it into the house with him, when he went home; and she told him that it was a snail-shell.

  “A snail-shell, mamma!” said Frank. “I never saw such a pretty snail-shell before; I am glad I have found it; and I will take care not to break it.”

  Frank held it carefully in his hand, during the rest of his walk; and he often looked at it, to see that it was safe; and just as he came near the hall door, he opened his hand, and began to count the number of colored rings upon his snail-shell. “One, two, three, four, five rings, mamma,” said Frank; “and the rings seem to wind round and round the shell. They are larger at the bottom; and they grow less and less, as they wind up to the top.”

  “That is called a spiral line,” said his father, pointing to the line which, as Frank said, seemed to wind round and round the shell.

  As Frank was looking with attention at the shell, he felt something cold, clammy, and disagreeable touching his hand, at the bottom of the shell; and with his other hand he was going to lift up the shell, to see what this was; but when he touched it, he found that it stuck to his hand; and, a few instants afterwards, he saw the snail-shell seemed to rise up; and he perceived the horns and head of a snail, peeping out from beneath the shell.

  “O, mamma! there is a living snail in this shell. Look at it,” said Frank. “Look! it has crawled out a great deal farther now; and it carries its shell upon its back. It is very curious; but I wish it was crawling anywhere but upon my hand; for I do not like the cold, sticky feeling of it.”

  Frank was then going to shake the snail from his hand; but he recollected that, if he let it fall suddenly upon the stone steps, he might hurt the animal, or break the pretty shell; therefore he did not shake it off; but he put his hand down, gently, to the stone step; and the snail crawled off his hand, upon the stone. — ; “Mamma,” said Frank, “I think the snail might do without that pretty shell; you gave the shell to me, mamma. May I pull it off the snail’s back?”

  “My dear,” said his mother, “I did not know that there was a snail in that shell, when I said that you might have it. I would not have given it to you, if I had known that there was a snail withinside of it. You cannot pull the shell from the snail’s back, without hurting the animal, or breaking the shell.”

  “I do not wish to hurt the animal,” said Frank; “and I am sure I do not wish to break the pretty shell so I will not pull it. But, mamma, I think I had better take the snail and snail-shell, both together, into the house, and keep them in my little red box, mamma; what do you think?”

  “I think, my dear, that the snail would not be so happy in your little red box as it would be in the open air, upon the grass, or upon the leaves which it usually eats.”

  “But, mamma, I would give it leaves to eat in the little red box.”

  “But, Frank, you do not know what leaves it likes best to eat; and if you do not shut it up in your red box, it will find the leaves for itself which it loves best.”

  “Then, if you do not think it would be happy in my red box, mamma, I will not shut it up in it; I will leave it to go where it pleases, with its own pretty shell upon its back. That is what I should like, if I was a snail, I believe.”

  He then took the snail, and put it upon the grass, and left it; and he went into the house with his mother, and she called him into her room; and she took out of her bureau something which she held to Frank’s ear, and he heard a noise like the sound of water boiling; then she put into Frank’s hand what she had held to his ear; and he saw that it was a large shell, speckled red, and brown, and white; it was so large, that his little fingers could hardly grasp it.

  “Do you like it as well as you did the snail-shell?”

  “O, yes, a great deal better, mamma.”

  “Then I give it to you, my dear,” said his mother.

  “Keep it,” said his father; “ and, even if
you keep it till you are as old as I am, you will feel pleasure when you look at it; for you will recollect that your mother was pleased with you when she gave it to you, because you had been good-natured to a poor little snail.”

  PART II.

  “What was it, mamma,” said Frank, “that papa was saying to you, just after you were looking at the snail?”

  “I do not recollect, my dear.”

  “I wish you could be so good as to try to recollect, mamma, because it sounded very pretty; and I should like to hear it again. It seemed like something out of a book; it was something about horned snails, and varnished shells, and sliding—”

  “Do you mean, ‘ Slide here, ye horned snails with varnished shells’?”

  “O, yes, mamma!” cried Frank, “that is what I mean; but papa said a great deal more of it. Will you say it for me?”

  “I will repeat the lines, that you may hear the agreeable sound, but I do not think that you can understand the sense of them yet,” said his mother; and she repeated to him the following lines: —

  “‘Stay thy soft, murmuring waters, gentle rill; Hush, whispering winds; ye rustling leaves, be still Rest, silver butterflies, your quivering wings; Alight, ye beetles, from your airy rings; Ye painted moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl,

  Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl; Glitter, ye glowworms, on your mossy beds; Descend, ye spiders, on your lengthened threads; Slide here, ye horned snails with varnished shells; Ye bee-nymphs, listen in your waxen cells.’”

  “I do not understand the last line, mamma, at all; but I understand about the spiders coming down on their long threads; I have often looked at spiders doing that. But, mamma, I never saw any moths that had trunks; I do not think that a moth could carry a trunk.”

  “What do you think is meant by a trunk, my dear?”

  “A sort of box.”