Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  As the woman beat it, a great deal of dust and dirt fell out of it, upon the ground; and by degrees, the flax which she held in her hand looked cleaner and cleaner, and finer and finer, till at last it looked like yellow hair.

  “But, mamma,” said Frank, “the flax which I saw last summer, growing in a field near this house, had long green stalks, and blue flowers; and I saw no yellow threads like these. — Is this a different kind of flax?”

  “No, my dear, this is the same flax. The blue flowers have withered and died.”

  When the blue flowers began to wither, the woman pulled up all the green stalks, and bound them together in bundles, and put these bundles under water, in a ditch, where she left them for about a fortnight; during this time, the green outside of the stalk decayed, and the stringy part remained; she then untied the bundles, and spread them out, near a fire, to dry; and then she brought the flax home. “And this,” said she, showing Frank a bit of the flax, which the woman had not yet beaten and cleaned, “this is the flax, as it looks after it has been soaked in water, and dried.”

  “And what is going to be done to it now, mamma?” said Frank, who observed that the woman was now placing two small boards before her, on which were stuck, with their points upright, several rows of steel pins; their points were as sharp as needles.

  “I am going to hackle the flax, master,” said the woman; and she began to comb the flax with these steel combs; she drew the flax through the pins, several times. The board, into which the pins were stuck, was fastened upon the table; and, as the woman drew the flax through the pins, it was disentangled, and combed smooth.

  “Mamma,” said Frank, “it is just like combing hair out, only the woman does not move the comb, but she draws the hair — the flax, I mean — through it.”

  The pins in one of the boards were much smaller, and placed closer together, than those in the other board.

  ‘This is the large comb, and this is the small-tooth comb, mamma,” said Frank.

  And when the flax had been drawn through these fine pins, there was not a tangle left in it; and it looked smooth, bright, and shining, and of a light, yellow color.

  Frank’s mother showed him that this looked the same as what he had seen on the old woman’s spinning-wheel.

  They went back to the spinning-wheel; and the old woman sat down, and spun a little; and Frank saw that the threads of the flax were twisted together —— — He did not exactly know how; and his mother told him he must not expect to find out how it was done, by looking at it for a few minutes.

  Frank said, “Mamma, I feel tired; my eyes are tired of looking; and I am tired with thinking about this spinning-wheel.”

  “Then do not think any more about it now; go, and run about the garden;” and Frank ran into the garden; and he jumped and sang; and then he listened to the birds, who were singing; and he smelled the flowers, particularly rosemary and balm, which he had never smelled before; and he heard the humming of bees near him, as he was smelling to the rosemary; and he recollected that he had not looked at the bees this day; so he ran to the glass bee-hive, and watched them working.

  And afterwards he ran back to his mother, and said, “I am quite rested now, mamma — I mean, I do not feel tired of thinking about the spinning-wheel. May I look at the woman spinning again?”

  Yes, my dear.”

  Frank went into the cottage, and looked at the old woman, who was spinning.

  “Would you like to try to spin a bit, dear?” said the old woman.

  “Yes, I should,” said Frank; “it looks as if it was very easy to do it; but perhaps it is not; for I remember, I could not plane with the carpenter’s plane, though it seemed very easy when he was doing it.”

  Frank tried to spin; but he broke the thread, almost at the first trial; however, the old woman clapped her hands, and said, “That’s a pretty dear! — He spins as well as I do, I declare!”

  “O, no, no, no,” said Frank; “I know I cannot spin at all;” and he looked ashamed, and left the spinning-wheel, and turned away from the old woman, and went back to his mother.

  She walked home with him; and, as they were walking home, his mother said to him: “Do you know why you came back just now, Frank?”

  “Yes, mamma; because the woman called me pretty dear, and told me that I could spin as well as she could; and you know I could not; so that was flattering me; and I do not like people that flatter me. I remember the lady in the shop, who flattered me, and afterwards called me a mischievous brat; but I do not much like to think of that. Mamma, of what use is that brown thread which the old woman made of the flax?”

  “Of that brown thread, linen is made, my dear.”

  “But linen is white, mamma; how is the brown thread made white?”

  “It is left in a place where the sun shines upon it; and there are other ways of making linen white, which I cannot now explain to you. Making linen white, is called bleaching it.”

  “Can you explain to me, mamma, how thread is made into linen?”

  “No, my dear, I cannot; but perhaps your father, when you are able to understand it, may show you how people weave linen in a loom.”

  One night, when Frank’s brother Henry was with him, they were talking of Henry’s garden.

  Henry said, “Next spring, I intend to sow some scarlet runners, or French beans, in my garden.”

  “Whereabouts in your garden?” said Frank. Henry tried to describe to him whereabouts; but Frank could not understand him; so Henry took his pencil out of his pocket, and said, “Now, Frank, I will draw for you a map of my garden; and then you will understand it.”

  He drew the shape of his garden upon paper; and he marked where all the little walks went, and where the rose-bush stood, and where the sally-fence was; and he drew all the borders, and printed upon each of the borders the name of what was planted there when Frank last saw it.

  Frank, after he had looked at this drawing for a little while, understood it, and saw the exact spot in which Henry intended to sow his scarlet runners, “So this is what you call a map,” said Frank; “but it is not like the maps in papa’s study.”

  “They are maps of countries, not little gardens,” said Henry.

  “I suppose they are of the same use to other people, that the little map of your garden was to me; to show them whereabouts places are. But, Henry, what are those odd-shaped, crooked bits of wood, which hook into one another, and which I thought you called a map?”

  “That is a map, pasted upon wood; and the shapes of the different places are cut out through the paper and through the wood; and then they can be joined together again, exactly the same shape that they were in at first.”

  “I don’t understand how you mean,” said Frank.

  Henry cut out the different beds and walks, in the little map which he had drawn of his garden; and when he had separated the parts, he threw them down upon the table, before Frank, and asked him to try if he could put them together again, as they were before.

  After some trials, Frank did join them all together; and he told Henry that he should very much like to try to put his wooden map together, and that he would be very much obliged to him, if he would lend it to him. “I am afraid,” said Henry, “to lend you that map, lest you should lose any of the parts of it.”

  “I will not lose them, I assure you.”

  “I tried every day for a week,” said Henry, “before I was able to put it all together; and after I had done with it every day, I put it into the box belonging to it; and I regularly counted all the bits, to see that I had them right.”

  “I will count them every day before I put them by, if you will lend them to me,” said Frank.

  “If you will promise me to do so,” said Henry, “I will lend you my map for a week.”

  Frank was eagerly going to say, “Yes, I will promise you,” when he felt a hand before his lips; it was his mother’s. “My dear Frank,” said she, in a serious tone of voice, “consider before you ever make any promise. N
o persons are believed, or trusted, who break their promises; you are very young, Frank, and you scarcely know what a promise means.”

  “I think I know, mamma, what this promise means,” said Frank.

  “And do you think you shall be able to keep your promise?”

  “Yes, mamma,” said Frank, “I hope that I shall.”

  “I hope so too, my dear,” said his mother; “for I would rather that you should never put that map together, than that you should make a promise and break it.”

  Frank promised Henry that, whenever he took the map out of the box, he would count the pieces, to see whether he had the right number, before he put them again into the box.

  “Remember,” said Frank, “I do not promise that I will not lose any of the pieces of the map; I promise only to count them; but I hope I shall not lose any of them.”

  Henry told him that he understood very well what he said; and he put the box into his hands.

  Frank immediately counted the pieces of the map. It was a map of England and Wales; and there were fifty-two pieces; one to represent each county.

  “Fifty-two; fifty-two; fifty-two;” repeated Frank, several times; “I am afraid I shall forget how many there are.”

  “Then,” said Henry, “you had better write it down. — Here is a pencil for you; and you may write it upon the lid of the box.”

  Frank wrote a two, and five after it.

  “That is not right,” said Henry; “that is twenty-five; and you know that there are fifty-two.”

  “Then,” said Frank, “I must put the five to my left hand, and the two to my right hand, to make fifty-two. Mamma, I did not understand what papa told me once, about the place of units, and tens, and hundreds.”

  “Then you had better ask him to explain it to you again, when he is at leisure; for want of knowing this, when you were to write fifty-two, you wrote twenty-five.”

  “That was a great mistake; but papa is busy now, and cannot explain about units and tens to me; therefore I will put the map together, if I can.”

  Frank could not put the map together, the first night that he tried, nor the second day, nor the third; but he regularly remembered to count the bits, according to his promise, every day before he put them into the box. —

  One day he was in a great hurry to go out to fly his kite; but all the pieces of the map were scattered upon the carpet; and he staid to count them, and put them into the box, before he went out.

  It was not easy to get them into the box, which was just large enough to hold them when they were well packed.

  The lid of the box would not slide into its place when the pieces of the map were not put in so as to lie quite flat.

  One day — it was Friday — Frank saw his father open a large book, in which there were very pretty prints of houses; and he was eager to go to look at these prints; but his map was upon the table; and he thought he had better count the pieces, and put them into the box, before he went to look at the prints, lest he should forget to do it afterwards, therefore he counted them as fast as he could. They were not all right. Fifty-two was the number that had been lent him; and he could not find but fifty-one.

  He searched all over the room; under the tables; under the chairs; upon the sofa; under the cushions of the sofa; under the carpet; every where he could think of. The lost bit of the map was nowhere to be found; and whilst he was searching, his father turned over all the leaves in the book of prints, found the print that he wanted, then shut the book, and put it into its place, in the book-case.

  Frank was at this instant crawling from beneath the sofa, where he had been feeling for his lost county. He looked up and sighed when he saw the book of pretty prints shut, and put up into the book-case.

  “O papa! there is the very thing I have been looking for all this time,” cried Frank, who now espied the bit of the map which he had missed; it was lying upon the table, and the book of prints had been put upon it, so that Frank never could see it till the book was lifted up.

  “I am glad I have found you, little crooked county of Middlesex,” said Frank. —

  “Now I have them all right — fifty-two.”

  The next morning — Saturday — the last day of the week during which the map was lent to Frank, he spent an hour and a half in trying to put it together; and at last he succeeded, and hooked every county, even crooked little Middlesex, into its right place.

  He was much pleased to see the whole map fitted together. “Look at it, dear mamma,” said he; “you cannot see the joining, it fits so nicely.”

  His mother was just come to look at his map, when they heard the noise of several sheep ba-a-ing very loud near the windows. Frank ran to the window; and he saw a large flock of sheep, passing near the window; a man and two women were driving them.

  “How fat they look, mamma!” said Frank; “they seem as if they could hardly walk, they are so fat.”

  “They have a great deal of wool upon their backs.”

  “Mamma, what can be the use of those large, very large, scissors, which that woman carries in her hand?”

  “Those large scissors are called shears; and with them the wool will be cut from the backs of these sheep.”

  “Will it hurt the sheep, mamma, to cut their wool off?”

  “Not at all, I believe.”

  “I should like, then, to see it done; and I should like to touch the wool. What use is made of wool, mamma?”

  “Your coat is made of wool, my dear.” Frank looked surprised; and he was going o ask how wool could be made into a coat; but his father came into the room, and asked him if he should like to go with him to see some sheep sheared.

  “Yes, very much, papa, thank you,” said Frank, jumping down from the chair on which he stood.

  “I shall be ready to go in five minutes,” said his father.

  “I am ready this minute,” said Frank; “I have nothing to do, but to get my hat, and to put on my shoes.” But just as he got to the door, he recollected that he had left Henry’s map upon the floor; and he turned back, and was going hastily to put it into the box; but he then recollected his promise to count the pieces every day, before he put them into the box. He was much afraid that his father should be ready before he finished counting them, and that he should be left behind, and should not see the sheep sheared; but he kept his promise exactly; he counted the fifty-two pieces, put them into the box, and was ready the instant his father called him.

  He saw the wool cut off the backs of the sheep; it did not entertain him quite so much as he had expected, to see this done; but when he returned home, he was very glad to meet his brother Henry in the evening; and he returned the box of maps to him.

  “Thank you, Henry,” said he; “here is your map, safe. Count the pieces, and you will find that there are fifty-two. And I have kept my promise; I have counted them every day, before I put them into the box. My mother saw me count them every day.”

  “I am glad, Frank, that you have kept your promise,” said Henry, and his mother, and his father, all at once; and they looked pleased with him.

  His father took down the book of pretty prints, and put it into Frank’s hands.

  “I will lend you this book for a week,” said his father; “you may look at all the prints in it; I can trust you with it; for I saw that you took care of Henry’s map, which was lent to you.”

  Frank opened the book, and he saw, upon the first page, the print of the front of a house.

  “The reason I wished to look at this book so much,” said Frank, “ was, because I thought I saw prints of houses in it; and I am going to build a house in my garden.”

  “You have kept your promise so well,” said Henry, “about the map, that I will lend you what I would not lend to any body that I could not trust; I will lend you ray box full of little bricks, if you will not take them out of doors, nor wet them.”

  Frank said that he would not either take them out of doors or wet them.

  And Henry believed that Frank would do wha
t he said that he would do, because he had kept his promise exactly in respect to the map.

  Frank received the box full of little bricks, with a joyful countenance; and his mother gave him leave to build with them in the room in which he slept.

  Henry showed him how to break the joints, in building — how to build walls and arches. And Frank was happy in building different sorts of buildings, and staircases, and pillars, and towers, and arches, with the little bricks which were lent to him. And he kept his promise not to wet them, and not to take them out of doors.

  “It is a good thing to keep one’s promise,” said his mother: “people are trusted who keep their promises — trusted even with little bricks.”

  It was autumn. The leaves withered, and fell from the trees; and the paths in the grove were strewed with the red leaves o the beech-trees.

  Little Frank swept away the leaves in his mother’s favorite walk in the grove: it was his morning’s work to make this walk quite clean; and as soon as dinner was over, he slid down from his chair; and he went to his mother, and asked her if she would walk out this evening in the grove.

  “I think,” said his mother, “it is now too late in the year to walk after dinner; the evenings are cold; and — —”

  “O mamma!” interrupted Frank, “pray walk out this one evening. Look! the sun has not set yet; look at the pretty red sunshine upon the tops of the trees. Several of the trees in the grove have leaves upon them still, mamma; and I have swept away all the withered leaves that were strewed upon your path. Will you come and look at it, mamma?”

  “Since you have swept my path, and have taken pains to oblige me,” said his mother, “I will walk with you, Frank. People should not always do just what they like best themselves; they should be sometimes ready to comply with the wishes of their friends; so, Frank, I will comply with your wish, and walk to the grove.”

  His mother found it a more pleasant evening than she had expected; and the walk, in the grove was sheltered; and she thanked Frank for having swept it.

  The wind had blown a few leaves from one of the heaps which he had made; and he ran on before his mother, to clear them away. But as he stooped to brush away one of the leaves, he saw a caterpillar, which was so nearly the color of the faded green leaf upon which it lay, that he, at first sight, mistook it for a part of the leaf. It stuck to the leaf, and did not move in the least, even when Frank touched it. He carried it to his mother, and asked her if she thought that it was dead, or if she knew what was the matter with it.