第55章 Up at Merry's(1)

"Now fly round,child,and get your sweeping done up smart and early.""Yes,mother."

"I shall want you to help me about the baking,by and by.""Yes,mother."

"Roxy is cleaning the cellar-closets,so you'll have to get the vegetables ready for dinner.Father wants a boiled dish,and I shall be so busy I can't see to it.""Yes,mother."

A cheerful voice gave the three answers,but it cost Merry an effort to keep it so,for she had certain little plans of her own which made the work before her unusually distasteful.Saturday always was a trying day,for,though she liked to see rooms in order,she hated to sweep,as no speck escaped Mrs.Grant's eye,and only the good old-fashioned broom,wielded by a pair of strong arms,was allowed.Baking was another trial:she loved good bread and delicate pastry,but did not enjoy burning her face over a hot stove,daubing her hands with dough,or spending hours rolling out cookies for the boys;while a "boiled dinner"was her especial horror,as it was not elegant,and the washing of vegetables was a job she always shirked when she could.

However,having made up her mind to do her work without complaint,she ran upstairs to put on her dust-cap,trying to look as if sweeping was the joy of her life.

"It is such a lovely day,I'd id want to rake my garden,and have a walk with Molly,and finish my book so I can get another,"she said with a sigh,as she leaned out of the open window for a breath of the unusually mild air.

Down in the ten-acre lot the boys were carting and spreading loam;out in the barn her father was getting his plows ready;over the hill rose the smoke of the distant factory,and the river that turned the wheels was gliding through the meadows,where soon the blackbirds would be singing.Old Bess pawed the ground,eager to be off;the gray hens were scratching busily all about the yard;even the green things in the garden were pushing through the brown earth,softened by April rains,and there was a shimmer of sunshine over the wide landscape that made every familiar object beautiful with hints of spring,and the activity it brings.

Something made the old nursery hymn come into Merry's head,and humming to herself,"In works of labor or of skill I would be busy too,"she tied on her cap,shouldered her broom,and fell to work so energetically that she soon swept her way through the chambers,down the front stairs to the parlor door,leaving freshness and order behind her as she went.

She always groaned when she entered that apartment,and got out of it again as soon as possible,for it was,like most country parlors,a prim and chilly place,with little beauty and no comfort.

Black horse-hair furniture,very slippery and hard,stood against the wall;the table had its gift books,albums,worsted mat and ugly lamp;the mantel-piece its china vases,pink shells,and clock that never went;the gay carpet was kept distressingly bright by closed shutters six days out of the seven,and a general air of go-to-meeting solemnity pervaded the room.Merry longed to make it pretty and pleasant,but her mother would allow of no change there,so the girl gave up her dreams of rugs and hangings,fine pictures and tasteful ornaments,and dutifully aired,dusted,and shut up this awful apartment once a week,privately resolving that,if she ever had a parlor of her own,it should not be as dismal as a tomb.

The dining-room was a very different place,for here Merry had been allowed to do as she liked,yet so gradual had been the change,that she would have found it difficult to tell how it came about.It seemed to begin with the flowers,for her father kept his word about the "posy pots,"and got enough to make quite a little conservatory in the bay-window,which was sufficiently large for three rows all round,and hanging-baskets overhead.Being discouraged by her first failure,Merry gave up trying to have things nice everywhere,and contented herself with making that one nook so pretty that the boys called it her "bower."Even busy Mrs.Grant owned that plants were not so messy as she expected,and the fanner was never tired of watching "little daughter"as she sat at work there,with her low chair and table full of books.

The lamp helped,also,for Merry set up her own,and kept it so well trimmed that it burned clear and bright,shining on the green arch of ivy overhead,and on the nasturtium vines framing the old glass,and peeping at their gay little faces,and at the pretty young girl,so pleasantly that first her father came to read his paper by it,then her mother slipped in to rest on the lounge in the corner,and finally the boys hovered about the door as if the "settin'-room"had grown more attractive than the kitchen.

But the open fire did more than anything else to win and hold them all,as it seldom fails to do when the black demon of an airtight stove is banished from the hearth.After the room was cleaned till it shone,Merry begged to have the brass andirons put in,and offered to keep them as bright as gold if her mother would consent.So the great logs were kindled,and the flames went dancing up the chimney as if glad to be set free from their prison.

It changed the whole room like magic,and no one could resist the desire to enjoy its cheery comfort.The farmer's three-cornered leathern chair soon stood on one side,and mother's rocker on the other,as they toasted their feet and dozed or chatted in the pleasant warmth.