A SUMMER IN A CAÑON & POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM (Illustrated). Kate Douglas Wiggin
Читать онлайн книгу.
thee so?’
‘Sublime! Second verse,’ said Bell slowly, with pauses between the lines:—
‘Or did a gopher,
The wicked loafer,
Gnaw at thy base,
And, doing so,
Contrive to go,
And leave no trace?’
‘Oh dear!’ sighed Margery; ‘if you will do it, wait a minute.
‘O toadstools white,
Pray give us light
Upon the question.
Did gopher gnaw,
And live in awe
Of indigestion?’
‘Good!’ continued Bell:—
‘Or did a man
Malicious plan
The good tree’s ruin,
And leave it so
Convenient low,
A seat for Bruin?
For travelling grizzlies, you know. We may go there and see a hungry creature making a stump-speech, while an admiring audience of grasshoppers and tarantulas seat themselves in a circle on the toadstools.’
‘Charming prospect!’ said Madge. ‘I don’t think I care to visit the Lone Stump or pass my mornings there.’
‘Nonsense, dear child; it is just like every other part of the cañon, only a little more lonely. It is not half a mile from camp, and hardly a dozen steps from the place where the boys go so often to shoot quail.’
‘Very well,’ said the girls. ‘We must go there to-morrow morning; and perhaps we’d better not tell the boys,—they are so peculiar. Jack will certainly interfere with us in some way, if he hears about it.’
‘Now let us take our books and run down by the pool for an hour or two,’ said Bell. ‘Papa and the boys are all off shooting, and mamma is lying down. We can have a cool, quiet time; the sunshine is so hot here by the tents.’
Accordingly, they departed, as they often did, for one of the prolonged chats in which school-girls are wont to indulge, and which so often, too, are but idle, senseless chatter.
These young people, however, had been fortunate in having the wisest and most loving guardianship, so that all their happy young lives had been spent to good purpose. They had not shirked study, and so their minds were stocked with useful information; they had read carefully and digested thoroughly whatever they had read, so that they possessed a good deal of general knowledge. The girls were bright, sensible, industrious little women, who tried to be good, too, in the old-fashioned sense of the word; and full of fun, nonsense, and chatter as they were among themselves, they never forgot to be modest and unassuming.
The boys were pretty well in earnest about life, too, with good ambitions and generous aspirations. They had all been studying with Dr. Winship for nearly two years; and that means a great deal, for he was a real teacher, entering into the lives of his pupils, sympathising with them in every way, and leading them, through the study of nature, of human beings, and of God, to see the beauty and meaning of life.
Geoffrey Strong, of course, was older than the rest, having completed his junior year at college; but Dr. Winship, who was his guardian, thought it wiser for him to rest a year and come to him in California, as his ambition and energy had already led him into greater exertions than his age or strength warranted. He was now studying medicine with the good Doctor, but would go back to the ‘land of perpetual pie’ in the fall and complete his college course.
A splendid fellow he was,—so earnest, thoughtful, and wise; so gravely tender in all his ways to Aunt Truth, who was the only mother he had ever known; so devoted to Dr. Winship, who loved him as his own elder son.
What will Geoffrey Strong be as a man? The twig is bent, and it is safe to predict how the tree will incline. His word will be as good as his bond; he will be a good physician, for his eye is quick to see suffering, and his hand ready to relieve it; little children with feverish cheeks and tired eyes will love to clasp his cool, strong sand; he will be gentle as a woman, yet thoroughly manly, as he is now, for he has made the most of his golden youth, and every lad who does that will have a golden manhood and a glorious old age.
As for Philip Noble, he was a dear, good, trustworthy lad too; kindly, generous, practical, and industrious; a trifle slow and reserved, perhaps, but full of common sense,—the kind of sense which, after all, is most uncommon.
Bell once said: ‘This is the difference between Philip and Geoffrey,—one does, and the other is. Geoff is the real Simon-pure ideal which we praise Philip for trying to be,’—a very good description for a little maiden whose bright eyes had only looked into life for sixteen summers.
And now we come to Jack Howard, who never kept still long enough for any one to write a description of him. To explain how he differed from Philip or Geoffrey would be like bringing the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer together for purposes of comparison.
If there were a horseback ride, Jack rode the wildest colt, was oftenest thrown and least often hurt; if a fishing-party, Jack it was who caught all the fish, though he made more noise than any one else, and followed no rules laid down in The Complete Angler.
He was very often in trouble; but his misdemeanours were those of pure mischief, and were generally atoned for when it was possible. He excelled in all out-of-door sports. And indeed, if his prudence had at all kept pace with his ability, he might have done remarkable things in almost any direction; but he constantly overshot the mark, and people looked to him for the dazzling brilliancy and uncertainty of a meteor, but never for the steady glow of a fixed star.
Just now, Jack was a good deal sobered, and appeared at his very best. The teaching of Dr. Paul and the companionship of Geoffrey had done much for him, while the illness of his sister Elsie, who was the darling of his heart, acted constantly as a sort of curb upon him; for he loved her with all the ardour and passion which he gave to everything else. You might be fearful of Jack’s high spirits and riotous mirth, of his reckless actions and heedless jokes, but you could scarcely keep from admiring the boy; for he was brave and handsome and winsome enough to charm the very birds off the bush, as Aunt Truth acknowledged, after giving him a lecture for some misdemeanour.
The three girls made their way a short distance up the cañon to a place which they called Prospect Pool, because it was so entirely shut in from observation.
‘Dear old Geoff!’ said Bell, throwing her shawl over a rock and opening her volume of Carlyle. ‘He has gone all through this for me, and written nice little remarks on the margin,—explanations and things, and interrogations where he thinks I won’t know what is meant and had better find out,—bless his heart! What have you brought, Margery? By the way, you must move your seat away from that clump of poison-oak bushes; we can’t afford to have any accidents which will interfere with our fun. We have all sorts of new remedies, but I prefer that the boys should experiment with them.’
‘It’s the softest seat here, too,’ grumbled Margery. ‘We must get the boys to cut these bushes down. Why, you haven’t any book, you lazy Polly. Are you going to sleep, or shall you chatter and prevent our reading?’
‘Neither,’ she answered. ‘Here is a doughnut which I propose to send down the red pathway of fate; and here a pencil and paper with which I am going to begin our round-robin letter to Elsie.’
‘That’s good! She has only had notes from Jack and one letter from us, which, if I remember right, had nothing in it.’
‘Thanks! I wrote it,’ sniffed Bell.
‘Well, I meant it had no news—no account of things, you know.’
‘No, I wouldn’t descend to writing news, and I leave accounts to the butcher.’
‘Stop quarrelling, girls! This is my plan: I will begin in