 A Real New England Girl by Anna I. Parsons 1. The Shower 2. Oxford County 3. The Stranger and the Girl 4. The Youth and the Girl 5. Pansy and Richard Go Trading 6. The Marvelous Storyteller 7. The Dinner 8. The The Minister Comes for Tea 9. Pansy's Father 10. Pansy and Her Mother 11. Poland Springs 12. The Birthday Cake 13. Ned Patterson Comes for a Visit 14. The Blue Berrying Party 15. The Beginning of Wisdom 16. The Tempted and the Penitent 17. The Concert 18. Stanley's Ride 19. The Bench by the Wayside 20. The Banker and the Widow 21. The Bag of Nuts 22. How They Kept Thanksgiving at Little Farm 23. Hardly a Merry Christimas 24. A Call Down and a Caller 25. The Pride of Mrs. Bradford 26. A Happy New Year 27. Amusement and Winter Sport 28. Kim 29. Richard, the Lion Hearted 30. A Tour of the White Mountains 31. Talking Over the Trip with Henry Bright 32. Thoughts That Lie Too Deep for Words 33. Economics 34. His Toast 35. The Busy Haunts of Man 36. Christmas in New York 37. The Last Night of Their Visit 38. The Language Understood by All 39. Sugaring Off 40. Correspondence 41. Commencement 42. Conclusion Afterward     |
The Bag of Nuts "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear." -- Bryant The Winthrops had gone. Pansy and Richard stood at the half-way tree and waved to Stanley as the motor car disappeared over the first steep hill. For half an hour he had been talking with them under the maples, and when summoned to join the others in the car, had turned to them in his own inimitable way and bade them a reluctant good bye. "All my college days will be better for having you for my friends, and I'm coming back next year and take more lessons from the two best instructors in the world." "We'll be waiting for you!" came the answer in a chorus. Four bright eyes followed him closely as he walked down and joined the other in the car. "Stanley makes you feel as if you were always doing him favors, not he you," said Pansy, at last turning away and walking homeward. "I guess he is what you call a real aristocrat," said Richard. "No matter where he is, he always has his manners with him." "And he didn't get them from everywhere either, as Portia said of the young Baron Falconbridge." Pansy spent part of the forenoon in tidying up her chamber and making preparations for the long term of school which would open on Monday. A room had been finished in either end of the second story of the Bradford home. The one with the window looking out toward the willow tree was occupied by Richard, and the other, having a dormer-window facing south, was occupied by Pansy. The space between the two chambers was known as 'The Long Chamber,' and the stairway led up into this with protective railing about three sides of the floor opening. Here in a large cedar chest and an ancient bureau Mrs. Bradford kept the supply of bedding for the family. From the rafters hung a few papers of dried herbs that gave off a pungent odor, and a candle mould and other utensils seldom used were inconspicuously suspended under the eves. \ Over Richard's door a large hornet's next was fastened, and over Pansy's door a hanging bird's next hung from a slender twig. The decorations of the interior of the room were simple and mostly home-made. Vinette portraits of favorite authors, cut from magazines and newspapers, had been pasted in the center of larger squares of thick white paper and underneath, in Pansy's girlish hand, was written a quotation from the author. In some instances, the first letter of the quotation was illuminated with red or green ink, and now and then a scroll was added or a border of leaves with a brave attempt at the artistic. Pansy's poets' corner had no gilded frames or marble busts to gratify the esthetic, but in the choice of men of letters and selections from their works, exquisite taste had been exhibited. The large bed with its white valance and counterpane was pushed close to the wall opposite the window, and beside it was a braided rug. A rocking chair, bureau and table completed the furniture. On the table in a receptacle made of birchbark was a glittering mass of mineral specimens that Pansy and Richard had gathered from time to time. There was beautiful rose quartz, smoky isinglass and purple lepidolite from Mt. Mica; dark garnets set in their hard bed of gneiss, cookeite, staurolite, hamlinite, triphylite, columbite, and other minerals found at Little Farm; and an arrowhead of flint that they had pulled out of Mr. Parish's stone wall. It is well known history in the neighborhood that part of Mr. Parish's land had been an Indian cornfield, and whether this flint head was thrown by an arrow from the terrible followers of the Sachem Paugus had been a subject of conjecture in the Bradford family. On the bureau lay a large fungus on the velvety surface of which Stanley had traced a picture with the willow tree and swing in the foreground and cottage with garden at rear in the background. Beside the door frame, a stalk of corn, still green and of unusual height, was fastened. It was from the hillock in one end of the garden that Pansy had watered and tended in competition with another hillock at the other end of the garden which had been Richard's especial care. When Uncle Will, after careful measurement, had adjudged Pansy's corn to be the tallest, she had cut a stalk and taken it to her room as an exhibit of what industry and nature could accomplish. After dusting and putting the room in order, Pansy sat down in the rocking chair with a book marked 'Album' and began running over its pages. Most of the pictures were snap shots taken by Stanley during the summer, and that they were pleasant reminders was apparent, for as she looked at them she smiled, sometimes only a little, sometimes so the rows of pearly teeth were quite visible. "Will Richard and I ever have such a happy summer again?" said Pansy, at last throwing the album aside and crossing her hands over her head as she rocked back and forth. Another minute and almost a frown clouded her brow. "How can I endure another term of school with Professor Thayer nursing a grievance against me? I am just as much ostracized as though six thousand oyster shells with my name written thereon had been thrown into the ship of learning known as the high school by the citizens of this town." She rocked on disconsolately. "All men are not gracious even though they read Latin and Greek. It must be something beside knowledge that makes Stanley different from other young men!" After a time she arose and went down stairs to help prepare dinner. The long range terms on which Pansy found herself with the professor at the high school did not altogether rob the term of pleasure. She was recognized among the students as an apt pupil, and the less studious were glad to avail themselves of her tutelage outside the class room. Inside they were no longer humiliated by the professor making her a paragon of excellence in order to stimulate studiousness in them. Pansy was too eager for knowledge and too anxious to fit herself for earning a livelihood to let the breach interfere in any way with her studies. The distance of Little Farm from the village did not permit of her joining in many of the social activities, but she was sought after and generally liked by her classmates. One Saturday afternoon in October when the cold, frosty nights had thrown open the burs and released the rich fruit therein contained, a bevy of girls drove out to the beech forest to gather nuts, and Pansy and Richard met them there by appointment. Richard's friend, Phil Morris, had come with them, and he and Richard, at great risk to life and limb, climbed the tall, pillar-like trunks and shook the branches so that the nuts fell on to a sheet which Pansy spread under the trees to catch them. It was good fun scrambling for the little triangular nuts among the rustling leaves and fallen branches, and the girls showed themselves as nimble as squirrels in the search. In her endeavor to be the first to fill her basket, Grace Stone tripped on a bit of stubble and fell across Pansy's lap, scattering her nuts in all directions. When the laughter subsided, Pansy began helping Grace to refill the basket, remarking jocosely, "Notwithstanding I have been so ruthlessly struck by a stone, I am coming to your assistance, Grace." "That is magnanimous, Pansy, considering the density and hardness of the stone," said Eva Goodwin. "Not magnanimous at all considering the crush I have on Pansy," retorted Grace. "It is only equaled by that Len Frost would have were Pansy more encouraging," said Frances Stuart. "Or Trifles Light as Air used to have before the fall, "suggested Mable Lawson. "I saw Trifles just before we left the village looking over toward the cemetery as if he had intentions of settling there," said Grace Stone. "Shall you weep at his funeral, Pansy, in case his demise comes shortly?" "Guess I'm waterproof as far as he's concerned, but really, girls, I'm sorry to be on bad terms with him. I stirred up the cauldron, and now I'd like to have a sugaring-off as we say in sap time." "May I be there to see if it ever comes," said Grace Stone. "He is as vain as a peacock, and it would take something extraordinary to make him forget any slight to that physiognomy of his." So they chattered on in the bright October weather, frank of opinion, light of heart, nimble of limb, and altogether charming in their youth and innocence. That evening Pansy got out her mother's sewing basket and piece bag and worked busily for a while on a piece of plaid silk. When she had shaped a bag and run in ribbons for drawing strings, she and Richard filled it with beech nuts, wrapped it with care, and addressed it to Mr. Stanley B. Winthrop, Columbia College, New York City. Stanley was alone in the rooms occupied by himself and Ned Patterson when the mail was delivered, and the package and letter from Maine were the first to be opened. He poured out part of the nuts on to the table, then hung the bag on the corner of a picture frame over the mantel. Ned coming in a few minutes later, spied it and quickly threw it on to a desk. "I tell you the decorations of these rooms are to be blue and blue only!" "Have a care, Ned, that's from Pansy and Richard!" said Stanley sharply. "From Pansy Bradford!" Ned took up the silken bag, pressed it to his lips and replaced it on the corner of the picture frame. "I'm going out and buy a bunch of violets to put under it." Click Here for Chapter 22 |