live less hardly while his little property was growing faster; but now that he had surmounted his first difficulties, and was actually justified in enlarging his unproductive expenditure, he wished Mrs.
Temple to forget that her husband had declined assisting her brother, and be satisfied that the rich man had not been able to hinder the prosperity he would not promote.
The prosperity of the whole village would have increased more rapidly than it did, if all the inhabitants had been as careful in their consumption as Arthur. Not only did Temple expend lavishly in caprices as well as luxuries, and the surgeon-tavern-keeper tempt many a labourer and small proprietor to spend that in whisky which ought to have been laid out (if not productively) in enjoyments that were innocent,—but there was a prevalence of wasteful habits, against which Arthur and his establishment might have served as a sufficient example. The merit of the order which was observable on his farm was partly due to himself, partly to Mrs. Sneyd, (who kept a maternal eye on all his interests,) and partly to Isaac’s wife, who superintended his dairy and dwellinghouse.
On this market morning,—after a day of extraordinary fatigue,—the slate of the place at six o’clock might have shamed many a farm-house in a region where there is a superabundance instead of a dearth of female service. Isaac’s wife had no maid to help her but her own little maidens of four and three years old; yet, by six o’clock, when her employer was driving his market-cart to the place of traffic, the milk was duly set by in the pans, the poultry were fed, the tallow with which she was about to make candles was preparing while she made the beds, and the little girls were washing up the breakfast things in the kitchen—the elder tenderly wiping the cups and basins which the younger had washed in the wooden bowl which her mother had placed and filled for her in the middle of the floor, as the place whence it was most certain that it could fall no lower. The pigs were in their proper place, within a fence, which had a roof in one corner for their shelter in bad weather.
The horses and cattle were all properly marked, and duly made musical with bells, when turned out into the woods. There was a well of pure water, so guarded, that the children and other young animals could not run into it unawares; and all the wild beasts of the forest had tried the strength of the fences in vain. Arthur had not, therefore, had to pay for the luxurious feasts of his enemies of the earth or air, or for any of that consumption which may, in a special sense, be called unproductive, since it yields neither profit to the substance nor pleasure to the mind. If a similar economy had pervaded the settlement, its gross annual produce would have more rapidly increased, and a larger revenue would have been set at liberty to promote the civilization of the society in improving the comfort of individuals.
Brawn and his daughters could never be made to attend to this. The resources which they wasted would have tilled many an acre of good land, or have built a school-house, or have turned their habitation of logs into a respectable brick tenement, with grassy field and fruitful garden. They preferred what they called ease and liberty; and the waste they caused might be considered as revenue spent on a pleasure,—a very unintelligible pleasure,—of their own choice. As long as they supported themselves without defrauding their neighbours, (and fraud was the last thing they could have been made to understand,) no one had a right to interfere with their methods of enjoyment any more than with Temple’s conservatory, or Dr. Sneyd’s library, or Mrs. Dods’s passion for mirrors and old china; but it was allowable to be sorry for so depraved a taste, and to have a very decided opinion of its injuriousness to society, and consequent immorality. This very morning there was dire confusion in their corner of the settlement. For some days the girls had been beehunting, being anxious to bring the first honey of the season into the market. In order to make up for the time spent on the new bridge, they were abroad at sunrise this day to track the wild bees in their earliest flight; but after such a fashion, that it would have answered better to them to be at home and asleep. Yet they succeeded in their object. The morning was just such as to tempt all things that fly from the hollow tree, from which the mists had drawn off, leaving a diamond token on every leaf. The sun began to shine warm through the summer haze, and the wild flowers of the prairie to look up and brighten at his presence. As the brown sisters threaded the narrow ways of the woods, bursting through the wild vines, and bringing a shower of dew on their heads from sycamore and beech, many a winged creature hummed, or buzzed, or flitted by,—the languid drone, or the fierce hornet, or white butterflies in pairs, chasing one another into the loftiest and greenest recess of the leafy canopy. Presently came the honey-bee, winging its way to the sunny space—the natural herb-garden, to which the girls were hastening; and when there, what a hovering, and buzzing, and sipping, and flitting was going on! The bee-women laughed in anticipation of their sport as they drew on their leathern mittens, and applied themselves to catch a loaded bee in each hand. They agreed on their respective stations of experiment, and separating, let fly their prisoners, one by one, tracking the homeward course of each, with a practised eye, through a maze of boughs, and flickering lights and shadows, and clustered stems, which would have perplexed the vision of a novice. The four bees being let fly from different stations, the point at which their lines of flight must intersect each other was that at which the honeycomb might be surely found; and a rich store it was,—liquid, clear, and fragrant,—such as would assuredly make the mouth water of every little person in the village who had advanced beyond a milk diet. Another and another hollow tree was found thus to give forth sweetness from its decay, till the bee-women shook back the lank hair from before their eyes, gathered up such tatters of their woollen garments as they had not left on the bushes by the way, and addressed themselves to return. On their walk it was that they discovered that they had lost more this morning than many such a ramble as theirs could repay.
A vast cluttering and screaming of fowls was the first thing that drew off their attention from their fragrant load. Some of the poor poultry that their father had been plucking alive (as he was wont to do six times a year) had evidently made their escape from his hands half plucked, and were now making short flights, higher and farther from home, so that it was more probable that they would join their wild acquaintance, the turkeys or the prairie fowl, than return to roost among the logs. Next appeared,—now entangling its hind legs among the vines, now poking its snout into a ground-squirrel’s nest, and now scuttling away from pursuit,—a fine young porker, which had been shut up from its rambles for some time past. The sisters gave chase to their own property; but all in vain: their pursuit only drove the animal farther into the wood, and they hastened home to give notice of the disaster.
They could see nothing of Brawn about the house, but could not look farther for him till they had discovered the meaning of the light smoke which issued from the door and the crevices of the log-wall. Black Brawnee’s best gown was burning before the fire,—the splendid cotton gown, with a scarlet ground and a pattern of golden flowers, which, to the astonishment of every body, she had taken a fancy to buy of a passing trader, and which she had washed and hung up to dry in preparation for the market: it was smouldering away, leaving only a fragment to tell the tale. Next came a moan from an enclosure behind the cottage, and there lay a favourite young colt with two legs so broken that it was plain the poor animal would never more stand. How it happened could not be learned from the dumb beast, nor from the two or three other beasts that were huddled together in this place, where they had no business to be. It seemed as if, in some grand panic, the animals had tumbled over one another, leaving the colt to be the chief sufferer.
But where was Brawn himself? He was moaning, too, in a hollow place in the wood, where he had made a false leap, and fallen so as to sprain his ankle, while in pursuit of the runaway porker.
“What brought ye here?” asked the brown damsel, as she raised her father with one application of strength.
“What carried the porker into the forest?” he asked, in reply.
“Ask him. We did not give him room,” said one.
“No need,” retorted the other. “Who left the gate open?”
“That did we both, this morning, for the cause that there is no fastening.”
“No latch; but a fastening there is. I knotted the rope last night, and so might you this morning. The loss of the porker comes of losing the lamb.”
“My lamb!” was repeated, with every variety of lamentation, by both the damsels. It was too true. For want of a latch, the gate of the enclosure was tied with a rope. The damsels found the tying too troublesome, and merely pulled it after them. Little by little it had swung open. A sharp-set wild cat had stolen in to make choice of a meal, and run out again with the pet lamb. The master had followed the lamb, and the porker made the best of his opportunity, and followed the master. Then ensued the hue and cry which drove the beasts over the poor colt; and, meantime, the scarlet gown, one sleeve of which had been puffed into the fire by Brawn’s hasty exit, was accelerating the smoking of the dried beef which hung from the rafters. A vast unproductive consumption for one morning!
The damsels made nothing of carrying their father home, and, after bathing his ankle, laying him down on his back to study the rafters till they should return from the market. It was a much harder task to go to market; the one without her scarlet and yellow gown, and the other with grief for her lamb lying heavy at her heart.
They found their pigs very trying to their tempers this morning. Instead of killing them, and carrying them to market in that quiet state, as usual, the damsels had resolved to make the attempt to drive them; as, from the abundance of pork in all its forms in the market just now, a sale was very uncertain. To drive pigs along a high road is not a very easy task; what then must it be in a wild country, where it is difficult even to follow their vagaries, and nearly impossible to reclaim them?
The Brawnees agreed that to prevent such vagaries offered the only hope of getting to market in time; and one therefore belled the old hog which was to be her special charge, while the other was to promote to the utmost the effect of the bell-music on the younger members of the drove.
The task was not made easier by the poor beasts having been very illfed. There was little in the coarse, sour prairie grass to tempt them; but patches of juicy green were but too visible here and there where travellers had encamped, feeding their beasts with hay, and leaving the seeds of the perennial verdure which was to spring up after the next rains. Nothing could keep the old hog and the headlong train from these patches, whether they lay far or near; insomuch that the sisters were twenty times tempted to leave their swine to their own devices, and sell no pork that day. But the not selling involved the not buying; and this thought generated new efforts of patience and of skill. When they arrived at the scene of exchange, and cast a glance on Mrs. Dods’s display of cotton garments set off with here and there a muslin cap, and paraphernalia of pink and green; or on a pile of butter which they were not neat-handed enough to rival; or into wicker baskets of crockery, or upon the trader’s ample store of blankets, knives, horn spoons, and plumes of red and blue feathers, they felt that it would indeed have been cruel to be compelled to quit the market without any of the articles that were offered to their choice. Nobody, however, inquired for their pigs. One neighbour was even saucy enough to laugh at their appearance.
“You had better buy a load of my pumpkins,” said Kendall, the surgeon and tavern-keeper. “Your swine will be more fit for market next week, if you feed them on my fine pumpkins in the meanwhile.”
“When we want pumpkins,” said one of them, “we will go to those that have ground to grow them on. You have not bought a field, and grown pumpkins since yesterday, I suppose?”
“By no means. I have a slip of a garden, let me tell you; and, though it is but a slip, it is of rare mellow mould, where the vines strike at every joint as they run. My wife has kept enough for pies for all the travellers that may pass before next spring. One load is bespoken at four dollars; and you will take the other, if you are wise. There are a few gourds with them, too.”
“Gourds! Who cares for gourds?”
“Who can do without gourds, say I? I am sure we, at the tavern, could not, so dear as crockery is at this place. Cut off the top, and you have a bottle; cut off top and tail, and you have a funnel; cut it in two, and you have cups; slice off one side, and you have a ladle. Take my gourds, I advise you, and set yonder crockery-man at defiance, with his monstrous prices and brittle ware.”
“We have no drunken guests to break our cups and bottles; and as for prices, how do you know that they are a matter of concern to us? If we take your load, it shall be the pumpkins without the gourds.”
“You will take the pumpkins, then?”
“If you take the sum out in pork or honey. We want our dollars for the crockery-man.”
“Pork, no! I think we shall all grunt soon. We are pretty sure to have no Jews come our way. We all have bacon for the morning meal; and a pig for dinner, and salt pork for supper. When one whistles to the birds, there comes a squeal instead of a chirp; and as sure as one walks in the dark, one stumbles over a pig. Our children learn to grunt before they set about speaking. No pork for me! We have a glut of pigs.”
“Honey, then. Your wife wants honey for her pumpkin-pies; and I have heard that you set out mead sometimes at your tavern.”
“And till you cheapen your sugar, we want honey to sweeten our travellers’ coffee, and treat the children with. How much honey will you give me for my load?”
The damsel was checked in her answer by her sister, who perceived that many eyes were turned towards their fragrant store, and that no other bee-hunters seemed to be in the market. A dollar a gallon was the price announced by the sisters, after a consultation. Mr. Kendall shook his head, and stood aside for awhile. The truth was, he was full as much in want of honey for his purposes as an apothecary, as his wife for her coffee and pies. He was resolved to get some, at whatever price, and waited to put in his word at the first favourable opportunity.
Arthur was no less determined upon a purchase of sweets. His mother began to be in distress about her preserves. Her fruit was all ripe, and craving to be preserved; but the destined sugar had gone to sweeten the waters in the Creek. She entreated her son to bring her some honey. None could be found in the woods near the farm. Every body was hay-making, or about to make hay, and could not go out bee-hunting. The Brawnees were the only resource.
“I want some of your honey,” said he, catching the eye of the damsel of the burned gown, over the group which intervened.
“You shall have it, and no one else,” was her reply.
She was again checked by her sister, who knew her disposition to serve Arthur, at the expense of her own interests, and those of every body else.
“What will you give?” asked the more prudent one.
“Pigs; we can agree on the price.”
The one sister shook her head; the other suddenly discovered that it would be a good plan to improve and enlarge their wealth of swine while swine were cheap. She offered her five gallons of honey for one fat pig; which offer caused her sister much consternation, and made Kendall hope that the honey would be his, after all.
“No, no,” said Arthur. "Your terms are not fair——" "Then I will get another gallon or two before the sun goes down, to make up——" “I mean altogether the other way,” replied Arthur. “I do not want to force my pigs upon you; but if you take them, you shall have them cheap, since there is but a poor demand for them to-day. You shall have two of those pigs for your five gallons; and if your sister thinks that not enough, the difference shall be made up in fresh butter.”
While the bargain was being discussed, one sister controlling the generosity of the other, and her admiration of Arthur’s generosity, while Arthur was thinking of nothing but fair play, Kendall wandered away discontented, seeing that his chance was over.
“You do not happen to have any honey to sell, Mrs. Dods?” said he, as he passed the stall of cottons and muslins.
“O, dear, no, Mr. Kendall. It is what I want above every thing. Really, it is impossible to persuade an eye to look at my caps to-day, though the pattern has never been introduced here before. There is no use in my attempting to deal with ladies who dress in such a strange style as Brawn’s daughters. Nothing would look becoming on them; or I am sure I would make a sacrifice even on this tasty new thing, to get something to sweeten my husband’s toddy with. Indeed I expect to be obliged to make a sacrifice, at all events, to-day; as I beg you will tell Mrs. Kendall.
There being such a profusion of pigs, and so little honey to-day, seems to have put us all out as to our prices.”
“How happens it, Mrs. Dods?”
"In the first place, they say, there was never such a season known for young pigs. The price has fallen so that the plenty does more harm than good to the owners; as is the complaint of farmers, you know, when the crops are better than ordinary, and they cannot enlarge their market at will. Then, again, there seems to have been miscalculation;—no one appears to have been aware that every body would bring pigs, and nobody any honey, except those slovenly young women."
“Ah! both causes of glut in full operation!” exclaimed Kendall. “The caprice of seasons, and the miscalculation of man!”
“And of woman too, Mr. Kendall. If you will believe me, I have been at work early and late, after my fashions, this week; ay, I declined going to see the bridge finished, and put off our wedding-day treat, for the sake of getting my stock into pretty order by to-day; and I have scarcely had a bid yet, or even a word from a neighbour, till you came.
I did not calculate on the demand for honey, and the neglect of every thing else. Every body is complaining of the same thing.”
"It seems strange, Mrs. Dods, that while we all want to sell, and all to buy, we cannot make our wants agree. I bring my demand to Mr. Arthur,—my load of pumpkins and request of honey or sugar. He wants no pumpkins, and has no honey. I bring the same to you. You want no pumpkins, and offer me caps. Now I might perhaps get dollars for my pumpkins; but I want only one cap——" "You do want one, then! Here is a pretty thing, that would just suit your wife——" “Let me go on. I bring my demand to those dark girls: and the best of it is, they do want pumpkins, and could let me have honey; but the young farmer comes between, with his superfluity of pigs, to offer a better bargain; so that I suffer equally from the glut of pork and the dearth of honey.”
“We are all suffering, so that any stranger would say that there is a glut of every thing but honey. Neither millinery, nor blankets, nor knives, nor flower-seeds are selling yet. But I believe there is no glut of any thing but pigs. If we could put them out of the market, and put honey out of people’s heads, I have little doubt we should exchange, to our mutual satisfaction, as many articles as would set against each other, till few would be left.”
“I hope to see this happen before night, and then I may be rid of my pumpkins, and carry home a cap at a price we should neither of us grumble at, and keep the rest of my dollars for honey hereafter.”
“Next week. No doubt, there will be a fine supply of it next week.
Perhaps a glut: for a glut often follows close upon a scarcity.”
"Which should make us careful to husband our stocks till we are sure we can renew them; like the wise Joseph in Egypt.—That puts a thing into my head. I have a good mind to take the girls’ offer of pigs for my pumpkins. Who knows but there may be a scarcity of pork after all this plenty—which is apt to make people wasteful? If they will, they shall have half a load for two of their lean animals; and I will keep the other half load to feed them upon."
“Ah! that is always the way people’s wishes grow with opportunity. This morning, you thought of no such thing as keeping pigs; and now, before night, you will have two.”
“To be sure, Mrs. Dods. Very natural! The demand always grows as wealth grows, you know. When the farmer makes his land yield double by good tillage, he demands double the commodities he demanded before; and if nature gives us a multitude of pigs, a new demand will open in the same way.”
"And there is a double supply at the same time,—of corn by the farmer, and of pigs by the porkseller. Well! in either case, there is a better chance opened for my caps. The more wealth there is, the better hope of a sale of millinery. You must not forget that, Mr. Kendall. You promised to take one of my caps, you know."
“Why, so I did; but how to pay for it, I am sure I don’t know. I am not going to sell my load for money, you see.”
“Well, I will tell you how. Get three lean pigs, and part with a few more pumpkins. I will take a pig for this pretty cap. I am somewhat of your opinion that pigs will soon be worth more than they are now.”
“And so you help to quicken the demand.”
"Yes. My boys will manage to keep the animal,—behind the house, or in the brickfield. And it would be a thousand pities your wife should not have this cap. I had her before my mind’s eye while making it, I do assure you;—and it will soon lose its bloom if it goes into my window, or upon my shelves again."
The negotiation was happily concluded; and, by the end of the day, when pigs and honey were put out of the question, a brisk traffic took place in the remaining articles, respecting which the wishes of the buyers and sellers agreed better than they had done about the disproportioned commodities. All had come with a demand; and each one’s instrument of demand was his neighbour’s means of supply: so that the market would have been entirely cleared, if they had but known one another’s wishes well enough to calculate what kinds of produce they should bring. If this had been done, there would have been more honey; and if, from a caprice of nature, there had been still more pigs than usual, the only consequence would have been that the demander of pork would have received more of it to his bargain, or that the supplier of pigs would have kept back some of his pork, to be an additional future instrument of demand. In this case, no one would have lost, and some one would have gained.
As it was, Arthur was a loser. He paid much more for honey than would probably be necessary the next week. But he thought himself in another sense a gainer,—in proportion to the pleasure of obliging his mother.
The Brawnees carried home two thirds of a load of pumpkins, two fat pigs, and a cherished store of fresh butter, in the place of their five gallons of honey and three lean swine. They were decidedly gainers; though not, perhaps, to the extent they might have been if they had been unscrupulous about pressing their customer hard. Any one but Arthur would have been made to yield more wealth than this; but they were well content with having pleased him, and repaired in part the losses of the morning.
Other parties left little to be removed in preparation for the Sunday.
Having carried home their purchases first, they returned for the small remainder of their stock; and the evening closed with a sort of minor frolic, the children running after the stray feathers their mothers were sweeping away, and the men ranging logs for seats, and providing a platform and desk for the use of Dr. Sneyd. One or two serious people were alarmed at the act of thus turning a house of merchandise into a temple of worship; but the greater number thought that the main consideration was to gather together as many worshippers as could be collected in the heart of their wilderness. Such an accession as was now promised to their congregation seemed to mark an era in the history of their community.
CHAPTER IV.
SUNDAY EVENING.
Temmy was fond of feeling his grandfather’s hand upon his shoulder any day of the week; but on the Sunday evening, in particular, it was delightful to the boy to share the leisure of the family. Many a tale of old times had Mrs. Sneyd then to tell; many a curious secret of things in earth, air, and heaven, had the doctor to disclose; and uncle Arthur was always ready to hear of the doings of the last week, and to promise favours for the time to come. It was seldom that Temmy could enjoy a whole evening of such pleasures;—only when Mr. Temple chose to make an excursion, and carry his lady with him, or to go to bed at eight o’clock because his ennui had by that time become intolerable. Usually, Temmy could be spared only for an hour or two, and was sure to be fetched away in the midst of the most interesting of all his grandmamma’s stories, or the most anxious of the doctor’s experiments.
This evening,—the evening of the day of opening the market-house for worship,—the poor boy had given up all hope of getting beyond the boundaries of the Lodge. Mr. Temple was, as he said, very ill; as every body else would have said,—in a very intolerable humour. He could not bear sunshine or sound. His wife must sit behind closed shutters, and was grievously punished for her inability to keep the birds from singing. Temmy must not move from the foot of the sofa, except to ring the bell every two minutes, and carry scolding messages every quarter of an hour; in return for which he was reproved till he cried for moving about, and opening and shutting the door. At length, to the great joy of every body, the gentleman went to bed, having drunk as much wine as his head would bear, and finding no relief to his many ailments from that sort of medicine. This final measure was accomplished just in time for the drawing-room windows to be thrown open to the level rays of the sun, and the last breath of the closing flowers. The wine was carried away, and Ephraim called for to attend his young master to Dr. Sneyd’s. Temmy was to explain why Mrs. Temple could not leave home this evening, and he might stay till Dr. Sneyd himself should think it time for him to return. Without the usual formalities of pony, groom, and what not, Temmy was soon on the way, and in another half-hour had nearly forgotten papa’s terrible headache under the blessed influence of grandpapa’s ease of heart.
Uncle Arthur was sitting astride on the low window-sill of the study, with Temmy hanging on his shoulder, when a golden planet showed itself above the black line of the forest. The moon had not risen, so that there was no rival in the heaven; and when the evening had darkened a little more, Temmy fancied that this bright orb cast a faint light upon his grandfather’s silver hairs, and over uncle Arthur’s handsome, weather-browned face. Temmy had often heard that his father had much beauty; and certainly his picture seemed to have been taken a great many times; yet the boy always forgot to look for this beauty except when some of these pictures were brought out, while he admired uncle Arthur’s dark eyes, and beautiful smile and high forehead, more and more every time he saw him. It was very lucky that uncle Arthur looked so well without combing his eye-brows, and oiling his hair, and using three sorts of soap for his hands, and three different steel instruments, of mysterious construction, for his nails; for the young farmer had no time for such amusements. It was also well that he was not troubled with fears for his complexion from the summer’s sun, or from the evening air in the keenest night of winter. This was lucky, even as far as his good looks were concerned, for, if he looked well by candle-light, he looked better in the joyous, busy noon; and more dignified still when taking his rest in the moonlight; and, as Temmy now thought, noblest of all while under the stars. If papa could see him now, perhaps he would not laugh so very much as usual about uncle Arthur’s being tanned, and letting his hair go as it would.
“Shall we mount to the telescopes, father?” asked Arthur. “The boy will have time to enjoy them to-night. I will take care of him home, if Ephraim dares not stay.”
Dr. Sneyd rose briskly, observing that it would indeed be a pity to lose such an evening. Temmy grasped his grandmamma’s hand, hoping that she was going too. He scarcely knew why, but he felt the observatory to be a very awful place, particularly at night, when only a faint bluish light came in through the crevices of the shifting boards; or a stray beam, mysteriously bright, fell from the end of the slanting telescope, and visibly moved on the floor. Grandpapa was rather apt to forget Temmy when he once got into the observatory, and to leave him shivering in a dark corner, wondering why every body spoke low in this place, and afraid to ask whether the stars really made any music which mortal ears might listen for. When grandpapa did remember the boy, he was not aware that he was uneasy and out of breath, but would call him here and send him there, just as he did in the study in broad daylight. It had been very different with grandmamma, the only time she had mounted hither with him. She had held his hand all the while, and found out that, tall as he was grown, he could see better by sitting on her knee; and she had clasped him round the waist, as if she had found out that he trembled.
Perhaps she had heard his teeth chatter, though grandpapa did not. Temmy hoped they would not chatter to-night, as he did not wish that uncle Arthur should hear them; but Mrs. Sneyd was not to be at hand. She declared that she should be less tired with walking to the lodge than with mounting to the observatory. She would go and spend an hour with her daughter, and have some talk with Ephraim by the way.
There needed no excuse for Temmy’s being out of breath, after mounting all the stairs in the house, and the ladder of the observatory to boot; and the planet which he was to see being still low in the sky was reason enough for uncle Arthur to hold him up to the end of the telescope. He did not recover his breath, however, as the moments passed on. This was a larger instrument than he had ever looked through before, and his present impressions were quite different from any former experience. The palpable roundness of the orb, the unfathomable black depth in which it moved solitary, the silence,—all were as if new to him.
“You see it?” asked Arthur.
“O, yes.”
Another long silence, during which the boy breathed yet more heavily.
“You see it still?”
“No, uncle Arthur.”
“My dear boy, why did you not tell me? We must overtake it. There! there it is once more! You must not let it travel out of sight again.”
“How can I stop it?” thought Temmy, and he would fain have pressed his hands before his eyes, as the silent vision traversed the space more brightly and more rapidly, it seemed to him, every moment. Arthur showed him, however,—not how to stop the planet, but how to move the instrument so as not to lose sight of it: he then put a stool under him, and told him he could now manage for himself. Dr. Sneyd had something to show his son on the other side of the heavens.
If Temmy had had the spheres themselves to manage, he could scarcely have been in a greater trepidation. He assured himself repeatedly that friends were at hand, but his head throbbed so that he could scarcely hear their whispers, and the orb now seemed to be dancing as he had seen the reflection of the sun dance in a shaken basin of water. He would look at something else. He jerked the telescope, and flash went one light after another before his eyes, as if the stars themselves were going out with a blaze. This would never do. He must look at something earthly. After another jerk to each side, which did not serve his purpose, he pushed it up, and saw—something which might belong to any of the worlds in being,—for Temmy knew no more about it than that it was most horrible. An enormous black object swept across the area of vision, again and again, as quick as lightning. It would not leave off. Temmy uttered a shriek of terror, and half slipped, half tumbled from his stool.
“What has the boy found? What can be the matter?” asked grandpapa.
Arthur presently laughed, and told Temmy he was very clever to have found what he should have thought it very difficult to discover from this place—Arthur’s own mill;—the new windmill on the mound, whose sails were now turning rapidly in the evening breeze. It was some comfort to learn that his panic was not much to be wondered at. Uncle Arthur knew what it was to take in too near a range with a large telescope. He had done so once, and had been startled with an apparition of two red cheeks and two staring blue eyes, apparently within half an inch of the end of his own nose.
“Here, Temmy,” said Dr. Sneyd, “try whether you can read in this book.”
“Shall I go and get a candle, grandpapa?”
“No, no. I want to see whether a little star yonder will be our candle.
Lay the book in this gleam of light, and try whether you can read.”
Many strange things were still whisking before Temmy’s eyes, but he could make out the small print of the book. He was then shown the star that gave the light,—one of the smallest in a bright constellation. He heartily wished that nobody would ask him to look at any more stars tonight, and soon managed to slip away to the little table, and show that he was amused with turning a greater and a lesser light upon the book, and showing with how little he could read the title-page, and with how much the small type of the notes. The next pleasant thing that happened was the lamp being lighted.
“Father,” said Arthur, “you seldom have me for an assistant now. I am neither tired nor busy to-night, and the sky is clear. Suppose we make a long watch.”
Dr. Sneyd was only too happy. He produced a light in one of his magical ways, and hung the shade on the lamp, while Arthur arranged his pens and paper, and laid his watch on the table. Dr. Sneyd took his place at the best telescope now in readiness, after various screwings and