|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 55
"I 'm not dead and I 'm not dying, though I 'd just as lief die as to
keep on working in this dark, damp, unpleasant winter, or spring, or
whatever they call it; and as for being past blooming, I would just
like to show her, if it was n't so much trouble! How old does she
think I am, I wonder? There is n't a thing in this part of the city
that is over ten years old, and I was n't planted first, by any means!"
And then Hester said, "My darling, darling lilac-bush! Easter won't be
Easter without it; and lame Jenny leans out of her window every day as
I come from school, and asks, 'Is the lilac budding?'"
"Oh dear!" sighed the little bush. "I wish she would n't talk that
way; it makes me so nervous to have Jenny asking questions about me!
It starts my sap circulating, and I shall grow in spite of me!"
"Let us see what we can do to help it," said Hester's mother. "Take
your trowel and dig round the roots first."
"They 'll find a moist and sticky place and be better able to
sympathize with me," thought the lilac.
"Then put in some new earth, the richest you can get, and we 'll snip
off all the withered leaves and dry twigs, and see if it won't take a
new start."
"I shall have to, I believe, whether I like it or not, if they make
such a fuss about me!" thought the lilac-bush. "It seems a pity if a
thing can't stop growing and be let alone and die if it wants to!"
But though it grumbled a trifle at first, it felt so much better after
Hester and her mother had spent the afternoon caring for it, that it
began to grow a little just out of gratitude,--and what do you think
happened?
"George Washington came and chopped it down with his little hatchet,"
said an eager person in front.
"The lame girl came to look at it," sang out a small chap in the back
row.
No, (the young girl answered, with an irrepressible smile), it was a
cherry-tree that George Washington chopped, Lucy; and I told you,
Horatio, that the poor lame girl could n't walk a step. But the sun
began to shine,--that is the first thing that happened. Day after day
the sun shone, because everything seems to help the people and the
things that help themselves. The rich earth gave everything it had to
give for sap, and the warm air dried up the ugly moss that spoiled the
beauty of its trunk.
Then the lilac-bush was glad again, and it could hardly grow fast
enough, because it knew it would be behind time, at any rate; for of
course it could n't stand still, grumbling and doing nothing for weeks,
and get its work done as soon as the other plants. But it made sap all
clay long, and the buds grew into tiny leaves, and the leaves into
larger ones, and then it began to group its flower-buds among the
branches. By this time it was the week before Easter, and it fairly
sat up nights to work.
Hester knew that it was going to be more beautiful than it ever was in
its life before (that was because it had never tried so hard, though of
course Hester could n't know that), but she was only afraid that it
would n't bloom soon enough, it was so very late this spring.
But the very morning before Easter Sunday, Hester turned in her sleep
and dreamed that a sweet, sweet fragrance was stealing in at her open
window. A few minutes later she ran across her room, and lo! every
cluster of buds on the lilac-bush had opened into purple flowers, and
they were waving in the morning sunshine as if to say, "We are ready,
Hester! We are ready, after all!"
And one spray was pinned in the teacher's dress,--it was shabby and
black,--and she was glad of the flower because it reminded her of home.
And one spray stood in a vase on Hester's dining-table. There was
never very much dinner in Hester's house, but they did not care that
day, because the lilac was so beautiful.
One bunch lay on the table in the church, and one, the loveliest of
all, stood in a cup of water on the lame girl's window-sill; and when
she went to bed that night she moved it to the table beside her head,
and put her thin hand out to touch it in the dark, and went to sleep
smiling.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|