Ruth Ogden

“ Whether you happen to be four or five, or six, or seven, or even older than that, no doubt you know by this time that a great many things need to be learned in this world, everything, in fact, and never more things than at seven. At least, so thought little Tattine, and what troubled her the most was that some of the things seemed quite wrong, and yet no one was able to right them. ”

“ Tattine answered good-naturedly. “I am practicing my Grandmother. Grandma Luty, that’s Mamma’s mother, has come to make us a visit, and Mamma has discovered that I’m not very polite to old people. Children used to be taught, you know, to say, ‘Yes’m,’ and ‘Yes, sir,’ but now that is not considered nice at all, and you must always say the name of the person you are speaking to, especially if they are older people, to whom you ought to be respectful,” and Tattine sounded quite like a little grandmother herself as she talked. ”

“ And then what did she see but Barney, trotting bravely up the hill, with the geese still craning their necks through the laths of the cage, but the reins dragging through the mud of the roadway, and with no children in the little cart. Close behind him came the wagonette, which Barney was cleverly managing to keep well ahead of, but Mrs. Gerald soon discovered that neither were the children in that either. In an instant she was down the stairs and out on the porch to meet Patrick at the door.
“It isn’t possible you have no word of the children?” she cried excitedly. ”

“ Everybody stays for just a little while, and everybody talks at once, and as loudly as they can, and at some of them they only have tea and a little cake or something like that to eat,” and Tattine glanced at the kitchen-table over by the window with a smile and a shake of the head, as though very much better pleased with what she saw there. ”

“ The children ate and ate, and fortunately it seems for some reason, to be the most harmless sweet that can be indulged in by little people.
“Well, I’ve had enough,” remarked Rudolph at the expiration of say a quarter of an hour, “but isn’t it wonderful that anything so delicious can just trickle out of a tree?” his unmannerly little tongue the while making the circuit of his lips in search of any lingering traces of sweetness.
“Trickle out of a tree!” exclaimed astonished Tattine.
“Why, yes, don’t you know that’s the way they make maple sugar? ”

“ But Betsy and Doctor can only be trained in a few ways, and never to really change their nature.
“Setters have hunted rabbits always, kittens have preyed upon birds, and donkeys, as a rule, have stood still whenever they wanted to.”
“But why, I wonder, were they made so?”
“You nor I nor nobody knows, Tattine, but isn’t it fine that for some reason we are made differently? If we will only be reasonable and try hard enough and in the right way, we can overcome anything.”
“It’s a little like a sermon, Grandma Luty.” ”

“ Ah, but, Tattine, there lies the beautiful difference. You can be reasoned with, and made to understand things, so that you can change your nature—I mean the part of you that makes you sometimes love to do naughty things. ”

“ At this moment Rudolph emerged from the hole a mass of grass and dirt stains, and both Mabel and Tattine thought he had been pretty plucky, though quite too much preoccupied to tell him so, but Rudolph happily felt himself repaid for hardships endured, in the delight of his discovery.
“It will be a month before they’ll have sense enough to crawl out,” he remarked to Joseph, “and they’re wedged in between some old planks in very uncomfortable fashion. They look like fine little fellows too. I think we ought to manage in some way to get them out.” ”

“ There are not many of them nowadays. Most of them seem to like to dress so you cannot tell a grandmother from just an ordinary everyday mother. If you have a grandmother—a nice old one, I mean—see if you cannot get her into the cap and kerchief, and then show her how lovely she looks in them. But what I was going to tell you was that Grandma Luty’s visit was all a joy to Tattine, and so when, just at daylight one morning, the setter puppies in their kennel at the back of the house commenced a prodigious barking, Tattine’s first thought was for Grandma. ”

“ Mamma, I don’t believe there’s anything meaner than a Laverack setter. Still, Tadjie would never have done such a thing, I know.” Mrs. Gerald was silent, and Tattine, expecting her to confirm what she had said, grew a little suspicious. “Would Tadjie, Mamma?” with a directness that would not admit of indirectness.
“Yes, Tattine; Tadjie would. She was trained to hunt before ever she was given to Papa, and so were her ancestors before her. That is why Doctor and Betsy, who have never been trained to hunt, go wild over the rabbits. They have inherited the taste.” ”

“ Well, I suppose in a way setters are natural hunters, Tattine, but then their training has doubtless a great deal to do with it, but I want to tell you something that I think will give you just a grain of comfort. I read the other day that Sir John Franklin, the great Arctic explorer, who almost lost his life in being attacked by some huge animal—it must have been a bear, I think—says that the animal when he first gets you in his teeth gives you such a shake that it paralyzes your nerves—this is, it benumbs all your feelings, so, that, strange as it may seem, you really do not suffer. ”

“ Has SHE been TRAINED to do it, do you think?”
“Oh. no, miss; it just comes natural to cats and kittens to prey upon birds and birds’ nests.”
“Patrick,” said Tattine solemnly, “there is not going to be any four-legged thing left for me to love. I am done with Betsy and Doctor, and now I’m done with Black-and-white. I wonder if Mamma can make it seem any better,” and then she turned her steps to the house in search of comfort, but she had gone only half-way when the coachman, who was waiting at the door with the little grey mare and the phaeton, motioned to her to come quietly. ”

“ At last Rudolph was at his wits’ end, for what did Tattine and Mabel do but commence to cry. Great drops of rain were falling now, and they COULD NOT BEAR THE THOUGHT of being mid-way in that stream with the storm breaking right above their heads, and when girls, little or big, young or old, cannot bear the thought of things they cry. It does not always help matters ”

“ CHAPTER V. THE KIRKS AT HOME
Barney the donkey was harnessed, and Tattine sat in the little donkey-cart waiting, and as she waited she was saying aloud, “What, Grandma Luty? Yes, Grandma Luty. No, Grandma Luty. What did you say, Grandma Luty?” and this she said in the most polite little tone imaginable. Meantime Rudolph and Mabel, discovering that Tattine did not see them, came stealing along under cover of the apple-trees. ”

“ Gerald had no time just then to give heed to Barney’s misdoings. Seizing a wrap from the hall, she ordered Rudolph into the house and to bed, as quickly as he could be gotten there, sent Philip to Rudolph’s Mother with the word that the children were safe, and then started off in the wagonette to bring Mabel and Tattine home.
“Mamma,” said Tattine, snuggling her wet little self close to her Mother’s side in the carriage, “Rudolph was just splendid, the way he hauled Barney and us and the cart out of the water, but Mamma, I am done with Barney now too. He’s not to be trusted either.” ”

“ And at last it came.
“I wonder if my goose will be a little lonely,” said Tattine, as they all stood about, watching Patrick nail on the laths.
“Faith and it will thin,” said Mrs. Kirk. “It never came to my moind that they wouldn’t all three be together. Here’s little Grey-wing to keep Blue-ribbon company,” and Mrs. Kirk seized one of the smaller geese that happened to be near her, and squeezed it into the cage through the small opening that was left.
“Well, if you can spare it, I think that is better, Mrs. Kirk, because everything has a companion over at our place. ”

“ In the spring, about April, when the sap begins to run up into the maple-trees, and often while the snow is still on the ground, they what they call tap the tree; they drive a sort of little spout right into the tree and soon the sap begins to ooze out and drop into buckets that are placed to catch it. ”

“ There was the maple sugar itself, two pounds of it on a plate, two large kitchen spoons, a china cup, two sheets of brown wrapping-paper, two or three newspapers, a box of matches, a pail of clear spring water, a hammer, an ice-pick, and last, and most important of all, a granite-ware kettle.
“Now if you’ll carry these,” explained Tattine, “I’ll run and tell Philip to bring the ice,” so Rudolph and Mabel “loaded up” and marched down to the camp, and Tattine disappeared in the direction of the ice-house. ”

“ Rudolph directed, “and put it on a piece of paper near the fire,” but Tattine knew that was the next thing to do, so what was the use of Rudolph’s telling her? It happens quite frequently that people who are giving directions give too many by far.
“Now, Mabel,” continued the drum-major, “will you please bring some more wood, and will you please put your mind on it and keep bringing it? These little twigs that make the best fire burn out in a twinkling, please notice,” but Mabel did not hurry so very much for the next armful; since she could see for herself there was no great need for haste. ”

“ Every morning he would drive over in his old buggy from his little farm in the Raritan Valley, in abundant time to begin work on the minute of seven, and not until the minute of six would he lay aside spade or hoe and turn his steps towards his old horse tied under the tree, behind the barn. ”

“ Tattine used those two little words very often; they meant that she accepted the situation, if you happen to know what that means. “Now I think I will not trouble Mamma about it,” she said to herself thoughtfully, so she went to the closet under the stairs, got a little empty box she knew was there, and, taking it out of doors, she put the little rabbit in it, and then trudged down to the tool-house for her spade and rake.
“Bunny is dead, Joey,” she called to the gardener’s little boy as she came back. “Come help me bury him,” and so Joey trotted behind her to the spot already selected. ”

“ You do not know where this baby lived, and who are its father and mother, and like as not it is too young to live at all away from them and will die,” and Tattine raised one plump little hand and gave Doctor a slap that at least made him “turn tail,” and slink rather doggedly away to his own particular hole under the laundry steps. ”