and, oh, ecstasy! what hosts of green apples! There was an interesting grindstone under one tree, and a bright blue chair and stool under another; a thicket of currant and gooseberry bushes; and a flock of young turkeys ambling awkwardly through the barn. Timothy stepped gently along in the thick grass, past a pump and a mossy trough, till a side porch came into view, with a woman sitting there sewing bright-colored rags. A row of shining tin pans caught the sun’s rays, and threw them back in a thousand glittering prisms of light; the grasshoppers and crickets chirped sleepily in the warm grass, and a score of tiny yellow butterflies hovered over a group of odorous hollyhocks.
Suddenly the person on the porch broke into this cheerful song, which she pitched in so high a key and gave with such emphasis that the crickets and grasshoppers retired by mutual consent from any further competition, and the butterflies suspended operations for several seconds:—
“I’ll chase the antelope over the plain,
The tiger’s cob I’ll bind with a chain,
And the wild gazelle with the silv’ry feet
I’ll bring to thee for a playmate sweet.”
Timothy listened intently for some moments, but could not understand the words, unless the lady happened to be in the menagerie business, which he thought unlikely, but delightful should it prove true.
His eye then fell on a little marble slab under a tree in a shady corner of the orchard.
“That’s a country doorplate,” he thought; “yes, it’s got the lady’s name, ‘Martha Cummins,’ printed on it. Now I’ll know what to call her.”
He crept softly on to the front side of the house. There were flower beds, a lovable white cat snoozing on the doorsteps, and—a lady sitting at the open window knitting!
At this vision Timothy’s heart beat so hard against his little jacket that he could only stagger back to the basket, where Rags and Lady Gay were snuggled together, fast asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay’s face; moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the only available source of supply; scrubbed an atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spirited nose; and then, dragging the basket along the path leading to the front gate, he opened it and went in, mounted the steps, plied the brass knocker, and waited in childlike faith for a summons to enter and make himself at home.
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