Part 6

"Well, Mrs. O'Connor, I've looked at the cow all over, and I think I can in conscience advise Mrs. Barnard to take her at the price. She is a nice creature, and we know the stock she comes of. I'll let you know in two or three days."

"Why, granny, do you mean to sell the cow?" asked Phil, in great surprise.

He knew how much granny thought of Crummie, and with how much reason. Crummie was a nearly pure-blooded Jersey cow. Her mother had been given to granny many years before by a lady whom she had nursed in a very bad fever, and was of the best breed. Crummie might have been sold many times over, but granny had always refused to part with her.

"Well, yes, dear, I think I will," said granny. "You see what with me being helpless and your mother away all day, the poor thing don't get the best of care, and our milk customers is mostly fell off. I sha'n't be here long, anyhow, and I'd rather know she had a good home with a kind lady like Mrs. Barnard, than think she'd maybe grow old or go dry, and then be sold to a drover. And, besides, if there's no cow to tend, what will hinder your going to school? But don't you say a word till we see what the lady says. I don't want this one and that one coming and talking to me about it."

"But if you feel so bad about it," said Phil, seeing granny wipe her eyes.

"Oh, never mind that, my dear. I'd be hard-hearted not to feel bad for the poor creature that I brought up from a baby, as I might say. But she'll be real well off with Mrs. Barnard."

"She'll have an elegant stable," said Phil. "Their barn is nicer than many houses, and as neat as a new pin."

"It isn't the elegant stable I'm thinking of," said granny. "The Maberlys have got that and more, and it's not to them I'd be selling a cow of mine. It's the care and the kindness, and not the fineness, that makes cows happy as well as children. Come, get your book and read me a bit to cheer me up a little before I go to bed."

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE WEEDS.

IN two or three days' time the bargain was completed about the cow. Mrs. Barnard paid a good price for her, and Phil went with Mr. Regan, at his granny's desire, to put the money in the savings bank at Rockside. He was also allowed to lead Crummie to her new home, and give her her first meal in the fine cowhouse.

The poor thing was very unhappy and homesick at first, and lowed so pitifully when Phil left her that he had to go into the barn and cry a little.

"Don't you grieve, little boy," said John, the coachman. "She'll soon be wonted and as happy as ever she was."

"I know it," answered Phil, wiping away his tears; "but you see I've known her so long, and tended her every day since I was old enough."

"And that's true, and I don't blame you for not liking to part with her. But look here, didn't I hear your granny was wanting a cat?"

"Yes, sir. Our old gray died two or three days ago."

"Well, you may have your pick of these, or take two if you want them," said John, showing Phil an empty manger where some kittens by sleeping all coiled up in a warm, furry heap. "Maybe you'd better take two. They will be company for each other, and you can give one away when they grow older."

Phil was delighted. He chose a tabby, and a black kit with a white nose and white feet.

"When can I take them?" he asked.

"Now, if you like. The cat has weaned them so they won't miss her. That is the way to have a nice, clean, useful cat, to let the mother bring them up herself."

"Shure, it stands to reason she would know best," said Phil, admiring and stroking the kittens, while John hunted up a basket to put them in. "Won't granny be pleased though? She says the house don't seem like home without a cat in it."

Granny was as much pleased as Phil had hoped she would be. The two kits soon made themselves at home, and were as happy and playful as possible.

It was now settled that Phil was to go to school, but he was obliged to wait till he could get some new clothes, his old ones being quite unfit. Even his Sunday suit was growing shabby, and it was decided that he should take this into every-day wear, while on Saturday his mother would go with him to the village and buy him an entire new suit with some of the money that had come from the sale of the cow.

Meantime, Phil worked in his garden and got it all in nice order. He had seen how Mr. Regan planted his seeds, putting down a flower-pot to mark an exact ring, and then marking a little trench for the seeds more or less deep according to their size. He made the mould very fine and picked out all the stones, just as his friend had done; for Phil not only had bright eyes to see, but good brains behind them to think and remember.

He had at last sowed all his seeds, and stood, looking at the ground with great delight, when he was startled by hearing granny's voice. The old woman was getting better with the warm weather, as the doctor had said she would, and she had crept out, with the help of her cane, to see what Phil was about.

"It's a nice little garden you've made, dear. And what have you got planted in all these places?"

"Flower seeds, granny—the seeds I picked up in the street, you know—and some morning-glories and scarlet runners that Mr. Regan gave me. This bed is the pansy seed. I'll have a lot of them, the bag was full."

"I'm not just clear about them seeds," said granny; "I mistrust you ought to have gone in and asked the young lady did she mean to throw them away."

Phil was a little vexed. He had "mistrusted" the same thing himself more than once; but then he wanted so very much to see what the flowers would be like.

"Anyhow, we can't help it now, they are in the ground," said he. "Mr. Regan said maybe she didn't think they were a good kind. The gentlemen and ladies are very particular what they have in their gardens. Mr. Regan was looking at the daisies he had in a 'cold frame,' he called it, the day I was up to see the cow. There was a good many that had a little bit of yellow in the middle. I thought they were as pretty as any, but he said he should only plant out the double ones, and I might have as many of the others as I liked. I'm going down to get them this very day. Haven't I made the fence good and tight? I put that bush at the top so the chickens couldn't fly over. See, the morning-glories and runners are planted down here, so when they grow they can run all over it."

"And that's a good plan too. But if you are going so far, you might step on to the village and get me some more medicine. The last did me a deal of good. There's fifty cents to pay for it, and you may have the change for yourself."

Phil undertook the errand with a very good will. He left his basket at Mrs. Barnard's, and went down town. Mr. Ryan, the nurseryman, had just brought in a wagon load of blossoming plants, and Phil stopped to look at them. They were geraniums, verbenas, plants with red and yellow and dark brown leaves like velvet, and a great many more of what are called "bedding-out plants."

A lady was also looking at the plants, and Phil listened with great interest to hear what she and Mr. Ryan were saying, as she took up one and another.

"Are all these hardy?" asked the lady.

"Oh yes, ma'am. These are all bedding-out plants. This coleus is new, and one of the finest we have."

"How much do they cost?"

"From a dollar to a dollar and a half a dozen," was the answer. "From twelve to fifteen cents each, if we sell them singly."

The lady selected a few of the plants, saying she would look over her list and see what more she needed. She then asked for some flower seeds, and followed Mr. Ryan into the shop. Phil stood looking at the plants. Oh, if he could only have even one of those lovely velvety-leaved things! He knew just where he could set it, and how beautiful it would be all summer long, But fifteen cents! He had not so much in the world. Granny had said he might have the change from the fifty-cent piece, but that would be only five cents.

Suppose he should not pay for the medicine. He knew Mr. Eddy, at the drug store, would trust him, because he had done so before when granny was so sick. Then he could buy two or three plants of various kinds. But what would granny say when she knew it? She was, as Mr. Regan said, "honest as daylight," and nothing vexed her so much as a debt. She had more than once scolded his mother for buying even such things as sugar and tea on credit, and had declared that she would sell her place and go to the hospital or almshouse sooner than run into debts which she might never be able to pay.

"She need never know it!" whispered the tempter in Phil's ear. "You can earn the money somehow and pay the bill at the druggist's. You can save the money off your new clothes and pay it that way. You can tell her Mr. Regan gave you the plants."

"She's sure to speak about it the first time she sees him," said Phil to the tempter.

"She is old and forgetful," answered the tempter. "Come, you had better buy the plants now. They will be gone by Saturday perhaps, and then you will be sorry. Come, let us at least go in and ask the price. That can do no harm."

That is the way the tempter almost always acts. "That can do no harm," he says. "Let us just go a step further," and so he leads people on, till the way down hill grows so steep that they need no more leading, but run head-long down.

Phil followed the tempter into Mr. Ryan's shop, and then all at once he saw who had been leading him, and what he had been going to do. What was it that opened his eyes so suddenly? Just the sight of Miss Isabel in her pretty gray dress and India striped shawl, the very dress she had worn on Sunday, buying seeds at the counter. Just the sight of her made Phil open the eyes of his conscience and see what he was going to do. What would Miss Isabel think? What would his heavenly Father think?

"Miss Isabel won't know," said the tempter, making a last effort.

"But God will," said Phil, and then the tempter went away for that time.

"Why, Philip, is this you?" said Miss Isabel kindly. "How do you do, and how is you grandmother this fine weather?"

Phil answered her questions, and then yen. Lured to ask one for himself.

"Please, Miss Isabel, what kind of seeds can I buy for five cents that will make sweet-smelling flowers?"

"Why, let me see. You might have mignonette, or sweet alyssum, or sweet peas."

"Is it sweet peas that are so many different colors—pink and white and purple?" asked Phil eagerly.

"The very same. I think you will like them best. Mr. Ryan, how many sweet peas can you afford to give this little boy for five cents?"

"Oh, quite a good handful," said Mr. Ryan, taking a little bag and filling it from a drawer that stood open. "There, that will make you a fine row, and very nice ones they are. Only if you want plenty of new flowers, you must keep cutting the old ones. Flowers mostly, madam, are like the riches of the man in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' perhaps you remember:

"'A man there was, though some did count him mad, The more he cast away, the more he had.'"

"True," said Miss Isabel. "So you have a garden, Philip. I must come and see it some day."

Phil paid for his seeds, and after buying his granny's medicine, he went on his way home. Perhaps you think the tempter let him alone after being defeated. Not at all. All the way home, he kept whispering, "How silly you were! You might just as well have bought the plants as not. Nobody would have known it." And Phil was just silly enough to listen to him, and let himself be put out of humor.

The daisies with which Mr. Regan filled his basket were just as pretty as they had been before, but somehow they looked like mean little weeds compared to the plants he had seen at Ryan's. He almost thought he would not set them out at all. He looked at the plants in the green-house and stopped to watch Mr. Anderson's gardener planting the odd-shaped flower beds in the lawn, and thought how small and rough his own little garden looked by the side of this grand place; why the very bed the gardener was filling with red geraniums was larger than his whole garden. What was the use of poor people trying to do anything?

It was in a very bad humor that Phil arrived at home, and found granny sitting on the bench in the sunshine. She exclaimed over the daisies; they were just such as used to grow in the old country, she said, and the sight of them warmed her very heart.

"'Twas very kind, entirely, to give them to you," said she.

"No such great kindness," answered Phil, rather shortly; "he was going to throw them away if I hadn't taken them. But I suppose they are good enough for poor folks."

"It's likely they are, seeing who made them," answered the old woman, quietly. "Who did you see down town?"

"Nobody but Miss Isabel. Has any one been here?"

"Yes, Horace Maberly. His mother wants Mary to go up and help the cook Saturday. It's a grand dinner they are to have."

"Just so she can't buy my new clothes!" said Phil. "It is just my luck. Everything goes wrong that I want to do."

"Take care it isn't yourself that's going wrong," said granny. "It is in a bad humor you are this afternoon. What's happened to you?"

Phil turned away without reply, and taking up his basket went to his garden. As he turned round the corner of his house, he started and ran as fast as he could go. The little gate which he had contrived with so much pains and fastened with so much care was open. An old hen and a flock of chickens were scratching in the fine newly-turned dirt, and a white goat, which belonged to a neighbor, was just cropping off the head of his beautiful geranium.

Now it is really one of the most vexatious things in the world to have a neighbor's hens come in and scratch up one's flower garden. I know, because I have tried it a great many times. Still I don't think Phil would have sworn as he did if he had not been listening to those whispers of the tempter all the morning. Nor would he have pounded the poor little nanny-goat, who did not know any better, with such a big stick; for he was very far from being a cruel boy, and he had not sworn for a long time before—not since he had been in Miss Isabel's class.

He drove the animals out, pelting them with stones, laming two or three of the poor little downy chicks, and killing one outright. It was this last act which brought him to his senses a little. He picked the chicken up and looked at it. The poor thing was not quite dead, and as he held it in his hand, it opened the little round eyes which had just been so bright, and looked at him as he thought with a glance of reproach, made a piteous little peeping noise, and then its eye grew dim and filmy, its little feet curled up—it was dead.

Phil stopped swearing, sat down on a stone, and cried as if his heart would break—partly for the chicken, partly for his garden. He did not despise it any more. Now that it was spoiled as he thought, it seemed to him that nothing could be more precious than the little bit of ground on which he had worked so hard. And then he was so sorry for the chicken. How pretty it was, and how happy! It did not know that it was doing anything wrong, and now he had killed it. And he had hurt the poor little white nanny-goat too. It limped as it ran away. As if that would bring back his geranium!

"What is it, dear?" said granny. She had heard the noise, and hobbled round the house to see what was the matter, and was surprised and alarmed when she saw the state Phil was in.

"What's the matter, dear?" she repeated as Phil did not answer. "What has happened to make you cry so?"

Phil pointed to the garden.

"Oh, what a pity! What is it that's done it—the chickens?"

"The chickens and that white goat of Ryan's," answered Phil. "But they couldn't have got in unless somebody had left the gate open."

"Maybe the goat opened it: they're full of cunning, them goats."

"She couldn't," answered Phil. "It was fastened with a wire as tight as it could be. I don't see who would have done such a mean thing."

"She's a troublesome beast, that same white goat," said granny. "I'd complain of her only she's all the dependence they have for the sickly baby that has no mother, poor thing! But there, don't cry." For Phil was crying harder than ever. "See, here's your best bed they haven't touched at all."

Phil looked. It was true. The pansies had quite escaped. That was some comfort. Perhaps they had not dug up quite all the seeds in the other beds, though they had thrown down the sticks with their labels, so that he would never know which was which. That did not matter so much if only the plants grew. But then his geranium! Nothing could help that.

"I may as well pull it up and throw it away," said he, when he had made all neat again and planted his sweet peas. "I can't bear to see the poor thing."

"I wouldn't," said granny, who had sat on a stone in the sun watching Phil at his work. "Maybe 'twill come out again. I've seen the gardeners cut them down as close as that, and they grew all the better. Just tread down the soil around it and give it some water. You mustn't be so easy discouraged, dear. Sure everything has hitches in it sometimes."

"My things are all hitches I think," said Phil.

Granny did not reason with Phil just at that time. She saw that his heart was as full as it could hold, and she was a wise woman, though she could not read a word. There is a great deal of wisdom which does not of books. She coaxed Phil to go into the woods and see if he could not cut her a longer cane, as the end of hers was worn off.

"And maybe you'll find a pretty five-leaf vine to plant at the end of your garden and run up on the rocks. Not the three-leaved mind: that's poison, and will make your hands and face swell. And some of those brakes would look pretty growing in with your flowers."

"Mr. Regan has them I know," said Phil. "Well, granny, I'll get you your cane and the vine too, if I can find one. But it's no use: poor folks can't have anything."

"You just put that notion right out of head, Phil O'Connor," says granny severely, "It's envy makes you say that, and it's one of the devil's own weeds, worse than the three-leaved poison vine that spoils all it touches. Don't the poor have the blessed sunshine, and the sight of the trees and green fields, and all the fine things that God has made for all alike? Don't we have a roof over our heads, and plenty to eat and drink and wear? And don't you have the best of teaching on Sundays, and as good a chance to learn as anybody? Put all that out of your head if you don't want it to poison everything for you. It's an ill weed, and no plant of grace ever throve where it grew."

CHAPTER FOURTH.

FLOWERS.

AS I said, granny was a wise woman, though she could not write her own name or read it when it was written. She knew that there was no use in talking to Phil while his mind was so worked up and troubled with the misfortune to his garden.

"Sure it was enough to vex a saint," said she to herself, "but when the boy gets away from the sight of his trouble into the woods, and sees all the pretty things growing, he'll be diverted, and feel better, and then he'll be ready to hear reason. It's a real turn he has for the gardening, and as soon as he learns to write and gets a bit more learning in figures, I'll get Mr. Regan to look him up a place with some nurseryman or gardener where he can learn the trade—that's what we'll do. Pusheen!"

Granny always talked to animals as if they could understand every word. Pusheen (that was the name of the tabby kitten) looked very wise and solemn for just about half a minute, and then made a dive after Silvertoe's tail. Silvertoe was the name of the black kitten, but Phil called her Tozy "for short."

Granny was right. Phil walked on pretty fast till he came to the woods. They were such woods as some of my little readers have never seen—steep and full of gray mossy ledges of rock which seemed to stand straight up on their edges like books in a bookcase, while here and there were piled great loose rocks as big as houses. On these grew little clumps of white flowers called rock saxifrage, and tufts of red and yellow columbines nodding their pretty heads with every breeze, and sprawling ugly prickly pears which were just beginning to get the winter wrinkles out of their faces and to look as pleasant as the poor things knew how.

The ground in some places was white with anemones, and in others blue with violets. The ferns were sticking up their curly frizzy heads, and long wreaths and sprays of the evergreen ferns were lying on the moss beds, all the prettier for the cold weather they had been through. Birds of different kinds were singing in the branches, and the cat-bird was making fun of them all.