FullReads

“I’ll tell you the day before, and not till then.”

After supper they drew around the stove. Mrs. Banning got out her knitting, as usual, and prepared for city gossip. The farmer rubbed his hands over the general aspect of comfort, and especially over the regained presence of his child’s bright face. “Well, Sue,” he remarked, “you’ll own that this room IN the house doesn’t look very bleak?”

“No, father, I’ll own nothing of the kind. Your face and mother’s are not bleak, but the room is.”

“Well,” said the farmer, rather disconsolately, “I fear the old place has been spoiled for you. I was saying to mother before you came home–“

“There now, father, no matter about what you were saying. Let Susie tell us why the room is bleak.”

The girl laughed softly, got up, and taking a billet of wood from the box, put it into the air-tight. “The stove has swallowed it just as old Trip did his supper. Shame! you greedy dog,” she added, caressing a great Newfoundland that would not leave her a moment. “Why can’t you learn to eat your meals like a gentleman?” Then to her father, “Suppose we could sit here and see the flames curling all over and around that stick. Even a camp in the woods is jolly when lighted up by a flickering blaze.”

“Oh–h!” said the farmer; “you think an open fire would take away the bleakness?”

“Certainly. The room would be changed instantly, and mother’s face would look young and rosy again. The blue-black of this sheet-iron stove makes the room look blue-black.”

“Open fires don’t give near as much heat,” said her father, meditatively. “They take an awful lot of wood; and wood is getting scarce in these parts.”

“I should say so! Why don’t you farmers get together, appoint a committee to cut down every tree remaining, then make it a State- prison offence ever to set out another? Why, father, you cut nearly all the trees from your lot a few years ago and sold the wood. Now that the trees are growing again, you are talking of clearing up the land for pasture. Just think of the comfort we could get out of that wood-lot! What crop would pay better? All the upholsterers in the world cannot furnish a room as an open hardwood fire does; and all the produce of the farm could not buy anything else half so nice.”

“Say, mother,” said her father, after a moment, “I guess I’ll get down that old Franklin from the garret to-morrow and see if it can’t furnish this room.”

The next morning he called rather testily to the hired man, who was starting up the lane with an axe, “Hiram, I’ve got other work for you. Don’t cut a stick in that wood-lot unless I tell you.”

The evening of the 9th of April was cool but clear, and the farmer said, genially, “Well, Sue, prospects good for fine weather on your birthday. Glad of it; for I suppose you will want me to go to town with you for your present, whatever it is to be.”

“You’ll own up a girl can keep a secret now, won’t you?”

“He’ll have to own more’n that,” added his wife; “he must own that an ole woman hasn’t lost any sleep from curiosity.”

“How much will be left me to own to-morrow night?” said the farmer, dubiously. “I suppose Sue wants a watch studded with diamonds, or a new house, or something else that she darsn’t speak of till the last minute, even to her mother.”

“Nothing of the kind. I want only all your time tomorrow, and all Hiram’s time, after you have fed the stock.”

“All our time!

“Yes, the entire day, in which you both are to do just what I wish. You are not going gallivanting to the city, but will have to work hard.”

“Well, I’m beat! I don’t know what you want any more than I did at first.”