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Daddy Darwin’s Dovecot
by
One day she lost her posy on her way to school, and her loss was Jack’s opportunity. He had been waiting half-an-hour among the ivy, when he saw her just below him, fuzzling round and round like a kitten chasing its tail. He sprang to the top of the wall.
“Have ye lost something?” he gasped.
“My posy,” said poor Phoebe, lifting her sweet eyes, which were full of tears.
A second spring brought Jack into the dust at her feet, where he searched most faithfully, and was wandering along the path by which she had come, when she called him back.
“Never mind,” she said. “They’ll most likely be dusty by now.”
Jack was not used to think the worse of anything for a coating of dust; but he paused, trying to solve the perpetual problem of his situation, and find out what the little maid really wanted.
“‘Twas only Old Man and marygolds,” said she. “They’re common enough.”
A light illumined Jack’s understanding.
“We’ve Old Man i’ plenty. Wait, and I’ll get thee a fresh posy.” And he began to reclimb the wall.
But Phoebe drew nearer. She stroked down her frock, and spoke mincingly but confidentially. “My mother says Daddy Darwin has red bergamot i’ his garden. We’ve none i’ ours. My mother always says there’s nothing like red bergamot to take to church. She says it’s a deal more refreshing than Old Man, and not so common. My mother says she’s always meaning to ask Daddy Darwin to let us have a root to set; but she doesn’t often see him, and when she does she doesn’t think on. But she always says there’s nothing like red bergamot, and my Aunt Nancy, she says the same.”
“Red is it?” cried Jack. “You wait there, love.” And before Phoebe could say him nay, he was over the wall and back again with his arms full.
“Is it any o’ this lot?” he inquired, dropping a small haycock of flowers at her feet.
“Don’t ye know one from t’other?” asked Phoebe, with round eyes of reproach. And spreading her clean kerchief on the grass she laid her Bible and Prayer-book and class card on it, and set vigorously and nattily to work, picking one flower and another from the fragrant confusion, nipping the stalks to even lengths, rejecting withered leaves, and instructing Jack as she proceeded.
“I suppose ye know a rose? That’s a double velvet.[4] They dry sweeter than lavender for linen. These dark red things is pheasants’ eyes; but, dear, dear, what a lad! Ye’d dragged it up by the roots! And eh! what will Master Darwin say when he misses these pink hollyhocks And only in bud, too! There’s red Bergamot: smell it!”[5]
[Footnote 4: Double velvet, an old summer rose, not common now It is described by Parkinson.]
[Footnote 5: Red Bergamot, or Twinflower; Monarda Didyma.]
It had barely touched Jack’s willing nose when it was hastily withdrawn. Phoebe had caught eight of Polly and Susan Smith coming to school, and crying that she should be late and must run, the little maid picked up her paraphernalia (not forgetting the red bergamot), and fled down the lane. And Jack, with equal haste, snatched up the tell-tale heap of flowers and threw them into a disused pig-sty, where it was unlikely that Daddy Darwin would go to look for his poor pink hollyhocks.
SCENE VII.
April was a busy month in the Dovecot. Young birds were chipping the egg, parent birds were feeding their young or relieving each other on the nest, and Jack and his master were constantly occupied and excited.
One night Daddy Darwin went to bed; but, though he was tired, he did not sleep long. He had sold a couple of handsome but quarrelsome pigeons, to advantage, and had added their price to the hoard in the bed-head. This had renewed his old fears, for the store was becoming very valuable; and he wondered if it had really escaped Jack’s quick observation, or whether the boy knew about it, and, perhaps, talked about it. As he lay and worried himself he fancied he heard sounds without–the sound of footsteps and of voices. Then his heart beat till he could hear nothing else; then he could undoubtedly hear nothing at all; then he certainly heard something which probably was rats. And so he lay in a cold sweat, and pulled the rug over his face, and made up his mind to give the money to the parson, for the poor, if he was spared till daylight.