The few privileged persons who have studied them are inclined to
think them a remarkable mixture of the monkey, the sphinx, the
roc, and the queer creatures seen by the famous Peter Wilkins.
This game was a great favorite, and the younger children beguiled
many a rainy afternoon flapping or creeping about the nursery,
acting like little bedlamites and being as merry as little grigs. To
be sure, it was rather hard upon clothes, particularly trouser-knees,
and jacket-elbows; but Mrs. Bhaer only said, as she patched and
darned,
“We do things just as foolish, and not half so harmless. If I could
get as much happiness out of it as the little dears do, I’d be a Brop
myself.”
Nat’s favorite amusements were working in his garden, and sitting
in the willow-tree with his violin, for that green nest was a fairy
world to him, and there he loved to perch, making music like a
happy bird. The lads called him “Old Chirper,” because he was
always humming, whistling, or fiddling, and they often stopped a
minute in their work or play to listen to the soft tones of the violin,
which seemed to lead a little orchestra of summer sounds. The
birds appeared to regard him as one of themselves, and fearlessly
sat on the fence or lit among the boughs to watch him with their
quick bright eyes. The robins in the apple-tree near by evidently
considered him a friend, for the father bird hunted insects close
beside him, and the little mother brooded as confidingly over her
blue eggs as if the boy was only a new sort of blackbird who
cheered her patient watch with his song. The brown brook babbled
and sparkled below him, the bees haunted the clover fields on
either side, friendly faces peeped at him as they passed, the old
house stretched its wide wings hospitably toward him, and with a
blessed sense of rest and love and happiness, Nat dreamed for
hours in this nook, unconscious what healthful miracles were
being wrought upon him.
One listener he had who never tired, and to whom he was more
than a mere schoolmate. Poor Billy’s chief delight was to lie beside
the brook, watching leaves and bits of foam dance by, listening
dreamily to the music in the willow-tree. He seemed to think Nat a
sort of angel who sat aloft and sang, for a few baby memories still
lingered in his mind and seemed to grow brighter at these times.
Seeing the interest he took in Nat, Mr. Bhaer begged him to help
them lift the cloud from the feeble brain by this gentle spell. Glad
to do any thing to show his gratitude, Nat always smiled on Billy
when he followed him about, and let him listen undisturbed to the
music which seemed to speak a language he could understand.
“Help one another,” was a favorite Plumfield motto, and Nat
learned how much sweetness is added to life by trying to live up to
it.
Jack Ford’s peculiar pastime was buying and selling; and he bid
fair to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, a country merchant,
who sold a little of every thing and made money fast. Jack had
seen the sugar sanded, the molasses watered, the butter mixed with
lard, and things of that kind, and labored under the delusion that it
was all a proper part of the business. His stock in trade was of a
different sort, but he made as much as he could out of every worm
he sold, and always got the best of the bargain when he traded with
the boys for string, knives, fish-hooks, or whatever the article
might be. The boys who all had nicknames, called him “Skinflint,”
but Jack did not care as long as the old tobacco-pouch in which he
kept his money grew heavier and heavier.
He established a sort of auction-room, and now and then sold off
all the odds and ends he had collected, or helped the lads exchange
things with one another. He got bats, balls, hockey-sticks, etc.,
cheap, from one set of mates, furbished them up, and let them for a
few cents a time to another set, often extending his business