Beyond doubt Willis was chagrined. He did not know that they had girdled the tree, but he thought it not worth the while to go up there again that fall, since there were no more apples. Yet even if Alfred and Newman had found it, and even if they got the apples next season, he supposed that he would still be able to cut scions from the tree. Late in March, directly after the sap started, he went up there with knife and saw to secure them.
Not till then did he discover that the tree had been cruelly girdled, and that the spring sap had not flowed to the limbs. He cut a bundle of scions, some of which were afterward set as grafts; but none of them lived. The tree was killed. It never bore again. Nor can I learn that sprouts ever came up about the root. It was quite dead when I first visited the place.
Thus perished, untimely, the Wild Rose Sweeting. Ignorance and small malice robbed the world of an apple that might have given delight and benefit to millions of people for centuries to come.
I have sometimes thought that an inscription of the nature of an epitaph should be cut on the great rock at the foot of which the tree stood.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE OLD SQUIRE ALLOWS US FOUR DAYS FOR CAMPING OUT
So occupied were our minds with the Fair and its incidents, that not one of us had thought to go or send to the post office during that entire week. We had even passed near it, without thinking to call.
But on Sunday morning the Old Squire suddenly bethought himself of his religious newspaper, _The Independent_, which he commonly read for an hour after breakfast. He called me aside and, after remarking that he did not make a practice of going, or sending, to the post office on the Sabbath, said that I might make a trip to the Corners and bring home the mail. As the post office was at the residence of the postmaster, letters and papers could be taken from the office on any day or hour of the week.
I went to the Corners, accordingly, and at the door of the post office met Catherine Edwards who had also come there on a similar errand.
She looked very bright and smart that morning and laughed when she saw me.
"Your folks forgot the mail, too," said she. "Father told me to go down across the meadow, so that the Old Squire's folks needn't see me, going to the post office; for you know father stands in great awe of your grandpa's opinions. I shall tell him when I get home that he needn't have been so cautious."
Kate did not hasten away; and I summoned courage to say, "Please wait for me," although it cost me a great effort.
"All right," she replied. "I'll go on slow."
The postmaster had again to look up his glasses and was, I thought, a long while peering at the letters and papers. At length he handed out my package and I hurried away. Kate had not proceeded very far, however, and I soon overtook her. But she was obliged to take the lead in conversation.
"Our school doesn't begin this winter till after Thanksgiving," she remarked. "Have your folks heard who the schoolmaster is going to be?"
We had not.
"Well then, it is a young man, named Samuel Lurvy," said Kate. "He lives at Lurvy's Mills; and they say that his father, who owns the mills, has sent him for three terms to the Academy. Mr. Batchelder is our district school agent, you know; and his wife is a relative of the Lurvys; that's the reason, father says, that he came to hire Sam. Our folks are a little surprised and so are the Wilburs; for this Sam isn't more than nineteen or twenty years old; and mother says that she doesn't believe that he can be a very good scholar, for his parents are very ignorant.
"I was in hopes that they would have a good teacher this winter; for I want to make a start in Algebra," Kate continued. "I suppose you are nicely along in your studies. They must have better schools at Philadelphia than we do, away back here in the country."
It appeared, however, that whatever advantages I might have had in this respect, I was yet not as far advanced in Arithmetic as Kate; nor yet in any other branch. I had barely reached Compound Interest, while Kate had finished her Practical Arithmetic the previous winter.
"I could do all the examples in it when school was done last winter,"
she said. "I reviewed it once this summer, under Miss Emmons; I think like as not I might trip on some of them now. But I know that Theodora can do them all. She is a little older than I am; and she is a real good scholar, though I don't think that she is quite so good as Addison. He is different, somehow; he knows lots about everything and can talk real interesting with the teachers, in the classes. I know he is hoping we will have a good teacher, so he can finish up all his common school studies. You tell him that we are going to have Sam Lurvy, and see what he thinks about it.
"But it will be a long time before school begins," Kate continued, "nearly two months. We only have about nineteen weeks of school in a year here."
By this time we had reached the meadow where the bridge spanned the meadow brook.
"Go easy on the bridge and look off the lower end of it," Kate advised.
"We may see a big trout."
We did so and saw several trout, swimming away, but not very large ones.
"Well, I guess I shall go up the meadow and across the fields home,"
remarked Kate. "It is nearer for me; and it is a little nearer for you; but perhaps you would rather go by the road, seeing it is Sunday."
"I had rather go with you up the meadow," I said, but I felt somewhat abashed; and it seemed to me very bold to take such a long walk through meadow, pasture and fields, with a girl, alone, of about my own age, and not a cousin.
We proceeded up the meadow, following the meanderings of the brook, past numerous bush clumps. At length, we drew near a large bend where the brook looked to be both wide and deep. "This is the best trout hole on the meadow," Kate told me in a low tone. "Just wait a moment and keep back out of sight, while I catch a grasshopper." She hunted about in the dry grass, alternately stealing forward on tip-toe, then making a quick dash and pressing her hand suddenly on the grass. "I've got two," she said, coming cautiously forward. "Now creep up still to that little bunch of basswood bushes, on the edge of the bank. Get down low and crawl and don't jar the ground. I'm going to throw in a grasshopper. Oh dear me, look at the 'molasses' the nasty thing has put on my hand!"
Kate threw the grasshopper into the pool at the bend; and it seemed to me that it had barely touched the water, when _flop_ rose a fine trout and snatched it.
"Oh, if it wasn't Sunday and we had a hook here to put this other grasshopper on," said Kate eagerly, "wouldn't it be fun to haul that trout out here!
"I caught ten here one day last June," she continued. "Oh, I _do_ love to fish!--Do you think it is very horrid for girls to fish?" she asked suddenly.
"Girls don't fish as much as boys, but I didn't know there was any harm in it," I said.
"I'm glad you don't think it isn't nice," said Kate. "Tom is always hectoring me about it. I sometimes catch more than he does; and I think that is the reason he wants to plague me."
"But we must go away from here!" Kate exclaimed. "For I don't think it is quite right to want to fish so badly, on Sunday. I think it is as bad to want to catch a fish as to catch one, or almost as bad."
This being our moral condition, we veered off from the brook a little; and Kate pointed out to me a bank of choke-cherry bushes, from which we gathered a few cherries, not very good ones.
"It isn't a good cherry year," said Kate. "Last year was. We got splendid ones off these same bushes, last September."
Kate also pointed out to me some small bird pear trees, growing beside an old hedge fence across the upper end of the meadow, where we climbed over and going through a tract of sparse woodland entered the pasture below the Old Squire's south field.
"Oh, I do love to be out in the woods and pastures on a bright pleasant day like this!" exclaimed Kate, with a long breath of enjoyment. "I wish I could camp out and be out of doors all the fall. That makes me think, has Addison or Dora said anything to you about our making a trip to the 'great woods' this fall, after the apples are picked?"
"I have heard Addison say that he would like to go," said I. "And Theodora said that they had talked of making a camping trip once. But I haven't heard anything about it lately."
"Oh dear, I'm afraid they will all give it up," said Kate. "There is a place away up in the woods where there is a nice chance to camp. Tom was up there once. It is quite a good ways. We should have to camp out over night. Wouldn't that be fun? There's a brook up there full of fish, they say; and there are partridges and lots of game. My folks will let Tom and me go, if Theodora and Ellen and Addison go. Mother thinks Dora is the nicest girl there ever was about here; she holds her up as a pattern for me, regularly. But I happen to know that Dora enjoys having a good time, as much as I do.
"Now you put them up to go," Kate added, as we came to the west field bars, where our ways homeward diverged. "Good-by. I've had a real nice walk."
It was certainly very polite for her to say that; for she had been obliged to do nearly all the talking.
Addison and Theodora were standing out near the bee hives and saw me coming across the field to the house. A great and embarrassing fear fell upon me, as I saw them observing my approach. Even now, Catherine was still in sight, at a distance, crossing Mr. Edwards' field. My two cousins had been waiting about for me to bring _The Portland Transcript_ and _The Boston Weekly Journal_, which they read very constantly in those days.
"Aha! aha!" exclaimed Addison, significantly. "Seems to me that you have been gone a long time after the mail!"
"And who is that young lady we saw you taking leave of, over at the bars?" put in Theodora.
A very small hole would have sufficed for me to creep into at about that time!
"See how red he is," hectored Addison. "We've found him out. I had no idea he was any such boy as this!"