"They never are, my dear," said Flora. "Comfort yourself. They will run into what they don't like just to have their own way; because what they do like is ordered or advised by some kind friend."

"Not true without exception, Maggie," said Meredith; "but there is some truth in it. Don't worry about Fenton. I don't believe he means quite as bad as he says."

"But smoking is so disgraceful--in a boy," said Maggie.

"It is not disgraceful in a man," said Esther.

"Well, it isn't nice," returned Maggie. "I always hate to come near that Professor Wilkins, who always talks to me when he is here. He is kind, but his breath is dreadful."

Fenton was not so fond of the company of his cigar but that he soon forsook it. And then his company indoors was hardly an acquisition. He talked big of doings at the school where he was now placed, horrified Maggie by showing that he was quite as lawless as in old times, and put an effectual bar to any reading, or talk either, except of the sort that suited himself.

"What's up?" he asked at last. "What shall we do to make the time go?"

"Time does not need any whip with us," said Meredith. "He goes fast enough."

"Oh, we are going out in the woods to dinner," said Maggie.

"You were there to-day."

"Well, we are going to-morrow--and every day. We have a bonfire, and a nice lunch, and the girls work, and Ditto reads to us."

"Jolly slow!" said Fenton. "I can't stand much of that. I shall go a-fishing."

"Very well," said Esther. "And come to us for lunch?"

"Same place? It's too far off."

"Then we'll go into the pine wood," said Maggie. "The pine wood is nice--and the pine needles make a beautiful carpet--and we want to go to a different place every day."

So it was arranged.

CHAPTER IX.

The same sweet weather continued again the next day; the air was even warmer still, the leaves of oaks and maples, turning more and more, were growing browner and ruddier, and the glow on the hills more deep. The pine wood, however, which lay behind, that is, north of the house, at no great distance, was uninvaded by this autumn glow. The soft, blue gleam of the pines alone stood against the heaven's mild blue overhead, and pine needles, brown and thick, carpeted the ground everywhere between the rocks. For rocks were almost everywhere at Mosswood. Only on the skirts of the wood one might see a flaming maple branch, or a golden cloud of hickory here and there, and here and there a cat-briar vine taking a tawny hue, or some low-growing cornus putting on lovely tints of madder at the edges of its leaves. Through the wood the little party wandered, not knowing where to choose to stop, and Meredith patiently drew the cart along waiting for orders. At last, on a little rising ground they found an open s.p.a.ce, yet shadowed enough, from which there was a lookout to the house in the valley; truly no more than the chimneys could be seen; and a wider s.p.a.ce of blue sky, and the hills towards the south. This would do. Here were pine needles enough for a carpet, and a felled pine log gave a convenient seat to those who liked it. For Meredith and Maggie preferred the ground and the pine needles.

The cart was drawn up under the shade of a tree; afghan and worsted embroidery were taken out; shawls were spread; and the party settled themselves for a morning of comfort.

"This _is_ good!" said Meredith delaying to open his book.

"How perfectly delicious this warm smell of the pines is!" said Flora.

"You use strong language, Flo, but for once not exaggerated. We have not got the sound of the wood-chopper's axe to-day."

"I'll tell you what you may hear, though, if you listen," said Esther,--"the woodp.e.c.k.e.r--

'The woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping the hollow beech-tree;'

only there are no beech-trees on the place. You may hear him on an oak, though."

"This hazy light under the pines--through the pines--is bewitching. O October! O Mosswood!" Meredith exclaimed. "What is so pretty as these autumn woods?"

"What are you going to read us to-day?" said his sister. "Don't get poetical."

"I will read you one or two little bits first, which touch something Maggie and I were talking of yesterday. We do not want a bonfire to-day; it's too warm."

"No; we will make just a tiny little blaze by and by, to boil our kettle. It would be too warm for a bonfire; and there are no trees here to be cut."

"I should think not!" said Meredith looking up at the blue-green pine needles over his head. "Well, here's a story for you."

"Heathen?" asked Flora.

"No, Christian. 'There was a man, once upon a time, whom G.o.d had richly blessed. He had received a year's income of seven hundred thalers. Four hundred of them he needed and used for his house and family wants, and three hundred were left over. So he thought at first he would put the money out at interest, and enjoy the comfort of receiving rents which were growing while he was sleeping. As he was just setting about this, he read in a mission paper about the wants of the heathen; and the Sunday next following he heard a preaching about how the dear Lord is the safest of all to trust money to, and gives the best interest. So he made a short piece of work of it, and sent his three hundred thalers to the dear Lord for the conversion of the heathen, and said, "Lord, take Thou them; I got them from Thee, and there is all this left." "Wife,"

said he, when he came home at evening, "I have done a good bit of business to-day; I have got rid of my three hundred thalers, and am quit of any care of the money, over and above." "Then you may thank the dear Lord for that," said his wife. "And so I do," he answered.

"'Do I not hear at this point, not merely many a child of the world, but also many a believer, secretly half saying, "No, but what is out of reason is out of reason!"--and so do I see a certain compa.s.sionate smile playing about mouth-corners. But wait a bit; there is something coming that is more crazy yet. The next year the man was overloaded with such a blessing, that instead of seven hundred thalers, he made fourteen hundred thalers, and he did not know where it all came from. Then what does he do but take the surplus, one thousand thalers, and send it to the mission. Is the story true? do you say. You can ask the Lord "in that day;" he knows the story.'"

"I like that," said Maggie.

"Why?" Flora asked.

"I think it is nice," said Maggie with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I don't see it. What good to the man to have twice as much as he had before, if he must give it all right away again?"

"Why, he has the pleasure of giving it!" cried Maggie.

"And it shows, at any rate, that he did not get poor by his first venture," said Meredith. "And the Lord will reckon it 'at that day' as all done for Him."

"I don't think people are obliged to give away all they have got," said Flora.

"Suppose they do not reckon anything they have their own? The Christians in the early times did not, if the Lord's work or the needs of others wanted it more."

"Extravagance!" said Flora. "Just enthusiasm."

"Come, I will read you another story. But the poor woman who gave all she had into the Lord's treasury was not rated as a fool by _Him_. I will read you now--

"'A PROBLEM ABOUT STUTEN MONEY.

"'Most of you know, it is true, right well what _stuten_ money is, but certainly all do not. Among us, when people go to church on Sunday, the children and younger serving people of the peasants get a groschen to take along, with which they can buy a stuten, that is, a white roll, at noon when they come out of church; by the help of which they can stay in the village and so go to church again in the afternoon. Now there are a boy, a girl, and an old woman known to me, who have no other money but the stuten money they get on Sundays. So each one of them falls to considering how he or she can do something for the heathen. And they arrange it on this wise. One of them every other Sunday eats no roll, and thinks within herself, "I ate as much as I wanted this morning at home, and I can do the same again this evening." The two others buy each a small roll for half a groschen, and lay up the other half-groschen every Sunday; and when the year comes round, they have all three of them, counting the festivals, thirty groschen saved up, and bring them with glad, smiling faces to go for the conversion of the heathen. And upon being afterwards asked whether hunger did not often trouble them on Sunday? they say, they have always felt as if they had had enough; and, with G.o.d's help, they will do the same way next year.'"

"What sort of a story do you call that?" asked Flora when her brother paused.

"I call it a story of what can be done."