I called Violet a little berry girl, and I'll tell you why.

On the great hill above their hut, all over one side of it, were blackberry vines; and in autumn, when the berries were ripe, Violet and her mother would spend hours and hours picking them.

The sun would be scorching hot sometimes, and the th.o.r.n.y vines would tangle into Violet's dress and tear her arms, and mosquitos would buzz around her, until she was ready to cry or to declare she _could_ not pick any more.

Poor Violet! _You_ think, perhaps, that it is hard to walk to school under your parasol these sunny days; and she had, day after day, to stand out there among the vines, picking, and picking, and picking, till the two great water pails were full of berries.

But when she grew tired, Love would point to her poor old mother working so patiently, and looking so tired and warm; and when the fairy whispered, "Will you leave her here to finish the work _alone_?" Violet would forget in a minute her own weariness, and sing and laugh so merrily, and tell so often how fast her pail was filling up, that the mother would forget _her_ weariness too, and only think how fortunate and how rich she was to have such a good, bright child.

When she found a place where the berries grew thick and large, Violet would call her mother to pick there; and old Mary, Reuben's wife, said that "somehow she never could find such splendid places as Violet did."

So, leaving her there, the little girl would move on; and no matter how low she found the bushes, or how thinly covered with fruit, fairy Contentment, hovering over her head, would sing, "Who cares? The fewer, the sweeter."

What with Contentment's singing, and that of Violet, and the crickets and locusts, and the bees and bobolinks, there was music enough in the blackberry pasture; and it all chimed together just like the instruments in an orchestra.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BIRDS' HARVEST TIME.

But I was telling you about Violet's birthday; so let us go back to the doorstep of her father's little hut.

Narcissa called impatiently that she was tired of waiting; so her father, bidding good by to his new acquaintance, sprang into the carriage, and it rolled lightly through the green field once more.

Violet sat watching until it was out of sight, and she could no longer see Narcissa's feathers and flowers fluttering in the wind. Some how she never thought of her afterwards, except as a whole bunch of lace and finery, with a little girl inside of it.

Then she looked around for her violets; they were gone, and in their place lay the stranger's money.

But Toady hopped in sight just then, looking so brisk, and getting about so well on his three legs, she thought her flowers were little enough to pay for so much good as he had received.

So, happy as ever, Violet took her pail and went towards the blackberry hill.

It seemed to her the berries were never so thick and large; she soon had enough, and setting them in a shady place, she went to the brook to wash her hands.

There were long, deep scratches on her arms. How they smarted when the water touched them! but Violet only thought how much worse Toady's scratches and bruises were; and then she loved to be clean, for she had watched how the birds wash in the brook a dozen times a day, and how smooth the squirrels keep their fur, and how the flowers and leaves bathe their faces every morning in dew. She didn't want the leaves and birds to be ashamed of her.

The little girl strolled on towards the wood, singing and laughing, and talking to every thing she met, but most of all to kitty, who followed after her; while whole troops of gra.s.shoppers and little yellow b.u.t.terflies flew before, and settled in advance of Violet, and when she came up, flew a little farther, as if they wanted to lead her on.

Then there were flocks and flocks of birds; the ground seemed alive with them, for it was harvest time, and they came for the ripe grain which had fallen when the farmers cut their crops, and was scattered all over the fields.

The thistle seeds were ripe too; and the birds, and b.u.t.terflies, and bees seemed to love this best of all. Violet stood watching them eat, and laughed as she told puss that must be where she learned to be so greedy.

The bees went buzzing down into the very heart of the purple flowers, and took such long, deep honey draughts, and went back again and again, as if they could never have enough, and hurried away to their hives, for the sake of hurrying back for more.

The birds were not much better. They would hover an instant over the whole thistle bed, and then, selecting a good large flower, they would fly at it, fanning away with their fluttering wings till they were lost in a cloud of down, and tear out the rich, ripe seeds, swallowing them so fast it seemed as if they were eating for all winter.

Violet was never tired of watching, for she loved to see every creature happy, and knew, besides, that the birds and bees only have so good a chance to eat once in the year; and therefore, though she laughed at it, she couldn't blame them for their greediness.

There were such handsome yellow birds, with black spots and stripes over their bright b.r.e.a.s.t.s and wings. They buried their black and golden heads away in among the thistle down, while they clung to the stem with claws and wings, and were so busy eating that they did not see how near Violet crept to them.

Then a beautiful great b.u.t.terfly, its rich brown wings spotted with blue and orange, settled upon a flower, and sipped daintily, and fluttered away again to take another sip somewhere else, and then went sailing off into the sunshine. So she skipped along after it, kitty running close behind her, until they came to a bank covered with white everlasting flowers--so many it looked a little way off like snow; and Violet, whose mother had told her that in heaven flowers did not fade, but were _all_ everlasting, wondered if the door of heaven had not been left ajar, some day, long enough for a whole shower of seed to blow down towards this hill, and planting itself, come up in these pearl-white flowers.

Ah, Violet! the commonest seeds sprang up into heavenly flowers if they fell in _your_ pathway.

CHAPTER XV.

WHERE THE SQUIRREL LED VIOLET.

While Violet stood wondering thus, she saw a squirrel on the fence, nibbling upon a nut. As soon as she stirred, he darted along a rail or two, and then, waiting till she came up with him, went nibbling again.

"You needn't feel so grand with your spry legs. I guess I can run as well as you," said Violet.

The squirrel tucked the nut under one arm, and with a whisk of his bushy tail, darted like lightning along the rails, leaving Violet so far behind she thought he had gone into the wood; but when she had reached far enough herself, there he sat, quietly nibbling at his nut again, and soon as he saw her, whisked up into a tree, and from among the high boughs called, "Cheep, cheep, chip! Which beat, little girl?"

Violet could not see him, he went so fast and far; and as she looked up among the leafy boughs, he dropped the nut right into her face, and ran round and round the limb, and called "Cheep, cheep, chip!" again, as if he were laughing at her.

Violet laughed too, and threw the nut back at him, looking first to see how clean he had eaten out the meat.

Away darted squirrel, without waiting to chip this time, and Violet called, as he ran,--

"It's all very fine to whisk along so fast, mister; but I should like to know how much good your travelling does. I know you can't _see_ a thing, any more than they can in the rail cars I've heard about. You're welcome to your legs so long as you leave the brook, and the flowers, and birds for puss and me."

But he only answered by dropping another nut from directly over her head, and she followed him into the wood--the beautiful, cool, still wood. Violet left off singing as she entered it; for she loved to hear the rustle of the ripe leaves, and to watch the tiny fibres falling lightly from the pines, and hear the nuts and acorns rattle down, and to see the spider webs and insects glitter wherever a gleam of sunshine had stolen through the boughs.

Her hands were full of flowers, which she had gathered on the way; for she did not mean her new cup should be empty when the good parents came home.

So she had picked such a splendid bunch!--bright red cardinal flowers from the swamp; and along by the brook side, where it was sunniest, she found beautiful blue fringed gentians; and farther on branches of golden rod, that looked like little elm trees changed to gold; and on farther still, by the edge of the wood, where, as they waved, they seemed beckoning her, she found plenty of asters, white as snow, with little yellow eyes twinkling out among the petals, or else rich purple with deep gold inside; and she had some of the everlasting flowers too, like bunches of pure pearls.

Violet crept under the deep shade of the boughs, where the brook was gurgling over its mossy stones, and laid the stems of her flowers there to keep them fresh, making a wall of pebbles around them, so that the water, which tripped along so fast, should not carry them away.

For once, when she forgot to do this, she had no sooner placed her flowers in the brook than off they sailed down stream, and scattered so fast and far she couldn't think of finding them all again.

Violet laughed when she remembered that day, and how the brook, full of its mischief, had run away with her treasures, and scattered them any and every where along its banks, setting some upright, as if they were growing again, and wedging some under the stones, and tangling some under the fence, and floating some down the hill and through the sunny field, so fast they seemed chasing the little fish that made their home in the brook.

Even away down by Reuben's house a few had strayed, and reached home so much before Violet that she began to think the waves had, after all, as spry feet as her own.

CHAPTER XVI.