THE FORESTERS’ COTTAGE.

I will take my little readers over to Eddy Forester’s, this morning.

There is Eddy at the window, just up. Do you see him in the picture? He has opened the window, and is glad to find the sun is shining; for the first thing he thought of this morning, when he awoke, was the mowing-party to be at Linn’s.

6As soon as Eddy was half-dressed, he went to the little bedroom where Lily slept, and called, “Sister Lily! Sister Lily! Get up; it isn’t raining, and we shall have the hay-making party this afternoon.”

Lily was apt to be sleepy in the morning, and she would not get up; but Eddy called and thumped at the door till his little sister was wide awake, and then she got up and came to open it. He kissed her and said, “Come, Lily, I will help you to carry your clothes down to mother’s room, and she will dress you. If you were not such a big girl, I would carry you, too; but I’m afraid, if I did that, we might both get a tumble. Don’t you think we should, Lily?” Lily was sometimes a little cross when she first waked in the morning; 7but Eddy talked to her till she was in a good humour. He liked to take her out with him in the morning, when he went to do what he could for his mother before breakfast, and he sometimes had to bear a good deal with her little pets and humours before they could get off.

Their mother heard them talking overhead, and then she heard their little naked feet pattering along the entry and on the stairway; and she wondered why they were so long coming to her.

Shall I tell my little readers why Eddy and Lily stopped on their way?

In the stairway wall, about half-way down, there was a small window which overlooked the garden.

8There was something in the garden which had been placed there the day before. Eddy knew of it, but Lily did not. It was a beehive, for the bees to make honey in.

When they were on the step, just under the little window, Eddy said, “Stop, Lily, and I will show you something you have never seen—something that begins with a B. Would you like to see it?”

Lily. Yes, Eddy. What is it? A little pig?

Eddy. No. I said it began with a B, not with a P. You must guess again.

Lily. A pussy-cat?

Eddy. No. It begins with B, I tell you. That is not it, either.

Lily could not guess, and Eddy said he 9would show it to her, if she could climb up into the window. Then he sat down on one of the stairs, and told Lily to get upon the step behind him, and to put her foot on his shoulder, and then she must take hold of the window-sill, and he would raise her up. Lily did so, and Eddy climbed up beside her, and showed her the beehive in the garden.

While they were there, talking about the beehive, their mother called them, and they soon came down again and ran to her. Lily could hardly wait to be dressed, she was so eager to have a closer look at the beehive. Her mother told her she might go with Eddy, if she would not touch the bees; for if she did, they would sting her.

After Lily was dressed, her mother took out 10of the closet a pair of thick-soled, leather boots, which she was to put on when she went out with Eddy, early in the morning, while the grass was wet with dew. Then she wished Lily to sit down, and put them on herself; and while she was doing this, Eddy went for his boots, and then they set off together to look at the beehive.

Eddy slipped back the little door which was placed in the side of the hive, and then, through the glass, he and Lily peeped, to see the little, industrious bees at work. They saw them travelling to and fro, inside of their glass house; but they did not know much about bees, and could not tell what they were doing. They only knew that bees made wax and honey, and they knew that honey was very nice, for they had eaten it.

Fifth Day. Eddy and Lily looking at the beehive.—p. 10.

11“We will ask Mary all about the bees, when we go to school,” said Eddy. “She can tell us what they are doing inside of their little house.”

When they were satisfied with looking at the beehive, and talking about the industrious little bees, Eddy said—

“Come, Lily; do you want to go with me to bring Brindle up, for mother to milk?”

Lily said “Yes.” And Eddy took her by the hand and led her very carefully, out of the way of some swampy ground which was near the garden-wall, and then they had two meadows to cross and a fence to climb over before they found the cow. Brindle knew Eddy right well, and he had no trouble in driving her home to the barnyard to be milked. He 12had a long stick, which he had cut from a hickory-tree, and whenever Brindle walked out of the right path, he gave her a little tap with the stick, and that was quite enough of a hint to turn her into the track again.

Eddy and Lily loved the old cow, and they played with her, and talked to her as if she understood them.

After Lily’s mother had milked the cow, she carried the pail, which was filled with milk, into the spring-house, and there, on the stone floor, were two nice, bright tin pans, all ready to receive it. She took down from its place a fine sieve, which she put first over one pan, and then over the other, as she poured the milk into them. This was done in order to strain the milk and have it perfectly 13clean—free from motes and hairs, and the small insects which are often flying about barnyards.

When the pans were filled with the nice new milk, Eddy assisted his mother in carrying the water, with which to clean her milkpail, and Lily went to the house to get the cream cup, that it might be filled with cream for breakfast.

Then Eddy drove Brindle away back to the meadow, where she could eat her good breakfast of grass, while his mother and Lily went home to prepare their’s.

Lily carried the cream cup, and her mother carried a pot of butter in cold water to keep it hard. The first thing they did when they went into the house was to put on dry shoes.

14Then Lily’s mother began to prepare breakfast. Lily could place the cream and butter and bread on the table, after her mother had cut it; and she knew where the sugar was kept, and could fill the sugar-bowl, and she could count as many eggs as were wanted for breakfast, and bring them to her mother from the pantry. Then she put a plate for her mother, and one for Eddy, and one for herself, and a knife and fork for each, and an egg-cup and a napkin. When Lily had done all this, she asked her mother, (as any other good little girl would do,) if she could assist her in any thing else?

Her mother told her she might go up-stairs and take the bedclothes off Eddy’s little bed, and off her own; first the coverlets, which 15she could put on the back of a chair; then the sheets, one by one, and then the pillows and bolster, which she might place on the window-sills to air.

When Lily came down-stairs, Eddy had returned, and breakfast was ready. It was only six o’clock, when the Foresters sat down to their morning meal. They were a happy little family of love. They always rose early, and finished their tasks before breakfast, and when they came to the table, they enjoyed their meal as much as any prince in his palace could do. They had found the great secret of happiness—they were contented with their lot. Eddy’s mother would sometimes say, her cottage and her children made her a little Garden of Eden, in the midst of 16which God had planted her, that she might dress it and keep it.

Eddy and Lily had a great deal of talk with their mother at table. They asked her questions, and she answered them, and instructed them in many things.

“I will take another egg, if you please, mother,” said Eddy, “and some more bread and butter. I am very hungry this morning.” Eddy and Lily ate their eggs as their mother had taught them, without soiling their fingers at all. They took their knives, and cracked a line round the shell, near the large end, about half an inch from the top. Then they peeled off the shell where it was cracked, and put their eggs into little cups, which their mother had placed for each of them, the 17peeled end being uppermost; and with their spoons they ate the egg from the shell. There is another way to eat eggs. Cut through the middle of the shell into the egg, and with the thumb and finger of each hand break it open; hold the cut part next to your cup or glass, and let the contents of the shell fall into your cup. But little boys and girls are not apt to do this dexterously; so, for fear of soiling their fingers, (which is a very offensive habit, at table,) they had better eat eggs as Eddy and Lily Forester did.

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