CHAPTER II.
EVENING WALK—STEAMER—LACEMAKING.
THE weather had been very hot—so hot that the children had had no walk, but had spent most of the day in the shade under the long verandah, and in the afternoon they had played under a large tree in the garden. When the evening came it was much cooler; and after the little girls had had their tea, grandmamma told them that she would take them over the high hill at the back of the house to visit a poor woman who had been ill. Their grandmamma’s house was half-way up the hill—you could see the sea through a narrow valley; and opposite the house on the other side of the valley was another high hill, and behind that hill was the town.
Grandmamma walked slowly up the hill, up a zig-zag path, and rested on a bench half-way up, for it was a very steep hill. The little girls were not tired, and they ran on before and waited for their grandmamma at each turn of the path. They went higher and higher, till at last Alice called out—
‘How much I can see now, grandmamma! I can see all the town, the houses, and the church!’
‘I can see two churches,’ said Beatrice; ‘and what a lot of ships!’
‘Please, grandmamma,’ said Alice, ‘come up higher. Pray, dear grandmamma, make haste, there is a great smoke on the sea; it comes from a ship. Is the ship on fire?’ she asked a little anxiously.
Their grandmamma was soon by the children’s side.
‘That is a steamer or steamship, dear Alice; it has a fire in it that causes the smoke, but it is not on fire, and you can see that the smoke comes out of a tall black chimney. You have seen the train come and go often, and you know how much smoke it makes.’
‘Yes, I know; but the smoke from the train is not black like that, and why is that?’
‘You are right, dear child, it is not black; but that is because they burn a different kind of coal, called coke, in trains. Trains and steamers are made to move by the same means, which is by steam. Some clever man made steam turn wheels and raise heavy beams up and down, and thus it is that ships and trains are made to move. Steam is made to grind corn, and to make biscuits, and to saw wood, and steam helps to make nearly everything we wear.’
‘Oh! grandmamma, how wonderful! I do not understand how steam can do all that. The man must have been very clever to have thought of this. Do you know his name?’
‘James Watt was his name; he made the first good and useful steam-engine, I believe, about seventy years ago; but he was not the first man who had found out that steam could be made useful, or who made the first engine.’
When they came to the top of the hill they saw several cows feeding on the grass.
‘Will these cows hurt us?’ asked Alice.
‘No, my dear, they will not, unless you tease them.’
‘But why do people run away when they see cows?’
‘It is very foolish of any one to run away. When a poor cow or ox has been treated ill by naughty boys or cruel men, and frightened and made angry, it runs about; sometimes people have been tossed and hurt. But if you will treat a cow kindly, I am sure that it will never hurt you.’
The little girls walked through the green meadow when the cows were feeding, and the cows did them no harm. They soon came to a nice little cottage, with a few trees close by, and a little garden.
Their grandmamma spoke to an old woman who was sitting outside the cottage door, and said to her that she was glad to see her up and looking better; and the old woman replied that the warm weather had done her a great deal of good, and that she was very glad to see her and the little children.
Whilst their grandmamma was talking to the old woman, Alice and Beatrice looked about them, and examined with wonder a cushion that the old woman had had on her lap when they came.
They then played with a little kitten that was in the garden till their grandmamma had finished talking. Then Alice asked, ‘What is this cushion for, with all those little sticks hanging down on each side of it, and what was the old woman doing with them?’
‘Mrs. Miller is making lace, dear Alice, and these sticks are called bobbins, and there is some very fine thread which she braids and twists together into a pretty pattern.’
The kind old woman came and took her cushion, and sitting down, began to show Alice and Beatrice how she twisted the little bobbins backwards and forwards, and threw them from one side the cushion to the other. She did this at first very slowly, that the little girls might see it more easily; but when they had looked enough, she threw her bobbins backwards and forwards so quickly that the children were quite surprised. Mrs. Miller then told them that all the little girls in the village begin to learn to make lace when they are seven or eight years old, and learn soon to make it nicely.
‘How very pretty it is!’ said Alice. ‘I should like to learn to make lace. May I, grandmamma, when I am older?’
‘Yes, you may, if you wish it; but you must first learn to sew neatly, for that is more useful than making lace.’
‘But why do all the little girls here learn to make lace, grandmamma?’
‘Because they can help to earn money for their father and mother. Among the poor people in the village, very young children begin to help to earn their own bread.’
Before the little girls went home, they ran about on the green meadow, and gathered a handful of yellow cowslips and other wild flowers; but when the sun went behind the opposite hill, and the clouds above the sun were red and bright like gold, and the sea looked nearly the same colour as the clouds, grandmamma said—
‘We will go back now, for it is time for my little girls to go to bed.’
Then they all returned down the zig-zag path, and were soon home again, and Alice and Beatrice went to bed, after telling Mary first of all that they had seen.
