ROYAL and Lucy formed a plan to go for blueberries in a wild piece of pasture land, not very far from where they lived. They got several other children to go with them. There was Rollo, who was then quite a small boy, and a boy named Thomas, and Marielle.
They took some luncheon in a basket. Their plan was to eat their luncheon, out of the basket, as soon as they got to the blueberry ground. Then they were going to fill the basket with blueberries, to bring home. Each one took a little tin mug to pick in, because they could not conveniently all pick into the same basket.
They walked along very pleasantly together, till they came to the pasture. Then they had to clamber along up rough and precipitous paths, and among rocks and brambles. At last they came to the place where the blueberries were found. Before they began to gather them, however, they went into a little copse of trees, near the borders of a brook, and sat down upon the stones to eat their luncheon.
The brook was pretty large, and it flowed among rocks and bushes; and just opposite to where the children had stopped, it divided into two parts, which formed an island between them. Royal and Thomas said that they meant to go over to that island, and eat their luncheon there. So they began to step along from one stone to another across the brook.
“I mean to go too,” said Rollo.
“And I,” added Lucy. And they rose from their seats, and attempted to follow the two boys.
“Royal, stop for me,” said Lucy; “stop and help me over this deep place.”
“O, you must jump over yourself,” said Royal, “as I did.”
“But it is too far for me to jump,” said Lucy. “I wish you would just come and help me across.”
“Yes, come, Royal,” said Rollo.
But Royal had got over upon the island, and was lost from view among the bushes. Rollo and Lucy called louder and louder; but Royal only answered with a sort of shout, such that they could not hear what he said, but only they knew that he was not coming back.
It was wrong for Royal and Thomas to do so. They were the oldest boys of the party, and they ought to have acted as guides and protectors of the rest. Instead of going off to seek their own amusement, and leaving the rest of the party, they ought to have been willing to have sacrificed their own wishes, in some respects, in order to please the younger children.
“Come back, children,” said Marielle. “I would not go over upon the island.”
“Why, Marielle,” replied Lucy, “it is a beautiful place there, and we want to go very much. I don’t see why Royal couldn’t have come back and helped us across.”
“Well,” said Marielle, “I’ll come and see if I can help you over.”
So Marielle went to the place. The children were standing upon a flat stone, near the middle of the brook. The water which was beyond them was not deep, and it was only a short distance to the next stone. The boys had leaped across without any trouble, but Marielle hesitated.
“I am afraid to have you try to go across there,” said Marielle.
“Why, Marielle,” said Lucy, “you can jump across very easily; and then, if you will take hold of our hands, we can get across too.”
“Yes, only I don’t know,” said Marielle, “but that those rocks are slippery; and if you should slip in, and get one foot into the water, then we should all have to go directly home, and it would spoil our expedition.”
“O dear me!” said Rollo; “I wish Royal would come back.”
They shouted to Royal, several times, as loud as they could, but they got no answer. He had gone across from the upper part of the island to the main land again, and had disappeared among the bushes.
“I don’t think that he ought to have gone off and left us,” said Lucy. “Now, how shall we find our way home?”
“O, he’ll come back again before long,” said Marielle. “We’ll begin to get our blueberries, only we’ll stay pretty near here, and then he will know where to find us.”
So Rollo and Lucy came back from the brook. They finished eating their luncheon, and then they went back a little from the brook, to a place where the berries were thick, and commenced gathering them. They put the basket down in a central place, where it would be convenient for them all to find it, to pour in what they should gather in their mugs, and then they went to work industriously gathering the blueberries.
Marielle had emptied her mug once into the basket, and Rollo and Lucy had filled theirs half full, when Royal and Thomas came back.
“Ah,” said Royal, “you don’t know what a beautiful place we found out there, Lucy.”
“What kind of a place?” asked Lucy.
“O, there were some rocks there piled up very high, and a great tree growing out of a crack in one of them.”
“I wish I could see it,” said Lucy.
“It was a beautiful place,” said Royal.
Marielle secretly thought that it was not acting much like a gentleman for Royal to go away and leave her and the two children alone, and then come back and boast of the fine things that he had seen. But she said nothing.
“And, Marielle,” said Royal, “we saw some other children out there getting blueberries.”
“Did you?” said Marielle.
“Yes,” replied Royal; “they were near a very thick piece of bushes.”
“Were the blueberries pretty thick there?” asked Marielle.
“I don’t know,” replied Royal. “They seemed to be picking them pretty fast.
“O Thomas,” continued Royal, “I’ll tell you how we might have had some fun. We might have hid in the bushes, and growled like two bears, and they would all have been frightened away.”
“Yes,” said Thomas, “so we might.”
“I’ve a great mind to go now,” said Royal.
“No, I wouldn’t frighten them,” said Marielle; “let them pick their berries.”
“O, it will not frighten them much,” said Royal; “and after it is all over, they will only laugh at it.”
“No, you mustn’t frighten them,” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Royal; “let us go; we can creep along slyly by the bank of the brook, and get into the bushes close to where they are.”
“No,” said Rollo, gesticulating with his hand, and speaking in a very positive tone; “you must not frighten them, Royal.”
“I shall go and tell them,” said Lucy, “that you a’n’t any bears at all; that you are nothing but Royal.”
“No,” said Royal, “you must not tell them. If you do, I will run away from you, and leave you here all alone; and I don’t believe that you can find your way home.”
So Royal and Thomas went off, creeping slowly along by the bank of the brook, until they came to a little copse of trees, which was near where the children were gathering their blueberries. There were three children—two girls and a boy. The oldest girl was about as old as Marielle, the youngest about as old as Lucy, and the boy was between them, in respect to age.
They were all barefoot, and they wore very old clothes. In fact, they were poor, and had come to gather berries to sell, to get some money for their mother.
If Marielle and Lucy had known these facts, they would have been still more unwilling to have had Royal go and frighten these children; and Royal himself would probably have altered his plan. And as it was, Marielle and Lucy were very sorry to have him go.
“I wish he would come back,” said Lucy, “and not go and frighten those poor children.”
“Yes,” said Marielle, “it seems cruel, while they are there enjoying themselves so well, to go and put them all into pain.”
“O, he isn’t going to hurt them,” said Rollo; “he is only going to frighten them a little.”
“Frightening them is hurting them,” said Marielle. “I am sure I think being frightened is the worst kind of pain.”
“So do I,” said Lucy.
“One day,” added Marielle, “a dog ran after me in the road, and frightened me terribly, and I fell down and hurt my head; but the fright was a great deal worse than the pain in my head.”
Lucy said that she had a great mind to go and tell the children not to be frightened. Marielle made no reply to this proposal. She would not object to it; but, then, on the other hand, she did not dare to encourage Lucy to go, or to do any thing herself to oppose Royal openly; as she was afraid that he would go away and leave them, as he had threatened to do. So she remained where she was, and they all went on quietly, gathering berries.
After a short time, they suddenly heard an outcry, in the direction towards which Royal and Thomas had gone. The bushes and trees were in the way so much that they could not see any thing; but they listened and heard several voices, uttering shouts or cries. A moment afterwards, they saw the three children running across the pasture, at some distance from them. They came into view from behind some trees, and seemed to be running along as if going towards the bars by which they had come into the pasture. Marielle and Lucy could not see them very well; they could only get a glimpse of their heads, now and then, as they ran along; for the ground was much broken between where they were running and the place where Marielle and her party stood, and it was covered with brakes and bushes.
“Poor children,” said Marielle, “how they are frightened! I mean to run and tell them that it is not a bear, if Royal does go off and leave us.”
So Marielle put down her mug by the basket, and ran off after the girls, calling out, “Girls! Girls! Children!”
The oldest girl looked around, and saw Marielle pursuing her, and supposed that she, too, had been frightened by the bear, and was running away. So this only made them run the faster. The youngest of the little girls had dropped her blueberries at first; but the boy and the oldest girl had contrived to keep theirs until they were alarmed anew by Marielle. And now they dropped their baskets too, and ran on as fast as they could run.
“‘There they go,’ said Lucy.”—
Marielle found that she could not overtake them, and she was afraid to leave Lucy and Rollo alone. So she came back to the place. Lucy and Rollo had climbed up to the top of a little hillock, in order to see.
“Could not you make them hear you?” asked Rollo.
“Yes,” said Marielle, “they heard me, and looked round, but they would not stop. They only ran away so much the faster.”
“Where do you think they will go?” said Lucy.
“I don’t know,” said Marielle, despondingly.
In a few minutes, they saw Royal and Thomas coming back. They did not come by the same way that they went, but farther out towards where the children had run away. They looked hurried, and Royal had an anxious expression of countenance.
“What silly children,” he said, “to be frightened so much! I did not think they would be frightened so much! Which way did they go?”
“They went off that way,” said Lucy and Rollo. “You have frightened them entirely away.”
“I did not think they would be frightened so much,” said Royal.
Marielle said nothing; but, after a moment’s pause, she stooped down, and began to gather berries again.
“I mean to go and find them, and tell them to come back,” said Royal. “Come, Thomas, go with me.”
So Thomas and Royal went away, in the direction in which the children had gone. They walked as fast as they could go. Royal was sorry for what he had done. He had supposed that they would have been frightened only a little, and would, perhaps, have run away a short distance, and then stopped; and then he and Thomas were coming out of the woods laughing.
But it is always very dangerous to attempt to frighten any body. It is impossible to know beforehand what effects will be produced; for terror is very seldom in proportion to its cause. Children in lonely places, like that where these parties had gone to gather blueberries, are very easily terrified; and, when fears are once aroused, it is very difficult to quell them again. Royal did wrong in attempting to put the children to any pain whatever, for his own amusement; but he did not intend that the mischief should have been so great as it really proved.
He hurried along after the children, feeling anxious and self-condemned. He was in advance of Thomas, as he was very eager to overtake the children. After going some distance, Thomas called out to him,—
“O Royal, look here!”
Royal turned back, and Thomas pointed him to the place where the children had dropped their baskets when they had been frightened the second time, by Marielle. The baskets were tumbled down, and the berries spilled all about. Royal looked upon them with a countenance expressive of great concern.
“They have spilled all their berries,” said Thomas.
“Yes,” said Royal. “Let’s pick ’em up.”
So Royal began gathering up the berries as fast as he could, only he did it carefully. Some were on the grass, and were clean and uninjured; but others had rolled away into the dusty path, and were spoiled. Royal worked a few minutes, and then he said to Thomas,—
“Thomas, I had better go on and find them, while you stay here and finish picking up the berries.”
“No,” said Thomas, “I don’t want to be left here all alone.”
“Yes,” said Royal, “it will not be but a few minutes. We will all come right back here. Because, if I stay here, I am afraid that they will get away too far.”
Thomas reluctantly consented to remain, and Royal went on. Presently he came to a path which led along to the bars. He followed the path, sometimes walking fast, and sometimes running, until he came, at length, in view of the bars; and there he saw the three children perplexed and unhappy, and not knowing what to do. The youngest was sitting down upon the grass by the side of the road, crying.
“Why, girls,” said Royal, when he came up near enough to speak, “what made you run off so far?”
The older girl was silent; the younger continued to cry. The boy, after a little pause, said,—
“We heard a terrible noise down there in the woods.”
“O, that wasn’t any thing,” said Royal; “it was only another boy and I. But we didn’t mean to frighten you so much.”
“You did frighten us very much indeed,” said the boy.
“And you have made us spill all our blueberries,” said the oldest girl; “and now I don’t know what we shall do.”
Here the little girl began crying and sobbing anew. Royal stood silent and sad; he was shocked to see how much mischief he had done.
“Don’t cry, Jenny,” said the older girl. “We will go back and get our baskets.” She spoke in a gentle, but a very melancholy tone.
“Yes,” said Royal, “we’ll go back; and I’ll help you pick some more blueberries.”
The children began to go back slowly, following Royal. Royal told them that Thomas was picking up the berries that they had spilled, and that he would help them get some more.
“We can’t stop to get any more,” said the older girl. “We must go home now. We were just ready to go when you frightened us.”
“But why need you go home so soon?” said Royal. “It is not but little more than the middle of the afternoon yet. We shall have two hours more, before sundown.”
“But we have got a great way to go,” replied the girl, “to sell our berries. Mother told us to be sure and come home by the middle of the afternoon, so as to have time to sell our berries; for if we do not get a chance to sell them before night, then we have all our work for nothing.”
“Why? Can’t you eat your berries?”
“Why, yes, we can eat them,” said the girl, “but we want to sell them. But, then, we haven’t got any to sell now;—I forgot that;—so we may as well stay as not. Only, then, mother won’t know what is become of us. O dear! I don’t know what we shall do.”
When they came to the place where Thomas was picking up the blueberries, Royal went to work at once, very busily too. Little Jenny said, in a mournful tone,—
“Now, my basket isn’t here, Mary; and I don’t know where it is.” And she began to cry again.
The older girl, whose name, it seems, was Mary, told her not to cry.
“Never mind, Jenny,” said she. “Don’t cry; mother won’t blame us much, when we tell her all about it.”
“But I can’t find my basket at all,” said Jenny.
“Why, you dropped it out there where you first began to run away,” said Royal. “You go back there, and get it, while we are picking up these blueberries.”
“No,” said Jenny, shaking her head.
“Yes,” replied Royal; “it is not very far.”
“No,” said Jenny; “I’m afraid to go there again.”
“Ho!” said Royal; “you need not be afraid. There’s nothing there. It was only Thomas and I that made that noise.”
But Jenny was afraid to go; and so Royal said that he would go, and come back with Jenny’s basket in a minute.
“And you finish picking these up, Thomas,” said he. “Pick ’em up very carefully.”
So Royal went away. When he was gone, Mary, who had thus far stood looking upon the scene in a sort of silent despair, now began to help Thomas gather up the blueberries from the grass. Many of them had rolled down into the dust, and got spoiled; but there was a large portion which was not injured. These the children were rapidly putting back into the basket again, when Marielle and Lucy, who had seen them returning there, came over with Rollo from where they had been, to see what was going on.
As soon as she, and Rollo, and Lucy, saw what they were doing, they went to work too, to help gather up the blueberries; and they soon got back into the baskets all that were fit to go. Before long, Royal came back, too, with Jenny’s basket. He had waited to pick up her blueberries, which had been spilled as well as the rest.
They found that so many of the berries had been lost or spoiled that the baskets were not nearly as full as they were before. So Marielle proposed to Rollo and Lucy that they should give Mary theirs. Rollo and Lucy said that they should like to do that very much. Mary at first refused to receive them; but Marielle insisted upon it, for she said, “We have not got to go home yet, and we can gather plenty more.” So they poured in the blueberries into the other children’s baskets, and filled them full. And when they went away, Marielle went up to Mary, and said to her in a low tone,—
“If you can’t sell your blueberries easily, come to our house, and perhaps my mother will buy them.”
Then Royal, and Marielle, and their party, began again to gather blueberries for themselves; but the occurrences of the afternoon had shed such a gloom over the party, that they did not feel inclined to stay very long. They gathered a few, and then they went home. Royal did not say much; but he seemed really sorry for the mischief he had done. Though he had spoiled the pleasure of the party, yet Marielle did not reproach him. In fact, he seemed so sorry for it, and so disposed to do all he could to make reparation, that in her heart she forgave him.