Brownsmiths Boy | Page 2

leave his basket and run down between two onion
beds on all-fours like a dog, run back, and go on with his work.
Every now and then he would pull up a young onion with the weeds
and pick it out, give it a rub on his sleeve, put one end in his mouth,
and eat it gradually, taking it in as I've seen a cow with a long strand of
rye or grass.

Another time he would fall to punching the ground with his doubled
fist, make a basin-like depression, put his head in, support himself by
setting his hands on each side of the depression, and then, as easily as
could be, throw up his heels and stand upon his head.
It seemed to be no trouble to him to keep his balance, and when up like
that he would twist his legs about, open them wide, put them forwards
and backwards, and end by insulting me with his feet, so it seemed to
me, for he would spar at me with them and make believe to hit out.
All at once he would see one of the labourers in the distance, and then
down he would go and continue his weeding.
Perhaps, when no one was looking, he would start up, look round, go
down again on all-fours, and canter up to a pear-tree, raise himself up,
and begin scratching the bark like one of the cats sharpening its claws;
or perhaps trot to an apple-tree, climb up with wonderful activity, creep
out along a horizontal branch, and pretend to fall, but save himself by
catching with and hanging by one hand.
That done he would make a snatch with his other hand, swing about for
a few moments, and then up would go his legs to be crossed over the
branch, when he would swing to and fro head downwards, making
derisive gestures at me with his hands.
So it was that I used to hate that boy, and think he was little better than
a monkey; but somehow I felt envious of him too when the sun
shone--I didn't so much mind when it was wet--for he seemed so free
and independent, and he was so active and clever, while whenever I
tried to stand on my head on the carpet I always tipped right over and
hurt my back.
That was a wonderful place, that garden, and I used to gaze over the
high wall with its bristle of young shoots of plum-trees growing over
the coping, and see the chaffinches building in the spring-time among
the green leaves and milky-white blossoms of the pear-trees; or,
perhaps, it would be in a handy fork of an apple-tree, with the crimson
and pink blossoms all around.

Those trees were planted in straight rows, so that, look which way I
would, I could see straight down an avenue; and under them there were
rows of gooseberry trees or red currants that the men used to cut so
closely in the winter that they seemed to be complete skeletons.
Where there were no gooseberries or currants, the rows of rhubarb
plants used to send up their red stems and great green leaves; and in
other places there would be great patches of wallflowers, from which
wafts of delicious scent would come in at the open window. In the
spring there would be great rows of red and yellow tulips, and later on
sweet-william and rockets, and purple and yellow pansies in great beds.
I used to wonder that such a boy was allowed to go loose in such a
garden as that, among those flowers and strawberry beds, and, above all,
apples, and pears, and plums, for in the autumn time the trees trained
up against the high red-brick wall were covered with purple and yellow
plums, and the rosy apples peeped from among the green leaves, and
the pears would hang down till it seemed as if the branches must break.
But that boy went about just as he liked, and it often seemed very hard
that such a shaggy-looking wild fellow in rags should have the run of
such a beautiful garden, while I had none.
There was a little single opera-glass on the chimney-piece which I used
to take down and focus, so that I could see the fruit that was ripe, and
the fruit that was green, and the beauty of the flowers. I used to watch
the birds building through that glass, and could almost see the eggs in
one little mossy cup of a chaffinch's nest; but I could not quite. I did see
the tips of the young birds' beaks, though, when they were hatched and
the old ones came to feed them.
It was by means of that glass that I