The Hawthorns | Page 3

arms and legs about like an excited spider. Then Nancy
laughed at him, and David pushed him down, and Pennie covered him

with hay; and it got into his eyes and down his throat and he choked
and kicked, and mother said: "That will do, children!" Then tea was
brought out and laid under the great oak-tree, and everyone's face was
very red, and everyone was very thirsty. And then the cool evening
came stealing on, and a tiny breeze blew, and the hay smelt sweet, and
the shadows lengthened, and it was bed-time just as things were getting
pleasant.
Each time all this happened it was equally delightful, and it seemed a
pity when the field stood bare and desolate after the hay was carried,
shorn of its shadowy grass and pretty flowers; yet there was
consolation too in the size of the stack which the children had helped to
make, and which they always thought "bigger than last year."
Soon after this autumn came and made the orchard and woods and
lanes interesting with apples and nuts and blackberries; and then, after
the apples and nuts had been stored away, and the blackberries made
into jam, it was time to look forward to the winter.
Winter brought a great deal that was very pleasant; for sometimes he
came with snow and ice, and the children would wake up to find that in
the night he had quietly covered everything out-of-doors with a
sparkling white garment.
Then what could be more delicious than to make a snow man or a snow
palace?
Pennie, who was a great reader, and always anxious to carry out
something she had read about, inclined towards the palace; but the
others had less lofty minds. It quite contented them to make a snow
man, to put one of Andrew's pipes in his mouth and a battered hat on
his head, and stick in bits of coal for his eyes.
"Isn't he lovely?" Nancy would exclaim when all these adornments
were complete.
"Zovely!" echoed Dickie, clapping red worsted mittens ecstatically.

"I think he's rather vulgar," Pennie said doubtfully on one of these
occasions with an anxiously puckered brow; "and besides, there's
nothing to make up about him. What can you pretend?"
The snow man certainly looked hopelessly prosaic as Ambrose tilted
his hat a little more to one side.
"Guy Fawkes?" suggested David, having studied the matter solidly for
some minutes.
"No," said Pennie, "not Guy Fawkes--he's so common--we've had him
heaps of times. But I'll tell you what would be splendid; we'll make him
a martyr in Smithfield."
The boys looked doubtful, but Nancy clapped her hands.
"That's capital," she said.
"You know," continued Pennie for the general information, "they
burned them."
"Alive?" inquired Ambrose eagerly.
"Yes."
"How jolly!" murmured David.
"Jolly! jolly! jolly!" repeated Dickie, jumping up and down in the
snow.
"Why were they burned?" asked Ambrose, who was never tired of
asking questions, and liked to get to the bottom of a matter if possible.
"Why, I am not quite sure," answered Pennie cautiously, "because I've
only just got to it; but I think it was something about the Bible. I'll ask
Miss Grey."
"Oh, never mind all that," interrupted the practical Nancy impatiently;
"we'll make a splendid bonfire all round him and watch him melt.

Come and get the wood."
"And we'll call him `a distinguished martyr,'" added Pennie as she
moved slowly away, "because I can't remember any of their real
names."
Pennie was never satisfied to leave things as they were; she liked to
adorn them with fancies and make up stories about them, and her busy
little mind was always ready to set to work on the smallest event of the
children's lives. Nothing was too common or familiar to have mysteries
and romance woven round it; and this was sometimes a most useful
faculty, for winter was not always kind enough to bring snow and ice
with him. Very often there was nothing but rain and fog and mud, and
then mother uttered those dreadful words:
"The children must not go out."
Then when lessons were over, and all the games exhausted, and it was
still too early for lights, the schoolroom became full of dark corners,
and the flickering fire cast mysterious shadows which changed the very
furniture into something dim and awful.
Then was Pennie's time--then, watching her hearers' upturned faces by
the uncertain light of the fire, she saw surprise or pity or horror on them
as her story proceeded, and, waxing warmer, she half believed it true
herself. And this made the tales very interesting and thrilling. Yet once
Pennie's talent had an unfortunate result, as you shall hear in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE "GARRET."
The children all thought that Pennie's best stories