Woodside | Page 7

them; but they just go and strip off the largest and reddest of them, and leave the stalk hanging, and that's all that's left of a fine bunch. Then as to the pease--you like pease, don't you, Master Jack? your grandpa's uncommon fond of 'em--well, I have to sow the pease pretty thick, or, I'll warrant ye, we shouldn't have a tidy row come up at all. I have to dodge about with netting and scarecrows to keep what we do get; for I hate a patchy row, I do. Last winter was a very cold season. I don't know how you found it in London, Master Jack, but here there was a long hard frost for three weeks. We'd had a good deal of rain; then it turned to snow, and froze and snowed again till the snow lay pretty thick all over the ground. Then it cleared up, and the sun shone; but the sun hasn't much power at that time of the year, so it did not melt the snow. It was bitter cold by day, and worse at night. The birds that eat grubs and insects could not get any food at all. So your grandma had a big lump of fat put into a piece of coarse netting, and it was hung up in a likely place--the long branch of a tree--where the birds could get well at it. You should have seen the poor creatures pecking away! It was soon gone, and we had to put more lumps into the net before the frost went. I thought to myself it was almost a pity to try to save their lives; it was just a natural way of getting rid of a lot of them. They do say that dying by cold is an easy way--it's like going to sleep; so I'm not wishing any great harm to the little things. And now, Master Jack, how do you think these birds paid back your grandma for all her kindness? Why, as soon as ever the frost was gone, and the weather became warmer, and the yellow crocuses came into bloom, if these very birds, or some of them at least, did not slit the flowers all to pieces with their bills--that's what they did. The ground was covered with bits of flowers.--Do you know Mrs. Jones who lives on the green, Master Jack?"
"No," he said; "I don't."
"Well, she's a great friend of your grandma's; but she is not over-strong, and doesn't get out in the winter. She likes to have the birds about her, and she fed them on her lawn with crumbs and pieces; and her fine bed of crocuses in front of her windows was just spoiled. It was mostly the yellow ones that they tore to shreds; and the primroses too--there was hardly one fit to pick. The starlings and the sparrows were the worst; they did a lot of mischief."
"Oh," said Jack, "perhaps they were after insects, or something they wanted to eat. I don't believe they meant to do any harm."
"Perhaps not," said the gardener; "but the crocuses were spoiled all the same. You know, Master Jack, I'm about the place summer and winter, and I see a lot. Now, if there's one thing more than another that I hate about a garden, it's cats. They do trample down things and spoil the beds. As this house is lonesome rather, we don't get much of that pest, I'm glad to say; and then Smut is not a sociable cat. But I'll tell you of a curious thing that happened to him one day. There was a pair of thrushes who had built their nest in the laurel hedge at the bottom of the garden next to the field. You know, Master Jack, there's a broad gravel path along the garden side of the hedge. One day, just as the young birds were able to get out of the nest, the young cat at my cottage close by walked into this garden, where, of course, she'd no business; but there she was in that gravel path, and she saw one of the birds and caught it. I saw her with it. The thrushes scolded her, flew at her with a sharp, angry cry, and puss was soon off the premises. The next day, Mr. Smut was walking along this gravel path, enjoying the sunshine in a quiet way, never thinking of birds, for he's a deal too lazy to put himself out of the way to catch anything. I've tried him with a mouse, but he never put out a paw to touch it. He blinked at it in the most unconcerned way, and didn't show the least bit of interest in it. Well, as I said, Smut was walking along,