Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 Part 2

"What are these little threads near the middle?" asked Joe.

"They are called stamens. In the picture they are marked P. Inside of them, in the very centre, is what are called the pistils, T. Down below them are the seeds, in the middle of what becomes the fruit, as you have noticed in an apple or pear, which is somewhat like a rose when ripe, though very much larger. After the petals have fallen off the rose, the part that is left gets ripe with the seeds inside, just as if it were an apple or a pear."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FISHERMAN'S LUCK.]

MISS PAMELA PLUMSTONE'S PIANO.

BY SYDNEY DAYRE.

"What do you say to Ned's taking a ride up to Miss Pamela's to-morrow?"

said Mr. Weatherby to his wife.

"How? All by himself? A ride of twenty miles?"

"On horseback. Yes. Yes. Does that answer your three questions satisfactorily? Now _I'll_ ask one. Why not?"

"Oh, I suppose there is no objection, only he has never taken such a long ride alone."

"Why, mother! I, a great fellow of fourteen! Of course I can go--that is, please let me. What for, father?"

"I have had a little dividend of fifty dollars paid in on Miss Pamela's morsel of horse-railway stock, and I know she always wants money as soon as it comes."

"Probably much sooner, poor soul--" said Mrs. Weatherby.

"Unlike most other people, eh, ma'am?" interrupted Mr. Weatherby.

"--and more than ever now, since she has taken those two girls of her good-for-nothing brother's. If they had been boys, they might have been some use on her mite of a farm. When I said so to her, she said: 'Yes, my dear, that's just the reason their mother's family don't want them; but, you know, girls have to live as well as boys. We're pretty sure of getting enough to eat, and as for the rest, I believe the Lord will provide.'"

"Her faith will be rewarded just now," said Mr. Weatherby, "for this is an unlooked-for dividend. The road has been doing better than usual of late."

"I'm very glad," said his wife. "I dare say it will be a real G.o.dsend to them all."

"I'll be off early in the morning," said Ned.

"All alone, and carrying money!" said his brother Tom, with an ominous shake of the head.

Ned _did_ feel a little like a hero as he started on his long ride through a thinly settled country, and over a road pa.s.sing through miles of thick woods. His suggestion that it might be well to carry a revolver had been smiled at by his father, and frowned down by his mother, and he had to confess to himself that he felt a little safer without it. His half-desire for just a trifling adventure was not to be gratified, for as noon approached he drew near Miss Pamela Plumstone's quaint old farm-house, and was soon warmly welcomed by that sprightly lady.

"Why, Master Ned, I _am_ delighted! How good of you! Didn't you find the roads very bad? And how _is_ your mother and the twins? And has your father quite got over his rheumatism? And when is she going to get out to see us again?"

"Very well, thank you. Yes, ma'am. No'm. Just as soon as the roads get settled, she says," said Ned, attempting to answer her rather mixed questions, as he perceived by her pause that she expected a reply.

"And what a fine big fellow you've grown to be, Master Ned! I _am_ astonished to see how you improve."

Ned fully agreed with her, but modestly refrained from saying so, and made known his errand. How poor Miss Pamela's face shone!

"Oh, my dears, come here," she cried, running to a door. "Do come here and see what has come to us."

Ned looked curiously at the two girls who came in answer to her call.

They had become inmates of Miss Pamela's home since his last visit to her, and he had never seen them before.

"The youngest one looks as if she might be pretty," he said to himself; "but how funny they do look!"

They did look funny. Miss Pamela's only ideas on the subject of dressing little girls were drawn from her memories of what she herself had worn forty years ago. Their pantalets reached almost to their heels, and their gingham ap.r.o.ns were almost as long, and cut without a gore. Their hair was drawn tightly back, and braided in two tails, those of the older one being long and dangly, and of the other short and stubby.

"See here, my dears," again exclaimed Miss Pamela, "here is some money I didn't expect. Didn't I tell you, Kitty Plumstone, that Providence would send you some new music somehow? She plays on the piano, Master Ned; I really do think she is going to make quite a musician. I teach her myself, you know. I can't play any more because of the stiffness in my fingers, but Kitty can play 'Days of Absence,' and 'Come, Haste to the Wedding,' already."

Ned was expressing pleasure at this pleasing proficiency, when Miss Pamela bustled away with a few words about dinner, which sounded agreeably to him after his ride.

A long ramble afterward on the farm, in company with the funny-looking girls, proved them to be as genial and companionable as they could have been had their dress included all the modern improvements, although Ned, who was rather critical in such matters, still thought it a pity they could not have blue streaks on their stockings, ruffles somewhere about them, and wear their hair loose.

They knew where the late wild flowers and the wild strawberries grew, and where the birds built their nests. They gathered early cherries, and promised Ned plenty of nuts if he would come in October. They had tame squirrels and rabbits penned up in the wonderful old ramshackle building which did duty as barn, stable, carriage-house, granary, and general receptacle for all kinds of queer old-fas.h.i.+oned lumber, the acc.u.mulations of many years. They were poultry-fanciers, too, in a small way; had a tiny duck-pond at one corner of the barn, where the great sweep of roof sloped down almost to the ground, forming a shed, and they all climbed upon it, and watched a quacking mother as she introduced her first brood of downy little yellow lumps to their lawful privileges as ducklings. And all agreed (the girls and boy, that is) that it was much nicer to be young ducks than young chickens; and there is no reason to doubt that the young ducks thought so too, as they realized the delights of the cold-water system.

But all agreed that nothing came up to the bantams--the proud little strutting "gamy" (Ned said that) roosters, all bright color and ambitious crow, and the darling wee brown mothers, scarcely larger than quails, whose cunning babies were no bigger than a good-sized marble.

Kitty promised Ned a pair when they should be grown.

After tea he was called upon to admire Kitty's playing, but his praises of her performance were interrupted by Miss Pamela's profuse apologies for the condition of the piano.

"It is so terribly out of tune, you see, Master Ned." He was evidently looked upon as something of a critic in music. He rather liked to be so considered, and thought it unnecessary to a.s.sure them he knew nothing about it. The old piano sounded to him very much like the bottom of two tin pans mildly banged together; but if it had been a much better instrument, it would have been all the same to his unmusical ear.

"Oh, it sounds very well, I a.s.sure you, Miss Pamela," he said.

"You see," went on the lady, "it hasn't been tuned for four years or more. Mr. Scrut.i.te went about the country for many a year tuning pianos; but he got old, and the last time he came he left his tuning key, or whatever you call it, saying he'd be round again if he could; but he never came. It's such an expensive thing, you know, to bring a man twenty miles to do it, that I've been putting it off, and putting it off. But we'll have it done now, eh, Kitty?"

"Why, Miss Pamela," said Ned, "I'll do it for you, if you have the thing they do it with."

"_You_, Master Ned? Can you tune a piano?"

"Well, I never did tune one, but I know exactly how they do it. I've seen Professor Seaflatt tune my mother's ever so many times."

"Oh, I'm sure you could do it, if you really feel as if you could take so much trouble; it would be a great kindness to us."

"Of course I'll do it, with the greatest pleasure in the world, ma'am.

Let me see-- I am to go home to-morrow afternoon; I'll do it the first thing in the morning." And rash Ned went to rest on Miss Pamela's feather-bed, in a room smelling of withered rose leaves. The bed was hung with old chintz curtains; the wall-paper displayed a pattern of large faded flowers. The swallows made a soft twittering in the wide chimney, as he closed his eyes with a glow of satisfaction at the thought of the kind action (and very clever one, too!) he had undertaken to perform.

He found it harder than he had expected. The screws were rusty and hard to move, and the tuning key was old, and _would_ slip. But before noon he announced his task completed, and Miss Pamela and her two nieces gathered near, their faces beaming with interest.

The piano was small and narrow, with legs so thin as to suggest to Ned that it needed pantaloons. It had been the pride and glory of Miss Pamela's girlhood, and was still, in her eyes, an excellent and valuable instrument, although she, being of a modest turn of mind, was willing to acknowledge that it had probably seen its best days.

"It will be _so_ nice to have it in good tune again!" she said, in a tone of great satisfaction. "I declare, Master Ned, what a thing it is to have such advantages as you boys are having!--to be able to turn your hand to 'most anything! Now, then, Kitty, play 'Days of Absence.'"

Kitty played it. But what could be the meaning of that fearful jumble of strange sounds? Surely that time-honored melody (modern hymn-book, "Greenville") never sounded so before. What was the matter? Miss Pamela's face fell a little, but she still smiled, and said,