It should have art-muslin curtains and a flag, and the flowers about it should be wild roses and forget-me- nots.
I could work all the morning on the roof, with an awning over me to keep off the sun, while Ethelbertha trimmed the roses and made cakes for tea; and in the evenings we would sit out on the little deck, and Ethelbertha would play the guitar (she would begin learning it at once), or we could sit quiet and listen to the nightingales.
For, when you are very, very young you dream that the summer is all sunny days and moonlight nights, that the wind blows always softly from the west, and that roses will thrive anywhere.
But, as you grow older, you grow tired of waiting for the gray sky to break.
So you close the door and come in, and crouch over the fire, wondering why the winds blow ever from the east: and you have given up trying to rear roses.
I knew a little cottage girl who saved up her money for months and months so as to buy a new frock in which to go to a flower-show.
But the day of the flower-show was a wet day, so she wore an old frock instead.
And all the fete days for quite a long while were wet days, and she feared she would never have a chance of wearing her pretty white dress.
But at last there came a fete day morning that was bright and sunny, and then the little girl clapped her hands and ran upstairs, and took her new frock (which had been her "new frock" for so long a time that it was now the oldest frock she had) from the box where it lay neatly folded between lavender and thyme, and held it up, and laughed to think how nice she would look in it.
But when she went to put it on, she found that she had out-grown it, and that it was too small for her every way.
So she had to wear a common old frock after all.
Things happen that way, you know, in this world.
There were a boy and girl once who loved each other very dearly.
But they were both poor, so they agreed to wait till he had made enough money for them to live comfortably upon, and then they would marry and be happy.
It took him a long while to make, because making money is very slow work, and he wanted, while he was about it, to make enough for them to be very happy upon indeed.
He accomplished the task eventually, however, and came back home a wealthy man.
Then they met again in the poorly-furnished parlour where they had parted.
But they did not sit as near to each other as of old.
For she had lived alone so long that she had grown old-maidish, and she was feeling vexed with him for having dirtied the carpet with his muddy boots.
And he had worked so long earning money that he had grown hard and cold like the money itself, and was trying to think of something affectionate to say to her.
So for a while they sat, one each side of the paper "fire-stove ornament," both wondering why they had shed such scalding tears on that day they had kissed each other good-bye; then said "good-bye" again, and were glad.
There is another tale with much the same moral that I learnt at school out of a copy-book.
If I remember rightly, it runs somewhat like this:--
Once upon a time there lived a wise grasshopper and a foolish ant.
All through the pleasant summer weather the grasshopper sported and played, gambolling with his fellows in and out among the sun-beams, dining sumptuously each day on leaves and dew-drops, never troubling about the morrow, singing ever his one peaceful, droning song.
But there came the cruel winter, and the grasshopper, looking around, saw that his friends, the flowers, lay dead, and knew thereby that his own little span was drawing near its close.
Then he felt glad that he had been so happy, and had not wasted his life.
"It has been very short," said he to himself; "but it has been very pleasant, and I think I have made the best use of it.
I have drunk in the sunshine, I have lain on the soft, warm air, I have played merry games in the waving grass, I have tasted the juice of the sweet green leaves.
I have done what I could.
I have spread my wings, I have sung my song.
Now I will thank God for the sunny days that are passed, and die."
Saying which, he crawled under a brown leaf, and met his fate in the way that all brave grasshoppers should; and a little bird that was passing by picked him up tenderly and buried him.
Now when the foolish ant saw this, she was greatly puffed up with Pharisaical conceit.
"How thankful I ought to be," said she, "that I am industrious and prudent, and not like this poor grasshopper.
While he was flitting about from flower to flower, enjoying himself, I was hard at work, putting by against the winter.
Now he is dead, while I am about to make myself cosy in my warm home, and eat all the good things that I have been saving up."
But, as she spoke, the gardener came along with his spade, and levelled the hill where she dwelt to the ground, and left her lying dead amidst the ruins.
Then the same kind little bird that had buried the grasshopper came and picked her out and buried her also; and afterwards he composed and sang a song, the burthen of which was,
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."
It was a very pretty song, and a very wise song, and a man who lived in those days, and to whom the birds, loving him and feeling that he was almost one of themselves, had taught their language, fortunately overheard it and wrote it down, so that all may read it to this day.
Unhappily for us, however, Fate is a harsh governess, who has no sympathy with our desire for rosebuds.
"Don't stop to pick flowers now, my dear," she cries, in her sharp, cross tones, as she seizes our arm and jerks us back into the roadway; "we haven't time to-day.
We will come back again to-morrow, and you shall pick them then."
And we have to follow her, knowing, if we are experienced children, that the chances are that we shall never come that way to-morrow; or that, if we do, the roses will be dead.
Fate would not hear of our having a houseboat that summer,--which was an exceptionally fine summer,--but promised us that if we were good and saved up our money, we should have one next year; and Ethelbertha and I, being simple-minded, inexperienced children, were content with the promise, and had faith in its satisfactory fulfilment.
As soon as we reached home we informed Amenda of our plan.
The moment the girl opened the door, Ethelbertha burst out with:--"Oh! can you swim, Amenda?"
"No, mum," answered Amenda, with entire absence of curiosity as to why such a question had been addressed to her,
"I never knew but one girl as could, and she got drowned."