Golden Moments | Page 7

The luggage came behind
in a cart.
Little Me was really tired, so nurse put her to sit on a soft rug at the
bottom of the carriage. Here she could just see green trees overhead,
and the tops of green hedges, and soft white clouds turning to gold and
red, as the sun set behind some hills in the far-off distance.
They reached at last a pretty cottage, with a thatched roof and a white
wall quite covered with red roses. There was a little path of round
stones leading up to the front door, and all the windows had small

diamond panes.
A stout old lady, in a spotless white cap with pink ribbons, met them at
the door, and took Little Me in her strong arms and carried her up some
narrow stairs into a bedroom with white curtains to the bed and
windows, and white walls.
After a good wash Little Me felt quite wide-awake, and very hungry,
and was glad to be taken down to tea.
It was a delightful tea! There were tiny little loaves for each of the
children, home-made cakes with plenty of plums, and strawberries and
cream, and ducks' eggs. These the farmer's wife showed Little Me had
pretty pale green shells, instead of white or brown like the hens' eggs,
and Mrs. White promised to show the children some baby chickens and
ducklings the next day.
How Little Me did sleep that night, to be sure! She never heard her
father and mother and Bob, her elder brother, arrive at all; and it was
eight o'clock before she woke the next morning, and found they had all
gone out and left Me in kind Mrs. White's care. Mrs. White took her to
feed the chickens--such dear little fluffy balls of yellow and white and
black down, and Mrs. White let Little Me feed them out of a saucer,
and some of them jumped over Me's hand, and were most friendly; and
then Mrs. White took her to a pretty pond, and showed her a beautiful
duck and nine baby ducks, not so fluffy and small as the chickens, but
yet very soft and clean-looking.
Bob was rather too grown up to play much with Little Me, and Tommy
always played with Jack, so that Little Me spent much of her time
wandering about by herself.
The pond where the duck and ducklings lived had a little waterfall at
one end, and then it became a little stream, and ran over pebbles under
a bridge, and wandered away into the fields with a border of
forget-me-nots.
Little Me was very fond of this stream, and one day Tommy persuaded

her to take off her shoes and socks and walk through the stream with
him. This was very delightful; but when they were just in the middle of
the stream there came in sight some cows, and a boy and man driving
them.
Now, if there was one thing Little Me dreaded more than another it was
cows; and her ideas of propriety were greatly shocked at the idea of a
strange man and boy seeing her bare feet, so she raced back to her
shoes and socks, picked them up, and tumbled over a stile as fast as her
short, fat little legs could go, and hid behind a hedge, all out of breath.
There poor Little Me crouched till she heard the last slow step of the
last cow plash through the stream, where some of them stopped to
drink, and the sound of voices died away over the bridge; then in much
hurry and alarm she thrust her wet little feet into her damp socks, which
she had in her fright dropped into the water, and the wet feet and socks
were hastily put into the shoes, and Little Me again climbed the stile to
join her brother, to whom she was ashamed to own that she had been
afraid of the cows.
Being a city child, and not a very strong one, Little Me was unused to
wet feet, and she caught a bad cold, which ended by her spending many
days in bed; but the boys brought her flowers, and Mrs. White made
her many little loaves and cakes, and gave her honey and cream, and
altogether Me thought being ill at a farmhouse much better than being
well in the city.
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OSCAR AND BRUNO.
When we were living in a very remote part of Northumberland, in an
old house that had once been a monastery, we had two large dogs
named Oscar and Bruno.
Oscar, who was a Newfoundland with a bit of the retriever in him, had
been especially trained to take the water and to secure the game when
shot among the deep pools.

Bruno, on