Cresses

One lovely Saturday morning in sunny October, when I was trying my best to sweep the dining room floor clean without moving the chairs from around the table, the screen door banged and there stood Mary.

“Goodness me,” she cried, “Are you still working? I had mine done hours ago. How do you manage to have so much to do at your house anyway? You have lots more than we have.”

“I should think we would, Mary Morgan. There are three of us, beside mother and dad, to scatter things about.”

“Look at that baby now,” I exclaimed, “and I have not finished sweeping this floor.” There sat my little sister, who had crept from the adjoining room and had contrived to reach a newspaper. Feeling herself the center of attraction, she ceased tearing the paper to bits, blinked at each of us, and proceeded to chew the toes of her booties.

“Besides, there is,” I started to further explain, when grandmother entered the room.

“Good-morning, Mary,” she said, “How is your ma? Well, I hope. Are you and Elsie going roaming this fine morning? We have not had any cress for a long time, and I am very fond of it. Maybe you girls might find some. Suppose you could?”

“We can at least try,” I replied, “as soon as I finish this floor.” “Oh, dear, why does that brother of mine drop so many crumbs ?” “There that is done,” I continued, coming in from brushing the step under which my own pet hen of many colors laid a double-yolked egg almost every day. “Now for Gypsy.”

In a few minutes, the pony, bridled and saddled, with us girls on her back, was jogging along the lane which led to the top of the hill at the rear of our place. From here we followed a stony path which, by wandering in and out among the trees, brought us to the creek at the foot of the hill.

The water being rather lazy here it moved slowly over the small rocks and among the large ones which we frequently used as stepping stones. As soon as she felt the cool water about her feet, Gypsy wanted a drink. While she drank, Mary and I filled our lungs with the spicy air; and filled our souls with the beauty of nature’s work, the green of the pines among the red, brown, and gold of the other trees, the sparkling water; and the shadowy mist which still faintly enveloped it all, gradually fading from sight as the morning sun shone more directly into the valley.

We had better gather the cresses first,” I said as we crossed the stream and started up the ravine to Crystal Spring.

In the gently sloping space beside the spring, we dropped the reins to the ground and hopped off. The pony nibbled eagerly at the luscious grass which was nearly always green in this sheltered spot with its ever-present water supply. Mary and I had to search carefully among the rank growth along the brook’s edge, to find young, tender branches which had not gone to seed.

I began to sing: “Work makes us cheerful and happy, makes us both active and strong. Play we enjoy all the better, when we have labored so long.”

As the prolonged ‘long’ ended, a booming voice from the hilltop above us called out, “You-all think you’re a-workin,’ do you? What you-all adoin’ down there, anyhow? Is that there black thing a dragon? I’m lookin’ for a dragon to shoot.”

As this tirade shattered the sweet serenity of our wooded glen, both of us jumped so violently that the half filled basket between us was completely upset. Standing there among the trees and scowling down at us, we saw a tall and heavy-set man, disgustingly unkempt from head to foot and carrying a long, double-barreled shot gun.

For a moment we stood, mouth wide open and eyes wild, too petrified to move. “Oh Mary” I cried, after my scattered senses had returned, “That is only crazy Bill, he would not hurt us. They do not allow him to carry shot.”

“But he might find some,” I quavered.

“Shucks, he is perfectly harmless,’’ she said. “But let’s turn the tables on him.”

Raising her voice, she called, “You better cut that out, Bill. This is our pony there and you are not going to shoot it either. If you do, I shall tell the matron on you. Then she would not let you hunt dragons any more.”

The change was instant. Dropping his gun to the ground and raising his trembling hands above his head, he cried, “Oh, no, miss, please, please, don’t go and do that. She would not let me out again. I couldn’t hunt no more dragons a’tall. Oh, please, miss, don’t.”

“You come down here and gather us some more cress, then, you made us spill it all,” Mary replied. “And Granny will be so disappointed if we do not bring her any.”

“Oh, yes, miss, yes, I’ll pick you some more cresses, sure I will. I be glad to, miss, I be glad to.” Continuing to mutter in this fashion, he lumbered down the hill, among the loose stones, sticks, and leaves, and began to snip off the tender sprouts with clumsy fingers.

“Do not take any of these stems,’” I said, “or I shall tell Madge on you, and she will not love you any more.”

“No, miss, no, I take the nice, little tender ones,” Bill answered hastily.

Under our directions, the basket was soon filled. The outcast, who had once been a fine specimen of manhood, straightened up, and looked beseechingly at Mary, and then at me.

“You all won’t tell that there matron, now, will you, or Madge neither?” he wanted to know.

“No, neither of us will breathe a word to anyone,” Mary replied. Both were beginning to feel somewhat ashamed for taking advantage of this poor fellow.

At our reassuring words, Bill’s face broke into a smile, happy as a child’s, and he started toward the place where he had dropped his gun.

After watching him shuffle away in the direction of the county poor-farm, whence he had come, Mary and I mounted Gypsy and started home. When we rode in at the gate, mother was standing in the kitchen door watching for us. Soon grandma came out to get her basket of cress, and as I handed it to her, remarked, “Here is your cress, grandma, and ‘thereby hangs a tale’.”

Looking the basket over, she asked: “now what are you talking about.”

“Nothing, Granny dear, only some of my foolishness,” I replied, “but be sure to wash the cress thoroughly before you eat it. I believe it really ought to be boiled.”