Nan took it, and went smiling away. But the
lane might have been the Desert of Sahara, for
all she knew of it; and she would have passed
her father as unconcernedly as if he had been an
apple-tree, had he not called out,--
"Stand and deliver, little woman!"
She obeyed the venerable highwayman, and
followed him to and fro, listening to his plans and
directions with a mute attention that quite won
his heart.
"That hop-pole is really an ornament now,
Nan; this sage-bed needs weeding,--that's good
work for you girls; and, now I think of it, you'd
better water the lettuce in the cool of the
evening, after I'm gone."
To all of which remarks Nan gave her assent;
the hop-pole took the likeness of a tall
figure she had seen in the porch, the sage-bed,
curiously enough, suggested a strawberry ditto,
the lettuce vividly reminded her of certain vegetable
productions a basket had brought, and the
bobolink only sung in his cheeriest voice, "Go
home, go home! he is there!"
She found John--he having made a free-mason
of himself, by assuming her little apron--meditating
over the partially spread table, lost in amaze
at its desolate appearance; one half its proper paraphernalia
having been forgotten, and the other
half put on awry.
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