The Next Day, We Took Possession Of Our New Mansion, And No One Was
Better Pleased With The Change Than Little Katie.
She was now
fifteen months old, and could just begin to prattle, but she dared
not venture to step alone, although she would stand by a chair all
day, and even climb upon it.
She crept from room to room, feeling
and admiring everything, and talking to it in her baby language.
So fond was the dear child of flowers, that her father used to hold
her up to the apple-trees, then rich in their full spring beauty,
that she might kiss the blossoms. She would pat them with her soft
white hands, murmuring like a bee among the branches. To keep her
quiet whilst I was busy, I had only to give her a bunch of wild
flowers. She would sit as still as a lamb, looking first at one
and then another, pressing them to her little breast in a sort of
ecstacy, as if she comprehended the worth of this most beautiful
of God's gifts to man.
She was a sweet, lovely flower herself, and her charming infant
graces reconciled me, more than aught else, to a weary lot. Was she
not purely British? Did not her soft blue eyes, and sunny curls, and
bright rosy cheeks for ever remind me of her Saxon origin, and bring
before me dear forms and faces I could never hope to behold again?
The first night we slept in the new house, a demon of unrest had
taken possession of it in the shape of a countless swarm of mice.
They scampered over our pillows, and jumped upon our faces,
squeaking and cutting a thousand capers over the floor. I never
could realise the true value of Whittington's invaluable cat until
that night. At first we laughed until our sides ached, but in
reality it was no laughing matter. Moodie remembered that we had
left a mouse-trap in the old house; he went and brought it over,
baited it, and set it on the table near the bed. During the night
no less than fourteen of the provoking vermin were captured; and for
several succeeding nights the trap did equal execution. How Uncle
Joe's family could have allowed such a nuisance to exist astonished
me; to sleep with these creatures continually running over us was
impossible; and they were not the only evils in the shape of vermin
we had to contend with. The old logs which composed the walls of the
house were full of bugs and large black ants; and the place, owing
to the number of dogs that always had slept under the beds with the
children, was infested with fleas. It required the utmost care to
rid the place of these noisome and disgusting tenants.
Arriving in the country in the autumn, we had never experienced
any inconvenience from the mosquitoes, but after the first moist,
warm spring days, particularly after the showers, these tormenting
insects annoyed us greatly.
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