LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2354, 19 October 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

BLACK-EYED PBAB. Clover stood biting the corner of her apron viciously, and, with her nose tilted decidedly upward, and her eyebrows drawn decidedly downward, she looked a regular vixen, as she scowled and skulked at the groat clothes basket before her, brimful of ‘blaok-oyed peas,’ un-hellad, the long dry pods twisted and tangled together, looking very hard, and obstinate, and discouraging indeed. * J won’t shell ’em—X won’t shell one I ’ vowed Clover, putting out her little foot and giving the basket a kick that sent it clear under tie kitchen table. ' Clover Flectwocd, you will 1 You’ll shell the last one 1 ’ Clover’s aunt was thin and limp, and languid of motion, but very determined withal, and now sho shut her mouth like a steal-trap, and pointed an uncunpromising finger at the peas, after which sho trailed her limp skirt out: to the back yard, where a big, black kettle of soap was bubbling. And sulky little Clover, left alone, confronted by the terrible peas, bit a big hole in the corner of her apron, and kicked the basket over on its side, and stamped her foot and bit her lip, and Anally got a tin pan and a chair, and began the hopeless-looking task with impatient, savage li tie fingers. Poor Clover was only seventeen, not wise, not prepared for the hard phases of life, nor the small, unp'easant tasks by the strength and patience and faith that must come tooner or later, especially with tender, considerate guidance. But at present, with the good yet undeveloped, and all the little sharp points of temper and contrariness rubbed up the wrong way, with little, half-unoonsoiona and unsatisfied longings for help to grow upward into a brighter, a better atmosphere than she knew, and with an admixture of real faul a, Clover often appeared a decided vixen.

There was one who, she felt instinctively, could help her if he would—the gentleman who boarded at her aunt’s, and who possessed the broad liberality and sympathy of a truly wise and noble nature. But he spent the greater part of his time in his own room, writing treatises on entomology, ‘ He cares a heap more for bugs than he does for me,’ said Clover, discontentedly. ‘ If he ever looks at me at all, it Is in a way as if ha was thinking. ‘ I wonder what kind of an insect that is ? Is it a new specimen?’ I hope he won’t take a notion, some time, to send mo to the ?tate entomologist In a bottle. ’ Just now those dreadful black eyed peas were almost too much for Clover. The shells of some were tough, and refused to open, and some were stiff and brittle, and snapped open unexpectedly, and the peas flew all around the room. Her fingers were sore and her shoulders ached. It was late in the afternoon, her aunt was busy emptying her soft soap into some jars, and carrying it to the smoke house. It was so hard to resume the tiresome Broiling, that at last a dark temptation assailed clover. The basket was yet half full of the dreadful things, and there, just a few feet away, was a big, empty fireplace, with a fireboard before it. Now, it could very easily swallow up all these peas, without injuring its digestion in the least; and these shelled peas, put away in the attic in the big bag with the rest, could tell no tales. If the unshelled peas were at last discovered, she would at any rate have a respite. • What is the child up to ? ’

Mr Clarendon stood in tho doorway, viewing with curious amusement Miss Clover’s performance of dumping a great heap of rustling peapods in between the two big andirons. She banged the fireboard up into its place with a spiteful, defiant little motion, and then gazed at the Interviewer with unflinching eyes, although the blood was in her cheeks.

‘ I’m hiding ’em, so I won’t have to shell ’em,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’m up to.’ ‘ But, dear Miss Clover— ’ he began, hslfpuzzled. ‘ Yon needn’t lecture me,’ she broke in. ‘ I won’t touch one of them, not if yon tell Aunt Beth now.’

‘I wouldn’t think of tolling Aunt Beth,’ he answered. ‘ I only appeal to you. Does your conscience approve— ’ Clover looked at him sulkily from under her fringey, flaxen topknot. * Maybe, if your fingers were sore and your shoulders were lame, and you detested the sight of black-eyed peas as much as I do yon would not ask the advice of your con« science, either,’ she said, with a faint tremor in her voice.

He smiled, but It was a gentle, pitying smile.

* Poor little— ’ perhaps he was going to say ‘ insectbut a limp calico dress, with a limp woman inside of it, came languidly up the steps and dropped into a chair, as If they had suddenly melted together at that point. ‘ Clover,’ spoke her aunt, in a voice which was in violent contrast to her manner, “if you've got them everlasting peas out of the way at lust, you bettor get that coffee a roasting.’ For once, Mr Clarendon was guilty of a great nonsense in the very first he wrote—

‘ This new specimen Is a poor, overworked, simple, foolish, darling little dunce.’ Whatever Clover pretended, the blackeyod peas, hidden behind the fire-board, grow to be something of a burden. She knew it would have been better for her had she gone through with the task, instead of shifting the burden from her hands to her conscience. But she would not acknowledge it; and when she found Mr Clarendon regarding hcjwith serious eyes, she grew defiant, and, taking a streak of reckless inconsistency, blamed him for it, and nerves and temper together led her to a climax of bad behavior, including the sins of kindling the fire with his treatises and glueing hla specimens, upside down, upon the lid of a bandbox, that might have made him believe in her total, depravity had his insight been less penetrating and kindly than It was. Betributlon came at last, though not at his bands.

There was company at dinner, one day—a gentleman who had come down to buy some land of Clover’s nncle, and was going to build thereon. Clover refused to appear at dinner, because >he would not be at the trouble of making herself presentable. She had taken her station at the kitchen table, just before the open dining room door, where she could hear the conversation, and enjoy a little lunch all to herself at the came time.

A sentence from her uncle suddenly startled her. ‘ Just come out here. You can see the best site you’ll have for a buildin’ spot rquaro from tho kitchen door.’ And there was a sound of shoving back chairs and of footsteps. Clover’s dress was torn and her apron showed indications of an acquaintance with the sooty wash kettle. Her flaxen coil was escaping from the comb, and armed with tho iron kitohen spoon with which, I am sorry to say—for It is very unromantic—she had been eating rice pudding out of a yellow earthen dish. She could not make her escape out of the kitohen door, because the dining room door commanded a full view of it, and she would be detected by the invaders ; yet it would not do to be found thus

Again the big fireplace came to the rescue, and in a flash Clover was behind the hoard and among the black-eyed peas. As sho sank down among them they rustled and creaked, seeming to lift up accusing voices, and to reproach her for her deception. But now the strange gentleman In the kitchen was speaking, and his voice drowned theirs :

1 Here is something I want —a real oldfashioned fireplace. Cow wide is it ? ’ She heard his footsteps approaching, and knew she would be discovered. She jumped to her feet with some dim idea of trying to climb up the inside upon the jagged, broken rocks. The quick, nervous motion brought her elbow in abrupt contact with the board. Down it went with a bang, and there stood terrified, blushing Clover among the blackeyed peas, still grasping the big iron spoon ; and there they were glaring at her, her limp stony aunt, her astonished uncle, the amazed ntranger, and Mr Clarendon, looking down at her with grave pity. Withsudden desperation she broke through them all, and never stopped in her flight until she reached the cool quiet attio, with its soothing odour of dried herbs, and fruit and hops. It was late in the evening when sho went down stairs. Supper was all over, but she did not care for that.

* Perhaps you’ll finish shelling them there peas now, Mies Fleetwood, ’ her aunt observed

with ohlll politeness, «a the small figure glided through the dusky hall. And Clover gatheied them up in a big basket, and carried them out of the backloor, sitting down under a locust tree beside the long pine table whore the milk pans were turned up In a row. The moon was up a little way, and flocks o£ plumy white clouds were drifting from the east. ‘ They are angels with great soft wings,’ laid Clover ; ‘ they are going—up there ! ind I am, oh, so far away 1 The angels wou ; du’t come near such a wicked little wrotoh as mo 1 ’ Home one laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

* Clover—Clover, child ! ’ Mr Clarendon said, ‘you are tired—and, I think, said. Let me help you.’ She bent over the pan of peas with a rush of tears. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘so tired, and so hateful, and so disagreeable!’ ‘No,’ he answered; ‘that is not all tine. You are a child, and your feet have not yet found the paths of peace ; bat they will in time. I could help you, I think, if I might —if you would let me. But I fear you will not." She glanced up slyly, forgetting her tears. ‘I have cried sometimes,’ Bha murmured, ‘ because I was afraid you cared more for the bugs than for me.’ And here somebody’s arms were around her in such a tight hug oho forgot the pan of peas, and it slid from her lap ; and the peas rustled and rattled as if in soft laughter, and tbe bright tin pans on the table, catch log glints of moonlight, smiled at each other, and perhaps even the angels up In the clouds did not disdain to rejoice a little over the happiness that had come to the repentant little sinner, and the help that was to assist her in her upward growth.