Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1846-05-21
MISCELLANEOUS.
BUDDING AND BLOSSOMlNG.
ny JOHN NEAL.
CHAPTER |.
lS3O.-BITDDtNa.

A young and saucy, though rather shy-looking
girl-such as you may have romped with fifty times
in your life, when the old folks were out of the way
or Aunt Polly fast asleep in the great arm chair,
with her spectacles dropping off-was sitting near
large open window, with her pen lifted, her left
hand half buried in a mass Of dark shining hair,
half put up, and falling about her neck-her ewes
half shut, her eyelids dropping and trembling her
lashes gstening, and sheet of soiled and crum-
pied paper spread out on the table before her.
A heap of wet roses and half,opened flowers
dripping with dew, magnificent piano, with the
rich purple covering pulled away and trailing on
the floor halfiinished drawing, haf-written let
ter, haf-read book lying on its face in a tilted
chair, and just ready to slip off; morning wrap
per half put on, dragged and wet, and powdered
with golden dust, and bordered, six inches deep,
with tangled grass and torn butterc and scent
ed with clover bossoms-are enough to show what
sort Of a girl she Isl and what she has been doing
for the last half hour
After hdgeting awhile in chair large enough to
hold three of her and kicking over the foot stool
two or three times, and losing first one slipper and
then the other, and hunting them, with one toe
and now with the other, all round a circle of three
or four feet in diameter she starts up and runs TO
the open window, through which the sunshine of a
new day has just entered the room like spirit from
another world, filling the whole house with Joy
and lets down the long white muslin curtains I" OF
mist and moonlight mlngling fitfully," down, down,
till they lie in heaps upon the floor and whir about
in the morning wind like a sudden frt of snow in
midsummer. And now she stands listening and
shivering, and almost breathless and now shaking
loose her abundant hair, and looking out through
the pale shmmering mist as if she saw something
or heard something in the sunshine beyond, she
leans forward, her lips move, and she seems about
to speak--and now her face changes her eyes flash
and after listening few moments longer, she steals
back to the chair tlp-toe and falls writing
Mercy on us, how she does write, to be sure
Scribble, scribble scribble tear, tear tear! till
the passonless creature, who passed before YOU
a few minutes ago like transparent statuary, is
trembling from head to foot; and you may hear q
low, sweet, musical voice singing to Itself
Through shattered roof,
And warp aud Woof
OF honeysucke thick"
And now she comes to a full stop. And now-rip
goes another half sheet Of paper; and away goes
the slipper that has been tltering her toe for the
last FIVE minutes, half across the room; and away
goes foot after it, while the other is feeling fol
its fellow under the chair and trying TO shoe sel
in the dark, heel foremost without any body's help
And now she leans her head upon her hand, poo
thing and now she bites her lips and catches W
a handful of damp roses, and plays the very mis-
chief with them, scattering the dew all over the
paper as II she had been crying. And now she
nibbles the tip end of her pen, and pushes her un
finished drawing out Of the way as if she hated the
very slght OF 1t; and now she Jumps up and gives
the piano cloth twch, and upsets the tilted chair
And now she falls to work anew, with her nose al
most touching the paper, as if she were making
ianplghters Tor the magazines at five dollars
bunch. And now she tears off what she has jus
written for the fortieth time with the greatest pos
slble care and gives it a splteful twist and filings
smack at the window curtain, and falls a-writinl
again as if she hadn't another minute to lose
beating time with her slipperless foot and shaking
her head the while, and murmuring as if rathe
more than half aseepj with her eyes fixed upon