New Orleans Republican., 1873-04-20
JESSIE.

.IESSlE.
Wn,- Uncle Feodorardo left this world of
<urs-which doubtless he locks back upon
with = sight that pierces the secret OF the
storms and showers and sunshine OF lt-he
left grea: gap in it for all the children.
What A blessing he was TO chlldklDd, to be
.ure. And what a peculiar blessing to one
mite out Of that kind, Jessie by name
How this little white mite would nave
kent alive at all, at one time, instead OF
dissolyIur back into her elements, If Uncle
Feodorardo had not taken her in hand, ia
.ne OF those dark questions to be worked
out with chemical equations; he reminded
YOU, in the process, of those Japanese Jug
Clers who with their fans keep butter flies
fnttering on the air around them, which, If
the fan ceased, and they tell to the ground
wOuia be merely the original atoms OF torn
white paper again. For the changellng was
30 slight thing that you could see the sun
shine through her hand, and they had
threatened to hang her up in the window
for q transparency; and she was finally
allowed to run wild, in hopes that she
might lose her blanched house plant look,
and get little Of the vigor of the outdoor
weeds.
II was with this end in view that Uncle
Feodorardo-nO uncle OF hers, blythe by,
any more than of all the little people IN
INTO every body's heart in the new home
would entice the faxen-haired piece OF mis-
chief into his garden across the way, and,
riyng her little spade, would set her to
digging anywhere in the warm brown
earth. "She il our mother" said Uncle
FeOdOrardO. I'VE are made Of dust. When
we are peaking, her touch is our best cure"
He offered Jessie wages for the work she
was to do with her little spade-wages
lor IInpla Ean1 Al ~ rH pnllli
afford, for he earned his own livelihood
from his garden, and at any rate quite the
market value of the work performed
wages of o penny an hour and which she
was 10 claim when she could cOnscien-
tlously say she had delved sixty minutes.
Sometimes il took Jessie whole week be-
fore she could honestly earn her penny, for
she had a thousand things in that garden
20 divert her, since nature and FeOdOrardO
together consp;red to keep her active where
che could be drinking in health from all the
winds that blew about her.
A thousand things to divert her; for one,
there were the tOad-houses. Uncle FeOdo-
rardo had thought it necessary for the
health Of bis roots and plants to call the
toadR to his assistance. He had, moreover,
made acquaintance with these gentry every
one. as they came; he fed them with fine
fat spiders. and now and then a wasp for a
peppery sort of relish: he gave them names,
and he built them houses out of fiat stones,
that looked like the Dru,ds' tables at Stone
henge seen through an inverted telescope;
suppOsing there were telescope of that
range with some sort of clockwOrk put in
the rondure of the earth. Some of these
toads had been in the garden for years, and
Uncle FeOrdorardo declared they had saved
him the hire of a man: they had a quaint
resemblance to those respectable antiqui-
lies that you see lettering round the
mail or the market in old county
towns, and whose faces look like the
gnarl4 of twisted oak trees. Jessie covertly
watched these strange beings a great many
minutes together out of her sixty; the poor
child believed all sorts of things about
chem, chiefly in connection with her story
books such as the possibility of their hav-
ing once been proud young princes en-
chanted by wicked witch into this knot
~ and knobby shape; she wondered in her
self. " hen she dared, after long desire, to
stretch out a straw and tickle one of these
enchanted princes into jumping distance
twenty times his length; and she was seen
20 brlu. basin of water from which she
Rprink old Torkle, while pronOuncing
over HIM the magic eXorcism pronounced
by the great Fairy Rcnarva over the
famous Count Mako, who had been he.
wtched into bsrberry bush, il the tale
though il did no good in this case. for old
TOrkle always remained toad. Nor was
the little detective ever able to see the fairy
step from the dwarf plumb bush in the
corner of the garden, in whose depth it was
we'll understood her court was held, though
she laid many IL traverse TO do so;
but she once surprised splendid
humming- bird, all gold and gauze
and rubes and emeralds, darling into
the centre of the bush, and she never had
doubt in her own mind that it was some
belted knight among tha fairy queens fol-
lowers.
You may imagine that, with so much to
call of her truant thoughts, Jessie was
long while earning her penny, let the old
sun dial help her as much as it would-aHd
the sun dial had no regard for truth at all.
There was a deserted wasp's nest, too, 1ull
of charming cells, ike some antediluvian
honeycOmb, that Uncle FeodOrardo had
opened for her-leaving a moment the earth
which he alwa,s seemed to be turning in
over his buried treasonS and troubles, and
which was of great use in the drama of her
little faucies, And there was the house on
ton of the hop POLE ont of which predG.
tory pair of blue jays had driven the own.
ers' that they might set up their own house
Lepnin. therein, though fate fell upon the
bIue laws, in the shape of Miss Puss, just rs
their hpdClings peeped, greatly to the DIS
NAV OF Jessie, who had long since IoIgot
ten their original sin. lhele were JACK
and jill. also a brace of young settlers, who
pranced and raced like wild horses through
Ihe paths. and in their caresses would falriy
throw their PLAYMATE down and tread on
her, till she laughed with pleasure and
screamed with fear, in a mixture OF sweet
and sour emotions, like mental or 1noral
sharbet. And then there were the mowers,
the healthy herbs, the handsome bios
sorss, the poisonous ones. 1t was
singular circumstance that the latter
were those that pleased the child the
more, whether IL were by some horritie at
traction of toxicology, such as a baby bor
Ola might have felt. or whether it "ere be
cause such thin and impalpable boundary
separated her from the atmosphere OF
death that she must needs haunt the region!
and breathe the scent of poison, by natural
appulse; but she would hang over them ana
scrrutinize them with the patience OF d
botapisr, as if, indeed, she expected TO sc"
some dark dim form take visibility A0oIe
hem and reveal itself to her. Last OF al,
here was a wonderful parrot, with goio