They would not let him have a gun instead of a bell, although he
pleaded hard. Could he have sat there presenting a gun like a sentry
on duty, the week, in spite of discomfort and deprivations, would
have been full of glory and excitement. As it was, the dulness and
monotony of the jingling of the cow-bell made even his stupid
childish mind dismal. All the pleasant exhilaration of youth seemed
to have deserted the boy, and life to him became as inane and bovine
as to the original ringer of that bell grazing all the season in her
own shadow over the same pasture-ground.
And more than all, that twopence for which Ezra toiled so miserably
was to go towards the weaving of a rag carpet which his mother was
making, and for which she was saving every penny. He could not lay it
out in red-and-white sugar-sticks at the store. He sat there all the
week, and every time there was a whir of little brown wings and the
darting flash of a red breast among the cherry branches he rang in
frantic haste the old cow-bell. All the solace he obtained was an
occasional robin-pecked cherry which he found in the grass, and then
Mr. Berry questioned him severely when he saw stains around his mouth
and on his fingers.
He was on hand early in the morning on the day of the cherry picnic,
trudging half awake, with the taste of breakfast in his mouth,
through the acres of white dewy grass.
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