Simple Susan

By MARIA EDGEWORTH

ADAPTED BY LOUEY CHISHOLM

I

QUEEN OF THE MAY

Simple Susan lived one hundred years ago. Mr. Price was Susan's father. He rented a small farm and was always hard at work. No more honest man could be found far or near, and he loved his little daughter from the bottom of his big heart.

Mrs. Price was Susan's mother. She was a good woman who was always busy cooking, or cleaning, or sewing. The bread and cakes made by her were better than those made by any one else in the village. When she was not doing household work, she earned money by taking in plain needlework. All who knew Mrs. Price liked her and were sorry she was so far from strong. That no girl had a better mother than Susan, every one agreed.

John and William were Susan's little brothers. They were quite sure that no other boys in all the world had such a good sister as theirs.

Our story begins on the evening before the first of May. Now one hundred years ago, Mayday was looked forward to with glee by all English children living in the country. Early that morning the lads and lasses of the village, gaily decked with flowers, would go merrily singing from house to house. In their midst would walk the Queen of the May, or sometimes, [pg 258] seated in a chair twined round with blossom, she would be carried from door to door by her little companions. With a wreath of their gayest flowers they would crown her their Queen, and for her would be woven the fairest garlands. After the May carols were sung, cake, coppers, or small coins would be given to the boys and girls.

To choose their Queen and to arrange their flowers the children would meet on the last day of April. This they did in the village where Susan lived, and their meeting-place was in a corner of a field close by a large pink hawthorn. A shady lane ran past one side of the bush. On another side a sweetbrier hedge separated it from the garden belonging to an attorney.

This attorney was a very cross man, so cross that the village people were always in fear of him. Although he had hedged and fenced his garden, it sometimes happened that there would stray into it a pig, or a dog, or a goat, or a goose belonging to a poor neighbor. Then the attorney would go to the owner of the stray animal and in a harsh voice demand money to pay for the damage it had done.

Nor did this cruel man let people walk along the paths through his meadows, although they did no harm. He blocked up the stiles with stones and prickly shrubs, so that not even a gosling could squeeze under them nor a giant climb over. Even the village children were afraid to fly their kites near his fields, lest they should get entangled in his trees or fall on his ground.

Mr. Case was the name of this attorney, and he had one son and a daughter called Barbara.

For long the father paid no attention to the education of his children, for all his time and thought were given to money-making. Meanwhile Barbara and her brother ran wild with the village children. But suddenly Mr. Case decided to send his son to a tutor to learn Latin, and to employ a maid to wait upon Barbara. At the same time he gave strict orders that his children should no longer play with their old companions.

The village children were not at all sorry when they heard this. Barbara had not been a favorite among them, for she had always wanted to rule them and to secure for herself the chief part in their games. When Barbara saw that she was not [pg 259] missed by her old friends she was vexed, and she became angry when she found that they paid no attention to the grand air with which she now spoke nor to the fine frocks which she wore.

To one girl Barbara had a special dislike. This was none other than Susan Price, the sweetest-tempered and busiest lass in the village, and the pride and delight of all who knew her. The farm rented by Susan's father was near the house in which Mr. Case lived, and Barbara from her window used to watch Susan at work.

Sometimes the little girl was raking the garden-plots in her neat garden; sometimes she was weeding the paths; sometimes she was kneeling at her beehive with fresh flowers for her bees, and sometimes she was in the hen-yard scattering corn among the eager little chickens. In the evening Barbara often saw her sitting in the summer-house over which sweet honeysuckle crept, and there, with a clean three-legged pine table before her upon which to lay her work, Susan would sew busily. Her seams were even and neat, for Mrs. Price had taught her daughter that what is worth doing is worth doing well.

Both Susan and her mother were great favorites in the village. It was at Mrs. Price's door that the children began their Mayday rounds, and it was Susan who was usually Queen of the May.

It was now time for the village children to choose their queen. The setting sun was shining full upon the pink blossoms of the hawthorn when the merry group met to make their plans for the morrow.

Barbara Case, sulkily walking alone in her father's garden, heard the happy voices and, crouching behind the hedge that divided her from the other children, she listened to their plans.

"Where is Susan?" were the first words she overheard.

"Yes, where is Susan?" repeated a boy called Philip, stopping short in a tune he was playing on his pipe: "I want her to sing me this air, I can't remember how it goes."

"And I wish Susan would come, I'm sure," cried Mary, a little girl whose lap was full of primroses. "She will give me some thread to tie up my nosegays, and she will show me where the fresh violets grow, and she has promised to give me a great [pg 260] bunch of her cowslips to wear to-morrow. I wish she would come."

"Nothing can be done without Susan!" cried another child. "She always shows us where the nicest flowers are to be found in the lanes and meadows."

"Susan must help to weave the garlands," said another.

"Susan must be Queen of the May!" shouted several together.

"Why does she not come?" grumbled Philip.

Rose, who was Susan's special friend, now came forward to remind them that when Susan was late it was always because she was needed at home.

"Go, Rose, and tell her to make haste," cried the impatient Philip. "Attorney Case is dining at the Abbey to-day, and if he comes home and finds us here, perhaps he will drive us away. He says this bit of ground belongs to his garden, but that is not true, for Farmer Price says we have all as much right to it as he has. He wants to rob us of our playground. I wish he and Bab, or Miss Barbara, as I suppose we must now call her, were a hundred miles away, I do. Just yesterday she knocked down my ninepins on purpose as she passed with her gown trailing in the dust."

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