Palm Sunday; or, Little Mary's Saturday's walk

PALM SUNDAY; OR, LITTLE MARY’S SATURDAY’S WALK.

“COME, Mary!” said Mr. Lumley to his little girl, one Saturday afternoon, “put on your bonnet and your thick shoes. I am going to Davies’s cottage, and there is a basket for you to carry, with some work for Jane, and some jelly for her grandmother. The lane is pretty clean, and the stepping-stones, even the rickety one, quite out of water.”

Before the last comfortable assurance could be heard, Mary was ready for the walk.

Papa at leisure on a fine Saturday afternoon to help her to enjoy her holiday would have been enough; but to go to old Molly Davies, and to see her favourite Sunday-scholar Jane, was pleasure indeed.

It was a charming afternoon,—one of the first that Mary had called so that spring. The winter had been severe; there had been no fine Saturdays in February, scarcely one in March. But on this, the wind was soft, the sun was shining, the violets had no withered brown edges to their deep blue petals, but looked and smelt as March violets should look and smell. In the sheltered lane there were a few full-blown primroses among the moss, the woolly stems of the cowslips were already peeping up in the meadows, and innumerable buds of all Mary’s favourite spring flowers seemed ready to open in the warm sunshine.

“Oh, papa, how happy I am!” cried the little girl, as she shewed him a lap full of gay colours. “Here are yellow pileworts, and grey lady’s-smocks, and wood sorrel, and cowslips, ready to blow; and, I declare, there’s a wood anemone quite blown. Oh! this year these darling anemones will answer to their pretty name of pasque-flower, for they will be in full beauty by Easter.

“Do you know, papa, I feel as if it were more good in God to create beautiful things to make us happy when we only look at them, than even to give us needful and useful things, which are often far from being beautiful or pleasant. I hope I am not foolish or wrong to say so.”

“No, my little Mary. I remember the wise and good Mrs. W—y said the same thing, almost in your very words, to me some years ago, when she saw a bunch of spring flowers in water on the table of a sick friend. I am glad you are learning to see and love the goodness of God while you are young; it will make it easier to do your duty towards him for the rest of your life.”

“Hush! dear papa. Hush one moment!—I am almost sure I hear a willow-wren in the hedge; and those wagtails! I declare they are catching flies already; and look! there are the little tadpoles all gathering round that green mossy stone, how merry they are in the clear water! But here we are at Davies’s cottage, and there’s a thrush singing; and old Molly says the thrushes sing earlier in the copse behind their house than anywhere else. Do you think it’s true, papa?”

“I don’t know, my dear. But run in and settle it with Molly, while I step on to the overseer’s; and by the time you are ready to go home, I will call for you.”

Now, this was just what Mary liked. She went into the house by herself, and felt very important as she opened her basket and gave Jane directions about the needle-work to be done for her mamma, and then helped her to spread the cloth on Molly’s little deal table, that she might eat some of the jelly, to do her good directly, as Mary said.

Meantime, the flowers were laid out in due order by the two little girls; and as soon as Molly was at leisure, a hundred questions were asked at once, but as she declared she could only answer one by one, Mary was obliged to curb her impatience.

“Well, then,” she said, “do tell me why this pretty yellow flower is called pile-wort?”

“I have been told,” said Molly, “that wort means root or plant in general; as for the pile you know that is an old word for cross, and as you have brought a bit of the root, I can shew you why this is called pile-wort, or cross-root. Look, I will cut the root across, and you will see a number of black spots in the form of a cross, upon the white part. In former days this root was used in washes and salves, for healing many kinds of sores. This pretty little green leaf, whose flower is just budding, lying close by, is adder’s-tongue; and I still often boil it with sweet oil and wax to make salve for the wounds and cuts that mowers and reapers are apt to meet with in the course of their work.”

“And what do you do with the lady’s-smocks?” cried Mary. “I see such a store of dried ones hanging up there!”

“They are the remains of last year’s gathering, Miss. The powder made of them is given for agues. The bundles of roots hanging by them belong to your pasque-flower: they are good in powders and in drinks for obstinate coughs; and this pinkish wood-sorrel makes a sort of tea which is very good for colds. In short, you have not brought anything but the pretty primroses that I do not remember using or seeing used to cure some ailment or other.”

“What, Molly, even the violets?”

“Oh yes, Miss! The syrup of violets makes people sleep as well as the laudanum the doctors are so fond of now-a-days. But next month and the one after it are those of all the year that bring forth most of the plants of which the leaves and flowers are good for physic. August and September ripen such as have most virtue in the seeds and roots. If your mamma likes it, I shall be very glad to tell you all I know about these things, and Jane can shew you all the plants I use in the fields.”

“Thank you!—thank you, dear Molly! but here comes Sam, with a whole bundle of sticks. What can they be? Oh, I see now, they are palms to wear to-morrow. Are they good to cure sickness? And why do we call them palms, and carry them about on Palm Sunday?”

“Why, Miss, I think you had better ask your papa the two last questions, and, in the meantime, I will do my best to answer the first. The bark of willows in general, but particularly that of the sallow, which is the palm-willow, has long been known and used as a cure for agues and low fevers; and though the elm and some other barks were employed, yet none was found to be so good as the sallow, till the Jesuits brought the bark of a shrub from America, about two hundred years ago, which is so much more powerful as a cure for the same disorders that the European barks are nearly out of use. {5} But here comes your papa, and I shall be as glad as you to hear what he will have to tell you.”

“Papa! papa!” cried the eager little girl, as she ran to meet her father, “do come in quick, and tell Molly, and Jane, and me, all about them.”

“All about what, or who, my dear? The new benches in the church, or the children in the new school?”

“No, no, not now; but about the palms, papa! and Palm-Sunday, and why we carry palms, and—”

“Enough, enough, my little girl. If I answer all those questions, I must sit down in the chimney-corner, and Jane must give me a draught of whey, and Molly must have patience with us for at least half an hour.”

“That I will, and be thankful too, your reverence,” said the old woman. Jane dusted the settle, and brought the whey, and the party was soon seated.

And now, who so happy as little Mary? Seated on her father’s knee, hoping to have all her questions answered, with old Molly in the opposite chimney-corner, Jane at work in the window-seat, and old puss purring on the hearth: it was far the best Saturday afternoon she had known, this year at any rate.

“You know, my little Mary,” said Mr. Lumley, “that what you call palms are really branches of willow in flower, and that all willows bear their flowers, called catkins, before their leaves come out. I think you know, also, that real palms are trees which only grow in hot climates, whose large branch-like leaves grow like a crown, distinguishing them among trees, on the top of the stem, whether it be only one year old or a hundred. I think you can compare a palm-leaf to nothing so aptly as to the ostrich feathers which ladies wear in their head-dresses.

“Now these palm branches have been thought, at all times and in all places, so beautiful as to be fit to carry before kings and conquerors, as signs of victory and of fame likely to last.”

“In what particular country was that, papa?”

“Wherever palms grew at first, but by degrees neighbouring countries adopted the palm as a sign of victory, and we read of them in every profane history as well as in the Bible, where you know the palm is often named.”

“Was there any reason besides the beauty of the leaf for this, papa?”

“You shall judge. The palm leaf, even when cut from the tree, is not subject to decay. In the countries where it grows it is used to thatch houses, nay, even for the walls when woven into mats. Palm mats make soft bedding for men, and safe cradles for infants; and I have seen labourers in rice grounds well sheltered from sun and heavy rain by a hood and cloak made of one leaf of a palm-tree. The fibres of many kinds of palm are woven into coarse cloth, and most of them furnish materials for strong and durable ropes.

“The juice that flows from the top of several palms, when a small cut has been made either in the bark or at the foot-stalk of a leaf, is as refreshing as Jane’s whey, when fresh; and after standing a few days a strong spirit is often distilled from it. The juice from the date palm, indeed, when boiled, produces a very sweet, dark-coloured sugar, called jagree.

“The palm-tree wood is useful in building; it resists the attacks of all insects, even those of the white ant, and is perhaps the most durable wood in the world.”

“How can we know that, papa?”

“A piece of timber was lately brought to England from the ruins of Babylon. It was found in the ceiling of a chamber where it must have been at the very least for two thousand years. Your dear friend Mr. Brown examined it, and found it was palm-tree wood.”

“How wonderful! but, papa, has the palm-tree any fruit fit to eat?”

“What think you of cocoa-nuts and dates? You like them both, I think; and in many countries these fruits furnish great part of the food of the natives during many months of the year. And from the refuse cocoas and the seeds and nuts of other palms a sweet oil, good for food as well as for lamps, is pressed.”

“Dear papa, you might well say the palm is distinguished among trees. Were there many palms in Palestine?”

“Yes, my dear; and in Egypt, where the Jews dwelt so long, many more; nay, even while they wandered in the desert, they often came to clumps of date trees, whose charming shade, sweet fruit, and refreshing juice, were to them truly a ‘table in the wilderness.’ You cannot wonder, then, that on all occasions of rejoicing, and especially on the solemn feasts, when the heads of families went up to Jerusalem to worship, the people gathered the branches and carried them with their other offerings to the temple, where they probably formed shades and screens from the intense heat of the sun, while they waited in the court of the people.”