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Updated: May 31, 2025
"It's no use as it is; I dare say you'd like to see it bear gooseberries." "No use!" exclaimed the mother; "don't the birds go to roost on the branches, and the poultry get shelter under it from the rain? and after all your cutting, I don't see as you're likely to turn a thorn-tree into a gooseberry-bush!"
They heard him singing this remarkable rhyme, long after they had lost sight of him. And then they all set about searching; but it was a long while before they found, and still longer before they could decide, which was the biggest gooseberry-bush, each child having his or her opinion sometimes a very strong one on the matter.
At last they agreed to settle it by pulling half-a-dozen little sticks, to see which stick was the longest, and the child that held it was to decide the gooseberry-bush. This done, underneath the branches what should they find but the identical basket of clothes! only, instead of being roughly dried, they were all starched and ironed in the most beautiful manner.
My correspondent also sends me some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He says a large gooseberry-bush standing in the border of an old hedge-row, in the midst of open fields, and not far from his house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in succession, and, after an interval of a year, for two seasons more. This gave him a good chance to observe them.
"Why, mother," said the lad, "you see we have but two trees in all the garden, and I've been thinking they'd match better if they were alike; so I've tied up to a pole the boughs of the gooseberry-bush, that used to spread themselves about the ground, to make it look more like this thorn; and now I'm going to cut down the thorn to make it look more like the gooseberry-bush."
Squills darted forward his lynx-like eyes. "Red as a lobster, and rough as a gooseberry-bush!" cried Squills, in a tone of savage joy. How was it possible for one poor tongue, so reviled and persecuted, so humbled, insulted, and triumphed over, to resist three tongues in league against it?
One two three, five six seven, Abracadabra, tum tum ti!" shouted he, jabbering all sorts of nonsense, as it seemed to the children, and playing such antics that they stood and stared in the utmost amazement, and quite forgot the clothes. When they looked round again, the basket was gone. "Seek till you find, seek till you find, Under the biggest gooseberry-bush, exactly to your mind."
He said that he, as a young man, in a solemn moment had sent his love letter or his promise out with the wind, and he was continually waiting for an answer: he had given his promise, was betrothed! Ou!" "What is it?" asked Miss Hjelm, sympathetically. The truth was, the young hostess at this moment had relaxed her polite care, and a limb of a gooseberry-bush had struck against Miss Brandt's ankle.
Of course you may search for five years, and even then buy a pig in a poke. Through an agent my brother Nicholai raised a mortgage and bought three hundred acres with a farmhouse, a cottage, and a park, but there was no orchard, no gooseberry-bush, no duck-pond; there was a river but the water in it was coffee-coloured because the estate lay between a brick-yard and a gelatine factory.
We did not speak for a few minutes, then she said, quite gayly: "You have made my head better; your touch is extraordinary; in spite of all, I like you, snake-girl. You are not found on every gooseberry-bush." We kissed lightly, and I left her and went to my room.
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