The Garden Stalking Weed Chapter 10

Much to her surprise, Joseph had acted up again and their father had shipped him off to some private school for good knows what.

Abigail, her eldest sister also left to go study in England at a girls school for 'womanly' things.

Basically girl scouts, but without the roughing it in the wilderness part.

It was mid June and one day finally worked up her courage to ask Rice if she could go to the garden.

Beatrice looked up from her knitting, yes, this time she was knitting.

Furrowing her brows, it looked like she was trying to decide whether it was worth it or not to walk the littlest miss through the garden or not.

If she remembered correctly, the master of their plantation was holding a little get together and some of his acquaintances had brought some of their kids with them to socialize with each other.

Would a three year old be able to keep up with suchva exciting envoirment?

Beatrice shook her head to herself slowly

'Probably not, I guess I can finish reading the Elements of Morality.'

Making up her mind, Beatrice set her knitting supplies on a small nighstand near her chair, and picked up a book off of it titled" The Elements of Morality" by William Whewell.

Gathering her skirt she stood up and walked over to Miriam who was currently playing with a ball made of wool.

Yes it was the same one she played with when she was a baby.

She didnt like those fancy Victorian dolls because she knew alot of them contained harmful chemicals and such.

Therefore don't blame her for not touching those toys and only playing with a poor person's toy.

Anyway Miriam held out her hand, and Beatrice took it.

Like a well trained dog, mhm.

They made their way to the garden slowly

Afterall, Miriam refused to be carried anymore.

She was so big now afterall.

It was embarrassing.

Walking out into the backyard, the summer sun was shining and out in full force.

The waves of heat hit Miriams face as she raised her free little hand to cover of the top of her brow.

Looking abit like an improper salute.

There were quite a few kids in the garden.

Most of them were boys.

Moriam could just make out Allards tall figure surrounded by 4 or 5 other boys around his age.

They were sitting on stools and rather heatedly discussing something.

Miriam thought her eldest brother Alard was boring.

Afterall, he never really payed any attention to her.

Anyway, other than those gossiping half grown men, there was also four boys ranging from what looked to be 5 to 10.

And two girls her sister Marthas age.

One of the boys was black and his clothes weren't as nice as the other children's.

This made Miriam frown.

Toddling through into the garden, Miriam it booked straight for the black boy.

Beatrices stone faced expression somehow became even more unpalatable as they neared the boy.

She attempted to coax Miriam to look at the flowers they were passing by but Miriam had all but forgotten her reason of coming outside in the first place.

She was on a mission.

Arriving in front of the boy, he was playing with some long grasses and trying to weave them together into something.

Miriam slipped out of Beatrices grasp and popped up right in the boys face.

"Do you like grass?" She asked, as she was quite curious about this matter.

She could identify the species right away.

The boy looked up surprised by the little girl suddenly talking to him.

After waiting for a minite, and getting no response Miriam snatched the grass out of his hands.

"You are doing it wrong." She said as she quickly inwove the grass and began to speedily weave a large ring/wreath.

Looking around her, she spotted some clover flowers and snatched them away from their poor roots in the ground.

She quickly threaded the flower stems through the wreath and in the end, it was a poorly decorated crown.

She leaned foward and placed it on his head before he could react.

"There. Much better." Said Miriam as she tucked saw a piece of grace in the boys hair and she stretched to her tip toes to pull it out before setting it in the wreath.

Unbeknownst to Miriam, she missed one person in her count of children in the garden.

Behind some hedges, a boy around 8 was intently watching this 'crowning of the king' game with interest.

Miriam was about to say more when she was suddenly knocked aside by a large fast moving object.

"Drat!" escaped her mouth as she fell over into a pile of dirt nearby.

Looking up at what had hit her, Miriam saw a humoungous dog. It was probably almost three times her height.

One word appeared in her mind

'Pony...'

Yes, this dog was about the right size to ride...

Motivation filled her eyes. She would conquer this canine, mark her words.

Luckily, she always hid some of her food in her dress.

Yes, abit unhygienic, but not quite to the point where it was disgusting.

She walked away from the dog that was currently inquisitively sniffing the boy with the flower crown on.

'Be brave, be brave... and... Go!'

Turning about, facing the two, she ran with all the might her little legs could muster.

Grabbing a chunk of black dense fur, she vaulted herself onto the dog like a mighty warrior mounting his trusty steed for battle.

Are!

Obviously the dog didn't know what was on it. so it bucked abit like one might see a Bronco do, bit Miriam held steadfast.

The dog stopped jumping around and started tp vigourously shake its fur.

Tilting, she was tilting off the dog!

Miriam quickly brainstormed ideas and she finally had one when she saw a darl blue leather collar securely attached around the dogs neck.

Leaning foward as much as she could, Miriam was just barely able to grasp the dogs collars with the tips of her fingers.

Unbeknownst to her, Alards friend Troy heard his prized Newfoundland dog yelp.

He turned his head away from the rest of the lads, and almost fell off his stool.

What the heck!

What was that little girl doing!

Penelope! Penelope his beloved dog!

Quickly noticing something qas off with his good friend Troy Abberton, Alard looked un the direction Troy was and his face went pale.

Wasn't that his little sister Miriam?!

Why was she trying to ride a dog like a horse!

Quickly getting to his feet at the same time as Troy, they both motioned to the rest of their friends to follow as the tried to run across the garden to save a toddler from getting eaten by a dog.

Sitting atop the dog Miriam stilled herself, and the dog started to walk in circles, confused as to why a small creature was on her back.

Luckily for Miriam, or rather maybe luckily for Penelope, it was a fairly friendly dog and wouldn't bite someone unless they struck it.

"Hello, are you a Newfoundland? Is your name Seamus? What are Lewis and Clarke like?" Miriam leaned foward and whispered into dogs scruff.

By the time the boy next to Miriam regained his senses Alard and Troy had already pushed him out of the way.

Alard tried to scoop Miriam off the dog but did not realize she was tightly gripping the collar.

By trying to pull her off while she was holding the collar, he ended up accidentally strangling the dog.

Getting angry, Penelope turned around fast as lightning and snapped at Miriam.

Miriam quickly kicked away Alards grip and tightly clung to the dogs upper back and neck, making it so she couldnt be bitten.

Poor Alard, a good snap of the dogs large jaws, lined with sharp teeth, landed on his arm.