file was produced from images generously made available by the university of florida digital collections.) [illustration: "she was very pleased to have her mug filled--the mug which she had brought on purpose."] [illustration: new york. sheldon & company.] little rosy's travels. six volumes. on the journey. a walk and a drive. the ducks and pigs. the wounded bird. a sad adventure. the doctor's visit. little rosy's travels. a walk and a drive. illustrated. new york: sheldon and company. 1870. entered, according to act of congress, in the year 1868, by sheldon and company, in the clerk's office of the district court of the southern district of new york. electrotyped at the boston stereotype foundry, no. 19 spring lane. a walk and a drive. visit to the dairy. when rosy opened her eyes the next morning the sun was shining so brightly that she was obliged to shut them again. but a great many thoughts came into her little head, and she was in a great hurry to get up. nurse said it was not time yet, and that she was very sleepy; but when the little girl had climbed into her bed, and given her a great many soft kisses, and told her how much she wanted to take a walk before breakfast, the kind nursey first rubbed her eyes, then opened them, and then got out of bed. while she was dressing, rosy began to put on her own shoes and stockings and some of her clothes; for she had already learnt to do a great deal for herself. she peeped out of window to look for the birds, but for some time she could not see any. rosy thought this very strange, for she remembered how she used to hear the dear little birdies sing when she had been in the country in england; but nurse could not explain the puzzle; so rosy settled that it was to be a question for her papa. of course he would know; he always knew everything. when they were quite ready, nurse said,-"now, my darling, if you like, we will go and get your milk for breakfast; for i know where it is to be had, and nice, new, good milk i hope it may be, to make my little trotty very fat." "is not rosy fat now?" asked the little girl, in surprise, and feeling first her plump cheeks and then her round arms with her stumpy little fingers. "o, pretty well," said nurse laughing, "but you may be fatter yet, and i like fat little girls." they had not to walk far before they came to the place where the milk was sold. it was called a farm; and nurse took rosy in, and said she should see the dairy if the good woman would let her. rosy did not know what a dairy meant; but she supposed that it was something curious, and tripped merrily along, wondering what she should see, till they came to a room which had a floor made of red tiles, on which stood at least ten or twelve large open bowls full of new milk. now rosy happened to be very fond of milk; and as she was just then quite ready for her breakfast, she was very pleased to have her mug filled,--the mug which she had brought on purpose, as nurse told her,--and then take a good drink. "ah, nurse, how good it is!" she cried; "but what is all this sticking to my lips? it is not white like our milk. see, there is something on the top of it!" and she held out her mug to show her. "ah, that's cream, good cream. we did not get milk like this in paris," said nurse; "and i'm sure we don't in london. there's no water here, is there, madame?" but madame did not understand english; so nurse was obliged, by looking very pleased, to make her see that she thought her milk very good. "but it's very bad of the other people to put water in my milk," said rosy, frowning. "i shall ask my papa to scold them when we go home; and i shall take a great mugful of this nice milk to show my grandmamma." "well, now say good by prettily in french, as your papa teaches you," said nurse, "and then we'll go home, and i dare say we shall find some more milk there." "adieu, madame," said the little girl, and off she trotted again, as ready to go as she had been to come. they say "madame" to every one in france, you know, and not to rich ladies only. now there are beautiful hills all round the back of cannes, and a little way up one of these was the house where rosy was going to live. she did so like running up and down hills! and there were two or three little ones between the farm and this house, which was called a villa. when she got on to the top of one, she cried out,-"ah, there's the sea, i do declare! and there's a boat on it with a white sail! shall we go in a boat some day?" "i don't know," said nurse, "you must ask your mamma; but you don't want to be sick, do you?" "i won't be sick," cried the little girl. "rosy is never sick in a beau'ful boat like that. i'll ask my mamma," and she bustled on. "stay, stay!" cried nurse, "you're going too far, my pet; this is the way; look, who stands up there?" rosy looked up, and there was the villa with its green blinds high up over her head; and some one stood outside the door calling her by name. o, what a number of steps there were for those little legs to climb before she reached her papa! they went up by the side of a garden, which was itself like a lot of wide steps, and on each step there was a row of vines, not trained against a wall as we train our vines in england, but growing on the ground like bean plants. rosy saw lots of such nice grapes that her little mouth quite watered, and she would have liked to have stopped to pick some; but then she knew that would be stealing, because they were not hers. and i hope that rosy would not have stolen even if nurse had not been following her, or her papa watching her. she got the grapes, too, without picking them; for when she had climbed up to the very top, there was papa waiting for her with a beautiful bunch in his hand. and he said,-"come in, rosy; mamma wants her breakfast very badly. see, mamma, what a pair of roses your little girl has been getting already!" rosy knew very well what that meant, for she rubbed her cheeks with her little fat hands, and then tumbled her merry little head about her mamma's lap to "roll the roses off," as she said. but that little head was too full of thoughts to stay there long. there was so much to tell and to talk about, and that dairy took a long time to describe. then when papa asked if she had seen the dear cows that gave the milk, she thought that that would be a capital little jaunt for to-morrow, and clapped her hands with glee. "so you are going to find some new pets, rosy," he said, "to do instead of mr. tommy and the kittens?" "ah, papa, but there are no dickies here--i mean, hardly any," she answered. "we looked so for the birdies all, all the time; but only two came, and went away again directly." "we must go out and see the reason of that," said papa, smiling,--"you and i, rosy, directly after breakfast. we must go and tell the dear birds that rosy has come." [illustration] a walk and a drive. rosy made such haste to finish her bread and milk, that she was ready to go out before any one else had done breakfast. but her papa was not long before he was ready too, and she was soon tripping along by his side. they went only a little way up the road, and then they came to a field, on one side of which were some high bushes. rosy knew where to look for birds, and peeped very anxiously amidst the boughs till she saw something hopping. then she pulled her papa's hand, and let him know that she wanted him to stoop down and look too. he looked, and then whispered,-"yes, rosy. there is a pretty little robin; let us go round the other side and see if we can make him come out with these crumbs which i have brought with me." so they went softly to the gate, and were just going in, when papa said,-"stop, rosy; look what that man has got in his hand." then she looked, and saw a man with a very long gun and two dogs. "what is he going to do, papa?" asked the little girl, drawing back; "will he shoot us if we go in?" "o, no, rosy; don't be afraid. it is the robin that he wants to shoot and not us. so now you see how it is that the dicky-birds don't sing much at cannes. it is because they shoot so many of them." poor little rosy! she loved so much to watch the little birds and hear them sing! and when she thought of this dear robin being shot quite dead, and that perhaps there was a nest somewhere with little ones who would have no mamma, she began to cry, and to call the man "a cruel fellow." she was not much comforted by being told that such little birds were eaten there; so that if the man could shoot one, he would get some money for it which might buy bread for his little ones. but she was rather glad to hear that the little robins must be able by that time of year to take care of themselves, and had left the nest some time; and much more pleased, when, soon after, she saw the dear robin fly right away, so that the man with the gun was not likely to shoot that one at any rate. then papa said, "i shouldn't wonder if mamma would like to go out this morning. shall we go back and see?" [illustration: "rosy was very much pleased when soon after she saw the robin fly right away."] rosy thought that would be very nice; and then her papa lifted up his little girl, and showed her all the beautiful hills that were behind them. there were some that had peaked tops, and some rather roundish; and just in one place she could see some hills a very long way off, that seemed to climb right up into the sky and were all white on the top. he told her that those hills were called mountains, because they were so very high,--a great deal too high for rosy to walk up, and that the white stuff which she saw was snow. "we don't have snow when it is warm in england, rosy, do we?" said papa, "nor yet here, but up there, you see, it is so cold that the snow never melts. those are called 'the snow alps.'" rosy had nearly forgotten the poor birds now, because there were so many other things to think about. she saw some poppies a little way off, and then some blue flowers; and they were so pretty that she was quite obliged to stop a good many times to pick some for dear mamma. the wind was very high too, and it blew little rosy's hat right off, so that papa and she had both to run after it. mamma was ready for a walk when they got in, but she staid to put rosy's flowers in water; and they looked very gay and pretty. nurse and every one admired them; and rosy said that she was not a bit tired, and was quite sure that she could go for another long, long walk. but papa said that though rosy might be a little horse, her mamma was not, and that it was a long way to the town and to the shops where she wanted to go; so he would go and get a carriage for them. now, though rosy certainly was very tired of trains, she found a basket pony-carriage a very different thing, and enjoyed her ride so much that she was obliged to change pretty often from her mamma's lap to her papa's and back again, just because she was too happy to sit still. the ponies went along merrily too, as if they were nearly as happy. they had bells on their necks which jingled delightfully, and every now and then they met a carriage, or even a cart, the horses of which had bells too. so they had plenty of music. they went up one hill and down another, and the ponies ran so fast, and turned round the corners of the roads so quickly, that sometimes mamma was afraid that the carriage would be upset, and that they would all be "tipped out in a heap." rosy thought it would be good fun if they were. she often rolled about herself, like a little ball, without hurting herself; and she thought that papa and mamma would only get a little dusty, and that it would be a nice little job for her to brush the dust off when she got home. just then a number of boys and girls came along the road to meet them, and rosy saw that all the little ones wore caps, not hats or bonnets. there was one baby with large black eyes, whom she would have liked to kiss and hug. it was so fat and pretty. but it was dressed in a way that she had never seen any baby dressed before, for its feet and legs were put into a sort of large bag, so that it could not kick like other children; and rosy wondered how it could laugh so merrily. when the carriage came near this little party the man did not hold the reins of his horses tight as an english coachman would have done. he only screamed out to the children, "gare! gare!" which rosy's papa told her meant "get out of the way." and when they were all past there came next a great wagon, piled up with the trunks of trees. the horses which drew this had no bells; but they had a funny sort of post sticking up high between their ears, with lots of things hanging on to it. they had also three pink tassels hanging on their faces, one in front and one on each side. these tassels shook as they went along, and looked so pretty that rosy thought to herself that if ever she had a toy horse again she would ask nurse to make some little tassels for it just like them. her papa had told her, too, that they were to keep off the flies, which teased the poor horses very often dreadfully. and of course rosy would not like her horse to be teased. but the carriage went on while she was thinking this; and soon they saw four old women coming along the road with large baskets, full of some green stuff, on their heads. the little girl did not say anything as they went by, but she looked very particularly to see how they were dressed. now i must tell you why she did this. in the first place, then, she had never seen any old women a bit like them before. they walked all in a row with their baskets on their heads, and with their hands stuck into their sides, and they talked very fast as they came along. on their heads they wore very, very large hats, with small crowns. rosy had never seen such hats before, and she heard her mamma say that she had never seen them either. under these great hats they had nice white caps, with colored handkerchiefs over them, which hung down behind. they had, besides, other colored handkerchiefs over their shoulders, and two of them had red gowns. now rosy had had a present given her in paris. it was a piece of french money, worth ten english pennies; and with this money she had bought ten dutch dolls, which nursey was going to dress for her. at first she meant them to make an english school; but now that she had seen so many funny people she thought she would like her dolls to be dressed like the people in cannes, because then they would just show her dear grandmamma how very nice they looked, and how very different to english people. she was very quiet for a little while, because she was making this grand plan; but they soon turned out of the narrow street, and all at once she saw the sea again. they had come now to what was called the "port," and there were all the great ships which had come home lately, and were waiting to go out again,--one, two, three, four, five, six, all in a row, quite quiet, and "taking their naps," as rosy's papa said, "after all their hard work." he lifted rosy out first, and said that they would go and look at them, while mamma went into the shops. rosy was not quite sure whether she was pleased at that, because sometimes her mamma bought her very nice things, such as toys, or sugar-plums, or cakes, when she took her out shopping. but they soon found plenty to look at, and some funny men with blue coats and cocked hats amused the little girl very much. her papa wondered why she looked at them so often; but then he did not know rosy's grand scheme, and how she was thinking of asking nurse to dress one doll just like them. she kept this little plan quite a secret till she got back to her nurse. it was half the fun to have a secret. [illustration] rosy's visit to the cows. the dear, good nursey did not forget about the cows next morning, for when rosy opened her little blue peepers there she was half dressed. rosy jumped up in a minute, crying out,-"the cows! the cows! shall we go and see them?" "if you will make great haste," said the nurse; "but it is getting late." rosy never got dressed more quickly. she did not much like even to wait for her morning splash; and while her curls were being combed, she kept saying, "won't it do, nurse?" and then rather hindering by holding up her little face for a kiss. as soon as she was quite ready she bustled off, and got down stairs first. whom should she see there but papa himself, with his hat on? he said that he would take her to see the cows, and even carry her a little way if she got tired. how very kind that was! but would such a great girl as rosy get tired? o, dear, no; at least, so she said, for rosy did not like to be thought a baby now, though somehow or other it did sometimes happens that after a long walk her feet would ache a little bit, and then papa's shoulder made a very comfortable seat. she was half afraid now that nursey might be sorry not to see the cows, and ran back to whisper that if she liked she might dress one of the dollies instead. that was meant for a treat, you know; and nursey laughed, and said,-"perhaps, we shall see;" and gave her another kiss. then rosy showed her papa where the farm was; and when they came near, they saw the farmer's wife standing at the door, as if she expected her little visitor. rosy did not forget to say,-"bon jour, madame," which means "good morning" in english, you know. papa asked in french if they could see the cows, and the good woman was kind enough to take them round to the water where they were drinking. there was a black one, and a black and white one, and a red one, and another with red spots. we cannot find room for them all in the picture; but you will see the one which was drinking. rosy admired them very much, and wanted to go as near as she could that she might see them well; for although they were so very big and had such long legs, she was not a bit afraid of them. she never was afraid of anything when her papa was by, because he was so very strong--stronger than all the world she thought. "who made the cows, rosy?" asked her papa, when she had looked at them a little while. "god," said rosy, softly; "god made everything, didn't he, papa? why did he make the cows?" she asked, after thinking a minute. "to give us good milk, such as you had yesterday, rosy, and to make you and other little girls and boys fat and strong. was not that very good of god!" "yes, papa," said rosy, again. "then will you remember that, my little one, when you say, by and by, 'i thank god for my nice bread and milk'?" rosy said she would, and then she asked,-"and do the pretty cows give us coffee, too, papa?" [illustration: "and do the pretty cows give us coffee, too, papa."] "no, no, my silly little rosy; don't you recollect that we buy that at the grocer's shop? we must go some day and ask him to let you see it ground up to powder. the coffee comes from a long, long way off. it grows on a tree in a very hot country, and looks like little berries till they put it into a mill and turn a handle. then the berries are ground up to powder, and we put some boiling water over the powder, and when it gets cool we drink it. haven't you seen mamma pour it out into the cup and put some sugar and milk in for herself and papa?" rosy remembered now; but she had not taken much notice before, because she did not like coffee at all. she liked her nice milk much better; and so when she went away with her papa she called out,-"good by, dear cowies, and thank you very much for my nice milk." rosy wanted to walk round the other side where there was a very gentle, kind-looking cow, that was not in the water, because she thought that she would like to stroke her; but her papa told her to look at those two great horns. and he said that cows did not like little girls to take liberties with them unless they knew them, and that this cow did not know her, and might think her very saucy, and poke out her horns to teach her to keep a proper distance. if she did, he said he thought rosy would not like that poke, for it might hurt her, so he advised her to keep quite out of the good cow's way. then she stood at a little distance to watch her drinking, and rosy's papa said,-"see how she enjoys it! cows like to come here sometimes, like little girls; but french cows don't get out of their houses so often as english ones." "don't they, papa?" said rosy. "then i should think they must often wish to go to england." papa laughed, and said,-"perhaps they would wish it if they knew how their english cousins enjoy themselves; but i think they look pretty happy; don't you, rosy?" rosy said,-"yes, papa; but how funnily the cow drinks! she puts her head into the water." "and you think that if she were a polite cow she would not think of doing such a vulgar thing, but would wait till they gave her a glass; eh, rosy?" "she hasn't got any hands, papa," cried rosy, "so she couldn't, i 'spose." "no," said papa; "so i think that we must excuse and forgive the poor thing, until rosy can teach her a better plan." and rosy trotted home by his side, thinking how much she should like to try drinking after the cow's fashion. [illustration] rosy's visit to the hens. rosy was very hungry when she got home to breakfast, for the fresh morning air had given her an appetite. her mamma took off her hat and her little jacket, and said,-"so, rosy, you have brought me two more roses." "but my roses don't smell, mamma," said rosy, laughing and patting her own fat cheeks, as she always did when mamma said that. then she made haste to scramble up on to her little chair, and pull her nice basin of bread and milk close to her. she looked at her papa after she had said her little grace, and said,-"i didn't forget, papa." then she began to eat away as if she liked it very much; and when she had eaten a little, her mamma said,-"look here, rosy." and rosy turned round and saw a whole spoonful of egg waiting for her to eat it. mamma was holding it for her; and it looked so yellow and so delicious! rosy opened her mouth, but she did not take it all in at once. it was too good for that, and she thought it better to make it last a little. but some of the yellow would stick on rosy's lips; so mamma wiped it off, and then rosy put her arms round her neck and kissed her, and said,-"so nice, dear mamma." then mamma said,-"at the end of the garden, rosy, there lives the good hen that gave us this nice egg, and a great many other hens, and very fine cocks too,--the cocks that you heard crowing this morning. shall we go and see them after breakfast?" "o, yes, yes, yes!" cried rosy, clapping her hands, "that will be fun. i've almost done mine;" and the little girl made great haste to finish her bread and milk; but mamma said,-"ah, but not quite directly. i've not done my breakfast. if you have done yours, you had better go and see what nurse is doing, and ask her to get ready to come and hear papa read about daniel in the lions' den." rosy did not mind waiting for that, for she was never tired of hearing that story. i dare say that some of her young friends know it too. her mamma got ready soon after, and they both went round to a part of the garden which rosy had not seen before. there they saw that one piece was railed off from all the rest, and that a hen-house was inside it. rosy's mamma opened a gate in the railing, and took her little girl into the enclosure amongst all the cocks and hens. the cocks did not seem much to like this, and they both made a great crowing, and then marched off into the farthest corner, with a lot of hens after them. rosy said,-"o, mamma, show them the nice seed, and then they won't go away!" but her mamma answered,-"not yet, rosy; let us go first and look at these good ladies that are walking about inside their house. we can have a good look at them before they get away. see, they can't get out if we stand at the door." "ah, look at these beauties, all over speckly feathers," cried rosy, as she ran forward to catch one. she put out her little arms to seize her; but the hen seemed to think this a great liberty from so small a child, and instead of running away, she turned and opened her beak in a very angry manner. "take care, rosy," said her mamma, as the little girl drew back half frightened. "this hen seems rather a fierce lady. i will give her some seed to persuade her to be quiet. perhaps she has got something there that she does not choose us to see. i wonder what it can be." rosy took one more peep, and then called out,-"o, mamma, mamma, some little chickens, i do declare! if you stoop down you can see them running about behind her,--such dear, pretty, soft little creatures! do get me one to play with." "little chickens!" said mamma; "why, they must have come out of their shells very late in the year if they are little ones still, and i am afraid their mother won't let me touch them." "do chickens come out of shells?" said rosy, making very large eyes, and looking quite puzzled. "yes, rosy, out of just such shells as our eggs had this morning; and if in the summer we had given this good hen five or six of her own eggs in this little house of hers, she would have sat upon them, and spread her wings over them to keep them warm; and there she would have staid so patiently all day long, and day after day, until the dear little chickens were ready to come too." "and wouldn't the hen get tired?" said rosy. "i shouldn't like to stay still so long." "no, i don't think you would," said her mamma, chucking her little girl under the chin; "but then, you see, you are like the little chickens, and not like the mamma hen. i think you will find that she has not got tired even yet, for if you peep down again you will see that she is keeping two of the little chickens warm under her even now. little chickens are like little babies, and they very soon get cold, so they like keeping very close to their mammas." "are the little chickens naughty sometimes?" asked rosy. [illustration: "if you stoop down you will see that she is keeping two of the little chickens warm under her."] "well, i don't know, rosy; but i know that i have often thought it very pretty to see how they will all run to their mother when the great hen clucks for them." "o, mamma, i should _so_ like to hear her cluck," cried rosy, clapping her hands. "well, rosy, you go a little way off, and keep quite quiet; and then i will see if i can tempt the good lady out of her nest with some of this nice seed." so rosy ran away, and her mamma stepped back a few paces and threw down some of the seed. the hen saw it directly, and looked for an instant as if she would like some very much; and she did not wait long, but soon stepped out of her house, and began picking up the seed. just at that moment a cat came creeping along the outside of the paling, and watching to see if she could pounce on one of the little chickens. the hen saw the cat, and began to stretch out her neck very fiercely, as if she meant to fly at its eyes, and then began to cluck for her little ones, which all came running to her as fast as their legs would carry them. rosy's little eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she went up and put her hand into her mamma's, and said softly,-"wasn't it nice?" "yes, rosy," said her mamma, "and i hope that my little chicken will always run to my side as quickly as these did to their mother. you see she knew that they were in danger when they didn't themselves; and so do i sometimes when my rosy thinks she is quite safe." [illustration] * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page 7, "the" changed to "she" (so that she) [illustration: "her eyes brightened as they fell upon a glass of rosy laurel and delicate maidenhair fern."--frontispiece.] mountain-laurel and maidenhair by louisa m. alcott author of "little men," "little women," "may flowers," "poppies and wheat," etc. illustrated boston little, brown, and company _copyright_, 1887, by louisa m. alcott. _copyright_, 1903, by john s. p. alcott. university press john wilson and son, cambridge, u.s.a. mountain-laurel and maidenhair "here's your breakfast, miss. i hope it's right. your mother showed me how to fix it, and said i'd find a cup up here." "take that blue one. i have not much appetite, and can't eat if things are not nice and pretty. i like the flowers. i've been longing for some ever since i saw them last night." the first speaker was a red-haired, freckled-faced girl, in a brown calico dress and white apron, with a tray in her hands and an air of timid hospitality in her manner; the second a pale, pretty creature, in a white wrapper and blue net, sitting in a large chair, looking about her with the languid interest of an invalid in a new place. her eyes brightened as they fell upon a glass of rosy laurel and delicate maidenhair fern that stood among the toast and eggs, strawberries and cream, on the tray. "our laurel is jest in blow, and i'm real glad you come in time to see it. i'll bring you a lot, as soon's ever i get time to go for it." as she spoke, the plain girl replaced the ugly crockery cup and saucer with the pretty china ones pointed out to her, arranged the dishes, and waited to see if anything else was needed. "what is your name, please?" asked the pretty girl, refreshing herself with a draught of new milk. "rebecca. mother thought i'd better wait on you; the little girls are so noisy and apt to forget. wouldn't you like a piller to your back? you look so kind of feeble seems as if you wanted to be propped up a mite." there was so much compassion and good-will in the face and voice, that emily accepted the offer, and let rebecca arrange a cushion behind her; then, while the one ate daintily, and the other stirred about an inner room, the talk went on,--for two girls are seldom long silent when together. "i think the air is going to suit me, for i slept all night and never woke till mamma had been up ever so long and got things all nicely settled," said emily, graciously, when the fresh strawberries had been enjoyed, and the bread and butter began to vanish. "i'm real glad you like it: most folks do, if they don't mind it being plain and quiet up here. it's gayer down at the hotel, but the air ain't half so good, and delicate folks generally like our old place best," answered becky, as she tossed over a mattress and shook out the sheets with a brisk, capable air pleasant to see. "i wanted to go to the hotel, but the doctor said it would be too noisy for me, so mamma was glad to find rooms here. i didn't think a farm-house _could_ be so pleasant. that view is perfectly splendid!" and emily sat up to gaze delightedly out of the window, below which spread the wide intervale, through which the river ran with hay-fields on either side, while along the green slopes of the hills lay farm-houses with garden plots, and big barns waiting for the harvest; and beyond, the rocky, wooded pastures dotted with cattle and musical with cow-bells, brooks, and birds. a balmy wind kissed a little color into the pale cheeks, the listless eyes brightened as they looked, and the fretful lines vanished from lips that smiled involuntarily at the sweet welcome nature gave the city child come to rest and play and grow gay and rosy in her green lap. becky watched her with interest, and was glad to see how soon the new-comer felt the charm of the place, for the girl loved her mountain home, and thought the old farm-house the loveliest spot in the world. "when you get stronger i can show you lots of nice views round here. there's a woodsy place behind the house that's just lovely. down by the laurel bushes is _my_ favorite spot, and among the rocks is a cave where i keep things handy when i get a resting-spell now and then, and want to be quiet. can't get much at home, when there's boarders and five children round in vacation time." becky laughed as she spoke, and there was a sweet motherly look in her plain face, as she glanced at the three little red heads bobbing about the door-yard below, where hens cackled, a pet lamb fed, and the old white dog lay blinking in the sun. "i like children; we have none at home, and mamma makes such a baby of me i'm almost ashamed sometimes. i want her to have a good rest now, for she has taken care of me all winter and needs it. you shall be my nurse, if i need one; but i hope to be so well soon that i can see to myself. it's so tiresome to be ill!" and emily sighed as she leaned back among her pillows, with a glance at the little glass which showed her a thin face and shorn head. "it must be! i never was sick, but i have taken care of sick folks, and have a sight of sympathy for 'em. mother says i make a pretty good nurse, being strong and quiet," answered becky, plumping up pillows and folding towels with a gentle despatch which was very grateful to the invalid, who had dreaded a noisy, awkward serving-maid. "never ill! how nice that must be! i'm always having colds and headaches, and fusses of some kind. what do you do to keep well, rebecca?" asked emily, watching her with interest, as she came in to remove the tray. "nothing but work; i haven't time to be sick, and when i'm tuckered out, i go and rest over yonder. then i'm all right, and buckle to again, as smart as ever;" and every freckle in becky's rosy face seemed to shine with cheerful strength and courage. "i'm 'tuckered out' doing nothing," said emily, amused with the new expression, and eager to try a remedy which showed such fine results in this case. "i shall visit your pet places and do a little work as soon as i am able, and see if it won't set me up. now i can only dawdle, doze, and read a little. will you please put those books here on the table? i shall want them by-and-by." emily pointed to a pile of blue and gold volumes lying on a trunk, and becky dusted her hands as she took them up with an air of reverence, for she read on the backs of the volumes names which made her eyes sparkle. "do you care for poetry?" asked emily, surprised at the girl's look and manner. "guess i do! don't get much except the pieces i cut out of papers, but i love 'em, and stick 'em in an old ledger, and keep it down in my cubby among the rocks. i do love _that_ man's pieces. they seem to go right to the spot somehow;" and becky smiled at the name of whittier as if the sweetest of our poets was a dear old friend of hers. "i like tennyson better. do you know him?" asked emily, with a superior air, for the idea of this farmer's daughter knowing anything about poetry amused her. "oh yes, i've got a number of his pieces in my book, and i'm fond of 'em. but this man makes things so kind of true and natural i feel at home with _him_. and this one i've longed to read, though i guess i can't understand much of it. his 'bumble bee' was just lovely; with the grass and columbines and the yellow breeches of the bee. i'm never tired of that;" and becky's face woke up into something like beauty as she glanced hungrily at the emerson while she dusted the delicate cover that hid the treasures she coveted. "i don't care much for him, but mamma does. i like romantic poems, and ballads, and songs; don't like descriptions of clouds, and fields, and bees, and farmers," said emily, showing plainly that even emerson's simplest poems were far above her comprehension as yet, because she loved sentiment more than nature. "i do, because i know 'em better than love and the romantic stuff most poetry tells about. but i don't pretend to judge, i'm glad of anything i can get. now if you don't want me i'll pick up my dishes and go to work." with that becky went away, leaving emily to rest and dream with her eyes on the landscape which was giving her better poetry than any her books held. she told her mother about the odd girl, and was sure she would be amusing if she did not forget her place and try to be friends. "she is a good creature, my dear, her mother's main stay, and works beyond her strength, i am sure. be kind to the poor girl, and put a little pleasure into her life if you can," answered mrs. spenser, as she moved about, settling comforts and luxuries for her invalid. "i shall _have_ to talk to her, as there is no other person of my age in the house. how are the school marms? shall you get on with them, mamma? it will be so lonely here for us both, if we don't make friends with some one." "most intelligent and amiable women all three, and we shall have pleasant times together, i am sure. you may safely cultivate becky; mrs. taylor told me she was a remarkably bright girl, though she may not look it." "well, i'll see. but i do hate freckles and big red hands, and round shoulders. she can't help it, i suppose, but ugly things fret me." "remember that she has no time to be pretty, and be glad she is so neat and willing. shall we read, dear? i'm ready now." emily consented, and listened for an hour or two while the pleasant voice beside her conjured away all her vapors with some of mrs. ewing's charming tales. "the grass is dry now, and i want to stroll on that green lawn before lunch. you rest, mamma dear, and let me make discoveries all alone," proposed emily, when the sun shone warmly, and the instinct of all young creatures for air and motion called her out. so, with her hat and wrap, and book and parasol, she set forth to explore the new land in which she found herself. down the wide, creaking stairs and out upon the door-stone she went, pausing there for a moment to decide where first to go. the sound of some one singing in the rear of the house led her in that direction, and turning the corner she made her first pleasant discovery. a hill rose steeply behind the farm-house, and leaning from the bank was an old apple-tree, shading a spring that trickled out from the rocks and dropped into a mossy trough below. up the tree had grown a wild grape-vine, making a green canopy over the great log which served as a seat, and some one had planted maidenhair ferns about both seat and spring to flourish beautifully in the damp, shady spot. "oh, how pretty! i'll go and sit there. it looks clean, and i can see what is going on in that big kitchen, and hear the singing. i suppose it's becky's little sisters by the racket." emily established herself on the lichen-covered log with her feet upon a stone, and sat enjoying the musical tinkle of the water, with her eyes on the delicate ferns stirring in the wind, and the lively jingle of the multiplication-table chanted by childish voices in her ear. presently two little girls with a great pan of beans came to do their work on the back door-step, a third was seen washing dishes at a window, and becky's brown-spotted gown flew about the kitchen as if a very energetic girl wore it. a woman's voice was heard giving directions, as the speaker was evidently picking chickens somewhere out of sight. a little of the talk reached emily and both amused and annoyed her, for it proved that the country people were not as stupid as they looked. "oh, well, we mustn't mind if she _is_ notional and kind of wearing; she's been sick, and it will take time to get rid of her fretty ways. jest be pleasant, and take no notice, and that nice mother of hers will make it all right," said the woman's voice. "how anybody with every mortal thing to be happy with _can_ be out-of-sorts passes me. she fussed about every piller, chair, trunk, and mite of food last night, and kept that poor tired lady trotting till i was provoked. she's right pleasant this morning though, and as pretty as a picture in her ruffled gown and that blue thing on her head," answered becky from the pantry, as she rattled out the pie-board, little dreaming who sat hidden behind the grape-vine festoons that veiled the corner by the spring. "well, she's got redder hair 'n' we have, so she needn't be so grand and try to hide it with blue nets," added one little voice. "yes, and it's ever so much shorter 'n' ours, and curls all over her head like daisy's wool. i should think such a big girl would feel real ashamed without no braids," said the other child, proudly surveying the tawny mane that hung over her shoulders,--for like most red-haired people all the children were blessed with luxuriant crops of every shade from golden auburn to regular carrots. "i think it's lovely. suppose it had to be cut off when she had the fever. wish i could get rid of my mop, it's such a bother;" and becky was seen tying a clean towel over the great knot that made her head look very like a copper kettle. "now fly round, deary, and get them pies ready. i'll have these fowls on in a minute, and then go to my butter. you run off and see if you can't find some wild strawberries for the poor girl, soon's ever you are through with them beans, children. we must kind of pamper her up for a spell till her appetite comes back," said the mother. here the chat ended, and soon the little girls were gone, leaving becky alone rolling out pie-crust before the pantry window. as she worked her lips moved, and emily, still peeping through the leaves, wondered what she was saying, for a low murmur rose and fell, emphasized now and then with a thump of the rolling-pin. "i mean to go and find out. if i stand on that wash-bench i can look in and see her work. i'll show them all that _i_'m _not_ 'fussy,' and can be 'right pleasant' if i like." with this wise resolution emily went down the little path, and after pausing to examine the churn set out to dry, and the row of pans shining on a neighboring shelf, made her way to the window, mounted the bench while becky's back was turned, and pushing away the morning-glory vines and scarlet beans that ran up on either side peeped in with such a smiling face that the crossest cook could not have frowned on her as an intruder. "may i see you work? i can't eat pies, but i like to watch people make them. do you mind?" "not a bit. i'd ask you to come in, but it's dreadful hot here, and not much room," answered becky, crimping round the pastry before she poured in the custard. "i'm going to make a nice little pudding for you; your mother said you liked 'em; or would you rather have whipped cream with a mite of jelly in it?" asked becky, anxious to suit her new boarder. "whichever is easiest to make. i don't care what i eat. do tell me what you were saying. it sounded like poetry," said emily, leaning both elbows on the wide ledge with a pale pink morning-glory kissing her cheek, and a savory odor reaching her nose. "oh, i was mumbling some verses. i often do when i work, it sort of helps me along; but it must sound dreadful silly," and becky blushed as if caught in some serious fault. "i do it, and it's a great comfort when i lie awake. i should think you _would_ want something to help you along, you work so hard. do you like it, becky?" the familiar name, the kind tone, made the plain face brighten with pleasure as its owner said, while she carefully filled a pretty bowl with a golden mixture rich with fresh eggs and country milk,-"no, i don't, but i ought to. mother isn't as strong as she used to be, and there's a sight to do, and the children to be brought up, and the mortgage to be paid off; so if _i_ don't fly round, who will? we are doing real well now, for mr. walker manages the farm and gives us our share, so our living is all right; then boarders in summer and my school in winter help a deal, and every year the boys can do more, so i'd be a real sinner to complain if i do have to step lively all day." becky smiled as she spoke, and straightened her bent shoulders as if settling her burden for another trudge along the path of duty. "do you keep school? why, how old are you, becky?" asked emily, much impressed by this new discovery. "i'm eighteen. i took the place of a teacher who got sick last fall, and i kept school all winter. folks seemed to like me, and i'm going to have the same place this year. i'm so glad, for i needn't go away, and the pay is pretty good, as the school is large and the children do well. you can see the school-house down the valley, that red brick one where the roads meet;" and becky pointed a floury finger, with an air of pride that was pleasant to see. emily glanced at the little red house where the sun shone hotly in summer, and all the winds of heaven must rage wildly in winter time, for it stood, as country schools usually do, in the barest, most uninviting spot for miles around. "isn't it awful down there in winter?" she asked, with a shiver at the idea of spending days shut up in that forlorn place, with a crowd of rough country children. "pretty cold, but we have plenty of wood, and we are used to snow and gales up here. we often coast down, the whole lot of us, and that is great fun. we take our dinners and have games noon-spells, and so we get on first rate; some of my boys are big fellows, older than i am, and they clear the roads and make the fire and look after us, and we are real happy together." emily found it so impossible to imagine happiness under such circumstances that she changed the subject by asking in a tone which had unconsciously grown more respectful since this last revelation of becky's abilities,-"if you do so well here, why don't you try for a larger school in a better place?" "oh, i couldn't leave mother yet; i hope to some day, when the girls are older, and the boys able to get on alone. but i can't go now, for there's a sight of things to do, and mother is always laid up with rheumatism in cold weather. so much butter-making down cellar is bad for her; but she won't let me do that in summer, so i take care of her in winter. i can see to things night and morning, and through the day she's quiet, and sits piecing carpet-rags and resting up for next spring. we made and wove all the carpets in the house, except the parlor one. mrs. taylor gave us that, and the curtains, and the easy-chair. mother takes a sight of comfort in that." "mrs. taylor is the lady who first came to board here, and told us and others about it," said emily. "yes, and she's the kindest lady in the world! i'll tell you all about her some day, it's real interesting; now i must see to my pies, and get the vegetables on," answered becky, glancing at the gay clock in the kitchen with an anxious look. "then i won't waste any more of your precious time. may i sit in that pretty place; or is it your private bower?" asked emily, as she dismounted from the wash-bench. "yes, indeed you may. that's mother's resting place when work is done. father made the spring long ago, and i put the ferns there. she can't go rambling round, and she likes pretty things, so we fixed it up for her, and she takes comfort there nights." becky bustled off to the oven with her pies, and emily roamed away to the big barn to lie on the hay, enjoying the view down the valley, as she thought over what she had seen and heard, and very naturally contrasted her own luxurious and tenderly guarded life with this other girl's, so hard and dull and narrow. working all summer and teaching all winter in that dismal little school-house, with no change but home cares and carpet-weaving! it looked horrible to pleasure-loving emily, who led the happy, care-free life of girls of her class, with pleasures of all sorts, and a future of still greater luxury, variety, and happiness, opening brightly before her. it worried her to think of any one being contented with such a meagre share of the good things of life, when she was unsatisfied in spite of the rich store showered upon her. she could not understand it, and fell asleep wishing every one could be comfortable,--it was so annoying to see them grubbing in kitchens, teaching in bleak school-houses among snow-drifts, and wearing ugly calico gowns. a week or two of quiet, country fare and the bracing mountain air worked wonders for the invalid, and every one rejoiced to see the pale cheeks begin to grow round and rosy, the languid eyes to brighten, and the feeble girl who used to lie on her sofa half the day now go walking about with her alpenstock, eager to explore all the pretty nooks among the hills. her mother blessed mrs. taylor for suggesting this wholesome place. the tired "school marms," as emily called the three young women who were their fellow-boarders, congratulated her as well as themselves on the daily improvement in strength and spirits all felt; and becky exulted in the marvellous effects of her native air, aided by mother's good cookery and the cheerful society of the children, whom the good girl considered the most remarkable and lovable youngsters in the world. emily felt like the queen of this little kingdom, and was regarded as such by every one, for with returning health she lost her fretful ways, and, living with simple people, soon forgot her girlish airs and vanities, becoming very sweet and friendly with all about her. the children considered her a sort of good fairy who could grant wishes with magical skill, as various gifts plainly proved. the boys were her devoted servants, ready to run errands, "hitch up" and take her to drive at any hour, or listen in mute delight when she sang to her guitar in the summer twilight. but to becky she was a special godsend and comfort, for before the first month had gone they were good friends, and emily had made a discovery which filled her head with brilliant plans for becky's future, in spite of her mother's warnings, and the sensible girl's own reluctance to be dazzled by enthusiastic prophecies and dreams. it came about in this way. some three weeks after the two girls met, emily went one evening to their favorite trysting-place,--becky's bower among the laurels. it was a pretty nook in the shadow of a great gray bowlder near the head of the green valley which ran down to spread into the wide intervale below. a brook went babbling among the stones and grass and sweet-ferns, while all the slope was rosy with laurel-flowers in their time, as the sturdy bushes grew thickly on the hill-side, down the valley, and among the woods that made a rich background for these pink and white bouquets arranged with nature's own careless grace. emily liked this spot, and ever since she had been strong enough to reach it, loved to climb up and sit there with book and work, enjoying the lovely panorama before her. floating mists often gave her a constant succession of pretty pictures; now a sunny glimpse of the distant lake, then the church spire peeping above the hill, or a flock of sheep feeding in the meadow, a gay procession of young pilgrims winding up the mountain, or a black cloud heavy with a coming storm, welcome because of the glorious rainbow and its shadow which would close the pageant. unconsciously the girl grew to feel not only the beauty but the value of these quiet hours, to find a new peace, refreshment, and happiness, bubbling up in her heart as naturally as the brook gushed out among the mossy rocks, and went singing away through hay-fields and gardens, and by dusty roads, till it met the river and rolled on to the sea. something dimly stirred in her, and the healing spirit that haunts such spots did its sweet ministering till the innocent soul began to see that life was not perfect without labor as well as love, duty as well as happiness, and that true contentment came from within, not from without. on the evening we speak of, she went to wait for becky, who would join her as soon as the after-supper chores were done. in the little cave which held a few books, a dipper, and a birch-bark basket for berries, emily kept a sketching block and a box of pencils, and often amused herself by trying to catch some of the lovely scenes before her. these efforts usually ended in a humbler attempt, and a good study of an oak-tree, a bit of rock, or a clump of ferns was the result. this evening the sunset was so beautiful she could not draw, and remembering that somewhere in becky's scrap-book there was a fine description of such an hour by some poet, she pulled out the shabby old volume, and began to turn over the leaves. she had never cared to look at it but once, having read all the best of its contents in more attractive volumes, so becky kept it tucked away in the farther corner of her rustic closet, and evidently thought it a safe place to conceal a certain little secret which emily now discovered. as she turned the stiff pages filled with all sorts of verses, good, bad, and indifferent, a sheet of paper appeared on which was scribbled these lines in school-girl handwriting:-mountain-laurel my bonnie flower, with truest joy thy welcome face i see, the world grows brighter to my eyes, and summer comes with thee. my solitude now finds a friend, and after each hard day, i in my mountain garden walk, to rest, or sing, or pray. all down the rocky slope is spread thy veil of rosy snow, and in the valley by the brook, thy deeper blossoms grow. the barren wilderness grows fair, such beauty dost thou give; and human eyes and nature's heart rejoice that thou dost live. each year i wait thy coming, dear, each year i love thee more, for life grows hard, and much i need thy honey for my store. so, like a hungry bee, i sip sweet lessons from thy cup, and sitting at a flower's feet, my soul learns to look up. no laurels shall i ever win, no splendid blossoms bear, but gratefully receive and use god's blessed sun and air; and, blooming where my lot is cast grow happy and content, making some barren spot more fair, for a humble life well spent. [illustration: "she wrote it herself!"--page 23.] "she wrote it herself! i can't believe it!" said emily, as she put down the paper, looking rather startled, for she _did_ believe it, and felt as if she had suddenly looked into a fellow-creature's heart. "i thought her just an ordinary girl, and here she is a poet, writing verses that make me want to cry! i don't suppose they _are_ very good, but they seem to come right out of her heart, and touch me with the longing and the patience or the piety in them. well, i _am_ surprised!" and emily read the lines again, seeing the faults more plainly than before, but still feeling that the girl put herself into them, vainly trying to express what the wild flower was to her in the loneliness which comes to those who have a little spark of the divine fire burning in their souls. "shall i tell her i've found it out? i must! and see if i can't get her verses printed. of course she has more tucked away somewhere. that is what she hums to herself when she's at work, and won't tell me about when i ask. sly thing! to be so bashful and hide her gift. i'll tease her a bit and see what she says. oh dear, i wish _i_ could do it! perhaps she'll be famous some day, and then i'll have the glory of discovering her." with that consolation emily turned over the pages of the ledger and found several more bits of verse, some very good for an untaught girl, others very faulty, but all having a certain strength of feeling and simplicity of language unusual in the effusions of young maidens at the sentimental age. emily had a girlish admiration for talent of any kind, and being fond of poetry, was especially pleased to find that her humble friend possessed the power of writing it. of course she exaggerated becky's talent, and as she waited for her, felt sure that she had discovered a feminine burns among the new hampshire hills, for all the verses were about natural and homely objects, touched into beauty by sweet words or tender sentiment. she had time to build a splendid castle in the air and settle becky in it with a crown of glory on her head, before the quiet figure in a faded sunbonnet came slowly up the slope with the glow of sunset on a tired but tranquil face. "sit here and have a good rest, while i talk to you," said emily, eager to act the somewhat dramatic scene she had planned. becky sunk upon the red cushion prepared for her, and sat looking down at the animated speaker, as emily, perched on a mossy stone before her, began the performance. "becky, did you ever hear of the goodale children? they lived in the country and wrote poetry and grew to be famous." "oh yes, i've read their poems and like 'em very much. do you know 'em?" and becky looked interested at once. "no, but i once met a girl who was something like them, only she didn't have such an easy time as they did, with a father to help, and a nice sky-farm, and good luck generally. i've tried to write verses myself, but i always get into a muddle, and give it up. this makes me interested in other girls who _can_ do it, and i want to help my friend. i'm _sure_ she has talent, and i'd so like to give her a lift in some way. let me read you a piece of hers and see what you think of it." "do!" and becky threw off the sunbonnet, folded her hands round her knees, and composed herself to listen with such perfect unconsciousness of what was coming that emily both laughed at the joke and blushed at the liberty she felt she was taking with the poor girl's carefully hidden secret. becky was sure now that emily was going to read something of her own after this artful introduction, and began to smile as the paper was produced and the first four lines read in a tone that was half timid, half triumphant. then with a cry she seized and crumpled up the paper, exclaiming almost fiercely,-"it's mine! where did you get it? how dar'st you touch it?" emily fell upon her knees with a face and voice so full of penitence, pleasure, sympathy, and satisfaction, that becky's wrath was appeased before her friend's explanation ended with these soothing and delightful words,-"that's all, dear, and i beg your pardon. but i'm sure you will be famous if you keep on, and i shall yet see a volume of poems by rebecca moore of rocky nook, new hampshire." becky hid her face as if shame, surprise, wonder, and joy filled her heart too full and made a few happy tears drop on the hands so worn with hard work, when they ached to be holding a pen and trying to record the fancies that sung in her brain as ceaselessly as the soft sough of the pines or the ripple of the brook murmured in her ear when she sat here alone. she could not express the vague longings that stirred in her soul; she could only feel and dimly strive to understand and utter them, with no thought of fame or fortune,--for she was a humble creature, and never knew that the hardships of her life were pressing out the virtues of her nature as the tread of careless feet crush the sweet perfume from wild herbs. presently she looked up, deeply touched by emily's words and caresses, and her blue eyes shone like stars as her face beamed with something finer than mere beauty, for the secrets of her innocent heart were known to this friend now, and it was very sweet to accept the first draught of confidence and praise. "i don't mind much, but i was scared for a minute. no one knows but mother, and she laughs at me, though she don't care if it makes me happy. i'm glad you like my scribbling, but really i never think or hope of being anybody. i couldn't, you know! but it's real nice to have you say i _might_ and to make believe for a little while." "but why not, becky? the goodale girls did, and half the poets in the world were poor, ignorant people at first, you know. it only needs time and help, and the gift will grow, and people see it; and then the glory and the money will come," cried emily, quite carried away by her own enthusiasm and good-will. "could i get any money by these things?" asked becky, looking at the crumpled paper lying under a laurel-bush. "of course you could, dear! let me have some of them, and i'll show you that i know good poetry when i see it. you will believe if some bank-bills come with the paper the verses appear in, i hope?" blind to any harm she might do by exciting vain hopes in her eagerness to cheer and help, emily made this rash proposal in all good faith, meaning to pay for the verses herself if no editor was found to accept them. becky looked half bewildered by this brilliant prospect, and took a long breath, as if some hand had lifted a heavy burden a little way from her weary back, for stronger than ambition for herself was love for her family, and the thought of help for them was sweeter than any dream of fame. "yes, i would! oh, if i only _could_, i'd be the happiest girl in the world! but i can't believe it, emily. i heard mrs. taylor say that only the _very best_ poetry paid, and mine is poor stuff, i know well enough." "of course it needs polishing and practice and all that; but i'm sure it is oceans better than half the sentimental twaddle we see in the papers, and i _know_ that some of those pieces _are_ paid for, because i have a friend who is in a newspaper office, and he told me so. yours are quaint and simple and some very original. i'm sure that ballad of the old house is lovely, and i want to send it to whittier. mamma knows him; it's the sort he likes, and he is so kind to every one, he will criticise it, and be interested when she tells him about you. do let me!" "i never could in the world! it would be so bold, mother would think i was crazy. i love mr. whittier, but i wouldn't dar'st to show him my nonsense, though reading his beautiful poetry helps me ever so much." becky looked and spoke as if her breath had been taken away by this audacious proposal; and yet a sudden delicious hope sprung up in her heart that there might, perhaps, be a spark of real virtue in the little fire which burned within her, warming and brightening her dull life. "let us ask mamma; she will tell us what is best to do first, for she knows all sorts of literary people, and won't say any more than you want her to. i'm bent on having my way, becky, and the more modest you are, the surer i am that you are a genius. real geniuses always _are_ shy; so you just make up your mind to give me the best of your pieces, and let me prove that i'm right." it was impossible to resist such persuasive words, and becky soon yielded to the little siren who was luring her out of her safe, small pool into the deeper water that looks so blue and smooth till the venturesome paper boats get into the swift eddies, or run aground upon the rocks and sandbars. the greatest secrecy was to be preserved, and no one but mrs. spenser was to know what a momentous enterprise was afoot. the girls sat absorbed in their brilliant plans till it was nearly dark, then groped their way home hand in hand, leaving another secret for the laurels to keep and dream over through their long sleep, for blossom time was past, and the rosy faces turning pale in the july sun. neither of the girls forgot the talk they had that night in emily's room, for she led her captive straight to her mother, and told her all their plans and aspirations without a moment's delay. mrs. spenser much regretted her daughter's well-meant enthusiasm, but fearing harm might be done, very wisely tried to calm the innocent excitement of both by the quiet matter-of-fact way in which she listened to the explanation emily gave her, read the verses timidly offered by becky, and then said, kindly but firmly:-"this is not poetry, my dear girls, though the lines run smoothly enough, and the sentiment is sweet. it would bring neither fame nor money, and rebecca puts more real truth, beauty, and poetry into her dutiful daily life than in any lines she has written." "we had such a lovely plan for becky to come to town with me, and see the world, and write, and be famous. how can you spoil it all?" "my foolish little daughter, i must prevent you from spoiling this good girl's life by your rash projects. becky will see that i am wise, though you do not, and _she_ will understand this verse from my favorite poet, and lay it to heart:- "so near is grandeur to our dust, so nigh is god to man, when duty whispers low, 'thou must!' the youth replies, 'i can!'" "i do! i will! please go on," and becky's troubled eyes grew clear and steadfast as she took the words home to herself, resolving to live up to them. "oh, mother!" cried emily, thinking her very cruel to nip their budding hopes in this way. "i know you won't believe it now, nor be able to see all that i mean perhaps, but time will teach you both to own that i am right, and to value the substance more than the shadow," continued mrs. spenser. "many girls write verses and think they are poets; but it is only a passing mood, and fortunately for the world, and for them also, it soon dies out in some more genuine work or passion. very few have the real gift, and those to whom it _is_ given wait and work and slowly reach the height of their powers. many delude themselves, and try to persuade the world that they can sing; but it is waste of time, and ends in disappointment, as the mass of sentimental rubbish we all see plainly proves. write your little verses, my dear, when the spirit moves,--it is a harmless pleasure, a real comfort, and a good lesson for you; but do not neglect higher duties or deceive yourself with false hopes and vain dreams. 'first live, then write,' is a good motto for ambitious young people. a still better for us all is, 'do the duty that lies nearest;' and the faithful performance of that, no matter how humble it is, will be the best help for whatever talent may lie hidden in us, ready to bloom when the time comes. remember this, and do not let my enthusiastic girl's well-meant but unwise prophecies and plans unsettle you, and unfit you for the noble work you are doing." "thank you, ma'am! i _will_ remember; i know you are right, and i won't be upset by foolish notions. i never imagined before that i _could_ be a poet; but it sounded so sort of splendid, i thought maybe it _might_ happen to me, by-and-by, as it does to other folks. i won't lot on it, but settle right down and do my work cheerful." as she listened, becky's face had grown pale and serious, even a little sad; but as she answered, her eyes shone, her lips were firm, and her plain face almost beautiful with the courage and confidence that sprung up within her. she saw the wisdom of her friend's advice, felt the kindness of showing her the mistake frankly, and was grateful for it,--conscious in her own strong, loving heart that it _was_ better to live and work for others than to dream and strive for herself alone. mrs. spenser was both surprised and touched by the girl's look, words, and manner, and her respect much increased by the courage and good temper with which she saw her lovely castle in the air vanish like smoke, leaving the hard reality looking harder than ever, after this little flight into the fairy regions of romance. she talked long with the girls, and gave them the counsel all eager young people need, yet are very slow to accept till experience teaches them its worth. as the friend of many successful literary people, mrs. spenser was constantly receiving the confidences of unfledged scribblers, each of whom was sure that he or she had something valuable to add to the world's literature. her advice was always the same, "work and wait;" and only now and then was a young poet or author found enough in earnest to do both, and thereby prove to themselves and others either that they _did_ possess power, or did not, and so settle the question forever. "first live, then write," proved a _quietus_ for many, and "do the duty that lies nearest" satisfied the more sincere that they could be happy without fame. so, thanks to this wise and kindly woman, a large number of worthy youths and maidens ceased dreaming and fell to work, and the world was spared reams of feeble verse and third-rate romances. after that night becky spent fewer spare hours in her nest, and more in reading with emily, who lent her books and helped her to understand them,--both much assisted by mrs. spenser, who marked passages, suggested authors, and explained whatever puzzled them. very happy bits of time were these, and very precious to both, as emily learned to see and appreciate the humbler, harder side of life, and becky got delightful glimpses into the beautiful world of art, poetry, and truth, which gave her better food for heart and brain than sentimental musings or blind efforts to satisfy the hunger of her nature with verse-writing. their favorite places were in the big barn, on the front porch, or by the spring. this last was emily's schoolroom, and she both taught and learned many useful lessons there. one day as becky came to rest a few minutes and shell peas, emily put down her book to help; and as the pods flew, she said, nodding toward the delicate ferns that grew thickly all about the trough, the rock, and the grassy bank,-"we have these in our greenhouse, but i never saw them growing wild before, and i don't find them anywhere up here. how did you get such beauties, and make them do so well?" "oh, they grow in nooks on the mountain hidden under the taller ferns, and in sly corners. but they don't grow like these, and die soon unless transplanted and taken good care of. they always make me think of you,--so graceful and delicate, and just fit to live with tea-roses in a hot-house, and go to balls in beautiful ladies' _bo_kays," answered becky, smiling at her new friend, always so dainty, and still so delicate in spite of the summer's rustication. "thank you! i suppose i shall never be very strong or able to do much; so i _am_ rather like a fern, and do live in a conservatory all winter, as i can't go out a great deal. an idle thing, becky!" and emily sighed, for she was born frail, and even her tenderly guarded life could not give her the vigor of other girls. but the sigh changed to a smile as she added,-"if i am like the fern, you are like your own laurel,--strong, rosy, and able to grow anywhere. i want to carry a few roots home, and see if they won't grow in my garden. then you will have me, and i you. i only hope _your_ plant will do as well as mine does here." "it won't! ever so many folks have taken roots away, but they never thrive in gardens as they do on the hills where they belong. so i tell 'em to leave the dear bushes alone, and come up here and enjoy 'em in their own place. you might keep a plant of it in your hot-house, and it would blow i dare say; but it would never be half so lovely as my acres of them, and i guess it would only make you sad, seeing it so far from home, and pale and pining," answered becky, with her eyes on the green slopes where the mountain-laurel braved the wintry snow, and came out fresh and early in the spring. "then i'll let it alone till i come next summer. but don't you take any of the fern into the house in the cold weather? i should think it would grow in your sunny windows," said emily, pleased by the fancy that it resembled herself. "i tried it, but it needs a damp place, and our cold nights kill it. no, it won't grow in our old house; but i cover it with leaves, and the little green sprouts come up as hearty as can be out here. the shade, the spring, the shelter of the rock, keep it alive, you see, so it's no use trying to move it." both sat silent for a few minutes, as their hands moved briskly and they thought of their different lots. an inquisitive ray of sunshine peeped in at them, touching becky's hair till it shone like red gold. the same ray dazzled emily's eyes; she put up her hand to pull her hat-brim lower, and touched the little curls on her forehead. this recalled her pet grievance, and made her say impatiently, as she pushed the thick short locks under her net,-"my hair is _such_ a plague! i don't know what i am to do when i go into society by-and-by. this crop is so unbecoming, and i can't match my hair anywhere, it is such a peculiar shade of golden-auburn." "it's a pretty color, and i think the curls much nicer than a boughten switch," said becky, quite unconscious that her own luxuriant locks were of the true titian red, and would be much admired by artistic eyes. "i don't! i shall send to paris to match it, and then wear a braid round my head as you do sometimes. i suppose it will cost a fortune, but i _won't_ have a strong-minded crop. a friend of mine got a lovely golden switch for fifty dollars." "my patience! do folks pay like that for false hair?" asked becky, amazed. "yes, indeed. white hair costs a hundred, i believe, if it is long. why, you could get ever so much for yours if you ever wanted to sell it. i'll take part of it, for in a little while mine will be as dark, and i'd like to wear your hair, becky." "don't believe mother would let me. she is very proud of our red heads. if i ever do cut it, you shall have some. i may be hard up and glad to sell it perhaps. my sakes! i smell the cake burning!" and off flew becky to forget the chat in her work. emily did not forget it, and hoped becky would be tempted, for she really coveted one of the fine braids, but felt shy about asking the poor girl for even a part of her one beauty. so july and august passed pleasantly and profitably to both girls, and in september they were to part. no more was said about poetry; and emily soon became so interested in the busy, practical life about her that her own high-flown dreams were quite forgotten, and she learned to enjoy the sweet prose of daily labor. one breezy afternoon as she and her mother sat resting from a stroll on the way-side bank among the golden-rod and asters, they saw becky coming up the long hill with a basket on her arm. she walked slowly, as if lost in thought, yet never missed pushing aside with a decided gesture of her foot every stone that lay in her way. there were many in that rocky path, but becky left it smoother as she climbed, and paused now and then to send some especially sharp or large one spinning into the grassy ditch beside the road. "isn't she a curious girl, mamma? so tired after her long walk to town, yet so anxious not to leave a stone in the way," said emily, as they watched her slow approach. "a very interesting one to me, dear, because under that humble exterior lies a fine, strong character. it is like becky to clear her way, even up a dusty hill where the first rain will wash out many more stones. let us ask her why she does it. i've observed the habit before, and always meant to ask," replied mrs. spenser. "here we are! come and rest a minute, becky, and tell us if you mend roads as well as ever so many other things," called emily, beckoning with a smile, as the girl looked up and saw them. "oh, it's a trick of mine; i caught it of father when i was a little thing, and do it without knowing it half the time," said becky, sinking down upon a mossy rock, as if rest were welcome. "why did he do it?" asked emily, who knew that her friend loved to talk of her father. "well, it's a family failing i guess, for his father did the same, only _he_ began with his farm and let the roads alone. the land used to be pretty much all rocks up here, you know, and farmers had to clear the ground if they wanted crops. it was a hard fight, and took a sight of time and patience to grub out roots and blast rocks and pick up stones that seemed to grow faster than anything else. but they kept on, and now see!" as she spoke, becky pointed proudly to the wide, smooth fields lying before them, newly shorn of grass or grain, waving with corn, or rich in garden crops ripening for winter stores. here and there were rocky strips unreclaimed, as if to show what had been done; and massive stone walls surrounded pasture, field, and garden. "a good lesson in patience and perseverance, my dear, and does great honor to the men who made the wilderness blossom like the rose," said mrs. spenser. "then you can't wonder that they loved it and we want to keep it. i guess it would break mother's heart to sell this place, and we are all working as hard as ever we can to pay off the mortgage. then we'll be just the happiest family in new hampshire," said becky, fondly surveying the old farm-house, the rocky hill, and the precious fields won from the forest. "you never need fear to lose it; we will see to that if you will let us," began mrs. spenser, who was both a rich and a generous woman. "oh, thank you! but we won't need help i guess; and if we should, mrs. taylor made us promise to come to her," cried becky. "she found us just in our hardest time, and wanted to fix things then; but we are proud in our way, and mother said she'd rather work it off if she could. then what did that dear lady do but talk to the folks round here, and show 'em how a branch railroad down to peeksville would increase the value of the land, and how good this valley would be for strawberries and asparagus and garden truck if we could only get it to market. some of the rich men took up the plan, and we hope it will be done this fall. it will be the making of us, for our land is first-rate for small crops, and the children can help at that, and with a _deepot_ close by it would be such easy work. that's what i call helping folks to help themselves. won't it be grand?" becky looked so enthusiastic that emily could not remain uninterested, though market-gardening did not sound very romantic. "i hope it will come, and next year we shall see you all hard at it. what a good woman mrs. taylor is!" "ain't she? and the sad part of it is, she can't do and enjoy all she wants to, because her health is so poor. she was a country girl, you know, and went to work in the city as waiter in a boarding-house. a rich man fell in love with her and married her, and she took care of him for years, and he left her all his money. she was quite broken down, but she wanted to make his name loved and honored after his death, as he hadn't done any good while he lived; so she gives away heaps, and is never tired of helping poor folks and doing all sorts of grand things to make the world better. i call that splendid!" "so do i, yet it is only what you are doing in a small way, becky," said mrs. spenser, as the girl paused out of breath. "mrs. taylor clears the stones out of people's paths, making their road easier to climb than hers has been, and leaving behind her fruitful fields for others to reap. this is a better work than making verses, for it is the real poetry of life, and brings to those who give themselves to it, no matter in what humble ways, something sweeter than fame and more enduring than fortune." "so it does! i see that now, and know why we love father as we do, and want to keep what he worked so hard to give us. he used to say every stone cleared away was just so much help to the boys; and he used to tell me his plans as i trotted after him round the farm, helping all i could, being the oldest, and like him, he said." becky paused with full eyes, for not even to these good friends could she ever tell the shifts and struggles in which she had bravely borne her part during the long hard years that had wrested the little homestead from the stony-hearted hills. the musical chime of a distant clock reminded her that supper time was near, and she sprang up as if much refreshed by this pleasant rest by the way-side. as she pulled out her handkerchief, a little roll of pale blue ribbon fell from her pocket, and emily caught it up, exclaiming mischievously, "are you going to make yourself fine next sunday, when moses pennel calls, becky?" [illustration: "just as they were parting for bed, in rushed one of the boys with the exciting news."--page 45.] the girl laughed and blushed as she said, carefully folding up the ribbon,-"i'm going to do something with it that i like a sight better than that. poor moses won't come any more, i guess. i'm not going to leave mother till the girls can take my place, and only then to teach, if i can get a good school somewhere near." "we shall see!" and emily nodded wisely. "we shall!" and becky nodded decidedly, as she trudged on up the steep hill beside mrs. spenser, while emily walked slowly behind, poking every stone she saw into the grass, unmindful of the detriment to her delicate shoes, being absorbed in a new and charming idea of trying to follow mrs. taylor's example in a small way. a week later the last night came, and just as they were parting for bed, in rushed one of the boys with the exciting news that the railroad surveyors were in town, the folks talking about the grand enterprise, and the fortune of the place made forever. great was the rejoicing in the old farm-house; the boys cheered, the little girls danced, the two mothers dropped a happy tear as they shook each other's hands, and emily embraced becky, tenderly exclaiming,--"there, you dear thing, is a great stone shoved out of _your_ way, and a clear road to fortune at last; for i shall tell all my friends to buy your butter and eggs, and fruit and pigs, and everything you send to market on that blessed railroad." "a keg of our best winter butter is going by stage express to-morrow anyway; and when our apples come, we shan't need a railroad to get 'em to you, my darling dear," answered becky, holding the delicate girl in her arms with a look and gesture half sisterly, half motherly, wholly fond and grateful. when emily got to her room, she found that butter and apples were not all the humble souvenirs offered in return for many comfortable gifts to the whole family. on the table, in a pretty birch-bark cover, lay several of becky's best poems neatly copied, as emily had expressed a wish to keep them; and round the rustic volume, like a ring of red gold, lay a great braid of becky's hair, tied with the pale blue ribbon she had walked four miles to buy, that her present might look its best. of course there were more embraces and kisses, and thanks and loving words, before emily at last lulled herself to sleep planning a christmas box, which should supply every wish and want of the entire family if she could find them out. next morning they parted; but these were not mere summer friends, and they did not lose sight of one another, though their ways lay far apart. emily had found a new luxury to bring more pleasure into life, a new medicine to strengthen soul and body; and in helping others, she helped herself wonderfully. becky went steadily on her dutiful way, till the homestead was free, the lads able to work the farm alone, the girls old enough to fill her place, and the good mother willing to rest at last among her children. then becky gave herself to teaching,--a noble task, for which she was well fitted, and in which she found both profit and pleasure, as she led her flock along the paths from which she removed the stumbling-blocks for their feet, as well as for her own. she put her poetry into her life, and made of it "a grand sweet song" in which beauty and duty rhymed so well that the country girl became a more useful, beloved, and honored woman than if she had tried to sing for fame which never satisfies. so each symbolical plant stood in its own place, and lived its appointed life. the delicate fern grew in the conservatory among tea-roses and camellias, adding grace to every bouquet of which it formed a part, whether it faded in a ball-room, or was carefully cherished by some poor invalid's bed-side,--a frail thing, yet with tenacious roots and strong stem, nourished by memories of the rocky nook where it had learned its lesson so well. the mountain-laurel clung to the bleak hillside, careless of wintry wind and snow, as its sturdy branches spread year by year, with its evergreen leaves for christmas cheer, its rosy flowers for spring-time, its fresh beauty free to all as it clothed the wild valley with a charm that made a little poem of the lovely spot where the pines whispered, woodbirds sang, and the hidden brook told the sweet message it brought from the mountain-top where it was born. [illustration: logo] file was produced from images generously made available by the kentuckiana digital library) jerry's reward [illustration: "they never saw the old fellow without shouting." (_see page 21_)] cosy corner series jerry's reward by evelyn snead barnett _illustrated by_ etheldred b. barry _boston_ _l. c. page & company_ 1903 _copyright, 1900, 1901_ by e. s. barnett _copyright, 1902_ by l. c. page & company (incorporated) _all rights reserved_ published, may, 1902 colonial press electrotyped and printed by c. h. simonds & co. boston, mass., u. s. a. contents chapter page i. the interrupted game 11 ii. the shadow 16 iii. paddy and peggy 22 iv. hard times 28 v. peggy overhears a startling conversation 35 vi. the police are summoned 41 vii. where was peggy? 49 viii. luck in disguise 58 ix. paddy makes the effort of his life 66 illustrations page "they never saw the old fellow without shouting" (_see page 21_) _frontispiece_ "they stood in a long row" 13 "he turned around suddenly" 19 "'the top of the mornin' to ye'" 24 "all the children except the babies started for school" 29 "although she was warmly clad, the rush of cold air made her shiver" 39 "'what on earth are you doing here alone?'" 44 "a sturdy leg emerging from his front window" 53 "around his tanned and wrinkled neck went her white arms" 64 "after them followed the nurses, carrying the babies" 73 jerry's reward * * * * * chapter i. the interrupted game jefferson square was a short street in gaminsville, occupying just one block. it took only two things on one side of it to fill up the space from corner to corner. one was the convent of the good shepherd, built on a large lot surrounded by a high brick wall; the other, a common where all the people around dumped cinders, rags, tin cans--in fact, anything on earth they wished to throw away. on the other side were dwelling-houses, and these were filled with children--lots of them. there surely were never so many children on one square before! there were the earlys, the rickersons, the bakers, the adamses, the mortons, and the longs--twenty-one in all. there were really twenty-eight; but the parents of seven children, though they were not what you might call poor, were not well-born like the others, so nobody counted them any more than they included them in the games that the twenty-one played. this was sad for the seven little outcasts, but the others never thought about that. the twenty-one had splendid times together. it was play, play, play for ever--dolls, pin fairs, circuses, and games. every afternoon they gathered in the mortons' front gate, because it was wider and had three stone steps leading down from it, where all the children could sit. one evening, the latter part of august, the sun had dipped down behind the world, leaving red splashes over a green sky. on seeing it the children played fast and furiously, for they knew only too well that when the sky looked like that they might at any moment be called indoors, made to eat their suppers and go to bed. [illustration] the oldest child of the lot was henry clay morton. he was one of those boys who try to have their way in everything, and generally succeed; so, on this particular evening when he got tired playing "grammammy gray" and proposed "lost my handkerchief," the others consented without any fuss. the next thing to decide was who should be "ole man." they stood in a long row, and henry clay, pointing, began at the top and gave each child a word like this: "eeny, meany, miny, mo; cracky, feeny, finy fo; ommer neutcha, popper teucha; rick, bick, ban, do. "oner-ry, oer-ry, ickery ann; phyllis and phollis and nicholas john; queevy quavy, english navy, stinklum, stanklum, buck." "buck" was "ole man," and on this occasion happened to be addison gravison rickerson, a little pudgy boy who was called "addy gravvy" for short. he took a handkerchief, and the children, joining hands, formed a big circle. then skipping behind them he sang: "lost my hankshuff yesterday, found it to-day, filled it full 'er water, en dashed it away." he sang the words twice, and then he let the handkerchief fall behind little nell morton, but she was watching, so she grabbed it and chased addy gravvy, trying to catch him before he could get round the circle into her place. he ran so fast he would have beaten her had not willie baker stuck out his foot, tripping him up so that little nell easily caught him. addy gravvy protested: "that's no fair, i won't go in the middle." for whoever got caught had to go in the middle until the close of the game. "she is so little," explained willie, "that she never could have caught anybody." "then she oughtn't to play," said addy gravvy. at this the children all began talking at once, for nell was a favourite, and matters were looking serious, when suddenly a shadow crossed the bar of light made by the mortons' open front door. "paddy!" "paddy!" cried a dozen frightened ones, and the little group took to their heels. in two minutes the street was as silent as midnight, the only person left being a little old man whose back was bent almost double. he turned and looked after the children and gave a long, deep sigh. chapter ii. the shadow of course you wish to know all about the crooked man whose very shadow caused the children to stop their play and scamper to their homes. you remember i told you that one side of jefferson square was occupied by the convent of the good shepherd and the common? well, this convent was a source of much interest and not a little awe to the children. they were always curious to know what was going on behind those high brick walls. nothing in the shape of a man, except the priests, was ever allowed inside the convent. you can judge, then, of the flutter it caused when one day at noon, as the children from their windows opposite were watching the penitents playing in the garden in their blue dresses and white caps, they saw a little man go boldly in their midst and with a shovel begin turning up the soil. to be sure he was old and ugly; his back was bent like a hoop, and his long nose almost touched his toes as he leaned over his shovel--but all the same he was a man. "i wonder who on earth he can be!" said fanny morton, and the nurse who was peering over her head thoughtlessly replied: "one of satan's own imps." they did not see the newcomer for a long time after, then one morning the word passed that he was there. this time the big iron gates at the side were open, and he was wheeling barrows of coal into the convent cellar. the next meeting was on the common where he was raking over old rubbish and abstracting rags and bits of iron. the children were about to speak to him when something in his brown and wrinkled face recalled the nurse-girl's remark about "satan's imps," so they were afraid and ran home. i do not know who started it, but soon he came to be known as "paddy on the turnpike," and just what this meant would be hard to say. while we all know that paddys are common enough in cities, still there wasn't a turnpike for this one to be on within five miles of jefferson square. although the children were afraid of the old man, they could not help teasing him whenever they got a chance. it seemed reckless and brave to shout out something and then take to their heels. they dared not come too near, for the same nurse-girl, seeing the sensation that her first remark had created, added another more astonishing, to the effect that paddy had traded his soul to the devil, and was hunting the rubbish on the common over, for sufficient money to buy it back. which was, of course, sheer nonsense, and if the children had been as good as all children should be, they never for a moment would have believed such a stupid untruth. by degrees they grew bolder. they would creep behind when he was bending over his ash pile, nearer and nearer. then they would shout something about the devil and his bartered soul, thinking they were brave indeed. once they approached so near that they almost touched him, but he turned around suddenly and reached out his rake as if he were going to rake them all in. at this a panic seized them, and they ran like young deer. [illustration: "he turned around suddenly."] finally henry clay morton made a rhyme about him, and the others took it up. they never saw the old fellow without shouting to a sing-song tune that they had made themselves: "paddy on the turnpike couldn't count eleven, put him on a leather bed, thought he was in heaven." chapter iii. paddy and peggy not seeming to hear the children, the old man used to work in silence, gathering the bottles and rags and things and putting them in his bag. once a week he sold all he had found and brought the money home to his wife. now paddy and his wife lived in a little cottage on the far side of the common. and paddy's wife was always sick. the poor woman had had a terrible accident in which she had been so badly crushed and twisted that she was never free from pain a single moment. paddy would rise early in the morning, and, before he left to go to his work, he would put her in her chair by the window so that she could look out on the common, and here she sat knitting socks all day long. she did not know many people, so she was much alone. none of the neighbours in jefferson square were aware that such a person as mrs. paddy existed, though they might have seen her, if they had taken the trouble, every time they looked out of a front window; for she lived in plain view of all the dwellings on the square. but though none of the "well-bred" people ever knew of mrs. paddy's existence, sometimes the mother of the little outcasts who were too common to be the associates of fine ladies would drop in "to straighten things up a bit." "well, mrs. myer," she would say, "the top of the mornin' to ye. it's to market i've just been and the butcher sent ye a posy," and she would put a gay flower or two in the blue glass vase that stood on the sick woman's window-sill. or maybe one of the little outcasts would bring a bowl of steaming soup. "mother thought you might like something to warm you up inside," the child would say, and mrs. paddy, unknown and unknowing of the fine world, would kiss and thank her with a smile that she must have learned from the angels. but no other soul ever visited mrs. paddy, and knitting at her window, she led a solitary life indeed. [illustration] and the whole heart of mrs. paddy was bound up in paddy, strange as that may seem. but, you must know, paddy was a very different sort of a person from what the children imagined him. no matter what she was suffering, mrs. paddy had always a bright look for him, while, with her, paddy would grow so tender and his knotty features would smooth out so, the children never would have recognised him. and paddy's thousand attentions could only have been prompted by a loving heart. he even grudged every penny that he had to spend on himself; and indeed he had often gone hungry that his peggy might have some little comfort. you see, before she was hurt--before that dreadful day when the heavy four-horse team knocked her down and all but crushed the life out of her--he used to spend most of his earnings in drink. in fact, to tell you the honest truth, he was almost always drunk. and sometimes--it makes the tears come into his eyes to think of it now--he used to beat her. when he was drunk, you know; never except when liquor had stolen his brains. well, after she was brought in mangled and bleeding, he was so sorry he had ever treated her unkindly that he nearly lost his mind. he prayed to god to let her stay with him long enough for him to prove how much he really loved her. afterwards when she lived, although but a crippled, suffering being, he was so afraid that he might forget himself and abuse her again, that he never touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee. the poor woman used to say that it was worth all the pain, and more, too, to have her husband always himself. giving up strong drink was not an easy task for him, and he often wanted it; but he shunned the society of his drinking friends, and never once went where he would be tempted. he pretended not to hear the children's teasing, but it was only pretence. you see, he loved children dearly. he once had two little ones of his own, but god took them. for their dear sakes he had tender feelings toward all children, and it hurt him that these on jefferson square should run away from him every time he came near. he also disliked their name for him; for his real name was jerry, not paddy at all. he could not help telling his peggy about it, especially when they had been unusually thoughtless and teasing. it was after one of such times that he said to her: "i think i'll have a little speech with 'em. i'll tell 'em that far from wanting to hurt 'em, i'll be their friend if they'll let me." "do, lovey," replied mrs. peggy, "for i'm hatin' to have 'em misjudge you." so the very next day he pretended to be raking and sifting until they came nearer and nearer shouting their jibes and their jeers, when he quickly turned around and facing them began his speech: "don't fear me, chil--" was all the further he got when the rosy cheeks became as white as sheets and such scampering and rushing over one another you never saw in all your life. after that it was three whole days before a single one of them was bold enough to come even in sight when he was bending over his work, and he missed them so that he resolved never to attempt any conversation with them again as long as he lived. chapter iv. hard times things went on in this manner for some time. then the hot summer was over and the green leaves died and fell to the ground with a rustle. all the children except the babies started to school. it became too cold to play out-of-doors in the afternoon, and soon the days got so short that there were no afternoons, and the children forgot it ever had been summer at all. if a body had not already known it, he would never have guessed that the row of houses on one side of jefferson square contained twenty-eight children toasting their toes by blazing fires. we should say twenty-one, for the entire family of outcasts had moved from the square to a more congenial neighbourhood, and mrs. paddy lost the only friends she had. instead of the bright faces smiling and nodding to her every time they went in or out the front door, an ugly white card, with "for rent" in big black letters, stared at her all day, reminding her sadly of the friends who were gone. [illustration: "all the children except the babies started to school."] paddy noticed her looking a little forlorn one morning, so he said: "the cold weather doesn't agree with you, peggy; there's too much air coming through the window cracks. i'll just move your chair away from it, and as close to the fire as may be." he had to leave her alone a great deal those days, for bread was high and work scarce. to get either, a man had to start early so as to be handy for any odd jobs that came his way. peggy was sometimes so lonely that she missed even the naughty children, for in summer when they played on the common she could hear their young voices and it was company for her. now all she could see was a bare brown waste with never a child in sight. when paddy was there bending over his ash heaps she didn't care, for every little while he would look up from his work, and wave his hand, and that was all she wanted. things got very desperate with the paddys. money became so scarce that they couldn't buy coal, but had to use half-burned cinders from the common instead. peggy declared that they made a "real hot fire," and she would joke about their large coal cellar--meaning the common--"that never got empty--only fuller and fuller." paddy would come in shivering and shaking in his threadbare coat. "and are you frozen entirely?" she would ask. and he would answer: "i was mortal cold, but the sight of your gentle face has warmed my blood. faith, it's better than all the fires!" whenever the sun came out she would make him take her to the window where she could warm herself in its rays. when her husband was working at the ash piles she would wave to him. "on those days," said paddy, "i always have luck. the people throw out more rags, and the cinders are in big lumps and only half burned." whenever he made a good find he waved his hand to her, but one day he waved both hands and his cap, and she knew he had been unusually fortunate. he came straight in to show her. he had found a big silver dollar. it was tarnished and black from the flames, but it was a good one with a true ring. "whose can it be, i wonder!" exclaimed peggy. "if i knew i'd have to take it back," answered paddy, "but, unfortunately, people don't often leave their visiting cards on their ash heaps." this was not all. the very day after he found the dollar, peggy, from her window, saw more frantic waving. this time it was a silver spoon! "i can find the owner of that, i'm sure," says paddy. and he made the rounds of all the houses in the neighbourhood to see if they were missing any spoons, but nobody claimed it. peggy cleaned it and made it shine like new. at first she didn't like to use it--it was so beautiful--but her husband persuaded her that as long as they couldn't sell it, seeing that the owner might be found some day, she had better get the good of it. so she yielded, and declared that the soup had an extra richness all on account of the silver. "it's luck coming our way, dear," says paddy. "money in our pockets and a silver spoon in our mouths--you'll see." and it was so; though at first it took such a round-about path--a little way luck has--that they quite mistook it for something else. chapter v. peggy overhears a startling conversation one cold morning in january paddy built up a good fire, and, putting peggy in her wheel chair, he placed everything in reach that she could possibly need. "i'll not be back before dark, dearie," he said, "for outside of my convent work i have a job at the wharf that will keep me all the day." with this he kissed her on each pale cheek and on her sweet, patient mouth, and left. the little cottage in which the paddys lived, you will remember, was on the far side of the common. behind it ran an alley where all sorts of people lived,--negroes, beggars, tramps, all of them poor and some of them desperate. peggy's cottage was at one end of the row, and the convent wall was built up close to the side of it, leaving a space just wide enough for one person to squeeze through. the walls of the cottage were so thin that whenever the children hid in the narrow passage during their play, the sick woman inside could hear every word they said--could almost hear them breathe. on the morning in question peggy was sitting by her fire knitting so fast that you could not tell needles from fingers nor fingers from needles, when she heard the sound of talking between the cottage and the convent wall. she could tell that the speakers were men. "now, why have they crept in that narrow crack to talk?" she mused. a low voice said: "are you sure she'll not go back on us?" another answered: "she's safe enough; i've fixed her." "listen to me," said the first voice; "you are to bring a bundle to the side door at five o'clock. the nurse will let you in, and show you the closet under the staircase. there you'll stay until the house is locked up and everything settled for the night. after the children are asleep and the grown people quieted by the drugged coffee--say when the convent bell strikes ten--you will slip out and, unlocking the side door, let me in. i have a plan of the house, and know where everything of value is kept. we'll get a good, rich pull, and skip." "you're certain no harm will come from spiking the drink?" "not if she obeys orders; it'll give 'em a bully night's rest; that's all." "how'll i know when it's safe to come out?" "she says if anything happens not down on the books she'll come past your hiding-place, and give two taps like this" (tapping). "in that case you'll wait till you hear further." "you'll be there to help, if i get caught? you won't slump?" "me? never! ain't i always been a man of honour?" "they say old morton's mighty game when once roused." "but he won't be if we can help it; in case he is, and shows fight, why then we'll have to----" the rest of the sentence was lost, and the two men departed. poor mrs. peggy sat frozen to her chair in terror. what on earth could she do! her husband was gone for the day. there was no chance for his return before six o'clock at least. "poor, useless body!" she exclaimed, "the neighbours' property in danger, their very lives threatened, a traitor in their midst, and me sitting here knowing it all, and not able to do anything!" she was so distressed at her helplessness that tears rolled down her thin cheeks. but soon she dried them and said, emphatically: "there's no avoiding it; i must get word to mrs. morton!" she thought harder than she had ever done before in all her life; then, as if answering objections, she said aloud: "if i can't get anybody to go for me, i will go myself." she, poor soul, who had never moved unaided for five long years, except to turn the wheels of her chair for a few yards in her little narrow room! she rolled herself away from the fire toward the door. with a little difficulty she opened it, and peered out. although she was warmly clad, the rush of cold air made her shiver, but she wrapped one of her shawls around her head and watched. no one passed. twelve o'clock struck. in a few hours it would be too late. [illustration] she sighed heavily. "would it be possible for me to wheel myself over the common and across the street? could i ever reach that great house alive?" she did not think the mortons' nurse knew her, though she remembered the woman distinctly. then a new difficulty occurred to her. "even if i succeed in making the journey, can i get private speech with the right persons?" she hesitated, then she added, bravely: "shame on me to think of giving up!" and throwing the door wide open, with a mighty effort she pushed her chair over the sill. it rolled down with a bump and on for a few feet until it was stopped by a sharp stone. it was only several inches from the door to the ground, nevertheless, the jar gave her so much pain that she nearly fainted. she lay still for some moments, more dead than alive. "i must go! i have cut off all way of return now. bumping down that step was one thing; getting back would be impossible." but when she tried to go on, her weakness was so great that she could not make any progress. her chair, wedged against the stone, was immovable. "o god," she prayed, "i don't know what to do now--help me!" chapter vi. the police are summoned "well, mrs. myer," exclaimed a bright, chirpy voice right behind her, "whoever would have thought of seeing you spry enough to be out-of-doors! won't mother be glad?" and there stood the eldest little outcast, smiling broadly, and holding in her chubby hand a tin bucket, that peggy had seen many a time before. "you've come just in time, dear heart," said the thankful peggy. "do you think you could wheel me across the street?" "across the street?" reiterated the girl. "won't it tire you very much? let me go for you." "i fear you are too little for my business," replied peggy, and as she spoke the words a new idea for accomplishing her purpose entered her mind. "stay, love; i'll tell you what you can do. take me back to the house and you shall hear." miss outcast did her best, and as the burden was not great and the chair rolled easily, after some bumping and shoving and pushing, mrs. myer found herself once more in her own room. and, as she got her breath, she said: "have you ever been to the river, dearie?" "oh, yes," answered the child, "father takes us down there every sunday. we love to stand on the bridge and watch the water dashing against the piers. it's such fun; you can't think." "could you go there alone?" "course i could; what do you want to know for?" "jerry is working there to-day, pet, and i have something important to tell him. if you can find your way to the mail-boat landing where he is helping to load up, and tell him to come to me right away, you'll be doing a good action." "i wonder if mother will scold?" "tell her it was my doing, and if she will come hear my reasons she'll be satisfied. you'll hurry, won't you, dear?" miss outcast promised, and, after repeating the message several times, started briskly off. the river and the mail-boat were reached without trouble, but to find jerry was another matter. a long stream of porters carrying bags of something reached from the wharf to the boat. their heads were concealed by the burden, and their bodies looked so much alike that the child was bewildered. she stood there, frightened and forlorn, almost forgetting why she had come, when jerry himself caught sight of her. "why, little one," he exclaimed, dropping his load, and coming toward her. "what on earth are you doing here alone?" miss outcast felt happy once more; she beamed on him. "oh, jerry, you are the very man i came to see; go home just as quick as ever you can to your wife." "peggy, my peggy! is she worse?" and the poor fellow looked the anguish he felt. "i don't b'lieve she's 'zackly worse," said the child, feeling very big indeed, "but she's acting queer, and she's got something 'portant on her mind and sent me for you." jerry waited to hear no more, but, seizing the child's hand, started to run. leaving her in her own street, he hurried on alone. [illustration] his wife was watching for him, trembling and anxious. she was so relieved when he appeared that she burst into tears. he took her frail body in his arms: "why, peggy, old girl, what has happened? has anybody been hurting you?" at these tender words she controlled herself and told him all that had occurred. he was thunderstruck. "the scoundrels!" he muttered. "they surely wouldn't dare--but rest easy, love. we'll get ahead of them, never fear." he thought deeply. "the best thing, wife, is not to alarm the ladies, but to see mr. morton himself. i'll go to him as fast as i can." but even in his haste he stopped to replenish the fire, settle peggy's pillows more comfortably, and warm some soup for her. then he sought mr. morton's office and asked to see him privately. mr. morton sent word that he was busy and did not wish to be disturbed. "tell him it's a serious matter," said jerry. upon receiving this message mr. morton invited him in, and, closing the door of the little private office where he was in the habit of holding confidential interviews with his clients, he prepared to listen with a bored air. "i'm jerry, sir," the visitor began, "jerry myer. you may not know me, sir, but i know you, and your children--they call me paddy--'paddy on the turnpike.'" "oh, it's paddy, is it?" said morton, remembering. "yes, sir; no, sir--that is, it's jerry, sir." "well, jerry, be quick; what can i do for you this afternoon?" and jerry began: "you see, sir, my wife, being poorly, has to sit all the time indoors. our little cottage is just across the street from your fine house, sir; next to the convent wall with only a bit of a passway between; and peggy, she's my wife, overheard two men, hiding there, talking and planning as how they would rob you to-night and drug you, and there's no telling what else besides." "how is this?" cried mr. morton, "i'm to be robbed and drugged, am i?" and the great lawyer looked as if he thought the man was losing his wits. but jerry began and told a straight tale; told it so circumstantially and truthfully that mr. morton, forced to believe it, was genuinely alarmed. he immediately summoned the police, and, after a rapid consultation, a plan was formed to capture the thieves. jerry was to unlock the big iron gates in the convent wall, where the coal-carts were in the habit of driving in. two of the police were to hide there, and keep an eye on the house opposite until they saw a burglar number one admitted by the traitorous nurse-girl. then they were to return at dark and guard the front of the house, so as to cut off all retreat from that direction. two more of the force were to hide in the mortons' stable, and prevent escape from the rear. mr. morton was to remain inside to avert suspicion and to give the alarm in case any violence was attempted. he was also to practise a little stratagem to prevent any of the family from drinking the drugged coffee. "don't seem to do anything unusual," counselled the chief. "go to bed, and pretend to sleep. let them rob you, and when they come out we will take care of them and their booty." "and what am i to do, sir?" asked jerry. "you have done enough, man; you go home and stay with your sick wife. she will be anxious if we expose you to danger." you see, the officers wished to put both mr. morton and jerry out of the affair, so that they could have all the glory of the capture. chapter vii. where was peggy? when told to go home to his sick wife, jerry obeyed. but what was his surprise, on reaching his tiny cottage, to find the shutters all closed, though it was early afternoon, and the front door held fast on the outside by two great tenpenny nails. where was peggy? for the nailed door showed that she was not inside. to be sure, smoke was still coming out of the chimney, but this was accounted for when he remembered the big fire he had built before he left. where, where was peggy? perhaps one of the neighbours had been kind enough to come over and, finding her frightened and alone, had wheeled her away. but reflection told him that not one of the neighbours had ever been near her except the outcasts, and the discovery of the plot was an absolute secret. there would be no occasion for such sudden neighbourliness. then jerry's heart stood still, for he heard a sound like a muffled cry. it seemed to come from behind the convent wall; so he crept softly into the narrow passageway just as the burglars had done. here he could see without being seen. at first everything was so still that he thought he must have imagined the cry, but soon heard the murmuring sound of voices so low that he could not tell whether of men or women. jerry was frightened to death. if he alone had been in danger he would have been brave, but with his delicate wife away, he knew not where, and more conspiracies going on behind the convent wall, he found it hard to decide just what he ought to do. conflicting feelings put him in a sort of panic, but he had sense enough left to keep absolutely still. before going in search of his wife he must find out what new plan the rascals were hatching, so he stood, hardly daring to breathe. the wind was sharp and keen. it swept across the wide common, whirling up the dust, lifting the paper and rags and making them waltz. ashes fell like rain in the narrow passage where jerry stood. then a whooping gust caught a lot of stuff, and forming a miniature cyclone, headed straight for jerry. before the poor fellow knew what he was doing, he had sneezed three times. the sound reverberated through the close passage as if he had blown through a gigantic horn. now he was lost! the men must do either one of two things; they might think they had been discovered, and run away, but the probability was that they would first look over the convent wall to find out who had sneezed. and then what? jerry seized a large boulder that lay at his feet. though little and old, he had good strength, and the first head that rose over the wall meant a cracked skull. "jerry, jerry?" he heard his name whispered by a strange voice. where did the sound come from? under his very feet. "jerry, jer-ry," a little louder, "where are you?" "here behind the wall," whispered jerry. "who are you?" then there came a sound of steps, a window was raised, a shutter flung back. at this jerry could stand no more. he left his hiding-place, and strode boldly, the big stone in his hand, to the front of his cottage in time to see a sturdy leg emerging from his front window. when the rest of the body followed, the mother of the little outcasts stood before jerry's astonished eyes. "for the land's sake! are you the burglar?" says jerry. "for the land's sake, are you?" asked mrs. outcast, and both began to laugh. "and where's peggy?" says jerry. "inside with chattering teeth for fear of the men hid between the walls." "how, when, what!" exclaimed the bewildered man. "stop talking, man, and come to your scared wife." "i'm not scared now that i know who's there," piped a weak voice. "come in right away out of the cold." "and is it by the door or by the window ye'll have me enter, missis myer?" asked jerry. and with that he took out the two tenpenny nails with his fingers just as easy as if they had been put in by women. [illustration: "a sturdy leg emerging from his front window."] "wait till i unlock," said mrs. outcast, as she climbed back, and presently the key turned, and jerry was allowed to enter. "and now, perhaps," said he, after he had kissed his wife, "ye'll be kind enough to tell me what it all means, for i'll be switched if i understand a word of it!" mrs. outcast explained: "when mimy came home with her story i felt in my bones that something was wrong, so i came as fast as i could to help. i found this little body scared to death, and you gone for no knowing how long. when she told her story i felt real uneasy myself, and wanted to take her home with me where she'd be safe. but she was faint-like, and besides she said she did not want you to come back and find her gone. heaven knows where." jerry pretended to cough behind his hand. "but two women alone," continued mrs. outcast, "are not apt to be exactly quiet in their minds when burglars are about, so i suggested that we shut up the house as if no one were living here, and to make it seem more natural like, i put two nails in the door, and climbed in by the window." "wasn't it a smart trick?" asked peggy, admiringly. "the smartest i ever knew," answered jerry, promptly. "but how was i to get in?" "oh, we were listening," said peggy. "don't you fear. we thought you would try the door and call, when we would know your voice and let you in." "instead of which, you hid, and made us think them burglars had come back sure enough," said mrs. outcast. "and you screamed and whispered, and made me think them burglars were hurting peggy." and at this all three laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks. peggy was the first to quiet down. "but tell us, love, what mr. morton said?" and jerry unfolded all the plan--not without first going out-doors, and looking carefully all around his little cottage to see if any eavesdroppers were in hiding. when he concluded by repeating mr. morton's order to go home and stay with his sick wife, both women exclaimed in a breath: "what a nice, sensible gentleman mr. morton is!" chapter viii. luck in disguise but it was not jerry's way to bide at home when such a dangerous adventure was afoot. the more he thought of it the more he was convinced he might be needed. "suppose there should be three of them burglars instead of two, and one of our men was to get hurt; it would be a battle with odds and maybe escape for the rogues. no--i won't get shoved aside; i'll disobey orders, and play a game of my own." then the little man stationed himself behind the window-blind, although it was a good two hours before the time set by the thieves. it was well he did so, for at half-past four a man with a bundle rang the door-bell at the side entrance of the morton house. "he's ahead of time," said jerry. "i wonder if them p'lices are behind the convent gate?" the nurse-girl opened the door so quickly that she had evidently been on the watch. the man slipped in, and jerry noted that he was big and brawny. "it's going to be a mean job to tackle that fellow," he thought. then he went to a pile of things in a corner, and selected a stout hickory stick. he watched awhile longer, but nothing else happened. it grew dark. he kissed peggy, who held him tight a moment, looked into his eyes lovingly, but did not protest or cry, as some wives would have done. he waved his hand as he left the door, and, keeping close to the convent wall, crossed the common. into the mortons' gate he slipped, and before anyone could say "jack robinson" he had crept under the steps of the side entrance. he carried his good stick. "they'll have pistols sure, and knives maybe, but give me a good whack with this at close range, and i'll beat 'em, pistols and all." his position was cramped and uncomfortable, but he did not care. he crouched into as small a space as possible. the time seemed long, but he never thought of giving up; he was there to stay. the convent bell tolled the hours: eight, nine, ten. then a step, soft and slow on the pavement, and he saw two feet. another step as noiseless as a wild beast's; and he saw two more feet. jerry was right. there were three men instead of two--one inside, two out. presently came whispered words too low for him to catch, and he heard a bolt cautiously slipped. one pair of feet disappeared; the other pair remained. this fellow on the outside would prevent the police from surprising the two within. should jerry tackle the watching burglar now or wait? "i wonder how many more of them there are?" thought jerry, as he took firm hold of his club, and eyed the waiting feet, scarcely daring to breathe. in the meantime, the police stationed back and front had seen the two men arrive and one enter; but, not having reached the convent gate early enough, they did not know that a third man was within. they kept guard and thought they had a sure thing of nabbing the burglars as they emerged with their spoils. then suddenly the stillness of the hour was broken by the loud report of a pistol not half a square away. all the policemen rushed in the direction of the sound, and saw a man fleeing in the distance. two of them pursued him, blowing their whistles as they ran. the other two stopped to argue whether they had better help their comrades or return to their former hiding-place. but while they talked an exciting scene had occurred. as soon as the shot was fired the thief on the outside made a break for the gate. jerry started after him, but the rogue jumped the fence, and ran off, so, not to waste time in a fruitless chase, the crooked little old man turned back to find himself confronted by two more fugitives. for the shot on the outside was a prearranged warning of danger, and as soon as the burglars on the inside heard it, they rushed from the house with their booty. they, too, were about to jump the fence when jerry, wondering what the police were doing, and desperate at the idea of all three of the rascals eluding them, sprang at them brandishing his club and yelling like a dozen comanche indians. at the same time mr. morton appeared at the door with a shot-gun, and the burglars, thinking they had twenty foes instead of two, began a fight for life. mr. morton stood framed in the doorway with a bright light behind him. the man nearest jerry, the same strapping fellow who had entered in the afternoon, raised his arm, and there was a flash of metal as he took steady aim at mr. morton's breast. another instant, and ten little children would have been fatherless; but a resounding whack from a hickory stick sent a shot into the air, and the hand that held the pistol dropped, nerveless. the would-be murderer tottered a few steps, then fell in a heap on the grass. the remaining burglar, seeing that the game was up, dropped his plunder, and started to run. but, as luck would have it, he ran straight into the arms of the two policemen, who were returning to the spot they ought never to have quitted; and the policemen, not being able to get away, could not help making him their prisoner. the same luck befriended the other two officers; for, coming back from a fruitless chase of the man who had fired the decoying shot, they fortunately were in time to capture the man who had jumped the fence, and were heroes among their fellows for nine days after. the commotion had roused the whole neighbourhood. windows were raised by frightened women, and half-dressed men ran into the street. lights were quickly brought, and an excited crowd gathered round the prisoners, talking and asking a thousand questions. the two men were handcuffed, and were about being carried off when a dark object on the grass attracted attention. a man, alive but unable to move. "who is he?" "how did he get there?" everybody surprised excepting jerry. "i beg your pardon, sirs," said the old fellow. "please excuse me, sirs,"--turning humbly from one to another,--"but i had to do it. he was going to shoot, and i couldn't stand that, sirs, so i just tapped him a bit with my friendly stick." "and that isn't half," interrupted mr. morton. "if it had not been for the stout arm of this brave old man i would be dead. see that pistol on the ground? it was aimed at me when jerry's club knocked the breath out of the scoundrel lying beside it." [illustration] while her husband was speaking, mrs. morton had appeared, and, on hearing his words, she went up to the crooked little man. around his tanned and wrinkled neck went her white arms, and with the tears streaming she sobbed: "you brave, brave soldier! his children and their mother will love and bless you as long as they live!" jerry was so ashamed that he knew not where to look when, fortunately, the patrol wagon drove up, and the public attention was diverted by the removal of the wounded man and the prisoners to jail. he seized the opportunity to escape, and hurried across the common to his little cottage. there his peggy awaited him. in those arms he was never ashamed; to her he was always a hero; and as, listening to his story, she gazed at him with eyes overflowing with tenderness, he felt that the earth could not contain a happier man than jerry myer. chapter ix. paddy makes the effort of his life to make up for lost time jerry hurried early to his work the next morning. he had finished his duties at the convent, and was on his way to the wharf when he met mr. morton, who stopped to shake hands and inquire how peggy had stood the fright. naturally they talked over the night's adventure. mr. morton had several items of news, for the nurse had been arrested, and had made a full confession. if successful, the robbery was to have been the prelude for more in the same neighbourhood. it had been carefully planned by a gang of professional thieves. the pistol-shot had been fired by a confederate not only to inform the burglars that they had been discovered, but to decoy the police from the scene of action so that the thieves could make their escape. "they did not count on your big stick, jerry. had it not been for you, every man of them would have gotten away." "sure they wouldn't, sir. some of them would have been caught. but them p'lices are curious creeters. now if i already had as many thieves on my hands as i could well look after, it never would have entered my head to go on a wild-goose chase after others. there's no accountin' for them p'lices' minds, anyway. and as for their bodies--well, did you ever see one that was not that fat that any thief at all couldn't outrun?" mr. morton laughed. "i suppose they get them that way so they will stay where they are put." "and so they can't run away from the thieves," added jerry. "now for all that i'm crooked, being thin, i'm nimble." "indeed you are; and furthermore, you have such good judgment that you saved the battle last night." "i didn't mean that," cried jerry, in distress and embarrassment. "nobody could have done any less than i did." "you mean any more, man. to my dying day i shall never forget what i owe you nor the sound of the whack of that stick. but, see here, jerry, you are not going to the wharf to-day?" "please, sir, i have to." "no, you don't. you are getting old, and ought not to work so hard. my wife and i have been making inquiries, and we know all about you and your sick wife. how would you like to be janitor in the building where i have my office?" "i'd like it, sir, if you think i'd suit. are they needing a new man?" "i heard only yesterday the present man had given notice, and i promised to be on the lookout for a new one. i think the place would suit you, and you it--it pays a fair salary." and here mr. morton named a sum that seemed so large to poor jerry that his eyes nearly popped out of his head. "ah, i never could be worth all that, sir! but what a great thing it would be for peggy!" and visions of unburnt coal in large lumps and real feather pillows and other luxuries for his suffering wife passed through his mind. "i am sure you can fill the position admirably, and the salary is not half so large as you deserve. come along and we will apply without loss of time." applying was a mere form, as mr. morton's recommendation was enough. the new janitor was engaged, and promised to enter upon his duties as soon as the convent could find a man to take his place. before this happened, jefferson square experienced a complete upsetting. all the children were summoned to meet in mrs. morton's long drawing-room, and came trooping to see what was wanted: the earlys, the rickersons, the bakers, the longs, the adamses, the morton children themselves, and, last of all, mrs. outcast with mimy and the six other little outcasts trailing behind. you may be sure none of them were late. the curiosity of the children was roused to its highest pitch. they couldn't imagine what kind of a party it was going to be with chairs in rows like church. and when they were all seated mrs. morton looked so serious, that addy gravvy whispered to his neighbour, "i know--it's a funeral." then mrs. morton made them a long speech. she told a story of a worthy old man working from morning till night to provide the barest necessities for his sick wife; she told of that wife's patience, of her cruel accident and suffering, of her devotion to her husband; she repeated the story of the way both of them had risked their lives to save the property of neighbours who barely knew of their existence. then she drew a picture of twenty-one thoughtless little imps, jibing and jeering the hardworking man who was worth all the rest of the square put together--fathers and mothers included--and by the time she reached this point all twenty-one of the imps, and seven others who were not imps, were boohooing and bellowing in a way that was a caution. "what are we going to do about it, children?" asked mrs. morton. each was for making amends in some way, and all blubbered out at once, but one--i think it was henry clay--cried louder than the rest: "le's go over, and tell 'em how sorry we are, and how we'll never make fun of him again as long as we live." this sentiment met with enthusiastic approval, and they were all for rushing to the cottage in a body when mrs. morton stopped them. "wait, children; it would never do to startle the invalid with such a crowd. one of you must first go and ask mrs. myer when it will be convenient for her to see us. who shall it be?" and strange to say, every chick and child called out the same name right away. can you guess whose it was? little miss outcast. in a short time mimy returned with the word that mrs. myer would love to see the children at any and all times, but they must be sure to come while jerry was at home, as he would be so pleased. "an' i didn't tell her a word of what we are going to say," reported mimy. the time was discussed, and the following day at noon was selected. then some highly important arrangements were made; and after every last one had been pledged to secrecy the meeting adjourned. during the next twenty-four hours jefferson square resembled an ant-hill after a big boy has trod on it. such rushing around and talking in excited groups; such goings out and comings in; such wagons colliding at front doors leaving bulky parcels; such errand boys breathless with carrying huge bundles! the like was never seen before. mrs. myer from her window across the common did not know what to make of it. she thought at first that every one of her rich neighbours must be going to give a party; though after reflection she decided that this could not be, for if all of them were having parties, who would be left to come to them? she was very much at sea. as the silver tones of the convent bell said it was twelve o'clock, a gay procession formed on the sidewalk in front of the mortons'. first came the little children, and each carried something: shoes, stockings, socks, flannels--all of the very best quality. next came the middle-sized ones with blankets, sheets, and real feather pillows. then the biggest ones with china, glass, earthenware, and all such things. after them followed the nurses, carrying the babies, and each baby had a gold coin clasped tight in its little fat hand. then the mothers, trying to keep the gang in order, brought dresses, shawls, and warm winter clothes. the children wore their best clothes and their freshest ribbons, and could not keep in place for a single minute. [illustration: "after them followed the nurses, carrying the babies."] the weather was built on purpose. it had been winter and it was going to be winter, but somehow one little spring day, balmy and fine, slipped in for the occasion. the poor people around got wind of the affair, and streamed over the common. even the penitents climbed the back wall of the convent and sat on top of the broken bottles to see the show. only the nuns went on as if nothing were happening--telling their beads and singing their ave marias in ignorance of worldly events, as all good nuns should be. then mrs. morton gave the signal, and the children clasped hands, and marched across the common, singing at the tops of their lungs. to peggy and jerry, drawn to the window by the commotion, it was the sweetest sound they had ever heard since the voices of their dear little babes had been hushed. nearer and nearer they came, the little outcasts, in the post of honour, leading. they did not have anything to be sorry for, but everybody wanted them and they wanted to come. they crowded into the door of the cottage, and nearly buried the aged couple with gifts,--all of them talking at once. each child came up and, shaking the worthy couple by the hand, promised never to be thoughtless and wicked again. after this ceremony, jerry, overcoming his shyness, made the effort of his life. he thanked the children and their parents in a speech that peggy afterward described as being "just too beautiful, winding up as it did with real poetry made up mostly from his own head." and she told the truth. the old fellow had a roguish twinkle in his gray eye as, pointing to the piles of blankets and pillows, he said: "though paddy on the turnpike could never count eleven, when children all brought feather beds he an' peggy tho't they was in heaven." the end. cosy corner series it is the intention of the publishers that this series shall contain only the very highest and purest literature,--stories that shall not only appeal to the children themselves, but be appreciated by all those who feel with them in their joys and sorrows,--stories that shall be most particularly adapted for reading aloud in the family circle. the numerous illustrations in each book are by well-known artists, and each volume has a separate attractive cover design. each, 1 vol., 16mo, cloth $0.50 _by annie fellows johnston_ the little colonel. the scene of this story is laid in kentucky. its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the little colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. this old colonel proves to be the grandfather of the child. the giant scissors. this is the story of joyce and of her adventures in france,--the wonderful house with the gate of the giant scissors, jules, her little playmate, sister denisa, the cruel brossard, and her dear aunt kate. joyce is a great friend of the little colonel, and in later volumes shares with her the delightful experiences of the "house party" and the "holidays." two little knights of kentucky, who were the little colonel's neighbors. in this volume the little colonel returns to us like an old friend, but with added grace and charm. she is not, however, the central figure of the story, that place being taken by the "two little knights," malcolm and keith, little southern aristocrats, whose chivalrous natures lead them through a series of interesting adventures. cicely and other stories for girls. the readers of mrs. johnston's charming juveniles will be glad to learn of the issue of this volume for young people, written, in the author's sympathetic and entertaining manner. big brother. a story of two boys. the devotion and care of steven, himself a small boy, for his baby brother, is the theme of the simple tale, the pathos and beauty of which has appealed to so many thousands. ole mammy's torment. "ole mammy's torment" has been fitly called "a classic of southern life." it relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of the right. the story of dago. in this story mrs. johnston relates the story of dago, a pet monkey, owned jointly by two brothers. dago tells his own story, and the account of his haps and mishaps is both interesting and amusing. _by edith robinson_ a little puritan's first christmas: a story of colonial times in boston. a story of colonial times in boston, telling how christmas was invented by betty sewall, a typical child of the puritans, aided by her "unregenerate" brother, sam. a little daughter of liberty. the author's motive for this story is well indicated by a quotation from her introduction, as follows: "one ride is memorable in the early history of the american revolution, the well-known ride of paul revere. equally deserving of commendation is another ride,--untold in verse or story, its records preserved only in family papers or shadowy legend, the ride of anthony severn was no less historic in its action or memorable in its consequences." a loyal little maid. a delightful and interesting story of revolutionary days, in which the child heroine, betsey schuyler, renders important services to george washington and alexander hamilton, and in the end becomes the wife of the latter. a little puritan rebel. like miss robinson's successful story of "a loyal little maid," this is another historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the gallant sir harry vane was governor of massachusetts. a little puritan pioneer. the scene of this story is laid in the puritan settlement at charlestown. the little girl heroine adds another to the list of favorites so well known to the young people in "a little puritan rebel," etc. _by ouida (louise de la ramã©e)_ a dog of flanders: a christmas story. too well and favorably known to require description. the nã¼rnberg stove. this beautiful story has never before been published at a popular price. a provence rose. a story perfect in sweetness and in grace. findelkind. a charming story about a little swiss herdsman. _by miss mulock_ the little lame prince. a delightful story of a little boy who has many adventures by means of the magic gifts of his fairy godmother. adventures of a brownie. the story of a household elf who torments the cook and gardener, but is a constant joy and delight to the children who love and trust him. his little mother. miss mulock's short stories for children are a constant source of delight to them, and "his little mother," in this new and attractive dress, will be welcomed by hosts of youthful readers. little sunshine's holiday. an attractive story of a summer outing. "little sunshine" is another of those beautiful child-characters for which miss mulock is so justly famous. [frontispiece: "you are so generous to me" (page 24)] avery _by elizabeth stuart phelps_ boston and new york houghton, mifflin and company the riverside press, cambridge 1902 copyright, 1901, by harper & bros. copyright, 1902, by elizabeth stuart phelps ward all rights reserved _published october, 1902_ _avery_ originally appeared as a serial in _harper's magazine_ under the title of _his wife_. avery part i "oh, pink! mother _can't_ lift you.... i would if i could.... yes, i know i used to-"molly, take the baby. couldn't you amuse him, somehow? perhaps, if you tried hard, you could keep him still. when he screams so, it seems to hit me--here. it makes it harder to breathe. he cried 'most all night. and if you could contrive to keep pink, too-"what is it, kate? you'll have to manage without me this morning. pick up anything for luncheon--i don't care. i couldn't eat. you can warm over that mutton for yourselves. we must keep the bills down. they were too large last month. order a grouse for mr. avery. he says he will dine at home to-night-"there 's the telephone! somebody answer it. i can't get down, myself.... is it mr. avery? ... wants me? ... i don't see how i can.... yes. hold the wire. i 'll try-"did you speak to me, molly? ... no, i 'm not feeling any worse. it's only getting up the stairs, and ... something that tired me a little. i don't want dr. thorne. i can't call the doctor so often. i 'm no worse than ... i sometimes ... am. it's only that i cannot breathe.... molly! _molly_! quick, molly! the window! air!" as molly dashed the window up, mrs. avery's head fell back upon the pillows of the lounge. they were blue pillows, and her blanching cheek took a little reflection from the color. but she was not ghastly; she never was. at the lowest limit of her strength she seemed to challenge death with an indomitable vitality. there was a certain surprise in the discovery that so blond a being could have so much of it. she was very fair--blue of eye, yellow of hair, pearly of skin; but all her coloring was warm and rich; when she was well, it was an occupation to admire her ear, her cheek, her throat; and when she was ill her eye conquered. every delicate trait and feature of her defied her fate, except her mouth; this had begun to take on a pitiful expression. the doctor's blazing eye flashed on it when he was summoned hastily. it had become a symptom to him, and was usually the first one of which he took note. dr. esmerald thorne had the preoccupations of his eminence, and his patients waited their turns with that undiscouraged endurance which is the jest and the despair of less-distinguished physicians. women took their crochet work to his office, and men bided their time with gnawed mustache and an unnatural interest in the back-number magazines upon his table. indifferent ailments received his belated attention, and to certain patients he came when he got ready. mrs. avery's was not one of these cases. when molly's tumultuous telephone call reached him that dav, it found him at the hospital, sewing up an accident. he drew the thread through the stitch, handed the needle to the house surgeon, who was standing by, and ran downstairs. the hospital was two miles from marshall avery's house. dr. thorne's horse took the distance on a gallop, and dr. thorne took avery's stairs two at a time. he came into her room, however, with the theatrical calm and the preposterous smile which men of his profession and his kind assume in the presence of danger that unconsciousness has not blotted from the patient's intelligence. through the wide window the late october air bit in. she was lying full in the surly breeze on the lounge pillow, as molly had left her. her blue morning gown was clutched and torn open at the throat. no one had thought to cover her. her hands were as purple as her lips. she was not gasping now: she had no longer the strength to fight for her breath. dr. thorne's professional smile went out like a christmas candle in a hurricane. he opened his mouth and began to swear. the corners of her lips twitched when she heard him--for she was altogether conscious, which was rather the worst of it, as she sometimes said; and, in point of fact, she laughed outright, if one could call it laughing. she tried to say, "i should know that was you if i were in my grave," but found the words too many for her, and so said nothing at all, nor even seemed to listen while he rated molly, and condemned kate, and commanded both, and poured stimulants angrily and swiftly. the very blankets and hot-water bags seemed to obey him, like sentient things--as people did; and the tablet in his fingers quivered as if it were afraid of him. as soon as she began to breathe naturally again, she said, "i 've made you a great deal of trouble! how is helen's cold, doctor?" "i shall tell my wife that," replied the doctor, in a tone that was a mongrel between anger and admiration. this puzzled her, and her fine eyes gently questioned him of his irritation. for she and the doctor's wife were schoolmates and old friends. she had been quite troubled about helen's cold. "oh, never mind," said dr. thorne; "only it is n't natural, that's all--when patients come out of attacks like yours. their minds are not concentrated on other people's colds. helen is quite well, thank you. now, mrs. avery, i want to ask you"-"don't," interrupted jean avery. "but i find it necessary," growled dr. thorne. she shook her head, and turned her face, which shrank against the blue pillow. pink and the baby began to quarrel in the nursery, and then both cried belligerently. "the baby kept me awake," faintly suggested mrs. avery. "it is an excellent explanation,--but you've just thought of it," observed dr. thorne. he spoke in a much louder tone than was necessary; his voice rose with the kind of instinctive, elemental rage under which he fled to covert with a sympathy that he found troublesome. "what i wish to know--what i insist on knowing--is, what caused this attack? it is something which happened since breakfast. i demand the nature of it--physical? mental? emotional?" "you may call it electric," answered jean avery, with her own lovable smile--half mischief, half pathos. "i see. the telephone." dr. thorne leaned back in his chair and scrutinized the patient. quite incidentally he took her pulse. it was sinking again, and the tempo had lapsed into unexpected irregularity. "helen shall come to see you," said dr. thorne with sudden gentleness. "i 'll send her this afternoon. you will keep perfectly still till then.... mr. avery is in town?" carelessly. "coming home to lunch?" "he has gone to court." "to dinner, then?" "it depends on the verdict. if he wins the case"-"oh, i see. and if he loses?" "he might go gunning, if he lost it," answered the wife, smiling quite steadily. "he might go gunning with mr. romer. he is very tired. he takes it hard when he does not win things--cases, i mean. he might--you see"- she faltered into a pathetic silence. "i will send helen at once," replied the physician. he felt that he had offered his subtlest and most artistic prescription. more than most wives are valued, dr. thorne loved his. but as he went downstairs a black frown caught him between the brows. in the course of an hour he managed to dispatch a messenger to the court-house. sixty patients clamored for him, but he wrote the note twice over, sitting in his buggy, before he sent the third copy:-dear avery,--your wife has suffered one of the attacks whose nature i explained to you some time ago. i found her condition serious, indicating a marked weakness of the heart. i consider that she had a narrow escape. you would not forgive me if i did not tell you, that you may govern your movements accordingly. yours as ever, esmerald thorne. jean avery lay with closed eyes, quite still, and smiling tranquilly. only the invalid mistress of a home knows how to value the presence of another lady in a household where children and servants fill the foreground, and where, as dr. thorne once put it, "every care as fast as it arises is taken to the bedside of the patient." the ever-womanly arrived with mrs. thorne. in the repose which came with her coming, and did not go with her going, the sick woman lay sheltered for the remainder of the day. her face, her voice, her motions, expressed the touching gratitude of one who has long since learned not to look beyond the bounty of temporary relief. mrs. thorne noted this; she noticed everything. the telephone called towards noon, ringing rapidly and impatiently--operators, like horses, were always nervous under marshall avery's driving; and when an anxious message from the court-house reached the wife, she said, "dear helen!" as if it had been helen's doing. and when they told her that mr. avery asked how she was, and would get home by mid-afternoon, and at any moment if she needed him, and would not leave her again that day, and that he sent his love to her and begged her to be careful for his sake, her breath fell so short with pleasure that they took fright for her. "my husband is so kind to me!" she panted. then her color came--a tidal wave, and her pulse, which had been staggering, fell into step and began to march strongly. "but this is a miracle!" cried the doctor's wife. "love is always a miracle," jean avery said. then she asked to have her hair arranged, and wanted an afternoon dress, and lace, and would have a bracelet that her husband gave her, and the turquoise pin he liked, and begged to be told that she looked quite well again, for "marshall hates to see me ill!" and the children--see that the children are dressed; and his slippers--they must be put beside the library table in that place he likes; not anywhere else, please, but just where he is used to finding them. and kate will have dinner early; and about the soup--and the salad--and not to overdo the grouse; and to light the library fire--and were they sure she could n't go down herself to see to things, and get as far as the library sofa? "mr. avery does n't like me not to meet him.... my husband is so good to me!" she urged, in the plaintive staccato that her short breath cut, till helen's eyes blazed and then brimmed to hear her. and now helen was gone, and the children; and jean lay quite still and alone, smiling tranquilly, as we said. her thoughts were long-distance wires, as the thoughts of the sick are, and they covered the spaces of ether and of earth that afternoon--the unexplored wastes into which the soul invites no fellow-traveler. her heart fled to the rose-red star of their early dream. they had loved as the young and the well, the brave and the bright, may love; passionately, as the brown and the blond do; and reasonably, as the well-mated and the fortunate can. they were of the same age, the same class, the same traditions; they knew the same people, who congratulated them in the same words; they had inherited the same ideals of life, and went buoyantly into it. not so much as a fad had inserted itself between their tastes, and in their convictions they were mercifully not divided. at first their only hardship had been the strenuous denial of the professional life; but she never wished him to make money--she was quite happy to put up muslin curtains at twelve and a half cents a yard, while her friends hung lace at twenty dollars a window--and had flung herself into the political economy of their household with a merry and ingenious enthusiasm, which she wore as charmingly as she did the blond colors, the blue, the lavender, the rose, the corn, over which she strained her honest eyes and bent her straight shoulders to save dressmakers' bills. since she had been ill she had tried--how hard no man could ever understand--not to grow careless about her dress. "the daintiest invalid i ever knew," dr. thorne used to say. marshall cared a good deal about such matters, was fastidious over a wrinkle, was sure to observe a spot or a blemish, while the immaculate might pass unnoticed for weeks; disliked old dresses; when she had a new one on he admired her as if she were a new wife, for a day or two. she was full of pretty little womanly theories about retaining her husband's devotion.... when had it begun to flag? she had made a science of wifehood, and applied it with a delicate art.... why had it failed? ... no, no, no! not _that_! not that word, _yet_! say rather, why had it faltered? with a tremulous modesty characteristic of her sweet nature, she scored herself for the disillusions of her married life, as if somehow the fault were hers. how had it all come about? was she fretful with the first baby? it seemed to have begun (if she thought very hard about it) with the first baby. she knew she had faded a little then. pink was a crying baby. "i lost so much sleep! and it makes one look so, about the eyes. and then, as marshall says, maternity affects the complexion." her thoughts came down from the rose-red star like aeronauts on parachutes, landing in fog and swamp. oh, the weariness, the waste of it! for the more she thought, the more she felt herself like one hanging in mid-space--heaven above her, earth below, and no place for her in either. she could not fly. she would not fall. "and i 'm not very strong to be clinging and holding on, like this. one might let go ... and not mean to." and yet she had held on pretty well, till the second baby came. she had never felt this moral dizziness till then, this something which might be called life-vertigo, that made it seem in mad, black moments easier to drop than to cling. for after the boy was born she was not well. she had never been strong since. and marshall hated sickness. he was such a big, strong, splendid fellow! it had been very hard on marshall. he hated it so, that she hated it too. she had scorned the scouts of her true condition, and when the trouble at the heart set in, and he called it "only nervous," she said, "no doubt you are quite right, dear," and blamed herself for feeling somehow hurt. she did not speak of it to any one for a long time, after that. but when, one easterly afternoon, the air being as heavy as the clods of the grave, she lay gasping for life for three hours alone, not able to reach a bell or call for help, she sent for dr. thorne. and he told her, for she insisted--and he knew his patient; not a woman to be wheedled by a professional lie--he told her the truth. "poor marshall!" said jean avery. "it will be so hard on my husband! ... don't tell him, doctor. i forbid you, doctor. i think he 'd take it easier if i told him myself, poor fellow!" she did not tell him that day, for he did not come home; nor the next, for he had a headache; nor the third, for he was in excellent spirits, and she could not bear to. in fact, she waited a week before she gathered her courage to speak. one saturday evening he did not go to the club, but was at home, and he had been very kind to her that day, and loving, and in fact he noticed her appearance, and asked her what was the matter, and why she breathed so short. then she drew his hand over her eyes, so that she might not see how he would look, and the beautiful curve of her lip broke a little, for she felt so sorry for her husband; but her firm voice carried itself with courage (jean never had the invalid's whine), and she told him what the doctor said. marshall avery listened in a silence which might have meant the utmost of distress or the innermost of skepticism. he walked to the window and stood for a while looking out into the lighted street. perhaps he had a blundering, masculine notion of doing the best thing for her. she would be the first to believe that. "i 'll see thorne about this," he said presently. "i can't have him putting you in a panic. you 've grown very nervous lately. "cheer up, jean," he added, coming over to her sofa. "don't grow hysteric, whatever happens." he sat down and put his arm around her. five minutes ago she would have clung to him and poured her soul out on his breast--would have put up her hand to his cheek and blessed him and worshiped him, as a wife does--and would have spared him the worst of everything, and given him the best; refrained from complaint, and lavished hope; made little of her own suffering, and much of his distress for her sake, as this wife could.... now, she lay quite still and irresponsive. she did not speak, but tried to smile gently upon him. then he saw her color change, and he flung the window up--for he was startled--and held her to the air. "poor girl!" he said. "poor jean! my poor jean!" "oh, _don't_!" cried jean. for the tenderness, coming after that other, well-nigh slew her. she began to sob,--the cruel sobs that wreck a weakened heart,--and the man fought for her life for an hour. when dr. thorne came the danger was quite over; as it usually is in such cases before the physician can arrive; but he said roughly,-"what have you been doing to her?" "he has been saving my life," panted jean. "well," replied esmerald thorne, "he can." when the two men went downstairs, the doctor said,-"your pardon,--if i wronged you, avery?" for he was generous in apology for so imperious a man. "why, yes, doctor," returned the husband, with a puzzled face, "i think you did." jean lay quietly on the blue lounge. pink and the baby were taken over to helen's. the house was unnaturally still. marshall was coming home in the middle of the afternoon to see her--to see _her_! the sick woman seemed to herself for that span of peace like a bride again, cherished and happy. care and illness had never occurred. life had not dulled the eyes of love. use had never threatened joy with indifference. this word, that deed, such a scene, all were phantasms of the fog into which she had fallen. she must have grown morbid, as the sick do. oh, the rose-red star hung in the heavens yet! his key clicked in the lock, and he came running up the stairs; dashed in, and knelt beside the lounge; then put his arm about her quietly, for he was shocked when he saw how she looked. his dark, fine face was broken with his feeling. hers quivered as she lifted it to his kiss. "did you lose the case, poor dear?" she said. "curse the case!" cried avery. "what's a case? ... i 'm not going gunning, jean. i 'm going to stay with you." color brushed all over her wan cheek, her brow, her lips. "i _was_ so afraid of guns!" she pleaded. "i always have been!" "it is one of your weaknesses," replied the husband, a shade less tenderly. "i know, dear. i have so many! guns--and boats--i am ashamed of myself. they 're like snakes. the terror is born in me. i don't know how to help it. you are very patient with me, marshall. perhaps, if i were stronger--but when one is ill, one can't--always--help things." ... "never mind," he said, in a magnanimous tone. "when you get well, you will feel differently. we must get you well, now. that is all i care for. it is all i care for in the world," he added, warmly and earnestly. she stirred towards him with an expression that would have moved a far more unworthy man than he. it was quite unconscious with her, and as instinctive as a law of nature. so a flower pleads for light. so life asks for nutrition. "could n't you sit up--if i held you? try!" he commanded, shaking his head in a boyish way he had: she could not have told how she loved to see it. he took her in his arms, and carried her across the room to the easy-chair. there he gathered her like a child, and put his cheek to hers, murmuring little words and phrases that both loved--language of their honeymoon, and joyous years. she drank them down as if they had been the breath of life. "doctors don't know!" he cried. "i believe you could get well." "i know i could," said jean. "you will! i say you must. you shall!" insisted marshall avery, in his passionate, peremptory voice. jean did not reply. but she smiled divinely into his bending face. swiftly she saw the room flooded with roselight. a star swam in mid-ether. two floated in it, with bridal eyes. earth was far and forgotten. heaven was close. he was quite devoted to her for a week or two after this; came home early, took her sometimes to drive, made much of little family jokes and merriment, admired everything she wore, gave her a white silk spanish shawl, and brought her the latest novels; sent her flowers like a lover, and spent his evenings with her. he talked of another maid to take care of the children, so that molly could give her time to the invalid. but mrs. avery shook her head. they could not afford that. "you are so generous to me, marshall! ... i am sorry it is so expensive to be sick. but i 'm getting better, dear--don't you see i am? i have n't felt so well for a year," she added. "oh, we 'll have you round again pretty soon," he said, with that hearty optimism which, one could not have told exactly why, seemed just to miss of the nature of sympathy. but jean's drafts on sympathy had always been scanty. it was very much as it was about the lace curtains. she could get along without what other women demanded. at least, she had always thought she could. it used to be so. she was troubled sometimes to find that sickness creates new heavens and a new earth, and that the very virtues of health may turn again and rend one. it was as if one had acquired citizenship in a strange planet, where character and nature change places. it was with a kind of fear that she received her husband's acceleration of tenderness. how was she to forego it, when the time came that it might--she omitted to acknowledge to herself that it would--overlook her again? she tried feverishly to get better in a hurry, as if she had been in some southern climate where she was but a transient tourist. she tried so hard, in fact, as sometimes to check the real and remarkable improvement which had now befallen her. one day mr. avery announced that he had the toothache, and if he were not so driven he would go and see armstrong; he meant to give armstrong all his work after this; armstrong was a good fellow, and they often met saturdays at the club. but the great electric case was up just then, and necessary dentistry was an impossible luxury to the young lawyer. endurance was a novelty, and avery grew nervous under it. he bore pain neither better nor worse than most men; and he was really suffering. any wife but jean would have called him cross. jean called him her poor boy. she dragged herself from her lounge--she had been a little less well the last few days--and lavished herself, as women like jean do, pouring out her own tenderness--a rare wine. after all, there are not too many tender women; jean was a genius in sympathy. she spent more sweetness and strength on that toothache than the other kind of woman has to give her husband if he meets a mortal hurt. avery received this calmly. he was used to it. to do him justice, he did not know how cross he was. he was used to that, too. and so was she. the baby was ailing, besides, and things went hard. the sick woman's breath began to shorten again; and the coy color which had been so hard to win to her lips fled from them unobserved. the doctor was not called; helen thorne was out of town; and so it happened that no one noticed--for, as we say, marshall avery had the toothache. one night he came home late, and as irritable as better men than he may be, and be forgiven for it, for the sake of that species of modern toothache in which your dentist neither extracts nor relieves, but devotes his highly developed and unhappy ingenuity to the demonic process which is known as "saving a tooth." "he calls it killing a nerve," sputtered avery. "i should call it killing a patient. this performance is the mauser bullet of up-to-date dentistry. it explodes all over you- oh, do let me alone, jean! you can't do anything for me. a man does n't want to be bothered. go and lie down, and look after yourself. where is that hot water? i asked for alcohol--laudanum--some confounded thing. can't anybody in this house do anything for me? i don't trouble them very often." "it's molly's evening out," said mrs. avery patiently. "i 'll get everything as fast as i can, dear." she was up and down stairs a good deal; she did not notice, herself, how often. and when she got to bed at last, she cried--she could not help it. it was something he had said. oh, no matter what! but she did not know how to bear it, for she was so exhausted, and sobs, which were her mortal enemy, overcame her as soon as she was alone. he did not hear her, for the door was shut between their rooms, and he was quite occupied with his mauser bullet. he had fallen into the habit of shutting the door when the second baby was born; he maintained that the boy was worse than pink. pink cried like a lady, but the boy bellowed like a megatherium. a little before half-past ten she heard him get up and dress and stir about. he opened the door, and said, without coming in:-"i 'm going to have this blank thing out. i 'm going to armstrong's house. i won't stand it another hour. i 'll be home presently." she tried to tell him how sorry she was, and to say some one of the little loving, wifely things with whose warm, sun-penetrated atmosphere she so enveloped his life that he took them as a matter of course. it is doubtful if he heard her altogether, for her voice was fainter than usual. "won't you come in a minute?" she pleaded. he did hear that. but he did not come. "oh, i can't stop now," he returned petulantly. "i 'm in such blank torment. i 'll be back; i may go to the club afterwards, and play it off at something, but i'll be back before midnight." "_dear?_" she called then, in an agitated voice; it was not like hers, and not like her; if he had perceived this--but he perceived nothing. "i don't feel _quite_ well"--she tried to say. but he was halfway downstairs. these five words wandered after him like the effort of a dumb spirit to communicate with deaf life. he thrust himself savagely into his overcoat, turned up the collar over his toothache, slammed the front door, and went. jean listened to his footfall on the steps, on the sidewalk; the nervous, irritable, uneven sound softened and ceased. she was quite awake, and her mind moved with feverish vitality. she was usually a good sleeper for a sick person; but that night she found herself too ill for any form of rest. the difficulty that she had in breathing increased with an insidious slowness which she had learned to fear as the most obstinate form of her malady. the room grew empty of air. the candle burned blue to her eyes. the shutting of the front door seemed like the shutting of that to which she would not give a name, for terror's sake. as her husband's footsteps passed from the power of her strained ears to overtake them, she found herself wondering how they would sound when they passed for the last time from her presence, she lying under a load of flowers, with the final look of the sky turned compassionately upon her. then she scorned herself--she was the most healthy-minded invalid who ever surmounted the morbidness of physical suffering--and thrust out her hands from her face, as if she were thrusting a camera which was using defective plates away from her brain. "if he had only come in a minute!" she said, sobbing a little. "if he had only come in and kissed me good-night"-she did not add: "he would have seen that i was too ill. he would not have left me." the candle burned faintly, and grew more faint. there seemed to be smoke in the room. the baby stirred in his crib, and pink, from the nursery, called, "mummer dee!" in her sleep. the air grew so dense that it seemed to jean to be packed about her like smothering wool. she rang the electric bell for molly, or she thought she did. but molly did not answer, and the nursery door was shut. there was nothing morbid in jean's thoughts by this time; no more gruesome vision; no touching situation whatever presented itself; she did not see herself as a pathetic object; even her husband vanished from her consciousness. kind or harsh--retreating footsteps or returning arms--light laughter on his lips or true love in his eyes--she thought of him not at all. he disappeared from her emergency like some diminishing figure that had fled from the field of a great battle. for the lonely woman knew now, at last, that she was wrestling with mortal peril. she had always wondered if she would know it from its counterfeits when it really came--there were so many counterfeits! she had asked, as all men ask, what it would be like. a long contention? a short, sharp thrust? agony? stupor? struggle, or calm? now she wondered not at all. there was nothing dramatic or exciting, or even solemn, in her condition. all her being resolved itself into the simple effort to get her breath. suddenly this effort ceased. she had struggled up against the pillows to call "molly! molly!" when she found that she could not call molly. as if her head had been under water, the function of breathing battled, and surrendered. then there befell her swiftly the most beatific instant that she had ever known. "i am tired out," she thought; "and i am going to sleep. i did not die, after all." she was aware of turning her face, as her head dropped back on her pillows, before she sank into ecstasy. the night was fair and cool. there was some wind, and the trees in the park winced under a glittering frost. avery noticed this as he hurried to dr. armstrong's. the leaves seemed to curl in a sensitive, womanish fashion, as if their feelings had been hurt before they received their death-stroke. "it is the third of november," he thought. his feet rang on the sidewalk sharply, and he ran up the long steps with his gloved hand held to his cheek. physical pain always made him angry. he was irritable with armstrong, who had none too good a temper himself; and the two men sparred a little before the dentist consented to remove the tooth. avery was surprised to find how short and simple an affair this was. "i believe i 'll run into the club," he observed as he put on his coat. "better go home," replied the dentist. "no? then i 'll go along with you." the two men started out in silence. avery looked across at the wincing leaves on the trees of the park. the tower of the church of the happy saints showed black against the sky. the club was only around the corner, and he was glad of it, for the night felt unpleasantly cold to him; he shivered as he entered the hot, bright, luxurious place; it was heavy with tobacco; the click of billiard-balls and the clink of a glass sounded to his ear with a curious distinctness above the laughter and the chat with which the house seemed to rock and echo. romer was there--tom romer; and he was uncommonly glad to see avery. the two gentlemen, with armstrong and another man, grouped upon a game of billiards. romer proposed whist, but armstrong said it was too late for whist. avery did not say anything, and he played stupidly, and after a while asked to be excused, and got up to go home. "you 're looking fagged," observed tom romer, knocking the ashes from his cigar artistically. "you 're overworked. most of you professional chaps are. come yachting with me, on the dream. we 're going to the sound after ducks. back in a week. start at seven o'clock to-morrow morning. stay and put up here, and get off with me. oh! i forgot. you 're one of those married men." "yes," replied avery, with a consciousness of superior virtue. "i could n't go without saying good-by to my wife. i wouldn't think of it for a moment," he added loftily. "give me a minute, romer, to think it over, will you?" he strolled to the window, and looked out at the waters of the black river which rushed whirling past the rear of the clubhouse. it occurred to him that armstrong watched him anxiously. but armstrong did not speak. "i 'll go--thanks!" said avery, coming back, with his hands in his pockets. "i 'll get word to the office; they can manage without me, somehow--that is, if you 'll promise to get me back in a week?" "i 'll set you ashore at the back yard of this club six days from to-morrow," answered romer. "the dream 's a dandy," added the yachtsman, swelling a little. "she can do it." avery replied absently, and hurriedly started for home. in fact, he ran most of the way (dr. armstrong could not keep up with him), for he was shocked to find that it was now one o'clock. "poor jean!" he thought; "i stayed too long." then he remembered for the first time that he had got to tell jean that he was going. it occurred to him for a moment that he would rather give up going with romer than tell jean. but it was now too late to do that. "you see," he said, stopping for armstrong to overtake him, "i 've _got_ to go, now." but armstrong did not reply; he turned in at his own house with a manner which his friend felt to be superfluous. avery experienced a certain resentment against the dentist. he was relieved to be alone, and walked more slowly. when he came into his own hall, the house was perfectly still. he took off his shoes, and tiptoed upstairs, pausing at the door of his wife's room. she was sleeping so soundly that she did not hear him--an unusual circumstance, for jean, though a good sleeper, as we said, was a light one. the husband was conscious that he had fallen on better chance than he deserved. he had expected to find her awake, and more or less nervous over his belated return. "what luck!" he thought. yes, he was really very glad that jean was asleep, poor girl. she would take it hard--to-morrow. he moved about like a cat, packing his valise. he had several letters to write, too,--one to his partner, one or two to clients, and one--well, why not? why not write one to his wife? it would obviate a great deal of trouble on both sides; in fact, it would save him so much that he persuaded himself, without undue difficulty, that it would save her too. so he wrote the letter. it was a very affectionate letter. it set forth in the tenderest terms his devotion to her, and to her true interests, which, plainly, would be best served by some attention to his own health; he was really overworked; the electric case had got where it could be left for a few days, and he would distinctly be gone but a few days; he promised her that--a week at the outside--and she was always so glad to have him get any sort of a vacation. he felt sure that he could count upon her sympathy in going. he would think of her constantly, and fly back to her with that constant--etc.--faithful, true, and tender--etc.--etc. he had to start so early in the morning that he would not wake her up. he would telegraph her from the first port they made. she must remember that the yacht was as safe as a cunarder; they were only going to the sound. he said nothing about ducks or guns. he gave her a cape address to which she could send any message she chose. she must not get nervous. she must take the best care of herself for his sake. and he was her devoted husband. he slipped this letter under her door--slept a few hours--and waked at five. at half-past five he crept downstairs, his valise in his hand, and his heart in his throat. he heard pink talking and grinding her teeth in her sleep; but jean did not stir, thank heaven. he slid out of the front door like a burglar, and ran. it was a brisk morning, and promised to be a fresh southwesterly. he walked a little way in the direction of the club. abruptly he stopped, turned, and ran back. "it would n't do," he said; "i must see her; i must if the dream sails without me. let her sail!" he added. he pushed open the front door, and rushed noisily upstairs. the family was astir; the baby was crying; pink was trotting about the upper hall, unnoticed, in her little nightgown and bare feet. he did not hear jean's voice, but molly's struck upon his ear in an agitated, incoherent manner. he went in through his own room; he was relieved to find that the letter under the door had not been disturbed. he caught it up, and slipped it swiftly into his pocket. "it would not have done at all," he thought. he felt ashamed of himself that he had ever supposed for a moment it would have done. he really felt very thankful that he had decided to come back and break the news to her in person. it occurred to him that it was the least he could do under the circumstances. with a certain self-satisfaction on his face, he pushed his way into his wife's room. jean was not on the bed; she was lying on the lounge, across whose blue pillow he saw that the white silk spanish shawl he gave her was tossed in a disorderly way. the lace frill of her nightdress was torn open at the throat. her abundant yellow hair was loose, and partly concealed her face. she was imperfectly covered with a blanket that she had dragged with her from her bed in some desperate endeavor, whose pitiful story might never be known, to summon help. "i did n't hear me bell!" cried molly. "an' there she do be lyin' when i come in." "jean!" called avery loudly; "_jean!_" part ii at the claim of his voice she responded; smiling, she stirred. he could not help remembering how she had once said, "if i were dead, i should answer you if you called me, marshall." and for the moment, she had looked--but it was not death. she opened her large eyes and regarded him--strangely, he thought, for the instant; then with the lambent look which belonged to jean, and quite steadily. he knelt by her, and drew the blanket up, and buttoned the nightdress at her throat with clumsy fingers. "i have come back to say"--he began. but he could not say it. "have you had an ill turn?" he temporized. "i don't know," said jean. "how did you happen to be on the lounge?" "i don't know," repeated jean. "are you suffering, dear?" "i fell asleep," said jean, after some thought. "don't you remember when you got out of bed?" "i have had a wonderful sleep," said jean. "i never had anything of the kind before. it was like heaven." "are you suffering now?" "no--i think not--no. i feel pretty weak. but i am not suffering." "shall i call the doctor?" "i sha'n't need the doctor. i don't want ... i don't need anybody but you." she turned and put her hand to his cheek. her long hair fell away from her face and revealed its expression; he turned his own away at sight of it. "how early you are dressed!" she said, in a different tone. "i was going out," he stammered. "i was--going away." "oh! _going_! where are you going?" "i won't, if you don't want me to." "you did n't say where you were going." "well, you see--romer asked me to take a little trip with him. he thought i looked fagged out. he starts in--jove! he starts in twenty minutes." "and you have n't had any breakfast!" said jean; her divine self-oblivion pushed to the front,--a trained soldier. but her chin trembled in a touching fashion that she had when she was too much grieved to say so, or too weak to admit that she was grieved. he had risen from his knees and stood beside her, looking down. her weakness and her loveliness seemed to lift themselves towards him like pleading things which he thrust off. he felt uncomfortable and irresolute. he was conscious of trying not to look annoyed. "you are going in a boat?" she asked, very faintly now. "well--yes--a sort of boat." avery fumbled fatuously. "it's quite a safe one," he added. "and romer says"- he began to tell her what romer said. "and guns?" she whispered. "there will be guns?" "oh, i presume tom has a gun," replied the husband, with what he felt to be an ingenious veracity. "you know i 'm no shot. i don't like guns much better than you do, dear.... i 'm getting late," he observed abruptly. "but i won't go, jean, if you don't want me to. i thought it might set me up a little," he added, before she could reply. in fact, she did not seem to incline to reply, or did not feel able to do so; he could not tell which. she lay looking up at him quite steadily. molly had taken both the children into the nursery, and the two were alone. a clock ticked on the mantel in a loud, irritating tone. the white silk spanish shawl which had fallen from the lounge hung to his coat-sleeve; it was a delicate thing, and the fringe clung like tendrils; he had to tear it off roughly. he bethought him to wrap the shawl about her when he had done this, for she seemed to be cold. as he bent to perform for her this little service--which was offered with an obtrusive tenderness--he stooped and kissed her throat. the soft, sweet flesh quivered at his touch. jean raised her weak arms and clasped them about his neck. but they fell back instantly, as if the action had hurt her. "come, dear," he resumed hurriedly. "shall i go--or not?" "i don't feel _quite_ well," faltered jean. "i think--i slept too long--that heavenly sleep ... last night"-"i 'll go and tell romer i can't go," said avery shortly. he started, and went half across the room, then paused. "well, jean?" he suggested. jean did not reply. she was lying just as he had left her, with her arms fallen at her sides, her bright hair brushed back from her face, which looked strangely prominent and large. there was that in her eyes which a man would not have refused in a dog. the husband returned impetuously to her side. "poor jean! i won't go. really i won't. i 'll do just as you say--truly i will. won't you _say_, jean? won't you express a wish?" but jean shook her head. the time had come when she had no wish to express; and she seemed not to have the strength to express even the fact that she had none. "if you think it best ... for you" ... the words were inarticulate. "i really do," urged avery uncomfortably. "at least, i did--that is, unless you are actually too ill to spare me.... how is a man to know?" he muttered, not thinking she would hear. "good-by," breathed jean. she did not try to lift her arms this time. he stooped and kissed her affectionately. her lips clung to his. but her eyes clung longer than her lips. they clasped him until he felt that if he did not throw them off, he could not get away. across the room he paused. "i 'll send thorne," he said. "i 'll send the doctor. i can't go unless i feel quite safe about you. and i 'll call molly as i go down." he tried to add something about telegrams, and how short a trip it was, and so on. but jean's eyes silenced him. solemn, mute, distant, they looked upon him like the eyes of an alien being moving through the experiences of an unknown world. for a moment their expression appalled him; it was not reproach; it was scarcely to be called anguish; rather a fine and tragic astonishment, for which speech would have been too coarse a medium. but he shut the door, caught pink, who was crying for her breakfast, kissed the child, and went. as he stepped out into the street, the morning air struck him a slap in the face. the wind was rising, and it hit him hard in the breast, as if it had the mind to push him back. he forced his way against it, and reached the club out of breath and with suffused face, as if he were blushing. he flung an order at the desk:-"telephone for dr. thorne. tell him mrs. avery is n't feeling quite as well as usual, and i am unfortunately called away. he 'd better go right over to the house." he dashed into the dining-room, poured out a cup of coffee, and hurried to the river-wall. the dream lay off in mid-stream--a white seventy-footer schooner-rigged, with a new suit of sails that presented an almost startling brightness in the early morning light. the tender was already manned, and rowed in impatiently at his signal. he was fifteen minutes late. he said nothing to the crew, assuming the ready lordliness of a poor man who had never owned and would never own a yacht, but apologized rather unnecessarily to romer when he got aboard, explaining the circumstances with more minuteness than was necessary. "why, great scott, man!" said romer. "i 'd have waited for you another day--any number of them--if mrs. avery lifted an eyelash. put you ashore now, if you say so." but avery shook his head magnanimously. the yacht slipped her mooring and swung slowly into the channel, careened under the strong westerly, and slid away. it was uncommon for pleasure boats of the dream's class to anchor in the river, but it had been romer's whim; if he did not value playing _le bon prince_ at the club, he liked to do the uncommon with his yacht; he amused himself and his guest with the laggard process of getting out into the bay, pointing out the picturesqueness gained at the expense of time and trouble, and making himself entertaining--as romer could--with the vivacity of a sportsman and the ingenuity of an accomplished host. marshall avery was not talkative, and replied with effort. "we 'll have breakfast as soon as we 're through the draw," said romer. it occurred to avery that it would be impossible to eat. he sat with his eyes fixed on the housetops of the west end. in the early air and color this decorous section had a misty and gracious effect, half mysterious, wholly uncharacteristic of that architectural commonplace. there was the tower of the church of the happy saints. and three blocks beyond--molly would be just about bringing up the tray, and setting it on the invalid table beside the blue lounge. "somebody 's driving up back of the club," observed tom romer. "it's a buggy--looks a little like thorne's, does n't it? has those top wings. it's stopped at the river-wall." he handed the marine glass to his guest. "all those doctors' buggies are alike," replied avery. "i can't see very well," he added. in fact, the glass shook in his hand. the yacht slipped through the draw comfortably, and headed to the harbor. the club, the river-wall, the buggy, vanished from the glass. the two gentlemen went below to breakfast. when they came on deck again, the dream was easily clearing the harbor and making out to sea. the wind was fair, and the yacht fled under full canvas. "she walks right along!" cried romer. he was exhilarated by the speed of his boat, which was, in fact, a racer, and built in all her lines to get over a triangular course in the least possible time. he talked about her safe points to the landsman (who responded with the satisfaction of ignorance), but the final end of the dream's being was speed, unqualified by inferior considerations. to this american idol, boats, like men, are sacrificed as matters of course. one scarcely makes conversation on so obvious a topic. to tell the truth, avery was not especially fond of yachting, and the careening of the dream under the pleasant westerly did not arouse in him that enthusiasm which, somehow, he had expected to experience on this trip. when the water ran over the rail, he changed his seat to windward. when it rushed over, he held on to something. tom romer chaffed him amiably. "why, this is only a fair sailing day!" he cried. "wait till it breezes up." "oh, i shall enjoy it if it comes," replied the lawyer. in fact, he was enjoying nothing. his thoughts surged like the water through which the yacht was driving. their depth was enveloped and disguised in foam. when romer said proudly, "she's making twelve knots!" his guest reflected, "i 'm so much farther away from her." the same personal pronoun answered for the sportsman and the husband. before the dream was off plymouth, the little cruise had assumed the proportions of an atlantic voyage to the landsman's imagination. by noon he remembered that in his hurry to get off he had made no definite provision with jean about telegrams from, but only for messages to her. all that was arranged in the note, but he had torn up the note. with that leisurely appreciation of unpleasant facts which is so natural to the sanguine, and so incomprehensible by the anxious temperament, it occurred to him in the course of the afternoon that his wife had seemed much less well than usual when he bade her good-by; in fact, that he had never seen her look precisely as she did that morning. he began to acknowledge distinctly to himself that he wished he knew how she was. he grew definitely uneasy as the early autumn twilight dulled the color of the water and the horizon of the distant shore. they were well on the shoals now, for the breeze was stiff, and the yacht ran at a spanking pace. the wind was not going down with the sun, but rose strongly. the landsman began to be a little seasick, which somehow added to his moral discomfort. "how can i get a telegram off?" he asked abruptly, much in the tone in which he would have called for a district messenger in the court-house. "oh, i might tap a cable for you, i suppose," returned his host, with twitching mustache. "look here," added romer. "what is it--_mal de mer_? or nostalgia? do you want to be put ashore?" "not at all," replied avery, with the pugnacity which men are accustomed to mistake for high ethical obligations to their own sex. "i only want to get a message to my wife. you see, i promised her." "we 'll run into wood's hole in the morning, by all means," said romer cordially. "it's a great place for ducks, anyhow, off there." "oh--ducks?" repeated avery stupidly. he had forgotten that they came to kill ducks. "we 're goin' to have a breeze o' wind," observed one of the crew, who was lowering the jib-topsail. "i'd like to take the dispatch myself, when we get there, if i may," the seasick lawyer hazarded, somewhat timidly. but next morning, when the dream dropped anchor off wood's hole, and the tender was lowered, he was flat in his berth. he could not take the dispatch, and a detail of two from the crew bounced off with it, pounding over the choppy sea. the frail and fashionable tender looked like one of the little florida shells that are sold by the quart; there was now a considerable sea; the yacht herself was pretty wet. romer was in excellent spirits. "we might get a duck or two before breakfast, if it isn't too rough," he suggested. "sorry you 're laid up." "oh--_ducks_?" repeated avery again. he wished he could have a chance to forget that he had left his wife too ill to lift her head, and had come wallowing out here to kill ducks. "i can't remember that a duck ever did me any harm," he said savagely, aloud. he heard the occasional report of guns over his head with a sense of personal injury. nobody hit any ducks, and he was glad of it. the dream cruised about, he did not know where. he had ceased to feel any interest in her movements. he did not even ask where they had anchored for the night. the wind rose steadily throughout the day. as the force of the blow increased, his physical miseries ascended and his moral consciousness declined. his anxiety for his wife blurred away in a befuddled sense of his own condition. "i don't believe she's any worse off than i am," he thought. this reflection gave him some comfort. he slept again that night the shattered sleep of the seasick and unhappy, and woke with a cry. a port-hole of gray dawn darkened by green waters was in the stateroom, which seemed to be standing on its experienced and seaworthy head. the yacht was keeling and pitching weakly. tom romer stood beside the berth, looking at his guest; he did not smile. it was an uncommon thing to see tom romer without a smile. the yachtsman wore oilskins and a sou'wester, and dripped with salt water like a grand banker. "god! romer, what's the matter?" avery got to his feet at once. he forgot that he was seasick. his bodily distresses fled before the swift, strong lash of fright. "the fact is," replied romer slowly, "we 've struck a confounded gale--a _november_ gale," he added. "it's turned easterly. she 's been dragging her anchor since two. now"-"now what?" demanded avery sharply. he staggered into his clothes without waiting for an answer. "well--we 've snapped our road." "road?" the landsman struggled to recall his limited stock of nautical phrases. "that's the rope you tie your anchor to? oh! what are you going to do?" he asked, with unnatural humility. the fatal helplessness of ignorance overwhelmed him. if he ever lived to get back, he would turn the tables, and conduct romer through a complicated lawsuit. "run into the sound if i can," returned romer. "it won't do to get caught on some of these shoals round here." "of course not," replied avery, who did not know a shoal from a siren. "say, romer, what's the amount of danger? out with it!" "oh, she's good for it," said the yachtsman lightly. then his voice and manner changed. his insouciant black eyes peered suddenly at his guest as if from a small, keen, marine lens. "say, old fellow," he said slowly, "i hope there was n't any sort of a quarrel,--you know,--any domestic unpleasantness, before you came on this trip? i wish to blank i 'd left you ashore." "quarrel? a demon could n't quarrel with my wife!" exploded avery. "that was my impression," returned his host. "beg pardon, avery. you see--to be honest, i can't say exactly how we 're coming out of this. there are several things which might happen. i thought"--the sportsman stammered, and stopped. "if you should pull through and i should n't," said avery, lifting a gray face,--"i 'm not a swimmer, and you are,--tell her i 'd give my immortal soul if i had n't left her. tell her--i--god! romer, she was very sick! she did n't want me to go." "i 've always thought," said the bachelor, "that if _i_ had a wife--a woman like that"- his face hardened perceptibly, dripping under his sou'wester. "you fellows don't know what you 've got," he added abruptly. he scrambled up the companionway without looking back. avery followed him abjectly. at this moment the yacht groaned, grated, and keeled suddenly. water poured over the rail. the deck rang with cries. avery got up, and held on to something. it proved to be the main-sheet. it ran through his fingers like a saw, and escaped. confusedly he heard the mate crying:-"we 've struck, sir! she 's stove in!" "well," replied the owner coolly, "get the boats over, then." he did not look at his guest. avery looked at the water. it seemed to leap up after him, hike a beast amused with a ghastly play. oddly, he recalled at that moment coming in one day--it was after she knew what ailed her--and finding jean with a book face down on her lap. he picked it up and read, "_the vision of sudden death_." he had laughed at her, and scolded her for filling her mind with such things. "you don't _quite_ understand, dear," she had answered. "come," said romer, whose remarkable self-possession somehow increased rather than diminished avery's alarm, "we have n't as much time to spare as i would like. hold hard there while mr. avery gets aboard!" the tender was prancing like a mustang on a prairie, for there was really a swamping sea. the landsman was clumsy and nervous, missed his footing, and fell. as he went under he cried, in a piercing voice, "_tell my wife_"-when the water drove into his throat and lungs, he thought how he had seen her fight for her breath, patiently, hours at a time. she had told him once that it was like drowning. it was two days after this that a man who attracted some attention among the passengers got off the shore train at the old station in the city. marshall avery seemed to himself to see this man as if he saw another person, and felt a curious interest in his appearance and movements. the man was dressed in borrowed clothes that did not fit; his face was haggard and heavily lined; he had no baggage, and showed some excitement of manner, calling several hackmen at once, and berating the one he selected for being too slow. a kind of maniacal hurry possessed him. "drive for your life!" he said. he did not lean back in the carriage, but sat up straight, as if he could not spare time to be comfortable. when the hack door slammed avery saw the man no more, but seemed to crouch and crawl so far within his personality that it was impossible to observe the traveler from the outside. avery had never in his life before been in the throat of death, and been spewed out, like a creature unwelcome, unfit to die. the rage of the gale was in his ears yet; the crash of the waves seemed to crush his chest in. occasionally he wiped his face or throat, as if salt water dashed on it still. he had made up his mind definitely--he would never tell jean the details. she would not be able to bear them. it might do her a harm. he would simply say that the yacht got caught in a blow, and struck, and that the tender brought him ashore. she would not understand what this meant. why should she know that he went overboard in the process? or what a blank of a time they had to fish him out? or even to bring him to, for that matter? why tell her how long the tender had tossed about like a chip in that whirlpool? it was unnecessary to explain hell to her. to say, "we snapped an oar; we had to scull in a hurricane," would convey little idea to her. and she would be so distressed that one of the crew was lost. the dream was sunk. romer had remained on the cape to try to recover the body of his mate. he, marshall avery, her husband, had been saved alive, and had come back to her. what else concerned, or, indeed, what else could interest her? in ten minutes nothing would interest either of them, except that he had her in his arms again.... jean! he thrust his face out of the hack window and cried:-"drive faster, man! i 'm not going to a funeral." the driver laid the whip on and put the horse to a gallop. the passenger leaned back on the cushions now for the first time and drew a full breath. "jean!" he repeated, "jean! _jean_!" the tower of the church of the happy saints rose before his straining eyes against the cold november sky. it was clear and sunny after the storm; bleak, though. he shivered a little as he came in sight of the club. a sick distaste for the very building overcame him. a flash of the river where the dream had anchored glittered between the houses. he turned away his face. he thought:-"i wonder when she got the telegrams?" the first one must have reached her by noon of the second day out. this last, sent by night delivery from the little cape village where the shipwrecked party had landed (he had routed out the operator from his bed to do it)--this last telegram ought to have found her by breakfast-time. she would know by now that he was safe. she might have had--well, admit that she must have had some black hours. possibly the papers--but he had seen no papers. it had been a pity about the telephone. he had searched everywhere for the blue bell. he had found one in a grocery, but the tempest had gnawed the long-distance wire through. he would tell her all about it now in six minutes--in five--poor jean! no--stop. he would carry her some flowers. it would take but a minute. she thought so much of such little attentions. the driver reined up sharply at the corner florist's; it was avery's own florist, but the salesman was a stranger, a newcomer. he brought a dozen inferior tea-roses out with an apology. "sorry, sir, but they are all we have left. we 've been sending everything to mr. avery's." avery stared at the man stupidly. was jean entertaining? some ladies' lunch? then she was much better. or was she so ill that people were sending flowers, as people do, for lack of any better way of expressing a useless sympathy? he felt his hands and feet turn as cold as the seas of cape cod. "drive slower," he said. but the fellow did not hear him, and the hack rushed on. at the passenger's door it stopped with a lurch. avery got out slowly. the house looked much as usual, except that a shade in jean's bedroom was drawn. it was just the hour when she sometimes tried to sleep after an ill night. the husband trod softly up the long steps. he felt for his latch-key, but remembered that he had never seen it since he went overboard. he turned to ring the bell. as he did so something touched his hand disagreeably; a gust of november wind twisted it around and around his wrist. avery threw the thing off with a cry of horror. he had leaned up heavily against the door, and when molly opened it suddenly, he well-nigh fell into the house. "oh, sir!" said molly. she had been crying, and looked worn. he stood with his tea-roses in his hand staring at her; he did not speak. he heard the baby crying in the nursery, and pink's little feet trotting about somewhere. the house was heavy with flowers,--roses, violets, tuberoses,--a sickening mixture of scents. he tried several times to speak, but his dry throat refused. "what's happened?" he managed to demand at last, fiercely, as if that would help anything. "the doctor's here. he 'll tell you, sir," said molly. she did not look him in the eye, but went softly and knocked at the library door. avery started to go upstairs. "oh, mr. avery," cried molly, "don't you do that; don't you, sir!" then dr. thorne stepped out of the library. "wait a minute, avery," he said, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, which at once restored avery's composure. "just come in here before you go up, will you?" marshall avery obeyed. he stepped into the library. and dr. thorne shut the door. the two men regarded each other for a moment in surcharged silence. the distracted husband stood trembling pitiably. he passed his left hand over his eyes, then pushed it over his right wrist several times, as if he were pushing away an obstruction. "i don't seem to be quite right in the head, thorne," he pleaded. "i thought there was--something on the doorbell.... i 've been shipwrecked. i 'm not--just myself.... why don't you speak to me? _doctor_! _doctor_!" "i find it--difficult," replied the experienced physician, with embarrassment. "the case is--unusual. mrs. avery"-"give me the worst!" cried the tortured man. "that is impossible," said esmerald thorne, in a deep voice. he turned away and went to the window, where he stood looking out into the back yard. kate was hanging out some sheets and other bedding. avery noticed this circumstance--he had got up and stood behind the doctor--as people notice the pettiest items in the largest crises of their lives. a small fluttering white thing on the line arrested his attention. it was the silk spanish shawl which he had given his wife. he put out his hand--groped, as a seeing man suddenly smitten blind will grope--and, fumbling, found the doctor's arm and clutched it. then he toppled; his weight came heavily, and the physician caught him before he struck the floor. he pushed the brandy away from his lips and struggled up. even at that moment it occurred to him that esmerald thorne looked at him with something like aversion. "when did she die?" "yesterday." "what time?" "at the ebb of the tide. it was eleven o'clock in the morning." "who was with her?" "the servants." "oh, my god, thorne! nobody else? were n't you there?" "i got there.... i doubt if she knew it.... it was only twenty minutes before the end. hush! avery, hush! don't groan like that, man. nobody is to blame. if only--you"- dr. thorne checked himself, savagely, as he did when he was moved beyond endurance. "oh, i take it all!" cried avery. he stooped as if he bent his broad shoulders to receive some mighty burden. "i shall carry it _all_ ... forever. men have gone mad," he added, more calmly, "for much less than i have got to face." "if you find yourself strong enough," said the physician, "i shall try to put you in possession of the facts." again, as before, avery thought he noticed an expression of aversion on the countenance of his old friend. cowering, he bowed before it. it was part of his punishment; and he had already begun to feel that nothing but a consciousness of punishment could give him any comfort now. "will you go up and see her first?" asked dr. thorne, as if to gain time. "she looks very lovely," he added, with quivering lip. but the room rang to such a cry as the man of mercy--used to human emergency, and old before his time in the assuagement of human anguish--had never heard. it softened dr. thorne a little, and he tried to be more gentle. he did not succeed altogether. iron and fire were in the doctor's nature, and the metal did not melt for marshall avery. he began quietly, with a marked reserve. mrs. avery, he said, had been very ill on the morning that her husband started. he had hurried to the house, as requested; her condition was so alarming that, after doing what he could to relieve her, he had driven rapidly to the river-wall back of the club, hoping to signal the yacht before it was out of reach; he had even dispatched some one in a row-boat, and some one else on a bicycle, hoping to overtake the dream at the draw. the patient must have been low enough all night; and being subject to such attacks-"i had warned you," said the physician coldly. "i explained to you the true nature of her condition. i have done my best for a year to prevent just this catastrophe.... no. i don't mean to be a brute. i don't want to dwell on that view of it. you don't need my reproaches. of course you know how she took that trip of yours. when the storm came up, she--well, she suffered," said the doctor grimly. "and the wreck got into the papers. we did our best to keep them from her. but you know she was a reading woman. and then her anxiety.... and you hadn't given us any address to telegraph to. when she began to sink, we could not notify you. i should have sent a tug after you if it had n't been for the gale- what do you take me for? _of course_ i provided a nurse. and my wife would have been here, but she was out of town. she only returned last night. helen did n't get here in time, either. it was most unfortunate. i sent the best woman i could command. my regular staff were all on duty somewhere. that was the infernal part of it. i had to take this stranger. i gave her every order. but mrs. avery seemed to rally that morning. she deceived us all. she deceived me; i admit it. the woman must needs take her two hours off just then--and mrs. avery got hold of the paper. that's the worst of it. she read the account of the wreck all through. you see, the reporters gave the party up. she was unconscious when i got here. once she seemed to know me. but i cannot honestly say that i believe she did. i don't think i have anything more to say. not just now, anyhow." esmerald thorne turned away and looked out of the window again, tapping on the sill with his fingers--scornfully one might have said. "we made the best arrangements we could. some relatives telegraphed. and the interment"-"oh, have some mercy, thorne! i have borne all i can--from _you_." ... "esmerald?" as if a spirit had stirred it, the library door opened inwards slowly. a womanly voice embodied in a fair and stately presence melted into the room. "oh, my dear! my dear!" said helen thorne. "leave him to _me_." as the stricken man lifted his face from the lash of his fellow-man, the woman put out her hands and gathered his, as if he had been a broken child. "oh," she said, "don't take it so! don't think of it _that_ way. it would break jean's heart.... she loved you so! ... and she knew you did n't know how sick she was. any wife would know that--if her husband loved her, and if she loved him. and you did love her. and she knew you did. she used to tell me how sure she was of your true love--and how precious it was to her, and how much she ... cared for you." helen's voice faltered on these last three words; she pronounced them with infinite tenderness; it was the pathos of woman pleading for womanhood, or love defending love. "and she would n't want you to be tortured so--_now_. oh, she would be the first of us all to forgive you for any mistake you made, or any wrong you did. she would understand just how it all came about, better than any of us can--better than you do yourself. jean always understood. she wanted nothing, nothing in this world, but for you to be happy. she was so grieved because she was sick, and could not go about with you, and make it as cheerful for you at home as she used to do. she used to tell me--oh, she used to tell me so many things about how she felt, and every feeling she ever had was purer and tenderer and truer than the feeling of any other woman that i ever knew! she was the noblest woman--the loveliest, ... and she loved _you_.... why, she could n't bear it--she could n't _bear_ it, dead up there as she is, if we let you suffer like this, and did not try ... if i did not try to comfort you." helen's own tears broke her choking words. but the heart-break of the man's sobs came now at last; and they had such a sound that the doctor covered his eyes, and stood with bowed head, as if he had been the culprit, not the judge, before the awful courts of human error, remorse, and love, in which no man may doom his fellow, since god's verdict awaits. "come, mr. avery," said helen. she stooped and picked up the tea-roses, which had fallen and were scattered on the floor, put them into his cold hand--and then drew away. "she 'd rather you would go up alone," said helen thorne. he passed out through the open door. his two friends fell back. the children could be heard in the dining-room: molly was trying to keep them quiet there. it seemed to him as if he waded through hot-house flowers, the air was so thick with their repugnant scent. he crawled upstairs, steadying himself by the banister. the hall below looked small and dark, like a pit. his head swam, and it occurred to him that if he fell he would fall to a great depth. he clung to the wretched tea-roses that he had brought her. he remembered that this was the last thing he could ever do for her. outside the door of her room he stopped. his lips stirred. he found himself repeating the old, commonplace words wrung from the despair of mourners since grief was young in the story of the world:-"it is all over. this is the end." "no," said a distinct voice near him, "it is not the end." starting, he stared about him. the hall was quite empty, above and below. the nursery door was closed. the children and molly could be heard in the dining-room. no person was within the radius of speech with him. the door of jean's chamber was shut. the roses shook in his hand. part iii avery stood irresolute. "it is one of those hallucinations," he thought. "this shock--following the wreck--has confused me." the voice was not repeated; and after a few moments' hesitation he opened the door of his wife's room. it was neither dark nor light in the chamber; something like twilight filled the room, which, unlike the house, was not heavy with the excessive perfume of flowers. a handful of violets (modest, winning, and like jean) was all that had been admitted; these stood on a table beside her bible and prayer-book, her little portfolio, and her pen and inkstand. in his wretchedness marshall duly perceived the delicate thought which had ordered that his should be the first flowers to touch her dear body. he came up with his poor roses in his hand. jean seemed to have waited for them. he could have said that she uttered a little, low laugh when she saw him cross the room.... impossible to believe that she did not see him! she lay so easily, so vitally, that the conviction forced itself upon him that there was some hideous mistake. "perhaps i am still in the water," he thought, "and this is one of the visions that come to drowning people." "i may be dead, myself," he added. "who knows? but _jean_ is not dead." he thrust up the shade, and let the november day full into the room. it fell strongly upon her bright hair and her most lovely face. he called her by her name two or three times. it might be said that he expected her to stir and stretch out her hands to him. "i never thought you would die," he argued. "you know i did n't, jean. why, you told me yourself you should live for years.... jean, my girl! they 've blundered somehow. you _could n't_ die, you _would n't_ die, jean, while i was on that cruel trip.... i was sorry i went. i was ashamed of myself for leaving you.... i hurried back--and i was shipwrecked--i was almost drowned. i 'll never leave you again, dear darling! i 'll never leave you again as long as i live!" these words ached through his mind. he could hardly have said whether he spoke them aloud or not. he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. by some carefulness, probably helen thorne's, the usual ghastly circumstance of death was spared jean. she lay quite naturally and happily in her own bed, in her lace-frilled night-dress, with her bright hair braided as she used to braid it for the night. except for her pallor--and she had been a little pale so long that this was not oppressive--she wore one of her charming looks. the conviction that she was not dead persisted in the husband almost to the point of pugnacity. it occurred to him that if he lifted her she would cling to him, and comfort herself against his heart. "come, jean!" he said. he held out his arms. "forgive me, jean.... i shall never forgive myself." then he stooped to kiss her; and _then_ he slid to his knees, and hid his face in his shaking hands, and uttered no cry, nor any word or sound. he was so still, and he was still so long, that his friends took alarm for him, and helen thorne quietly opened the door. when she saw him, she retreated as quietly, went downstairs, and called his little girl. pink trotted up noisily as pink always did, hurried to her mother's room, and hesitated on the threshold. when she said "hullo, papa!" her father turned and saw her standing there. he made an instinctive movement towards her; the child ran to him; he caught her, and kissed her little hands and hair, and pink said: "crying, papa? have you got 'e toofache? ... come to mummer dee. she 'll comfort you." into the church of the happy saints, where jean was used to worship (for she was a religious woman, in her quiet, unobtrusive way), they carried her for her last prayer and chant. and it was noticed how many people there were among the mourners of this gentle lady to whom she had done some kindness, forgotten by every one except themselves, or, more likely, not known to any one else; obscure people, those who had not many friends, and especially sick people, the not helpless, but not curable, whom life and death alike pass by. in her short, invalid life jean had remembered everybody within her reach who bore this fate; and it would never be known now in what sweet fashion she had contrived to make over to these poor souls a precious portion of her abounding courage, or the gift of jean's own sympathy. this was something quite peculiar to herself. it was finer than the shading of words in a poem, as reverent as the motion of feeling in a prayer, and always as womanly as jean. he who followed her to her burial in such a trance of anguish as few men know who love a wife and cherish her (as so many do, that women may well thank heaven for their manly number),--he who had loved, but had not cherished, looked into jean's open grave, and believed that in all the world he stood most desolate among afflicted men. "i left her to die alone," he said. he grasped pink's little hand till he hurt the child, and she wrenched it away. he did not even notice this, and his empty hand retained its shape as the little girl's fingers had left it. "i went on a gunning trip. and she asked me not to go. and she died alone." ... the clergyman's voice intoning sacred words smote upon and did not soothe this comfortless man. "_he that believeth on me._" ... "jean believed on me. and i failed her. and she is dead." pink crept up to his side again, and put her fingers back into his still outstretched hand. perhaps it was the child's touch; perhaps--god knew--it was some effluence from the unseen life within whose mystery the deathless love of the dead wife had ceased from the power of expression; but something at that instant poured vigor into the abjectly miserable man. his first consciousness that jean was not dead rushed back upon him at the mouth of her grave. it seemed, indeed, no grave, but a couch cut in a catafalque of autumn leaves. "there is some mistake," he thought, as he had thought before. he lifted his bared head to the november sky in a kind of exaltation. this did not fail him until he came back into his desolate home. he stood staring at the swept and garnished house. the disarray of the funeral was quite removed. his wife's room was ordered as usual; its windows stood open. some of the dreadful flowers were still left about the house. he pulled them savagely from their places and threw them away. the servants stood crying in the hall; and the strange professional nurse, who had remained with the baby, came up and offered him the child--somewhat as if it had been a bible text, he thought. he took the little thing into his arms, piously; but the baby began to cry, and hit him in the eyes with both fists. "it's after her he do be cryin'," said molly. avery handed her the child in silence. as he turned to go upstairs, pink ran after him. "papa," said pink, "do you expect mummer dee to make a very _long_ visit in heaven? i should fink it was time for her to come home, by supper, shouldn't you, papa?" in their own rooms marshall avery sat him down alone. he bolted all the doors, and walked from limit to limit of the narrow space--his room and hers, with the door open between that he used to close because the baby bothered him. it stood wide open now. in his room some of his neckties and clothes were lying about; jean used to attend to his things herself, even after she was ill--too ill, perhaps; he remembered reminding her rather positively if any of these trifles were neglected; once she had said, "i 'm not _quite_ strong enough to-day." on his bureau stood her photograph, framed in silver--a fair picture, in a white gown, with lace about the throat. it had jean's own eyes; but nothing ever gave the expression of her mouth. he stood looking at her picture. presently he put it down, and came back into his wife's room. he shut the windows, for he shivered with cold, and stared about. the empty bed was made, straight and stark. the violets were drooping on the table beside her bible, her basket, and her portfolio. he picked these things up, and laid them down again. he went mechanically to the bureau and opened the upper drawer. all her little dainty belongings were folded in their places,--her gloves, her handkerchiefs, the laces that she fancied, and the blond ribbons that she wore--the blue, the rose, the lavender, and the corn. in this drawer a long narrow piece of white tissue-paper lay folded carefully across the glove box. he opened it idly. something fell from it and seemed to leap to his fingers, and cling as if it would not leave them. it was a thick lock of her own long bright hair. he caught it to his breast, his cheek, his lips. he cherished it wildly, as he would now have cherished her. the forgotten tenderness, the omitted gentleness of life, lavished itself on death, as remorse will lavish what love passed by. the touch of her hair on his hands smote the retreating form of his illusion out of him. he could not deceive himself any longer. "jean _is_ dead," he said distinctly. he threw himself down on her lounge and tried to collect himself, as he would for any other event of life--that he might meet it manfully. "she is really dead," he repeated. "i have got to live without her, ... and those children ... no mother. i must arouse myself. i must bear it, as other men do." even as the words turned themselves like poisoned wires through his mind the conviction that his sorrow was not like the sorrow of other men rushed upon him. what had he done to her? oh, what had he been to her--his poor jean? he turned his head and thrust his face into the depths of her blue pillow. a delicate breath stole from it--the violet perfume that jean used about her bedroom because he fancied it. he sprang from the lounge, and began to pace the room madly to and fro. now there rose about him, wave by wave, like the rising of an awful tide, the overlooked but irresistible force of the common life which married man and woman share--incidents that he would rather have died than recall, words, looks, scenes, which it shattered his soul and body to remember. a solemn sea, they widened and spread about him. he felt himself torn from his feet and tossed into the surge of them. it seemed to him that every tenderness he had shown his wife was drowning out of his consciousness. but every hard thing he had ever done rose and rolled upon him--an unkind look, a harsh word, a little neglect here, a certain indifference there; an occasion when he had made her miserable and could just as easily have made her happy; a time when she had asked--jean so seldom asked--for some trifling attention which he had omitted to bestow; the desolate look she wore on a given day; the patient eyes she lifted, heart-sick with sore surprise, once when he ... the worst of it was in thinking how it was when she began to be weak and ill. jean was not a complaining woman, never a whining invalid, but resolute, sweet, and cheerful. like an air-plant on oxygen, she existed on his tenderness. he had offered it to her when he felt like it. well, busy, bustling man--out of his bounteous health and freedom, what comfort had he given to this imprisoned woman? the passing of his moods? the attention of his whims? the fragments of his time? the blunt edge of his sympathy? one night he had come in late, when he could quite as well have come two hours before; he found her by the open window, gasping for breath in the cold night air, in her blue gown, with her braided hair, her lovely look, the dear expression in her eyes. she had not reproached him ... he wished from his soul, now, that she _had_ reproached him, sometimes; it would have done him good; it would have dashed cold water on his fainting sense of duty to her; he was the kind of man who would have responded to it like a man. but she was not the kind of woman to do it. and she never had. so he had slid into those easy habits of accepting the invalid, anyhow; as a fact not to be put too much in the foreground of his daily life ... not to intrude too much. and she had not protested, had not cried out against the frost that gathered in his heart. she had trodden her _via dolorosa_ alone. as she had endured, so she had died. he thought that if he had only been with her then, he could have borne it all. his mind veered off from this swiftly, almost as if it were unhinged, and began to dwell upon what he would do for her if he had her again, living, warm, breathing, sweet. the only comfort he could get was in thinking how he would comfort her ... now; how he would cherish her ... now; the love he would waste, the tenderness he would invent--new forms of it, that no husband in the world had ever thought of, to make a wife happy. oh, the honor in which he would hold her least and lightest wish! the summer of the heart in which she should blossom!--she who had perished in the winter of his neglect; she who was under the catafalque of autumn leaves out there in the gathering november storm. terrible that it should storm the first night that jean lay in her grave! "god! god!" he cried. "if i could have her back for one hour--for one _instant_!" "this way, avery--turn your head this way. here is the air. the window is open. don't struggle so. it is all right. breathe naturally," added the dentist. "come, take it quietly. there is no harm done. the tooth is out. i never knew the gas work more easily." marshall avery battled up and pushed his friend away. the cold air, dashing in from the open window, chafed his face smartly. he drank it in gulps before he could manage to speak. it was raining, and the storm wet the sill. a few drops spattered over and hit his hand. "armstrong!--for heaven's sake!--if there's any mercy in you"-"that's a large phrase for a small occasion, avery. i have n't committed murder, you know." "i 'm not so sure of it," muttered avery, staring about. "i don't understand. did i have another tooth out--after all that--happened?" "i should hope not. i must say you make as much fuss over this one molar as a child or a clergyman," answered the dentist brusquely. "we regard those as our most troublesome classes." "did you give me chloroform?" "i don't give chloroform." "gas, then?" "why, certainly, i gave gas." "did i ask for it?" "yes. you asked for it. even if you had n't--you don't bear pain, you know, avery, with that composure"-"armstrong? say, armstrong. when you went over to the club with me"-the dentist twisted his mustache. --"was romer's yacht lying out in the river then? i seem to remember that you did n't want me to take that trip. and you did n't know it would blow a gale, either. and you did n't know that she"-"get up, avery, and walk about the room. you come to slowly." "and when the wreck got into the papers--she could n't bear that.... she was so ill when i left her ... armstrong! was it you kept me here in this blanked chair while my wife was dying?" dr. armstrong laughed aloud. avery sprang towards him. he had a muddy intention of seizing the dentist by the throat. but a thought occurred to him which held him back. now, as his consciousness clarified, he saw brilliant and beautiful light throbbing about him; he seemed to float in it, as if he were poised in mid-heaven. a scintillation in his brain shot into glory, and broke as it fell into a thousand rays and jets of joy. "do you mean to tell me i never went on that accursed cruise--with a fool gun--to murder ducks ... and left my wife dangerously sick? do you mean that jean ... is n't ... say, armstrong, you would n't make game of a man in a position like mine, if you knew... armstrong!" piteously, "my wife is n't _living_--is she, armstrong?" "she was, the last i heard," replied the dentist, sterilizing his instruments with a cool and scientific attention. "that was when you sat down in this chair to have your tooth out." as avery dashed by him the dentist put out a detaining hand. "wait a second, avery. i don't consider you quite fit to go yet. here--wait a minute!" but the horses of aurora, flying and flaming through the morning skies, could not have held the man back. a madman--delirious with joy--he swept through the hall and flung the door open. dr. armstrong ran after him to give him his hat, but avery paid no attention to the dentist. bareheaded, fleet-footed, with quivering lip, with shining eye, he fled down the street. like the hurricane that had never sunk the dream, he swept past the club. he saw the fellows through the window; their cigars gleamed in their mouths and in their hands; they looked to him like marionettes moving on a mimic stage; he felt as if he would like to kick them over, and see if they would rattle as they rolled. as he rushed, hatless, past the church of the happy saints, an officer on night duty recognized the lawyer, and touched his helmet in surprise, but did not follow the disordered figure--mr. avery was not a drinking man. he was allowed to pursue his eccentricity undisturbed. he met one or two men he knew, and they said, "hilloa, avery!" but he did not answer them. he ran on in the rain; his heart sang:-"i did n't do it--_i never did it_! i did not treat her so. _i was not that fellow_. oh, thank god, i was not that brute!" he hurried on till he lost his breath; then collected himself, and came up more quietly to his own door. he felt for his latch-key, and was relieved to find it in his pocket, as usual; the impression that it lay off the shoals somewhere at the bottom had not entirely vanished yet. he opened the door and closed it softly. the hall gas was burning. otherwise the house was dark. it was perfectly still. the silence somewhat checked his mood, and the violence of his haste abated; with it abated an indefinable measure of his happiness. he raised his hand to take off his hat; then found that he had not worn any. it occurred to him that he had better not waken jean too abruptly--it might hurt her: he was going to be very thoughtful of jean. she must not be startled. he went upstairs quietly. in the upper hall he paused. pink, in the nursery, was grinding her teeth in her sleep. the baby was not restless, and molly was sleeping heavily. from his wife's room there came no sound. jean almost always waked when he came home late, if indeed she had slept at all before she heard his step. but this was not inevitable. sometimes he did not arouse her. and he remembered that to-night she had been feeble, and had not got to sleep as early as usual. as he stood uncertain before her door the clock on the mantel struck eleven. he passed on, and into his own room. he wondered if he ought to undress and go to bed without disturbing her. but he could not bring himself to do this. he was still too much agitated; and the necessity of keeping quiet did not tend to calm him. he turned up his gas, and the light rose warmly. then he saw that the door into his wife's room was partly open. "jean!" he said softly. she did not answer him. sometimes, if she were sleepy, or exhausted, she did not incline to talk when he came home. "jean?" he repeated, "are you awake, my darling? i want to speak to you.... i _must_ speak to you," added the husband impetuously, when jean did not reply. he pushed the door wide and went in. the only light in the room came from the night candle, which was burning dimly. it was a blue candle, and it had a certain ghastly look to him, as he stood gazing across the little table at the bed. "after all," he thought, "i suppose i ought not to wake her--just because i 've got all that to tell her." he stood, undecided what to do. jean was lying on the bed in her lace-frilled nightdress, with her bright hair braided in long braids, as she wore it for the night. something in her attitude and expression startled him. so she had lain--so she had looked- his temples throbbed suddenly. the blood froze at his heart. "jean!" he cried loudly. "_dear_ jean!" but jean did not reply. he sprang to her, and tore open the nightdress at her throat; he crushed at her hands; they were quite cold. he put his ear to her heart; he could not hear it beat. jean lay in her loveliness, with gentle, half-open eyes, and a desolate little smile on her sweet lips, as she might have looked when she called him and asked him to come back and kiss her good-night. and he had not come. one of her hands clasped the cord of the electric bell. but no one had heard jean's bell. now, the truth smote the man like the hammer of thor. his wandering spirit--gone; who knew how? who knew where? while the brain drifted into anã¦sthesia--had sought out and clutched to itself the terrible fact. at the instant when this perception reached his consciousness there came with it the familiar delusion of his vision. "jean cannot be dead. there must be some mistake." he dashed to the window, opened it wide, and raised her towards the air. the sleeping maid, aroused and terrified, rushed to his help. in his agony he noticed that the children were both crying--pink like a lady, and the boy like a little wild beast. pink began to wail: "mummer dee! mummer dee!" jean did not stir. he dispatched the servants madly--one to the telephone, one for stimulants; while he rubbed his wife's hands and feet, and tried to get brandy between her lips in the futile fashion of the inexperienced. he could not stimulate any signs of life, and he dared not leave her. molly reported, sobbing, that dr. thorne was not at home, but that mrs. thorne had bade her call the nearest doctor; she had rung up the one at the corner, and he was coming. the nearest doctor came, and he lost no time about it. he was a stranger, and young. avery looked stupidly at his inexperienced face. the physician stooped and put his ear to jean's heart. he went through the form of feeling the pulse, and busied himself in various uncertain ways about her. in a short time he rose, and stood looking at the carpet. he did not meet the husband's eye. "you can keep on stimulating if you like," he said. "perhaps you would feel better. but in my opinion it is of no use." "for god's sake, man, are n't you going to _do_ something?" demanded the husband in a voice which the nearest doctor had occasion to remember. "in my opinion the patient is dead," persisted the stranger. he turned and took up his hat. "i will do anything you like, of course, sir," he added politely. "but life is extinct." avery made no reply, and the strange physician went uncomfortably away. avery stared after him with bloodshot eyes. he now held his wife, half sitting, against his own warm body; he had a confused idea that he could will her alive, or love her alive; that if he could make her understand how it all was, she _could_ not die. she loved him too much. but jean's gray face fell upon his breast like stiffening clay. her pulse was imperceptible. he turned piteously to the irish girl. "molly! can't _you_ think of anything more we can do for her?" at this moment a carriage dashed to the door, and came to a violent stop. "mother of god!" cried molly. "here is dr. thorne!" with a resounding noise esmerald thorne flung back the opening front door. with his hat on his head he cleared the stairs. molly stood wringing her hands on the threshold of mrs. avery's room. he hurled the girl away as if she had been a wrong prescription left by a blundering rival. his blazing eye concentrated itself on the patient like a burning-glass. that which had been jean avery, half reclining, held against her husband's heart, lay unresponsive. one arm with its slender hand hung over the edge of the bed, straight down. "change the position!" cried dr. thorne loudly. "put her head down--so--flat--perfectly horizontal. now get out of my way--the whole of you." he knelt beside the bed, and with great gentleness, curiously at contrast with his imperious and one might have called it angry manner, put his ear to jean's heart. "it's dead she is. the other doctor do be sayin' so," sobbed molly, who found it perplexing that mr. avery did not speak, and felt that the courtesies of the distressing occasion devolved upon herself. dr. thorne held up an imperious finger. in the stillness which obeyed him the clock on the mantel ticked obtrusively, like the rhythm of life in a vital organism. at the instant when he reached her side, dr. thorne had laid jean's hanging hand gently upon the bed, warming it and covering it as he did so. but he had paid no attention to it otherwise till now, when he was seen to put his fingers on the wrist. it occurred to avery that the physician did this rather to satisfy or to sustain hope in the family than from any definite end which he himself hoped to attain by it. the husband managed to articulate. "is there any pulse?" "no." "does her heart beat?" dr. thorne made no reply. he was putting a colorless, odorless liquid between her lips. his expression of indignation deepened. one might have said that he was in a rage with death. his first impulse to express that emotion noisily had passed. he issued his orders with perfect quiet and consummate self-possession, but the family fled before them like leaves before the wind. stimulants, hot water, hot stones, fell into the doctor's hands. he took control of the despairing household as a great general takes command of a terrible retreat. stern, uncompromising, rigid, he flung his whole being against the fate which had snatched his old patient beyond his rescue. his face was almost as white as jean's. "there sits the man as fights with death!" cried molly, in uncontrollable excitement. she and the cook fell on their knees. pink, in her nightdress, stole in, and leaned against the door; the child was too frightened to cry. the baby had gone to sleep. the house grew ominously still. the mantel clock struck the half-hour. it was now half-past eleven. avery glanced at the physician's face, and buried his own in his hands. the doctor rose, and stood frowning. he seemed to hesitate for the first time since he had been in the room. "is there no heart-beat yet? can't you detect _any_thing?" asked avery again. he could not help it. dr. thorne looked at him; the physician seemed to treat the question as he would an insult. "when i have anything to say, i 'll say it," he answered roughly. he stood pondering. "a glass!" he called peremptorily. molly handed him a tumbler. he pushed it away. "i said a _glass_! a mirror!" some one handed him jean's little silver toilet hand-glass. the physician held it to her lips, and laid it down. after a moment's irresolution he took it up, and bending over the body put it to the woman's lips again, and studied it intently for some moments. avery asked no questions this time, nor did he dare glance at the glass. "how long," demanded dr. thorne suddenly, "has she been like this?" "i found her so when i came in. it was then eleven o'clock." "how long had she been alone?" "i went out at twenty minutes past ten. i went to have a tooth extracted. that was forty minutes." "did she speak to you when you went out?" "yes--she spoke to me." "what did she say?" marshall avery made no reply. "were there any symptoms of this heart-failure then? out with it!--no. never mind. it's evident enough." the clock on the mantel struck the quarter before twelve. "she has been as she is an hour and a quarter," said dr. thorne. his voice and manner were disheartened. he stood a moment pondering, with a dark face. "do you call her dead?" entreated avery. it seemed to him that he had reached the limit of endurance. he would pull the worst down on his head at one toppling blow. "_no!_" cried the physician, in a deep, reverberating tone. "but is it death?" persisted avery wildly. "i do not know," said dr. thorne. "do you give her up?" "_no!_" thundered dr. thorne again. "the drowned have been resuscitated after six hours," he added between his teeth. "that's the latest contention." at this moment a messenger summoned by telephone from the corner pharmacy arrived, running, and pealed and thundered at the door. some one laid upon the bed within the doctor's reach a small pasteboard box. he opened it in silence, and took from it a tiny crystal or shell of thin glass. this he broke upon a handkerchief, and held the linen cautiously to jean's face. a powerful, pungent odor filled the room. avery felt his head whirl as he breathed it. the doctor removed the handkerchief and scrutinized jean's face. neither hope nor despair could be detected on his own. without a word he went to work again. not discarding, but not now depending altogether on the aid of warmth, stimulants, and the remedies upon which he had been trained to rely in his duels with death, the physician turned the force of his will and his skill in the direction of another class of experiments. so far as he could, and at such disadvantage as he must, he put certain of the modern processes of artificial respiration to the proof. he did not allow himself to be hampered in this desperate expedient by an element of danger involved in lifting the patient's arms above her head; for jean had passed far beyond all ordinary perils. obstacles seemed to serve only to whip his audacity. his countenance grew dogged and grim. he worked with an ineffable gentleness, and with an indomitable determination that gave a definite grandeur to his bearing. avery looked on with dull, blind eyes; he felt that he was witnessing an unsuccessful attempt at miracle. he began to resent it as an interference with the sanctity of death. he began to wish that the doctor would let his wife alone. the clock on the mantel struck twelve. pink had fallen asleep, and somebody had carried her back to her own bed. the two women huddled together by the door. the physician had ceased to speak to any person. his square jaws came together like steel machinery that had been locked. in his eyes immeasurable pity gathered; but no one could see his eyes. the clock timed the quarter past midnight. avery had now moved round to the other side of the bed; he buried his face in his wife's pillow, and, unobserved, put out his hand to touch her. he reached and clasped her thin left hand on which her wedding-ring hung loosely. her fingers were not very cold,--he had often known them colder when she was ill,--and as his hand closed over them it seemed to him for a wild instant that hers melted within it; that it relaxed, or warmed beneath his touch. "i am going mad," he thought. he raised his head. the clock called half-past twelve. dr. thorne was holding the little mirror at jean's lips again. a silvery film--as delicate as mist, as mysterious as life, as mighty as joy--clouded it from end to end. "_jean avery!_" cried the physician, in a ringing tone. afterwards avery thought of that other healer who summoned his dearest friend from the retreat of death "in a loud voice." but at the moment he thought not at all. for jean sighed gently and turned her face, and her husband's eyes were the first she saw when the light of her own high soul returned to hers. in the dim of the dawn avery followed the exhausted physician into the hall, and led him to an empty room. "rest, if you can, doctor," he pleaded; "we can call you. if she sleep, she shall do well," he added in a broken voice. the miracle was yet in his mind. "unless you see some change, she may sleep one hour. call me by then," said dr. thorne abstractedly. "and telephone my wife and the hospital that i spend the morning here." he turned his face to the window. avery, glancing at it in the gray light, saw that great tears were falling unashamed down the doctor's cheeks. "these sudden deaths are so horrible!" he muttered. "they are the felonies of nature." long after this, when the eminent physician met the fate which has been elsewhere recorded of him, and which those who have read his memoirs may recall, marshall avery remembered these words; and the expression of the man's face as he uttered them. he went back to his wife's room, and lay down on the bed by her side. she slept like some sweet child who was tired out with a nervous strain, and would wake, by the sanctities of nature, refreshed for vigorous life. he dared not fall asleep himself for a careless moment, but propped himself on one elbow and watched her hungrily. her pulse beat weakly yet, but with some steadiness, and rose in volume as the day deepened. in fact, the tide was coming to the flood. off there on the shoals, reaching up around the gray cape, inch upon patient inch, the waves climbed to their appointed places. with them the vitality of the woman, obeying the most mysterious law in nature's mighty code, advanced, and held its own. avery looked at his wife, sleeping, as she, waking, would never see him look. all that was noble in shame, all that was permanent in love, harmonized in his eyes. between his rapture and his reverence, resolve itself seemed to escape him, like a spirit winged for flight because no longer needed in a human heart, being invisibly displaced by stronger angels whose names are known only to the love of married man and woman when ultimate fate has challenged it and found defeat. avery's lips moved. he spoke inaudible things. "all i ask," he said, "is another chance." he was not what is called a praying man. but when he had said this, he added the words--"thou god!" jean stirred at this moment. the morning was strong in the room. her own smile swept across her face like a wing of light. "dear," she said distinctly, "did you have the tooth out? did it hurt you very much? you poor, poor boy!" she put up her weak hand and touched his cheek. the doctor could not sleep. he stole in anxiously. jean had closed her eyes once more. they opened happily as he entered. "why, doctor! you here? what for?" as if by accident dr. thorne's fingers brushed her wrist. the physician's face assumed a noble radiance. he looked affectionately at his old patient. "oh, i thought i 'd drop in and see how you were getting along." he smiled indulgently. "go to sleep again," he said, in a comfortable tone. but avery followed the doctor; as love has pursued the healers of all ages from the sick-room to the garrison of the utter truth. the two men stood in the dusky hall. the physician was the first to speak. "well, i 've done my part, avery. now"-"you have wrought a miracle," said the husband, with much emotion. "work you a greater, then!" commanded dr. thorne. he did not speak gently. but a certain entreaty in the attitude of the shaken man subdued him. "with love all things are possible," persisted the physician in his other voice. "i have always said that she was not incurable. now the difference is"-avery did not reply. it was not for the doctor to know what the difference was. that was for jean ... only for jean. he went back to his wife's room, and knelt beside her bed. she seemed to have missed him, for she put out her hand wistfully; there was a touch of timidity in the motion, as if she were not sure that he would stay, or that he would be happy in staying; he perceived that she questioned herself whether she were an inconvenience to him. she tried to say something about ordering his breakfast, and to ask if she had kept him awake much. but jean was very weak. she found it hard to talk. he remembered that she must not be agitated. he laid his cheek upon her hand, and hid his broken face. _fiction and biography_ by elizabeth stuart phelps (mrs. ward) the gates ajar. 16mo, $1.50. beyond the gates. 16mo, $1.25. the gates between. 16mo, $1.25. within the gates. a drama. 12mo, $1.50 men, women, and ghosts. stories. 16mo, $1.50. hedged in. 16mo, $1.50. the silent partner. 16mo, $1.50. the story of avis. 16mo, $1.50. sealed orders, and other stories. 16mo, $1.50. friends: a duet. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. doctor zay. 16mo, $1.25. an old maid's paradise, and burglars in paradise. 16mo, $1.25. the master of the magicians. collaborated with herbert d. ward. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. come forth! collaborated with herbert d. ward. 16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. fourteen to one. short stories. 16mo, $1.25. donald marcy. 16mo, $1.25. a singular life. 16mo, $1.25. the supply at saint agatha's. illustrated. square 12mo, $1.00. the madonna of the tubs. illustrated. square 12mo, boards, 75 cents. jack the fisherman. illustrated. square 12mo, boards, 50 cents. the successors of mary the first. illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. avery. illustrated. 12mo, $1.00. loveliness: a story. illustrated. square 12mo, $1.00. chapters from a life. illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. the story of jesus christ: an interpretation. illustrated. crown 8vo, $2.00. the same. popular edition. illustrated, 16mo, $1.25. houghton, mifflin & co. boston and new york [illustration: the so-called delicious, intangible joke] molly make-believe by eleanor hallowell abbott with illustrations by walter tittle new york the century co. 1911 copyright, 1910, by the century co. * * * * * to my silent partner * * * * * list of illustrations the so-called delicious, intangible joke _frontispiece_ "good enough!" he chuckled every girl like cornelia had to go south sometime between november and march an elderly dame a much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier "well i'll be hanged," growled stanton, "if i'm going to be strung by any boy!" some poor old worn-out story-writer "maybe she is--'colored,'" he volunteered at last "oh! don't i look--gorgeous!" she stammered "what?" cried stanton, plunging forward in his chair cornelia's mother answered this time he unbuckled the straps of his suitcase and turned the cover backward on the floor "are you a good boy?" she asked "it's only carl," he said * * * * * molly make-believe i the morning was as dark and cold as city snow could make it--a dingy whirl at the window; a smoky gust through the fireplace; a shadow black as a bear's cave under the table. nothing in all the cavernous room, loomed really warm or familiar except a glass of stale water, and a vapid, half-eaten grape-fruit. packed into his pudgy pillows like a fragile piece of china instead of a human being carl stanton lay and cursed the brutal northern winter. between his sturdy, restive shoulders the rheumatism snarled and clawed like some utterly frenzied animal trying to gnaw-gnaw-gnaw its way out. along the tortured hollow of his back a red-hot plaster fumed and mulled and sucked at the pain like a hideously poisoned fang trying to gnaw-gnaw-gnaw its way in. worse than this; every four or five minutes an agony as miserably comic as a crashing blow on one's crazy bone went jarring and shuddering through his whole abnormally vibrant system. in stanton's swollen fingers cornelia's large, crisp letter rustled not softly like a lady's skirts but bleakly as an ice-storm in december woods. cornelia's whole angular handwriting, in fact, was not at all unlike a thicket of twigs stripped from root to branch of every possible softening leaf. "dear carl" crackled the letter, "in spite of your unpleasant tantrum yesterday, because i would not kiss you good-by in the presence of my mother, i am good-natured enough you see to write you a good-by letter after all. but i certainly will not promise to write you daily, so kindly do not tease me any more about it. in the first place, you understand that i greatly dislike letter-writing. in the second place you know jacksonville quite as well as i do, so there is no use whatsoever in wasting either my time or yours in purely geographical descriptions. and in the third place, you ought to be bright enough to comprehend by this time just what i think about 'love-letters' anyway. i have told you once that i love you, and that ought to be enough. people like myself do not change. i may not talk quite as much as other people, but when i once say a thing i mean it! you will never have cause, i assure you, to worry about my fidelity. "i will honestly try to write you every sunday these next six weeks, but i am not willing to literally promise even that. mother indeed thinks that we ought not to write very much at all until our engagement is formally announced. "trusting that your rheumatism is very much better this morning, i am "hastily yours, "cornelia. "p. s. apropos of your sentimental passion for letters, i enclose a ridiculous circular which was handed to me yesterday at the woman's exchange. you had better investigate it. it seems to be rather your kind." as the letter fluttered out of his hand stanton closed his eyes with a twitch of physical suffering. then he picked up the letter again and scrutinized it very carefully from the severe silver monogram to the huge gothic signature, but he could not find one single thing that he was looking for;--not a nourishing paragraph; not a stimulating sentence; not even so much as one small sweet-flavored word that was worth filching out of the prosy text to tuck away in the pockets of his mind for his memory to munch on in its hungry hours. now everybody who knows anything at all knows perfectly well that even a business letter does not deserve the paper which it is written on unless it contains at least one significant phrase that is worth waking up in the night to remember and think about. and as to the lover who does not write significant phrases--heaven help the young mate who finds himself thus mismated to so spiritually commonplace a nature! baffled, perplexed, strangely uneasy, stanton lay and studied the barren page before him. then suddenly his poor heart puckered up like a persimmon with the ghastly, grim shock which a man experiences when he realizes for the first time that the woman whom he loves is not shy, but--_stingy_. with snow and gloom and pain and loneliness the rest of the day dragged by. hour after hour, helpless, hopeless, utterly impotent as though time itself were bleeding to death, the minutes bubbled and dripped from the old wooden clock. by noon the room was as murky as dish-water, and stanton lay and fretted in the messy, sudsy snow-light like a forgotten knife or spoon until the janitor wandered casually in about three o'clock and wrung a piercing little wisp of flame out of the electric-light bulb over the sick man's head, and raised him clumsily out of his soggy pillows and fed him indolently with a sad, thin soup. worst of all, four times in the dreadful interim between breakfast and supper the postman's thrilly footsteps soared up the long metallic stairway like an ecstatically towering high-note, only to flat off discordantly at stanton's door without even so much as a one-cent advertisement issuing from the letter-slide.--and there would be thirty or forty more days just like this the doctor had assured him; and cornelia had said that--perhaps, if she felt like it--she would write--six--times. then night came down like the feathery soot of a smoky lamp, and smutted first the bedquilt, then the hearth-rug, then the window-seat, and then at last the great, stormy, faraway outside world. but sleep did not come. oh, no! nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one's body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. then, just as the mawkish cold, gray dawn came nosing over the house-tops, and the poor fellow's mind had reached the point where the slam of a window or the ripping creak of a floorboard would have shattered his brittle nerves into a thousand cursing tortures--then that teasing, tantalizing little friend of all rheumatic invalids--the morning nap--came swooping down upon him like a sponge and wiped out of his face every single bit of the sharp, precious evidence of pain which he had been accumulating so laboriously all night long to present to the doctor as an incontestable argument in favor of an opiate. whiter than his rumpled bed, but freshened and brightened and deceptively free from pain, he woke at last to find the pleasant yellow sunshine mottling his dingy carpet like a tortoise-shell cat. instinctively with his first yawny return to consciousness he reached back under his pillow for cornelia's letter. out of the stiff envelope fluttered instead the tiny circular to which cornelia had referred so scathingly. it was a dainty bit of gray japanese tissue with the crimson-inked text glowing gaily across it. something in the whole color scheme and the riotously quirky typography suggested at once the audaciously original work of some young art student who was fairly splashing her way along the road to financial independence, if not to fame. and this is what the little circular said, flushing redder and redder and redder with each ingenuous statement: the serial-letter company. comfort and entertainment furnished for invalids, travelers, and all lonely people. real letters from imaginary persons. reliable as your daily paper. fanciful as your favorite story magazine. personal as a message from your best friend. offering all the satisfaction of _receiving_ letters with no possible obligation or even opportunity of answering them. sample list. letters from a japanese fairy. (especially acceptable bi-weekly. to a sick child. fragrant with incense and sandal wood. vivid with purple and orange and scarlet. lavishly interspersed with the most adorable japanese toys that you ever saw in your life.) letters from a little son. (very sturdy. very weekly. spunky. slightly profane.) letters from a little daughter. (quaint. old-fashioned. weekly. daintily dreamy. mostly about dolls.) letters from a banda-sea pirate. (luxuriantly tropical. monthly. salter than the sea. sharper than coral. unmitigatedly murderous. altogether blood-curdling.) letters from a gray-plush squirrel. (sure to please nature irregular. lovers of either sex. pungent with wood-lore. prowly. scampery. deliciously wild. apt to be just a little bit messy perhaps with roots and leaves and nuts.) letters from your favorite (biographically consistent. historical character. historically reasonable. fortnightly. most vivaciously human. really unique.) love letters. (three grades: shy. daily. medium. very intense.) in ordering letters kindly state approximate age, prevalent tastes,--and in case of invalidism, the presumable severity of illness. for price list, etc., refer to opposite page. address all communications to serial letter co. box, etc., etc. as stanton finished reading the last solemn business detail he crumpled up the circular into a little gray wad, and pressed his blond head back into the pillows and grinned and grinned. "good enough!" he chuckled. "if cornelia won't write to me there seem to be lots of other congenial souls who will--cannibals and rodents and kiddies. all the same--" he ruminated suddenly: "all the same i'll wager that there's an awfully decent little brain working away behind all that red ink and nonsense." still grinning he conjured up the vision of some grim-faced spinster-subscriber in a desolate country town starting out at last for the first time in her life, with real, cheery self-importance, rain or shine, to join the laughing, jostling, deliriously human saturday night crowd at the village post-office--herself the only person whose expected letter never failed to come! from squirrel or pirate or hopping hottentot--what did it matter to her? just the envelope alone was worth the price of the subscription. how the pink-cheeked high school girls elbowed each other to get a peep at the post-mark! how the--. better still, perhaps some hopelessly unpopular man in a dingy city office would go running up the last steps just a little, wee bit faster--say the second and fourth mondays in the month--because of even a bought, made-up letter from mary queen of scots that he knew absolutely without slip or blunder would be waiting there for him on his dusty, ink-stained desk among all the litter of bills and invoices concerning--shoe leather. whether 'mary queen of scots' prattled pertly of ancient english politics, or whimpered piteously about dull-colored modern fashions--what did it matter so long as the letter came, and smelled of faded fleur-de-lis--or of darnley's tobacco smoke? altogether pleased by the vividness of both these pictures stanton turned quite amiably to his breakfast and gulped down a lukewarm bowl of milk without half his usual complaint. [illustration: "good enough!" he chuckled] it was almost noon before his troubles commenced again. then like a raging hot tide, the pain began in the soft, fleshy soles of his feet and mounted up inch by inch through the calves of his legs, through his aching thighs, through his tortured back, through his cringing neck, till the whole reeking misery seemed to foam and froth in his brain in an utter frenzy of furious resentment. again the day dragged by with maddening monotony and loneliness. again the clock mocked him, and the postman shirked him, and the janitor forgot him. again the big, black night came crowding down and stung him and smothered him into a countless number of new torments. again the treacherous morning nap wiped out all traces of the pain and left the doctor still mercilessly obdurate on the subject of an opiate. and cornelia did not write. not till the fifth day did a brief little southern note arrive informing him of the ordinary vital truths concerning a comfortable journey, and expressing a chaste hope that he would not forget her. not even surprise, not even curiosity, tempted stanton to wade twice through the fashionable, angular handwriting. dully impersonal, bleak as the shadow of a brown leaf across a block of gray granite, plainly--unforgivably--written with ink and ink only, the stupid, loveless page slipped through his fingers to the floor. after the long waiting and the fretful impatience of the past few days there were only two plausible ways in which to treat such a letter. one way was with anger. one way was with amusement. with conscientious effort stanton finally summoned a real smile to his lips. stretching out perilously from his snug bed he gathered the waste-basket into his arms and commenced to dig in it like a sportive terrier. after a messy minute or two he successfully excavated the crumpled little gray tissue circular and smoothed it out carefully on his humped-up knees. the expression in his eyes all the time was quite a curious mixture of mischief and malice and rheumatism. "after all" he reasoned, out of one corner of his mouth, "after all, perhaps i have misjudged cornelia. maybe it's only that she really doesn't know just what a love-letter ought to be like." then with a slobbering fountain-pen and a few exclamations he proceeded to write out a rather large check and a very small note. "to the serial-letter co." he addressed himself brazenly. "for the enclosed check--which you will notice doubles the amount of your advertised price--kindly enter my name for a six weeks' special 'edition de luxe' subscription to one of your love-letter serials. (any old ardor that comes most convenient) approximate age of victim: 32. business status: rubber broker. prevalent tastes: to be able to sit up and eat and drink and smoke and go to the office the way other fellows do. nature of illness: the meanest kind of rheumatism. kindly deliver said letters as early and often as possible! "very truly yours, etc." sorrowfully then for a moment he studied the depleted balance in his check-book. "of course" he argued, not unguiltily, "of course that check was just the amount that i was planning to spend on a turquoise-studded belt for cornelia's birthday; but if cornelia's brains really need more adorning than does her body--if this special investment, in fact, will mean more to both of us in the long run than a dozen turquoise belts--." big and bland and blond and beautiful, cornelia's physical personality loomed up suddenly in his memory--so big, in fact, so bland, so blond, so splendidly beautiful, that he realized abruptly with a strange little tucked feeling in his heart that the question of cornelia's "brains" had never yet occurred to him. pushing the thought impatiently aside he sank back luxuriantly again into his pillows, and grinned without any perceptible effort at all as he planned adroitly how he would paste the serial love letters one by one into the gaudiest looking scrap-book that he could find and present it to cornelia on her birthday as a text-book for the "newly engaged" girl. and he hoped and prayed with all his heart that every individual letter would be printed with crimson ink on a violet-scented page and would fairly reek from date to signature with all the joyous, ecstatic silliness that graces either an old-fashioned novel or a modern breach-of-promise suit. so, quite worn out at last with all this unwonted excitement, he drowsed off to sleep for as long as ten minutes and dreamed that he was a--bigamist. the next day and the next night were stale and mean and musty with a drizzling winter rain. but the following morning crashed inconsiderately into the world's limp face like a snowball spiked with icicles. gasping for breath and crunching for foothold the sidewalk people breasted the gritty cold. puckered with chills and goose-flesh, the fireside people huddled and sneezed around their respective hearths. shivering like the ague between his cotton-flannel blankets, stanton's courage fairly raced the mercury in its downward course. by noon his teeth were chattering like a mouthful of cracked ice. by night the sob in his thirsty throat was like a lump of salt and snow. but nothing outdoors or in, from morning till night, was half as wretchedly cold and clammy as the rapidly congealing hot-water bottle that slopped and gurgled between his aching shoulders. it was just after supper when a messenger boy blurted in from the frigid hall with a great gust of cold and a long pasteboard box and a letter. frowning with perplexity stanton's clumsy fingers finally dislodged from the box a big, soft blanket-wrapper with an astonishingly strange, blurry pattern of green and red against a somber background of rusty black. with increasing amazement he picked up the accompanying letter and scanned it hastily. "dear lad," the letter began quite intimately. but it was not signed "cornelia". it was signed "molly"! ii turning nervously back to the box's wrapping-paper stanton read once more the perfectly plain, perfectly unmistakable name and address,--his own, repeated in absolute duplicate on the envelope. quicker than his mental comprehension mere physical embarrassment began to flush across his cheek-bones. then suddenly the whole truth dawned on him: the first installment of his serial-love-letter had arrived. "but i thought--thought it would be type-written," he stammered miserably to himself. "i thought it would be a--be a--hectographed kind of a thing. why, hang it all, it's a real letter! and when i doubled my check and called for a special edition de luxe--i wasn't sitting up on my hind legs begging for real presents!" but "dear lad" persisted the pleasant, round, almost childish handwriting: "dear lad, "i could have _cried_ yesterday when i got your letter telling me how sick you were. yes!--but crying wouldn't 'comfy' you any, would it? so just to send you right-off-quick something to prove that i'm thinking of you, here's a great, rollicking woolly wrapper to keep you snug and warm this very night. i wonder if it would interest you any at all to know that it is made out of a most larksome outlaw up on my grandfather's sweet-meadowed farm,--a really, truly black sheep that i've raised all my own sweaters and mittens on for the past five years. only it takes two whole seasons to raise a blanket-wrapper, so please be awfully much delighted with it. and oh, mr. sick boy, when you look at the funny, blurry colors, couldn't you just please pretend that the tinge of green is the flavor of pleasant pastures, and that the streak of red is the cardinal flower that blazed along the edge of the noisy brook? "goodby till to-morrow, "molly." with a face so altogether crowded with astonishment that there was no room left in it for pain, stanton's lame fingers reached out inquisitively and patted the warm, woolly fabric. "nice old lamb--y" he acknowledged judicially. then suddenly around the corners of his under lip a little balky smile began to flicker. "of course i'll save the letter for cornelia," he protested, "but no one could really expect me to paste such a scrumptious blanket-wrapper into a scrap-book." laboriously wriggling his thinness and his coldness into the black sheep's luxuriant, irresponsible fleece, a bulging side-pocket in the wrapper bruised his hip. reaching down very temperishly to the pocket he drew forth a small lace-trimmed handkerchief knotted pudgily across a brimming handful of fir-balsam needles. like a scorching hot august breeze the magic, woodsy fragrance crinkled through his nostrils. "these people certainly know how to play the game all right," he reasoned whimsically, noting even the consistent little letter "m" embroidered in one corner of the handkerchief. then, because he was really very sick and really very tired, he snuggled down into the new blessed warmth and turned his gaunt cheek to the pillow and cupped his hand for sleep like a drowsy child with its nose and mouth burrowed eagerly down into the expectant draught. but the cup did not fill.--yet scented deep in his curved, empty, balsam-scented fingers lurked--somehow--somewhere--the dregs of a wonderful dream: boyhood, with the hot, sweet flutter of summer woods, and the pillowing warmth of the soft, sunbaked earth, and the crackle of a twig, and the call of a bird, and the drone of a bee, and the great blue, blue mystery of the sky glinting down through a green-latticed canopy overhead. for the first time in a whole, cruel tortuous week he actually smiled his way into his morning nap. when he woke again both the sun and the doctor were staring pleasantly into his face. "you look better!" said the doctor. "and more than that you don't look half so 'cussed cross'." "sure," grinned stanton, with all the deceptive, undauntable optimism of the just-awakened. "nevertheless," continued the doctor more soberly, "there ought to be somebody a trifle more interested in you than the janitor to look after your food and your medicine and all that. i'm going to send you a nurse." "oh, no!" gasped stanton. "i don't need one! and frankly--i can't afford one." shy as a girl, his eyes eluded the doctor's frank stare. "you see," he explained diffidently; "you see, i'm just engaged to be married--and though business is fairly good and all that--my being away from the office six or eight weeks is going to cut like the deuce into my commissions--and roses cost such a horrid price last fall--and there seems to be a game law on diamonds this year; they practically fine you for buying them, and--" the doctor's face brightened irrelevantly. "is she a boston young lady?" he queried. "oh, yes," beamed stanton. "good!" said the doctor. "then of course she can keep some sort of an eye on you. i'd like to see her. i'd like to talk with her--give her just a few general directions as it were." a flush deeper than any mere love-embarrassment spread suddenly over stanton's face. "she isn't here," he acknowledged with barely analyzable mortification. "she's just gone south." "_just_ gone south?" repeated the doctor. "you don't mean--since you've been sick?" stanton nodded with a rather wobbly grin, and the doctor changed the subject abruptly, and busied himself quickly with the least bad-tasting medicine that he could concoct. then left alone once more with a short breakfast and a long morning, stanton sank back gradually into a depression infinitely deeper than his pillows, in which he seemed to realize with bitter contrition that in some strange, unintentional manner his purely innocent, matter-of-fact statement that cornelia "had just gone south" had assumed the gigantic disloyalty of a public proclamation that the lady of his choice was not quite up to the accepted standard of feminine intelligence or affections, though to save his life he could not recall any single glum word or gloomy gesture that could possibly have conveyed any such erroneous impression to the doctor. [illustration: every girl like cornelia had to go south sometime between november and march] "why cornelia _had_ to go south," he reasoned conscientiously. "every girl like cornelia _had_ to go south sometime between november and march. how could any mere man even hope to keep rare, choice, exquisite creatures like that cooped up in a slushy, snowy new england city--when all the bright, gorgeous, rose-blooming south was waiting for them with open arms? 'open arms'! apparently it was only 'climates' that were allowed any such privileges with girls like cornelia. yet, after all, wasn't it just exactly that very quality of serene, dignified aloofness that had attracted him first to cornelia among the score of freer-mannered girls of his acquaintance?" glumly reverting to his morning paper, he began to read and reread with dogged persistence each item of politics and foreign news--each gibbering advertisement. at noon the postman dropped some kind of a message through the slit in the door, but the plainly discernible green one-cent stamp forbade any possible hope that it was a letter from the south. at four o'clock again someone thrust an offensive pink gas bill through the letter-slide. at six o'clock stanton stubbornly shut his eyes up perfectly tight and muffled his ears in the pillow so that he would not even know whether the postman came or not. the only thing that finally roused him to plain, grown-up sense again was the joggle of the janitor's foot kicking mercilessly against the bed. "here's your supper," growled the janitor. on the bare tin tray, tucked in between the cup of gruel and the slice of toast loomed an envelope--a real, rather fat-looking envelope. instantly from stanton's mind vanished every conceivable sad thought concerning cornelia. with his heart thumping like the heart of any love-sick school girl, he reached out and grabbed what he supposed was cornelia's letter. but it was post-marked, "boston"; and the handwriting was quite plainly the handwriting of the serial-letter co. muttering an exclamation that was not altogether pretty he threw the letter as far as he could throw it out into the middle of the floor, and turning back to his supper began to crunch his toast furiously like a dragon crunching bones. at nine o'clock he was still awake. at ten o'clock he was still awake. at eleven o'clock he was still awake. at twelve o'clock he was still awake.... at one o'clock he was almost crazy. by quarter past one, as though fairly hypnotized, his eyes began to rivet themselves on the little bright spot in the rug where the "serial-letter" lay gleaming whitely in a beam of electric light from the street. finally, in one supreme, childish impulse of petulant curiosity, he scrambled shiveringly out of his blankets with many "o--h's" and "o-u-c-h-'s," recaptured the letter, and took it growlingly back to his warm bed. worn out quite as much with the grinding monotony of his rheumatic pains as with their actual acuteness, the new discomfort of straining his eyes under the feeble rays of his night-light seemed almost a pleasant diversion. the envelope was certainly fat. as he ripped it open, three or four folded papers like sleeping-powders, all duly numbered, "1 a. m.," "2 a. m.," "3 a. m.," "4 a. m." fell out of it. with increasing inquisitiveness he drew forth the letter itself. "dear honey," said the letter quite boldly. absurd as it was, the phrase crinkled stanton's heart just the merest trifle. "dear honey: "there are so many things about your sickness that worry me. yes there are! i worry about your pain. i worry about the horrid food that you're probably getting. i worry about the coldness of your room. but most of anything in the world i worry about your _sleeplessness_. of course you _don't_ sleep! that's the trouble with rheumatism. it's such an old night-nagger. now do you know what i'm going to do to you? i'm going to evolve myself into a sort of a rheumatic nights entertainment--for the sole and explicit purpose of trying to while away some of your long, dark hours. because if you've simply _got_ to stay awake all night long and think--you might just as well be thinking about me, carl stanton. what? do you dare smile and suggest for a moment that just because of the absence between us i cannot make myself vivid to you? ho! silly boy! don't you know that the plainest sort of black ink throbs more than some blood--and the touch of the softest hand is a harsh caress compared to the touch of a reasonably shrewd pen? here--now, i say--this very moment: lift this letter of mine to your face, and swear--if you're honestly able to--that you can't smell the rose in my hair! a cinnamon rose, would you say--a yellow, flat-faced cinnamon rose? not quite so lusciously fragrant as those in your grandmother's july garden? a trifle paler? perceptibly cooler? something forced into blossom, perhaps, behind brittle glass, under barren winter moonshine? and yet--a-h-h! hear me laugh! you didn't really mean to let yourself lift the page and smell it, did you? but what did i tell you? "i mustn't waste too much time, though, on this nonsense. what i really wanted to say to you was: here are four--not 'sleeping potions', but waking potions--just four silly little bits of news for you to think about at one o'clock, and two, and three--and four, if you happen to be so miserable to-night as to be awake even then. "with my love, "molly." whimsically, stanton rummaged around in the creases of the bed-spread and extricated the little folded paper marked, "no. 1 o'clock." the news in it was utterly brief. "my hair is red," was all that it announced. with a sniff of amusement stanton collapsed again into his pillows. for almost an hour then he lay considering solemnly whether a red-headed girl could possibly be pretty. by two o'clock he had finally visualized quite a striking, juno-esque type of beauty with a figure about the regal height of cornelia's, and blue eyes perhaps just a trifle hazier and more mischievous. but the little folded paper marked, "no. 2 o'clock," announced destructively: "my eyes are brown. and i am _very_ little." with an absurdly resolute intention to "play the game" every bit as genuinely as miss serial-letter co. was playing it, stanton refrained quite heroically from opening the third dose of news until at least two big, resonant city clocks had insisted that the hour was ripe. by that time the grin in his face was almost bright enough of itself to illuminate any ordinary page. "i am lame," confided the third message somewhat depressingly. then snugglingly in parenthesis like the tickle of lips against his ear whispered the one phrase: "my picture is in the fourth paper,--if you should happen still to be awake at four o'clock." where now was stanton's boasted sense of honor concerning the ethics of playing the game according to directions? "wait a whole hour to see what molly looked like? well he guessed not!" fumbling frantically under his pillow and across the medicine stand he began to search for the missing "no. 4 o'clock." quite out of breath, at last he discovered it lying on the floor a whole arm's length away from the bed. only with a really acute stab of pain did he finally succeed in reaching it. then with fingers fairly trembling with effort, he opened forth and disclosed a tiny snap-shot photograph of a grim-jawed, scrawny-necked, much be-spectacled elderly dame with a huge gray pompadour. [illustration: an elderly dame] "stung!" said stanton. rheumatism or anger, or something, buzzed in his heart like a bee the rest of the night. fortunately in the very first mail the next morning a postal-card came from cornelia--such a pretty postal-card too, with a bright-colored picture of an inordinately "riggy" looking ostrich staring over a neat wire fence at an eager group of unmistakably northern tourists. underneath the picture was written in cornelia's own precious hand the heart-thrilling information: "we went to see the ostrich farm yesterday. it was really very interesting. c." iii for quite a long time stanton lay and considered the matter judicially from every possible point of view. "it would have been rather pleasant," he mused "to know who 'we' were." almost childishly his face cuddled into the pillow. "she might at least have told me the name of the ostrich!" he smiled grimly. thus quite utterly denied any nourishing cornelia-flavored food for his thoughts, his hungry mind reverted very naturally to the tantalizing, evasive, sweetly spicy fragrance of the 'molly' episode--before the really dreadful photograph of the unhappy spinster-lady had burst upon his blinking vision. scowlingly he picked up the picture and stared and stared at it. certainly it was grim. but even from its grimness emanated the same faint, mysterious odor of cinnamon roses that lurked in the accompanying letter. "there's some dreadful mistake somewhere," he insisted. then suddenly he began to laugh, and reaching out once more for pen and paper, inscribed his second letter and his first complaint to the serial-letter co. "to the serial-letter co.," he wrote sternly, with many ferocious tremors of dignity and rheumatism. "kindly allow me to call attention to the fact that in my recent order of the 18th inst., the specifications distinctly stated 'love-letters', and _not_ any correspondence whatsoever,--no matter how exhilarating from either a 'gray-plush squirrel' or a 'banda sea pirate' as evidenced by enclosed photograph which i am hereby returning. please refund money at once or forward me without delay a consistent photograph of a 'special edition de luxe' girl. "very truly yours." the letter was mailed by the janitor long before noon. even as late as eleven o'clock that night stanton was still hopefully expecting an answer. nor was he altogether disappointed. just before midnight a messenger boy appeared with a fair-sized manilla envelope, quite stiff and important looking. "oh, please, sir," said the enclosed letter, "oh, please, sir, we cannot refund your subscription money because--we have spent it. but if you will only be patient, we feel quite certain that you will be altogether satisfied in the long run with the material offered you. as for the photograph recently forwarded to you, kindly accept our apologies for a very clumsy mistake made here in the office. do any of these other types suit you better? kindly mark selection and return all pictures at your earliest convenience." before the messenger boy's astonished interest stanton spread out on the bed all around him a dozen soft sepia-colored photographs of a dozen different girls. stately in satin, or simple in gingham, or deliciously hoydenish in fishing-clothes, they challenged his surprised attention. blonde, brunette, tall, short, posing with wistful tenderness in the flickering glow of an open fire, or smiling frankly out of a purely conventional vignette--they one and all defied him to choose between them. "oh! oh!" laughed stanton to himself. "am i to try and separate her picture from eleven pictures of her friends! so that's the game, is it? well, i guess not! does she think i'm going to risk choosing a tom-boy girl if the gentle little creature with the pansies is really herself? or suppose she truly is the enchanting little tom-boy, would she probably write me any more nice funny letters if i solemnly selected her sentimental, moony-looking friend at the heavily draped window?" craftily he returned all the pictures unmarked to the envelope, and changing the address hurried the messenger boy off to remail it. just this little note, hastily scribbled in pencil went with the envelope: "dear serial-letter co.: "the pictures are not altogether satisfactory. it isn't a 'type' that i am looking for, but a definite likeness of 'molly' herself. kindly rectify the mistake without further delay! or refund the money." almost all the rest of the night he amused himself chuckling to think how the terrible threat about refunding the money would confuse and conquer the extravagant little art student. but it was his own hands that did the nervous trembling when he opened the big express package that arrived the next evening, just as his tiresome porridge supper was finished. "ah, sweetheart--" said the dainty note tucked inside the package--"ah, sweetheart, the little god of love be praised for one true lover--yourself! so it is a picture of _me_ that you want? the _real me_! the _truly me_! no mere pink and white likeness? no actual proof even of 'seared and yellow age'? no curly-haired, coquettish attractiveness that the shampoo-lady and the photograph-man trapped me into for that one single second? no deceptive profile of the best side of my face--and i, perhaps, blind in the other eye? not even a fair, honest, every-day portrait of my father's and mother's composite features--but a picture of _myself_! hooray for you! a picture, then, not of my physiognomy, but of my _personality_. very well, sir. here is the portrait--true to the life--in this great, clumsy, conglomerate package of articles that represent--perhaps--not even so much the prosy, literal things that i am, as the much more illuminating and significant things that _i would like to be_. it's what we would 'like to be' that really tells most about us, isn't it, carl stanton? the brown that i have to wear talks loudly enough, for instance, about the color of my complexion, but the forbidden pink that i most crave whispers infinitely more intimately concerning the color of my spirit. and as to my face--_am i really obliged to have a face_? oh, no--o! 'songs without words' are surely the only songs in the world that are packed to the last lilting note with utterly limitless meanings. so in these 'letters without faces' i cast myself quite serenely upon the mercy of your imagination. "what's that you say? that i've simply _got_ to have a face? oh, darn!--well, do your worst. conjure up for me then, here and now, any sort of features whatsoever that please your fancy. only, man of mine, just remember this in your imaginings: gift me with beauty if you like, or gift me with brains, but do not make the crude masculine mistake of gifting me with both. thought furrows faces you know, and after adolescence only inanity retains its heavenly smoothness. beauty even at its worst is a gorgeously perfect, flower-sprinkled lawn over which the most ordinary, every-day errands of life cannot cross without scarring. and brains at their best are only a ploughed field teeming always and forever with the worries of incalculable harvests. make me a little pretty, if you like, and a little wise, but not too much of either, if you value the verities of your vision. there! i say: do your worst! make me that face, and that face only, that you _need the most_ in all this big, lonesome world: food for your heart, or fragrance for your nostrils. only, one face or another--i insist upon having _red hair_! "molly." with his lower lip twisted oddly under the bite of his strong white teeth, stanton began to unwrap the various packages that comprised the large bundle. if it was a "portrait" it certainly represented a puzzle-picture. first there was a small, flat-footed scarlet slipper with a fluffy gold toe to it. definitely feminine. definitely small. so much for that! then there was a sling-shot, ferociously stubby, and rather confusingly boyish. after that, round and flat and tantalizing as an empty plate, the phonograph disc of a totally unfamiliar song--"the sea gull's cry": a clue surely to neither age nor sex, but indicative possibly of musical preference or mere individual temperament. after that, a tiny geographical globe, with kipling's phrase- "for to admire an' for to see, for to be'old this world so wide- it never done no good to me, but i can't drop it if i tried!"-written slantingly in very black ink across both hemispheres. then an empty purse--with a hole in it; a silver-embroidered gauntlet such as horsemen wear on the mexican frontier; a white table-doily partly embroidered with silky blue forget-me-nots--the threaded needle still jabbed in the work--and the small thimble, stanton could have sworn, still warm from the snuggle of somebody's finger. last of all, a fat and formidable edition of robert browning's poems; a tiny black domino-mask, such as masqueraders wear, and a shimmering gilt picture frame inclosing a pert yet not irreverent handmade adaptation of a certain portion of st. paul's epistle to the corinthians: "though i speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not a sense of humor, i am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol. and though i have the gift of prophecy--and all knowledge--so that i could remove mountains, and have not a sense of humor, i am nothing. and though i bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though i give my body to be burned, and have not a sense of humor it profiteth me nothing. "a sense of humor suffereth long, and is kind. a sense of humor envieth not. a sense of humor vaunteth not itself--is not puffed up. doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil--beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. a sense of humor never faileth. but whether there be unpleasant prophecies they shall fail, whether there be scolding tongues they shall cease, whether there be unfortunate knowledge it shall vanish away. when i was a fault-finding child i spake as a fault-finding child, i understood as a fault-finding child,--but when i became a woman i put away fault-finding things. "and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three. _but the greatest of these is a sense of humor!_" with a little chuckle of amusement not altogether devoid of a very definite consciousness of being _teased_, stanton spread all the articles out on the bed-spread before him and tried to piece them together like the fragments of any other jig-saw puzzle. was the young lady as intellectual as the robert browning poems suggested, or did she mean simply to imply that she _wished_ she were? and did the tom-boyish sling-shot fit by any possible chance with the dainty, feminine scrap of domestic embroidery? and was the empty purse supposed to be especially significant of an inordinate fondness for phonograph music--or what? pondering, puzzling, fretting, fussing, he dozed off to sleep at last before he even knew that it was almost morning. and when he finally woke again he found the doctor laughing at him because he lay holding a scarlet slipper in his hand. iv the next night, very, very late, in a furious riot of wind and snow and sleet, a clerk from the drug-store just around the corner appeared with a perfectly huge hot-water bottle fairly sizzling and bubbling with warmth and relief for aching rheumatic backs. "well, where in thunder--?" groaned stanton out of his cold and pain and misery. "search me!" said the drug clerk. "the order and the money for it came in the last mail this evening. 'kindly deliver largest-sized hot-water bottle, boiling hot, to mr. carl stanton,... 11.30 to-night.'" "oo-w!" gasped stanton. "o-u-c-h! g-e-e!" then, "oh, i wish i could purr!" as he settled cautiously back at last to toast his pains against the blessed, scorching heat. "most girls," he reasoned with surprising interest, "would have sent ice cold violets shrouded in tissue paper. now, how does this special girl know--oh, ouch! o-u-c-h! o-u-c-h--i--t--y!" he crooned himself to sleep. the next night just at supper-time a much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier on the end of a dangerously frayed leash. planting himself firmly on the rug in the middle of the room, with the faintest gleam of saucy pink tongue showing between his teeth, the little beast sat and defied the entire situation. nothing apparently but the correspondence concerning the situation was actually transferable from the freckled messenger boy to stanton himself. "oh, dear lad," said the tiny note, "i forgot to tell you my real name, didn't i!--well, my last name and the dog's first name are just the same. funny, isn't it? (you'll find it in the back of almost any dictionary.) "with love, "molly. "p. s. just turn the puppy out in the morning and he'll go home all right of his own accord." with his own pink tongue showing just a trifle between his teeth, stanton lay for a moment and watched the dog on the rug. cocking his small, keen, white head from one tippy angle to another, the little terrier returned the stare with an expression that was altogether and unmistakably mirthful. "oh, it's a jolly little beggar, isn't it?" said stanton. "come here, sir!" only a suddenly pointed ear acknowledged the summons. the dog himself did not budge. "come here, i say!" stanton repeated with harsh peremptoriness. palpably the little dog winked at him. then in succession the little dog dodged adroitly a knife, a spoon, a copy of browning's poems, and several other sizable articles from the table close to stanton's elbow. nothing but the dictionary seemed too big to throw. finally with a grin that could not be disguised even from the dog, stanton began to rummage with eye and hand through the intricate back pages of the dictionary. [illustration: a much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier] "you silly little fool," he said. "won't you mind unless you are spoken to by name?" "aaron--abidel--abel--abiathar--" he began to read out with petulant curiosity, "baldwin--barachias--bruno (oh, hang!) cadwallader--cã¦sar--caleb (what nonsense!) ephraim--erasmus (how could a girl be named anything like that!) gabriel--gerard--gershom (imagine whistling a dog to the name of gershom!) hannibal--hezekiah--hosea (oh, hell!)" stolidly with unheedful, drooping ears the little fox-terrier resumed his seat on the rug. "ichabod--jabez--joab," stanton's voice persisted, experimentally. by nine o'clock, in all possible variations of accent and intonation, he had quite completely exhausted the alphabetical list as far as "k." and the little dog was blinking himself to sleep on the far side of the room. something about the dog's nodding contentment started stanton's mouth to yawning and for almost an hour he lay in the lovely, restful consciousness of being at least half asleep. but at ten o'clock he roused up sharply and resumed the task at hand, which seemed suddenly to have assumed really vital importance. "laban--lorenzo--marcellus," he began again in a loud, clear, compelling voice. "meredith--" (did the little dog stir? did he sit up?) "meredith? meredith?" the little dog barked. something in stanton's brain flashed. "it is 'merry' for the dog?" he quizzed. "here, merry!" in another instant the little creature had leaped upon the foot of his bed, and was talking away at a great rate with all sorts of ecstatic grunts and growls. stanton's hand went out almost shyly to the dog's head. "so it's 'molly meredith'," he mused. but after all there was no reason to be shy about it. it was the _dog's_ head he was stroking. tied to the little dog's collar when he went home the next morning was a tiny, inconspicuous tag that said "that was easy! the pup's name--and yours--is 'meredith.' funny name for a dog but nice for a girl." the serial-letter co.'s answers were always prompt, even though perplexing. "dear lad," came this special answer. "you are quite right about the dog. and i compliment you heartily on your shrewdness. but i must confess,--even though it makes you very angry with me, that i have deceived you absolutely concerning my own name. will you forgive me utterly if i hereby promise never to deceive you again? why what could i possibly, possibly do with a great solemn name like 'meredith'? my truly name, sir, my really, truly, honest-injun name is 'molly make-believe'. don't you know the funny little old song about 'molly make-believe'? oh, surely you do: "'molly, molly make-believe, keep to your play if you would not grieve! for molly-mine here's a hint for you, things that are true are apt to be blue!' "now you remember it, don't you? then there's something about "'molly, molly make-a-smile, wear it, swear it all the while. long as your lips are framed for a joke, who can prove that your heart is broke?' "don't you love that 'is broke'! then there's the last verse--my favorite: "'molly, molly make-a-beau, make him of mist or make him of snow, long as your dream stays fine and fair, _molly, molly what do you care!_'" "well, i'll wager that her name _is_ 'meredith' just the same," vowed stanton, "and she's probably madder than scat to think that i hit it right." whether the daily overtures from the serial-letter co. proved to be dogs or love-letters or hot-water bottles or funny old songs, it was reasonably evident that something unique was practically guaranteed to happen every single, individual night of the six weeks' subscription contract. like a youngster's joyous dream of chronic christmas eves, this realization alone was enough to put an absurdly delicious thrill of expectancy into any invalid's otherwise prosy thoughts. yet the next bit of attention from the serial-letter co. did not please stanton one half as much as it embarrassed him. wandering socially into the room from his own apartments below, a young lawyer friend of stanton's had only just seated himself on the foot of stanton's bed when an expressman also arrived with two large pasteboard hat-boxes which he straightway dumped on the bed between the two men with the laconic message that he would call for them again in the morning. "heaven preserve me!" gasped stanton. "what is this?" fearsomely out of the smaller of the two boxes he lifted with much rustling snarl of tissue paper a woman's brown fur-hat,--very soft, very fluffy, inordinately jaunty with a blush-pink rose nestling deep in the fur. out of the other box, twice as large, twice as rustly, flaunted a green velvet cavalier's hat, with a green ostrich feather as long as a man's arm drooping languidly off the brim. "holy cat!" said stanton. pinned to the green hat's crown was a tiny note. the handwriting at least was pleasantly familiar by this time. "oh, i say!" cried the lawyer delightedly. with a desperately painful effort at nonchalance, stanton shoved his right fist into the brown hat and his left fist into the green one, and raised them quizzically from the bed. "darned--good-looking--hats," he stammered. "oh, i say!" repeated the lawyer with accumulative delight. crimson to the tip of his ears, stanton rolled his eyes frantically towards the little note. "she sent 'em up just to show 'em to me," he quoted wildly. "just 'cause i'm laid up so and can't get out on the streets to see the styles for myself.--and i've got to choose between them for her!" he ejaculated. "she says she can't decide alone which one to keep!" "bully for her!" cried the lawyer, surprisingly, slapping his knee. "the cunning little girl!" speechless with astonishment, stanton lay and watched his visitor, then "well, which one would you choose?" he asked with unmistakable relief. the lawyer took the hats and scanned them carefully. "let--me--see" he considered. "her hair is so blond--" "no, it's red!" snapped stanton. with perfect courtesy the lawyer swallowed his mistake. "oh, excuse me," he said. "i forgot. but with her height--" "she hasn't any height," groaned stanton. "i tell you she's little." "choose to suit yourself," said the lawyer coolly. he himself had admired cornelia from afar off. the next night, to stanton's mixed feelings of relief and disappointment the "surprise" seemed to consist in the fact that nothing happened at all. fully until midnight the sense of relief comforted him utterly. but some time after midnight, his hungry mind, like a house-pet robbed of an accustomed meal, began to wake and fret and stalk around ferociously through all the long, empty, aching, early morning hours, searching for something novel to think about. by supper-time the next evening he was in an irritable mood that made him fairly clutch the special delivery letter out of the postman's hand. it was rather a thin, tantalizing little letter, too. all it said was, "to-night, dearest, until one o'clock, in a cabbage-colored gown all shimmery with green and blue and september frost-lights, i'm going to sit up by my white birch-wood fire and read aloud to you. yes! honest-injun! and out of browning, too. did you notice your copy was marked? what shall i read to you? shall it be "'if i could have that little head of hers painted upon a background of pale gold.' "or 'shall i sonnet-sing you about myself? do i live in a house you would like to see?' "or 'i am a painter who cannot paint, ----no end to all i cannot do. _yet do one thing at least i can, love a man, or hate a man!_' "or just 'escape me? never, beloved! while i am i, and you are you!' "oh, honey! won't it be fun? just you and i, perhaps, in all this big city, sitting up and thinking about each other. can you smell the white birch smoke in this letter?" [illustration: "well i'll be hanged," growled stanton, "if i'm going to be strung by any boy!"] almost unconsciously stanton raised the page to his face. unmistakably, up from the paper rose the strong, vivid scent--of a briar-wood pipe. "well i'll be hanged," growled stanton, "if i'm going to be strung by any boy!" out of all proportion the incident irritated him. but when, the next evening, a perfectly tremendous bunch of yellow jonquils arrived with a penciled line suggesting, "if you'll put these solid gold posies in your window to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, so i'll surely know just which window is yours, i'll look up--when i go past," stanton most peremptorily ordered the janitor to display the bouquet as ornately as possible along the narrow window-sill of the biggest window that faced the street. then all through the night he lay dozing and waking intermittently, with a lovely, scared feeling in the pit of his stomach that something really rather exciting was about to happen. by surely half-past seven he rose laboriously from his bed, huddled himself into his black-sheep wrapper and settled himself down as warmly as could be expected, close to the draughty edge of the window. v "little and lame and red-haired and brown-eyed," he kept repeating to himself. old people and young people, cab-drivers and jaunty young girls, and fat blue policeman, looked up, one and all with quick-brightening faces at the really gorgeous spring-like flame of jonquils, but in a whole chilly, wearisome hour the only red-haired person that passed was an irish setter puppy, and the only lame person was a wooden-legged beggar. cold and disgusted as he was, stanton could not altogether help laughing at his own discomfiture. "why--hang that little girl! she ought to be s-p-a-n-k-e-d," he chuckled as he climbed back into his tiresome bed. then as though to reward his ultimate good-nature the very next mail brought him a letter from cornelia, and rather a remarkable letter too, as in addition to the usual impersonal comments on the weather and the tennis and the annual orange crop, there was actually one whole, individual, intimate sentence that distinguished the letter as having been intended solely for him rather than for cornelia's dressmaker or her coachman's invalid daughter, or her own youngest brother. this was the sentence: "really, carl, you don't know how glad i am that in spite of all your foolish objections, i kept to my original purpose of not announcing my engagement until after my southern trip. you've no idea what a big difference it makes in a girl's good time at a great hotel like this." this sentence surely gave stanton a good deal of food for his day's thoughts, but the mental indigestion that ensued was not altogether pleasant. not until evening did his mood brighten again. then- "lad of mine," whispered molly's gentler letter. "lad of mine, _how blond your hair is_!--even across the chin-tickling tops of those yellow jonquils this morning, i almost laughed to see the blond, blond shine of you.--some day i'm going to stroke that hair." (yes!) "p. s. the little dog came home all right." with a gasp of dismay stanton sat up abruptly in bed and tried to revisualize every single, individual pedestrian who had passed his window in the vicinity of eight o'clock that morning. "she evidently isn't lame at all," he argued, "or little, or red-haired, or anything. probably her name isn't molly, and presumably it isn't even 'meredith.' but at least she did go by: and is my hair so very blond?" he asked himself suddenly. against all intention his mouth began to prance a little at the corners. as soon as he could possibly summon the janitor, he despatched his third note to the serial-letter co., but this one bore a distinctly sealed inner envelope, directed, "for molly. personal." and the message in it, though brief was utterly to the point. "couldn't you _please_ tell a fellow who you are?" but by the conventional bed-time hour the next night he wished most heartily that he had not been so inquisitive, for the only entertainment that came to him at all was a jonquil-colored telegram warning him- "where the apple reddens do not pry, lest we lose our eden--you and i." the couplet was quite unfamiliar to stanton, but it rhymed sickeningly through his brain all night long like the consciousness of an over-drawn bank account. it was the very next morning after this that all the boston papers flaunted cornelia's aristocratic young portrait on their front pages with the striking, large-type announcement that "one of boston's fairest debutantes makes a daring rescue in florida waters. hotel cook capsized from row boat owes his life to the pluck and endurance--etc., etc." with a great sob in his throat and every pulse pounding, stanton lay and read the infinite details of the really splendid story; a group of young girls dallying on the pier; a shrill cry from the bay; the sudden panic-stricken helplessness of the spectators, and then with equal suddenness the plunge of a single, feminine figure into the water; the long hard swim; the furious struggle; the final victory. stingingly, as though it had been fairly branded into his eyes, he saw the vision of cornelia's heroic young face battling above the horrible, dragging-down depths of the bay. the bravery, the risk, the ghastly chances of a less fortunate ending, sent shiver after shiver through his already tortured senses. all the loving thoughts in his nature fairly leaped to do tribute to cornelia. "yes!" he reasoned, "cornelia was made like that! no matter what the cost to herself--no matter what was the price--cornelia would never, never fail to do her _duty_!" when he thought of the weary, lagging, riskful weeks that were still to ensue before he should actually see cornelia again, he felt as though he should go utterly mad. the letter that he wrote to cornelia that night was like a letter written in a man's own heart-blood. his hand trembled so that he could scarcely hold the pen. cornelia did not like the letter. she said so frankly. the letter did not seem to her quite "nice." "certainly," she attested, "it was not exactly the sort of letter that one would like to show one's mother." then, in a palpably conscientious effort to be kind as well as just, she began to prattle inkily again about the pleasant, warm, sunny weather. her only comment on saving the drowning man was the mere phrase that she was very glad that she had learned to be a good swimmer. never indeed since her absence had she spoken of missing stanton. not even now, after what was inevitably a heart-racking adventure, did she yield her lover one single iota of the information which he had a lover's right to claim. had she been frightened, for instance--way down in the bottom of that serene heart of hers had she been frightened? in the ensuing desperate struggle for life had she struggled just one little tiny bit harder because stanton was in that life? now, in the dreadful, unstrung reaction of the adventure, did her whole nature waken and yearn and cry out for that one heart in all the world that belonged to her? plainly, by her silence in the matter, she did not intend to share anything as intimate even as her fear of death with the man whom she claimed to love. it was just this last touch of deliberate, selfish aloofness that startled stanton's thoughts with the one persistent, brutally nagging question: after all, was a woman's undeniably glorious ability to save a drowning man the supreme, requisite of a happy marriage? day by day, night by night, hour by hour, minute by minute, the question began to dig into stanton's brain, throwing much dust and confusion into brain-corners otherwise perfectly orderly and sweet and clean. week by week, grown suddenly and morbidly analytical, he watched for cornelia's letters with increasingly passionate hopefulness, and met each fresh disappointment with increasingly passionate resentment. except for the serial-letter co.'s ingeniously varied attentions there was practically nothing to help him make either day or night bearable. more and more cornelia's infrequent letters suggested exquisitely painted empty dishes offered to a starving person. more and more "molly's" whimsical messages fed him and nourished him and joyously pleased him like some nonsensically fashioned candy-box that yet proved brimming full of real food for a real man. fight as he would against it, he began to cherish a sense of furious annoyance that cornelia's failure to provide for him had so thrust him out, as it were, to feed among strangers. with frowning perplexity and real worry he felt the tingling, vivid consciousness of molly's personality begin to permeate and impregnate his whole nature. yet when he tried to acknowledge and thereby cancel his personal sense of obligation to this "molly" by writing an exceptionally civil note of appreciation to the serial-letter co., the serial-letter co. answered him tersely-"pray do not thank us for the jonquils,--blanket-wrapper, etc., etc. surely they are merely presents from yourself to yourself. it is your money that bought them." and when he had replied briefly, "well, thank you for your brains, then!" the "company" had persisted with undue sharpness, "don't thank us for our brains. brains are our business." vi it was one day just about the end of the fifth week that poor stanton's long-accumulated, long-suppressed perplexity blew up noisily just like any other kind of steam. it was the first day, too, throughout all his illness that he had made even the slightest pretext of being up and about. slippered if not booted, blanket-wrappered if not coated, shaven at least, if not shorn, he had established himself fairly comfortably, late in the afternoon, at his big study-table close to the fire, where, in his low morris chair, with his books and his papers and his lamp close at hand, he had started out once more to try and solve the absurd little problem that confronted him. only an occasional twitch of pain in his shoulder-blade, or an intermittent shudder of nerves along his spine had interrupted in any possible way his almost frenzied absorption in his subject. here at the desk very soon after supper-time the doctor had joined him, and with an unusual expression of leisure and friendliness had settled down lollingly on the other side of the fireplace with his great square-toed shoes nudging the bright, brassy edge of the fender, and his big meerschaum pipe puffing the whole bleak room most deliciously, tantalizingly full of forbidden tobacco smoke. it was a comfortable, warm place to chat. the talk had begun with politics, drifted a little way toward the architecture of several new city buildings, hovered a moment over the marriage of some mutual friend, and then languished utterly. with a sudden narrowing-eyed shrewdness the doctor turned and watched an unwonted flicker of worry on stanton's forehead. "what's bothering you, stanton?" he asked, quickly. "surely you're not worrying any more about your rheumatism?" "no," said stanton. "it--isn't--rheumatism." for an instant the two men's eyes held each other, and then stanton began to laugh a trifle uneasily. "doctor," he asked quite abruptly, "doctor, do you believe that any possible conditions could exist--that would make it justifiable for a man to show a woman's love-letter to another man?" "why--y-e-s," said the doctor cautiously, "i think so. there might be--circumstances--" still without any perceptible cause, stanton laughed again, and reaching out, picked up a folded sheet of paper from the table and handed it to the doctor. "read that, will you?" he asked. "and read it out loud." with a slight protest of diffidence, the doctor unfolded the paper, scanned the page for an instant, and began slowly. "carl of mine. "there's one thing i forgot to tell you. when you go to buy my engagement ring--i don't want any! no! i'd rather have two wedding-rings instead--two perfectly plain gold wedding-rings. and the ring for my passive left hand i want inscribed, 'to be a sweetness more desired than spring!' and the ring for my active right hand i want inscribed, 'his soul to keep!' just that. "and you needn't bother to write me that you don't understand, because you are not expected to understand. it is not man's prerogative to understand. but you are perfectly welcome if you want, to call me crazy, because i am--utterly crazy on just one subject, and _that's you_. why, beloved, if--" "here!" cried stanton suddenly reaching out and grabbing the letter. "here! you needn't read any more!" his cheeks were crimson. the doctor's eyes focused sharply on his face. "that girl loves you," said the doctor tersely. for a moment then the doctor's lips puffed silently at his pipe, until at last with an almost bashful gesture, he cried out abruptly: "stanton, somehow i feel as though i owed you an apology, or rather, owed your fiancã©e one. somehow when you told me that day that your young lady had gone gadding off to florida and--left you alone with your sickness, why i thought--well, most evidently i have misjudged her." stanton's throat gave a little gasp, then silenced again. he bit his lips furiously as though to hold back an exclamation. then suddenly the whole perplexing truth burst forth from him. "that isn't from my fiancã©e!" he cried out. "that's just a professional love-letter. i buy them by the dozen,--so much a week." reaching back under his pillow he extricated another letter. "_this_ is from my fiancã©e," he said. "read it. yes, do." "aloud?" gasped the doctor. stanton nodded. his forehead was wet with sweat. "dear carl, "the weather is still very warm. i am riding horseback almost every morning, however, and playing tennis almost every afternoon. there seem to be an exceptionally large number of interesting people here this winter. in regard to the list of names you sent me for the wedding, really, carl, i do not see how i can possibly accommodate so many of your friends without seriously curtailing my own list. after all you must remember that it is the bride's day, not the groom's. and in regard to your question as to whether we expect to be home for christmas and could i possibly arrange to spend christmas day with you--why, carl, you are perfectly preposterous! of course it is very kind of you to invite me and all that, but how could mother and i possibly come to your rooms when our engagement is not even announced? and besides there is going to be a very smart dance here christmas eve that i particularly wish to attend. and there are plenty of christmases coming for you and me. "cordially yours, "cornelia. "p. s. mother and i hope that your rheumatism is much better." "that's the girl who loves me," said stanton not unhumorously. then suddenly all the muscles around his mouth tightened like the facial muscles of a man who is hammering something. "i mean it!" he insisted. "i mean it--absolutely. that's the--girl--who--loves--me!" silently the two men looked at each other for a second. then they both burst out laughing. "oh, yes," said stanton at last, "i know it's funny. that's just the trouble with it. it's altogether too funny." out of a book on the table beside him he drew the thin gray and crimson circular of the serial-letter co. and handed it to the doctor. then after a moment's rummaging around on the floor beside him, he produced with some difficulty a long, pasteboard box fairly bulging with papers and things. "these are the--communications from my make-believe girl," he confessed grinningly. "oh, of course they're not all letters," he hurried to explain. "here's a book on south america.--i'm a rubber broker, you know, and of course i've always been keen enough about the new england end of my job, but i've never thought anything so very special about the south american end of it. but that girl--that make-believe girl, i mean--insists that i ought to know all about south america, so she sent me this book; and it's corking reading, too--all about funny things like eating monkeys and parrots and toasted guinea-pigs--and sleeping outdoors in black jungle-nights under mosquito netting, mind you, as a protection against prowling panthers.--and here's a queer little newspaper cutting that she sent me one blizzardy sunday telling all about some big violin maker who always went out into the forests himself and chose his violin woods from the _north_ side of the trees. casual little item. you don't think anything about it at the moment. it probably isn't true. and to save your soul you couldn't tell what kind of trees violins are made out of, anyway. but i'll wager that never again will you wake in the night to listen to the wind without thinking of the great storm-tossed, moaning, groaning, slow-toughening forest trees--learning to be violins!... and here's a funny little old silver porringer that she gave me, she says, to make my 'old gray gruel taste shinier.' and down at the bottom of the bowl--the ruthless little pirate--she's taken a knife or a pin or something and scratched the words, 'excellent child!'--but you know i never noticed that part of it at all till last week. you see i've only been eating down to the bottom of the bowl just about a week.--and here's a catalogue of a boy's school, four or five catalogues in fact that she sent me one evening and asked me if i please wouldn't look them over right away and help her decide where to send her little brother. why, man, it took me almost all night! if you get the athletics you want in one school, then likelier than not you slip up on the manual training, and if they're going to schedule eight hours a week for latin, why where in creation--?" shrugging his shoulders as though to shrug aside absolutely any possible further responsibility concerning, "little brother," stanton began to dig down deeper into the box. then suddenly all the grin came back to his face. "and here are some sample wall papers that she sent me for 'our house'," he confided, flushing. "what do you think of that bronze one there with the peacock feathers?--say, old man, think of a library--and a cannel coal fire--and a big mahogany desk--and a red-haired girl sitting against that paper! and this sun-shiny tint for a breakfast-room isn't half bad, is it?--oh yes, and here are the time-tables, and all the pink and blue maps about colorado and arizona and the 'painted desert'. if we can 'afford it,' she writes, she 'wishes we could go to the painted desert on our wedding trip.'--but really, old man, you know it isn't such a frightfully expensive journey. why if you leave new york on wednesday--oh, hang it all! what's the use of showing you any more of this nonsense?" he finished abruptly. with brutal haste he started cramming everything back into place. "it is nothing but nonsense!" he acknowledged conscientiously; "nothing in the world except a boxful of make-believe thoughts from a make-believe girl. and here," he finished resolutely, "are my own fiancã©e's thoughts--concerning me." out of his blanket-wrapper pocket he produced and spread out before the doctor's eyes five thin letters and a postal-card. "not exactly thoughts concerning _you_, even so, are they?" quizzed the doctor. stanton began to grin again. "well, thoughts concerning the weather, then--if that suits you any better." twice the doctor swallowed audibly. then, "but it's hardly fair--is it--to weigh a boxful of even the prettiest lies against five of even the slimmest real, true letters?" he asked drily. "but they're not lies!" snapped stanton. "surely you don't call anything a lie unless not only the fact is false, but the fancy, also, is maliciously distorted! now take this case right before us. suppose there isn't any 'little brother' at all; suppose there isn't any 'painted desert', suppose there isn't any 'black sheep up on a grandfather's farm', suppose there isn't _anything_; suppose, i say, that every single, individual fact stated is _false_--what earthly difference does it make so long as the _fancy_ still remains the truest, realest, dearest, funniest thing that ever happened to a fellow in his life?" "oh, ho!" said the doctor. "so that's the trouble is it! it isn't just rheumatism that's keeping you thin and worried looking, eh? it's only that you find yourself suddenly in the embarrassing predicament of being engaged to one girl and--in love with another?" "n--o!" cried stanton frantically. "n--o! that's the mischief of it--the very mischief! i don't even know that the serial-letter co. _is_ a girl. why it might be an old lady, rather whimsically inclined. even the oldest lady, i presume, might very reasonably perfume her note-paper with cinnamon roses. it might even be a boy. one letter indeed smelt very strongly of being a boy--and mighty good tobacco, too! and great heavens! what have i got to prove that it isn't even an old man--some poor old worn out story-writer trying to ease out the ragged end of his years?" [illustration: some poor old worn-out story-writer] "have you told your fiancã©e about it?" asked the doctor. stanton's jaw dropped. "have i told my fiancã©e about it?" he mocked. "why it was she who sent me the circular in the first place! but, 'tell her about it'? why, man, in ten thousand years, and then some, how could i make any sane person understand?" "you're beginning to make me understand," confessed the doctor. "then you're no longer sane," scoffed stanton. "the crazy magic of it has surely then taken possession of you too. why how could i go to any sane person like cornelia--and cornelia is the most absolutely, hopelessly sane person you ever saw in your life--how could i go to anyone like that, and announce: 'cornelia, if you find any perplexing change in me during your absence--and your unconscious neglect--it is only that i have fallen quite madly in love with a person'--would you call it a person?--who doesn't even exist. therefore for the sake of this 'person who doesn't exist', i ask to be released." "oh! so you do ask to be released?" interrupted the doctor. "why, no! certainly not!" insisted stanton. "suppose the girl you love does hurt your feelings a little bit now and then, would any man go ahead and give up a real flesh-and-blood sweetheart for the sake of even the most wonderful paper-and-ink girl whom he was reading about in an unfinished serial story? would he, i say--would he?" "y-e-s," said the doctor soberly. "y-e-s, i think he would, if what you call the 'paper-and-ink girl' suggested suddenly an entirely new, undreamed-of vista of emotional and spiritual satisfaction." "but i tell you 'she's' probably a boy!" persisted stanton doggedly. "well, why don't you go ahead and find out?" quizzed the doctor. "find out?" cried stanton hotly. "find out? i'd like to know how anybody is going to find out, when the only given address is a private post-office box, and as far as i know there's no sex to a post-office box. find out? why, man, that basket over there is full of my letters returned to me because i tried to 'find out'. the first time i asked, they answered me with just a teasing, snubbing telegram, but ever since then they've simply sent back my questions with a stern printed slip announcing, "your letter of ---is hereby returned to you. kindly allow us to call your attention to the fact that we are not running a correspondence bureau. our circular distinctly states, etc." "sent you a printed slip?" cried the doctor scoffingly. "the love-letter business must be thriving. very evidently you are by no means the only importunate subscriber." "oh, thunder!" growled stanton. the idea seemed to be new to him and not altogether to his taste. then suddenly his face began to brighten. "no, i'm lying," he said. "no, they haven't always sent me a printed slip. it was only yesterday that they sent me a rather real sort of letter. you see," he explained, "i got pretty mad at last and i wrote them frankly and told them that i didn't give a darn who 'molly' was, but simply wanted to know _what_ she was. i told them that it was just gratitude on my part, the most formal, impersonal sort of gratitude--a perfectly plausible desire to say 'thank you' to some one who had been awfully decent to me these past few weeks. i said right out that if 'she' was a boy, why we'd surely have to go fishing together in the spring, and if 'she' was an old man, the very least i could do would be to endow her with tobacco, and if 'she' was an old lady, why i'd simply be obliged to drop in now and then of a rainy evening and hold her knitting for her." "and if 'she' were a girl?" probed the doctor. stanton's mouth began to twitch. "then heaven help me!" he laughed. "well, what answer did you get?" persisted the doctor. "what do you call a realish sort of letter?" with palpable reluctance stanton drew a gray envelope out of the cuff of his wrapper. "i suppose you might as well see the whole business," he admitted consciously. there was no special diffidence in the doctor's manner this time. his clutch on the letter was distinctly inquisitive, and he read out the opening sentences with almost rhetorical effect. "oh, carl dear, you silly boy, why do you persist in hectoring me so? don't you understand that i've got only a certain amount of ingenuity anyway, and if you force me to use it all in trying to conceal my identity from you, how much shall i possibly have left to devise schemes for your amusement? why do you persist, for instance, in wanting to see my face? maybe i haven't got any face! maybe i lost my face in a railroad accident. how do you suppose it would make me feel, then, to have you keep teasing and teasing.--oh, carl! "isn't it enough for me just to tell you once for all that there is an insuperable obstacle in the way of our ever meeting. maybe i've got a husband who is cruel to me. maybe, biggest obstacle of all, i've got a husband whom i am utterly devoted to. maybe, instead of any of these things, i'm a poor, old wizened-up, shut-in, tossing day and night on a very small bed of very big pain. maybe worse than being sick i'm starving poor, and maybe, worse than being sick or poor, i am most horribly tired of myself. of course if you are very young and very prancy and reasonably good-looking, and still are tired of yourself, you can almost always rest yourself by going on the stage where--with a little rouge and a different colored wig, and a new nose, and skirts instead of trousers, or trousers instead of skirts, and age instead of youth, and badness instead of goodness--you can give your ego a perfectly limitless number of happy holidays. but if you were oldish, i say, and pitifully 'shut in', just how would you go to work, i wonder, to rest your personality? how for instance could you take your biggest, grayest, oldest worry about your doctor's bill, and rouge it up into a radiant, young joke? and how, for instance, out of your lonely, dreary, middle-aged orphanhood are you going to find a way to short-skirt your rheumatic pains, and braid into two perfectly huge pink-bowed pigtails the hair that you _haven't got_, and caper round so ecstatically before the foot-lights that the old gentleman and lady in the front seat absolutely swear you to be the living image of their 'long lost amy'? and how, if the farthest journey you ever will take again is the monotonous hand-journey from your pillow to your medicine bottle, then how, for instance, with map or tinsel or attar of roses, can you go to work to solve even just for your own satisfaction the romantic, shimmering secrets of--morocco? "ah! you've got me now, you think? all decided in your mind that i am an aged invalid? i didn't say so. i just said 'maybe'. likelier than not i've saved my climax for its proper place. how do you know,--for instance, that i'm not a--'cullud pusson'?--so many people are." without signature of any sort, the letter ended abruptly then and there, and as though to satisfy his sense of something left unfinished, the doctor began at the beginning and read it all over again in a mumbling, husky whisper. "maybe she is--'colored'," he volunteered at last. "very likely," said stanton perfectly cheerfully. "it's just those occasional humorous suggestions that keep me keyed so heroically up to the point where i'm actually infuriated if you even suggest that i might be getting really interested in this mysterious miss molly! you haven't said a single sentimental thing about her that i haven't scoffed at--now have you?" "n--o," acknowledged the doctor. "i can see that you've covered your retreat all right. even if the author of these letters should turn out to be a one-legged veteran of the war of 1812, you still could say, 'i told you so'. but all the same, i'll wager that you'd gladly give a hundred dollars, cash down, if you could only go ahead and prove the little girl's actual existence." stanton's shoulders squared suddenly but his mouth retained at least a faint vestige of its original smile. "you mistake the situation entirely," he said. "it's the little girl's non-existence that i am most anxious to prove." then utterly without reproach or interference, he reached over and grabbed a forbidden cigar from the doctor's cigar case, and lighted it, and retreated as far as possible into the gray film of smoke. it was minutes and minutes before either man spoke again. then at last after much crossing and re-crossing of his knees the doctor asked drawlingly, "and when is it that you and cornelia are planning to be married?" "next april," said stanton briefly. "u--m--m," said the doctor. after a few more minutes he said, "u--m--m," again. [illustration: "maybe she is--'colored,'" he volunteered at last] the second "u--m--m" seemed to irritate stanton unduly. "is it your head that's spinning round?" he asked tersely. "you sound like a dutch top!" the doctor raised his hands cautiously to his forehead. "your story does make me feel a little bit giddy," he acknowledged. then with sudden intensity, "stanton, you're playing a dangerous game for an engaged man. cut it out, i say!" "cut what out?" said stanton stubbornly. the doctor pointed exasperatedly towards the big box of letters. "cut those out," he said. "a sentimental correspondence with a girl who's--more interesting than your fiancã©e!" "w-h-e-w!" growled stanton, "i'll hardly stand for that statement." "well, then lie down for it," taunted the doctor. "keep right on being sick and worried and--." peremptorily he reached out both hands towards the box. "here!" he insisted. "let's dump the whole mischievous nonsense into the fire and burn it up!" with an "ouch," of pain stanton knocked the doctor's hands away. "burn up my letters?" he laughed. "well, i guess not! i wouldn't even burn up the wall papers. i've had altogether too much fun out of them. and as for the books, the browning, etc.--why hang it all, i've gotten awfully fond of those books!" idly he picked up the south american volume and opened the fly-leaf for the doctor to see. "carl from his molly," it said quite distinctly. "oh, yes," mumbled the doctor. "it looks very pleasant. there's absolutely no denying that it looks very pleasant. and some day--out of an old trunk, or tucked down behind your library encyclopedias--your wife will discover the book and ask blandly, 'who was molly? i don't remember your ever saying anything about a "molly".--just someone you used to know?' and your answer will be innocent enough: 'no, dear, _someone whom i never knew_!' but how about the pucker along your spine, and the awfully foolish, grinny feeling around your cheek-bones? and on the street and in the cars and at the theaters you'll always and forever be looking and searching, and asking yourself, 'is it by any chance possible that this girl sitting next to me now--?' and your wife will keep saying, with just a barely perceptible edge in her voice, 'carl, do you know that red-haired girl whom we just passed? you stared at her so!' and you'll say, 'oh, no! i was merely wondering if--' oh yes, you'll always and forever be 'wondering if'. and mark my words, stanton, people who go about the world with even the most innocent chronic question in their eyes, are pretty apt to run up against an unfortunately large number of wrong answers." "but you take it all so horribly seriously," protested stanton. "why you rave and rant about it as though it was actually my affections that were involved!" "your affections?" cried the doctor in great exasperation. "your affections? why, man, if it was only your affections, do you suppose i'd be wasting even so much as half a minute's worry on you? but it's your _imagination_ that's involved. that's where the blooming mischief lies. affection is all right. affection is nothing but a nice, safe flame that feeds only on one special kind of fuel,--its own particular object. you've got an 'affection' for cornelia, and wherever cornelia fails to feed that affection it is mercifully ordained that the starved flame shall go out into cold gray ashes without making any further trouble whatsoever. but you've got an 'imagination' for this make-believe girl--heaven help you!--and an 'imagination' is a great, wild, seething, insatiate tongue of fire that, thwarted once and for all in its original desire to gorge itself with realities, will turn upon you body and soul, and lick up your crackling fancy like so much kindling wood--and sear your common sense, and scorch your young wife's happiness. nothing but cornelia herself will ever make you want--cornelia. but the other girl, the unknown girl--why she's the face in the clouds, she's the voice in the sea; she's the glow of the sunset; she's the hush of the june twilight! every summer breeze, every winter gale, will fan the embers! every thumping, twittering, twanging pulse of an orchestra, every--. oh, stanton, i say, it isn't the ghost of the things that are dead that will ever come between you and cornelia. there never yet was the ghost of any lost thing that couldn't be tamed into a purring household pet. but--the--ghost--of--a--thing--that--you've--never--yet--found? _that_, i tell you, is a very different matter!" pounding at his heart, and blazing in his cheeks, the insidious argument, the subtle justification, that had been teeming in stanton's veins all the week, burst suddenly into speech. "but i gave cornelia the _chance_ to be 'all the world' to me," he protested doggedly, "and she didn't seem to care a hang about it! great scott, man! are you going to call a fellow unfaithful because he hikes off into a corner now and then and reads a bit of browning, for instance, all to himself--or wanders out on the piazza some night all sole alone to stare at the stars that happen to bore his wife to extinction?" "but you'll never be able to read browning again 'all by yourself'," taunted the doctor. "whether you buy it fresh from the presses or borrow it stale and old from a public library, you'll never find another copy as long as you live that doesn't smell of cinnamon roses. and as to 'star-gazing' or any other weird thing that your wife doesn't care for--you'll never go out alone any more into dawns or darknesses without the very tingling conscious presence of a wonder whether the 'other girl' _would_ have cared for it!" "oh, shucks!" said stanton. then, suddenly his forehead puckered up. "of course i've got a worry," he acknowledged frankly. "any fellow's got a worry who finds himself engaged to be married to a girl who isn't keen enough about it to want to be all the world to him. but i don't know that even the most worried fellow has any real cause to be scared, as long as the girl in question still remains the only flesh-and-blood girl on the face of the earth whom he wishes _did_ like him well enough to want to be 'all the world' to him." "the only 'flesh-and-blood' girl?" scoffed the doctor. "oh, you're all right, stanton. i like you and all that. but i'm mighty glad just the same that it isn't my daughter whom you're going to marry, with all this 'molly make-believe' nonsense lurking in the background. cut it out, stanton, i say. cut it out!" "cut it out?" mused stanton somewhat distrait. "cut it out? what! molly make-believe?" under the quick jerk of his knees the big box of letters and papers and things brimmed over in rustling froth across the whole surface of the table. just for a second the muscles in his throat tightened a trifle. then, suddenly he burst out laughing--wildly, uproariously, like an excited boy. "cut it out?" he cried. "but it's such a joke! can't you see that it's nothing in the world except a perfectly delicious, perfectly intangible joke?" "u--m--m," reiterated the doctor. in the very midst of his reiteration, there came a sharp rap at the door, and in answer to stanton's cheerful permission to enter, the so-called "delicious, intangible joke" manifested itself abruptly in the person of a rather small feminine figure very heavily muffled up in a great black cloak, and a rose-colored veil that shrouded her nose and chin bluntly like the nose and chin of a face only half hewed out as yet from a block of pink granite. "it's only molly," explained an undeniably sweet little alto voice. "am i interrupting you?" vii jumping to his feet, the doctor stood staring wildly from stanton's amazed face to the perfectly calm, perfectly accustomed air of poise that characterized every movement of the pink-shrouded visitor. the amazement in fact never wavered for a second from stanton's blush-red visage, nor the supreme serenity from the lady's whole attitude. but across the doctor's startled features a fearful, outraged consciousness of having been deceived, warred mightily with a consciousness of unutterable mirth. advancing toward the fireplace with a rather slow-footed, hesitating gait, the little visitor's attention focused suddenly on the cluttered table and she cried out with unmistakable delight. "why, what are you people doing with all my letters and things?" then climbing up on the sturdy brass fender, she thrust her pink, impenetrable features right into the scared, pallid face of the shabby old clock and announced pointedly, "it's almost half-past seven. and i can stay till just eight o'clock!" when she turned around again the doctor was gone. with a tiny shrug of her shoulders, she settled herself down then in a big, high-backed chair before the fire and stretched out her overshoed toes to the shining edge of the fender. as far as any apparent self-consciousness was concerned, she might just as well have been all alone in the room. convulsed with amusement, yet almost paralyzed by a certain stubborn, dumb sort of embarrassment, nothing on earth could have forced stanton into making even an indefinite speech to the girl until she had made at least one perfectly definite and reasonably illuminating sort of speech to him. biting his grinning lips into as straight a line as possible, he gathered up the scattered pages of the evening paper and attacked them furiously with scowling eyes. after a really dreadful interim of silence, the mysterious little visitor rose in a gloomy, discouraged kind of way, and climbing up again on the narrow brass fender, peered once more into the face of the clock. "it's twenty minutes of eight, now," she announced. into her voice crept for the first time the faintest perceptible suggestion of a tremor. "it's twenty minutes of eight--now--and i've got to leave here exactly at eight. twenty minutes is a rather--a rather stingy little bit out of a whole--lifetime," she added falteringly. then, and then only did stanton's nervousness break forth suddenly into one wild, uproarious laugh that seemed to light up the whole dark, ominous room as though the gray, sulky, smoldering hearth-fire itself had exploded into iridescent flame. chasing close behind the musical contagion of his deep guffaws followed the softer, gentler giggle of the dainty pink-veiled lady. by the time they had both finished laughing it was fully quarter of eight. "but you see it was just this way," explained the pleasant little voice--all alto notes again. cautiously a slim, unringed hand burrowed out from the somber folds of the big cloak, and raised the pink mouth-mumbling veil as much as half an inch above the red-lipped speech line. "you see it was just this way. you paid me a lot of money--all in advance--for a six weeks' special edition de luxe love-letter serial. and i spent your money the day i got it; and worse than that i owed it--long before i even got it! and worst of all, i've got a chance now to go home to-morrow for all the rest of the winter. no, i don't mean that exactly. i mean i've found a chance to go up to vermont and have all my expenses paid--just for reading aloud every day to a lady who isn't so awfully deaf. but you see i still owe you a week's subscription--and i can't refund you the money because i haven't got it. and it happens that i can't run a fancy love-letter business from the special house that i'm going to. there aren't enough resources there--and all that. so i thought that perhaps--perhaps--considering how much you've been teasing and teasing to know who i was--i thought that perhaps if i came here this evening and let you really see me--that maybe, you know--maybe, not positively, but just _maybe_--you'd be willing to call that equivalent to one week's subscription. _would you?_" in the sharp eagerness of her question she turned her shrouded face full-view to stanton's curious gaze, and he saw the little nervous, mischievous twitch of her lips at the edge of her masking pink veil resolve itself suddenly into a whimper of real pain. yet so vivid were the lips, so blissfully, youthfully, lusciously carmine, that every single, individual statement she made seemed only like a festive little announcement printed in red ink. "i guess i'm not a very--good business manager," faltered the red-lipped voice with incongruous pathos. "indeed i know i'm not because--well because--the serial-letter co. has 'gone broke! bankrupt', is it, that you really say?" with a little mockingly playful imitation of a stride she walked the first two fingers of her right hand across the surface of the table to stanton's discarded supper dishes. "oh, please may i have that piece of cold toast?" she asked plaintively. no professional actress on the stage could have spoken the words more deliciously. even to the actual crunching of the toast in her little shining white teeth, she sought to illustrate as fantastically as possible the ultimate misery of a bankrupt person starving for cold toast. stanton's spontaneous laughter attested his full appreciation of her mimicry. "but i tell you the serial-letter co. _has_ 'gone broke'!" she persisted a trifle wistfully. "i guess--i guess it takes a man to really run a business with any sort of financial success, 'cause you see a man never puts anything except his head into his business. and of course if you only put your head into it, then you go right along giving always just a little wee bit less than 'value received'--and so you can't help, sir, making a profit. why people would think you were plain, stark crazy if you gave them even one more pair of poor rubber boots than they'd paid for. but a woman! well, you see my little business was a sort of a scheme to sell sympathy--perfectly good sympathy, you know--but to sell it to people who really needed it, instead of giving it away to people who didn't care anything about it at all. and you have to run that sort of business almost entirely with your heart--and you wouldn't feel decent at all, unless you delivered to everybody just a little tiny bit more sympathy than he paid for. otherwise, you see you wouldn't be delivering perfectly good sympathy. so that's why--you understand now--that's why i had to send you my very own woolly blanket-wrapper, and my very own silver porringer, and my very own sling-shot that i fight city cats with,--because, you see, i had to use every single cent of your money right away to pay for the things that i'd already bought for other people." "for other people?" quizzed stanton a bit resentfully. "oh, yes," acknowledged the girl; "for several other people." then, "did you like the idea of the 'rheumatic nights entertainment'?" she asked quite abruptly. "did i like it?" cried stanton. "did i _like_ it?" with a little shrugging air of apology the girl straightened up very stiffly in her chair. "of course it wasn't exactly an original idea," she explained contritely. "that is, i mean not original for you. you see, it's really a little club of mine--a little subscription club of rheumatic people who can't sleep; and i go every night in the week, an hour to each one of them. there are only three, you know. there's a youngish lady in boston, and a very, very old gentleman out in brookline, and the tiniest sort of a poor little sick girl in cambridge. sometimes i turn up just at supper-time and jolly them along a bit with their gruels. sometimes i don't get around till ten or eleven o'clock in the great boo-black dark. from two to three in the morning seems to be the cruelest, grayest, coldest time for the little girl in cambridge.... and i play the banjo decently well, you know, and sing more or less--and tell stories, or read aloud; and i most always go dressed up in some sort of a fancy costume 'cause i can't seem to find any other thing to do that astonishes sick people so much and makes them sit up so bravely and look so shiny. and really, it isn't such dreadfully hard work to do, because everything fits together so well. the short skirts, for instance, that turn me into such a jolly prattling great-grandchild for the poor old gentleman, make me just a perfectly rational, contemporaneous-looking play-mate for the small cambridge girl. i'm so very, very little!" "only, of course," she finished wryly; "only, of course, it costs such a horrid big lot for costumes and carriages and things. that's what's 'busted' me, as the boys say. and then, of course, i'm most dreadfully sleepy all the day times when i ought to be writing nice things for my serial-letter co. business. and then one day last week--" the vivid red lips twisted oddly at one corner. "one night last week they sent me word from cambridge that the little, little girl was going to die--and was calling and calling for the 'gray-plush squirrel lady'. so i hired a big gray squirrel coat from a furrier whom i know, and i ripped up my muff and made me the very best sort of a hot, gray, smothery face that i could--and i went out to cambridge and sat three hours on the footboard of a bed, cracking jokes--and nuts--to beguile a little child's death-pain. and somehow it broke my heart--or my spirit--or something. somehow i think i could have stood it better with my own skin face! anyway the little girl doesn't need me any more. anyway, it doesn't matter if someone did need me!... i tell you i'm 'broke'! i tell you i haven't got one single solitary more thing to give! it isn't just my pocket-book that's empty: it's my head that's spent, too! it's my heart that's altogether stripped! _and i'm going to run away! yes, i am!_" jumping to her feet she stood there for an instant all out of breath, as though just the mere fancy thought of running away had almost exhausted her. then suddenly she began to laugh. "i'm so tired of making up things," she confessed; "why, i'm so tired of making up grandfathers, i'm so tired of making up pirates, i'm so tired of making-up lovers--that i actually cherish the bill collector as the only real, genuine acquaintance whom i have in boston. certainly there's no slightest trace of pretence about him!... excuse me for being so flippant," she added soberly, "but you see i haven't got any sympathy left even for myself." "but for heaven's sake!" cried stanton, "why don't you let somebody help you? why don't you let me--" "oh, you _can_ help me!" cried the little red-lipped voice excitedly. "oh, yes, indeed you can help me! that's why i came here this evening. you see i've settled up now with every one of my creditors except you and the youngish boston lady, and i'm on my way to her house now. we're reading oriental fairy stories together. truly i think she'll be very glad indeed to release me from my contract when i offer her my coral beads instead, because they are dreadfully nice beads, my real, unpretended grandfather carved them for me himself.... but how can i settle with you? i haven't got anything left to settle with, and it might be months and months before i could refund the actual cash money. so wouldn't you--couldn't you please call my coming here this evening an equivalent to one week's subscription?" [illustration: "oh! don't i look--gorgeous!" she stammered] wriggling out of the cloak and veil that wrapped her like a chrysalis she emerged suddenly a glimmering, shimmering little oriental figure of satin and silver and haunting sandalwood--a veritable little incandescent rainbow of spangled moonlight and flaming scarlet and dark purple shadows. great, heavy, jet-black curls caught back from her small piquant face by a blazing rhinestone fillet,--cheeks just a tiny bit over-tinted with rouge and excitement,--big, red-brown eyes packed full of high lights like a startled fawn's,--bold in the utter security of her masquerade, yet scared almost to death by the persistent underlying heart-thump of her unescapable self-consciousness,--altogether as tantalizing, altogether as unreal, as a vision out of the arabian nights, she stood there staring quizzically at stanton. "_would_ you call it--an--equivalent? _would_ you?" she asked nervously. then pirouetting over to the largest mirror in sight she began to smooth and twist her silken sash into place. somewhere at wrist or ankle twittered the jingle of innumerable bangles. "oh! don't i look--gorgeous!" she stammered. "o--h--h!" viii everything that was discreet and engaged-to-be-married in stanton's conservative make-up exploded suddenly into one utterly irresponsible speech. "you little witch!" he cried out. "you little beauty! for heaven's sake come over here and sit down in this chair where i can look at you! i want to talk to you! i--" pirouetting once more before the mirror, she divided one fleet glance between admiration for herself and scorn for stanton. "oh, yes, i felt perfectly sure that you'd insist upon having me 'pretty'!" she announced sternly. then courtesying low to the ground in mock humility, she began to sing-song mischievously: "so molly, molly made-her-a-face, made it of rouge and made it of lace. long as the rouge and the lace are fair, oh, mr. man, what do you care?" "you don't need any rouge or lace to make _you_ pretty!" stanton fairly shouted in his vehemence. "anybody might have known that that lovely, little mind of yours could only live in a--" "nonsense!" the girl interrupted, almost temperishly. then with a quick, impatient sort of gesture she turned to the table, and picking up book after book, opened it and stared in it as though it had been a mirror. "oh, maybe my mind is pretty enough," she acknowledged reluctantly. "but likelier than not, my face is not becoming--to me." crossing slowly over to stanton's side she seated herself, with much jingling, rainbow-colored, sandalwood-scented dignity, in the chair that the doctor had just vacated. "poor dear, you've been pretty sick, haven't you?" she mused gently. cautiously then she reached out and touched the soft, woolly cuff of his blanket-wrapper. "did you really like it?" she asked. stanton began to smile again. "did i really like it?" he repeated joyously. "why, don't you know that if it hadn't been for you i should have gone utterly mad these past few weeks? don't you know that if it hadn't been for you--don't you know that if--" a little over-zealously he clutched at the tinsel fringe on the oriental lady's fan. "don't you know--don't you know that i'm--engaged to be married?" he finished weakly. the oriental lady shivered suddenly, as any lady might shiver on a november night in thin silken clothes. "engaged to be married?" she stammered. "oh, yes! why--of course! most men are! really unless you catch a man very young and keep him absolutely constantly by your side you cannot hope to walk even into his friendship--except across the heart of some other woman." again she shivered and jingled a hundred merry little bangles. "but why?" she asked abruptly, "why, if you're engaged to be married, did you come and--buy love-letters of me? my love-letters are distinctly for lonely people," she added severely. "how dared you--how dared you go into the love-letter business in the first place?" quizzed stanton dryly. "and when it comes to asking personal questions, how dared you send me printed slips in answer to my letters to you? printed slips, mind you!... how many men are you writing love-letters to, anyway?" the oriental lady threw out her small hands deprecatingly. "how many men? only two besides yourself. there's such a fad for nature study these days that almost everybody this year has ordered the 'gray-plush squirrel' series. but i'm doing one or two 'japanese fairies' for sick children, and a high school history class out in omaha has ordered a weekly epistle from william of orange." "hang the high school class out in omaha!" said stanton. "it was the love-letters that i was asking about." "oh, yes, i forgot," murmured the oriental lady. "just two men besides yourself, i said, didn't i? well one of them is a life convict out in an illinois prison. he's subscribed for a whole year--for a fortnightly letter from a girl in killarney who has got to be named 'katie'. he's a very, very old man, i think, but i don't even know his name 'cause he's only a number now--'4632'--or something like that. and i have to send all my letters over to killarney to be mailed--oh, he's awfully particular about that. and it was pretty hard at first working up all the geography that he knew and i didn't. but--pshaw! you're not interested in killarney. then there's a new york boy down in ceylon on a smelly old tea plantation. his people have dropped him, i guess, for some reason or other; so i'm just 'the girl from home' to him, and i prattle to him every month or so about the things he used to care about. it's easy enough to work that up from the social columns in the new york papers--and twice i've been over to new york to get special details for him; once to find out if his mother was really as sick as the sunday paper said, and once--yes, really, once i butted in to a tea his sister was giving, and wrote him, yes, wrote him all about how the moths were eating up the big moose-head in his own front hall. and he sent an awfully funny, nice letter of thanks to the serial-letter co.--yes, he did! and then there's a crippled french girl out in the berkshires who is utterly crazy, it seems, about the 'three musketeers', so i'm d'artagnan to her, and it's dreadfully hard work--in french--but i'm learning a lot out of that, and--" "there. don't tell me any more!" cried stanton. then suddenly the pulses in his temples began to pound so hard and so loud that he could not seem to estimate at all just how loud he was speaking. "who are you?" he insisted. "who are you? tell me instantly, i say! _who are you anyway?_" the oriental lady jumped up in alarm. "i'm no one at all--to you," she said coolly, "except just--molly make-believe." something in her tone seemed to fairly madden stanton. "you shall tell me who you are!" he cried. "you shall! i say you shall!" plunging forward he grabbed at her little bangled wrists and held them in a vise that sent the rheumatic pains shooting up his arms to add even further frenzy to his brain. "tell me who you are!" he grinned. "you shan't go out of here in ten thousand years till you've told me who you are!" frightened, infuriated, quivering with astonishment, the girl stood trying to wrench her little wrists out of his mighty grasp, stamping in perfectly impotent rage all the while with her soft-sandalled, jingling feet. "i won't tell you who i am! i won't! i won't!" she swore and reswore in a dozen different staccato accents. the whole daring passion of the orient that costumed her seemed to have permeated every fiber of her small being. then suddenly she drew in her breath in a long quivering sigh. staring up into her face, stanton gave a little groan of dismay, and released her hands. "why, molly! molly! you're--crying," he whispered. "why, little girl! why--" backing slowly away from him, she made a desperate effort to smile through her tears. "now you've spoiled everything," she said. "oh no, not--everything," argued stanton helplessly from his chair, afraid to rise to his feet, afraid even to shuffle his slippers on the floor lest the slightest suspicion of vehemence on his part should hasten that steady, backward retreat of hers towards the door. already she had re-acquired her cloak and overshoes and was groping out somewhat blindly for her veil in a frantic effort to avoid any possible chance of turning her back even for a second on so dangerous a person as himself. "yes, everything," nodded the small grieved face. yet the tragic, snuffling little sob that accompanied the words only served to add a most entrancing, tip-nosed vivacity to the statement. "oh, of course i know," she added hastily. "oh, of course i know perfectly well that i oughtn't to have come alone to your rooms like this!" madly she began to wind the pink veil round and round and round her cheeks like a bandage. "oh, of course i know perfectly well that it wasn't even remotely proper! but don't you think--don't you think that if you've always been awfully, awfully strict and particular with yourself about things all your life, that you might have risked--safely--just one little innocent, mischievous sort of a half hour? especially if it was the only possible way you could think of to square up everything and add just a little wee present besides? 'cause nothing, you know, that you can _afford_ to give ever seems exactly like giving a really, truly present. it's got to hurt you somewhere to be a 'present'. so my coming here this evening--this way--was altogether the bravest, scariest, unwisest, most-like-a-present-feeling-thing that i could possibly think of to do--for you. and even if you hadn't spoiled everything, i was going away to-morrow just the same forever and ever and ever!" cautiously she perched herself on the edge of a chair, and thrust her narrow, gold-embroidered toes into the wide, blunt depths of her overshoes. "forever and ever!" she insisted almost gloatingly. "not forever and _ever_!" protested stanton vigorously. "you don't think for a moment, do you, that after all this wonderful, jolly friendship of ours, you're going to drop right out of sight as though the earth had opened?" even the little quick, forward lurch of his shoulders in the chair sent the girl scuttling to her feet again, one overshoe still in her hand. just at the edge of the door-mat she turned and smiled at him mockingly. really it had been a long time since she had smiled. "surely you don't think that you'd be able to recognize me in my street clothes, do you?" she asked bluntly. stanton's answering smile was quite as mocking as hers. "why not?" he queried. "didn't i have the pleasure of choosing your winter hat for you? let me see,--it was brown, with a pink rose--wasn't it? i should know it among a million." with a little shrug of her shoulders she leaned back against the door and stared at him suddenly out of her big red-brown eyes with singular intentness. "well, _will_ you call it an equivalent to one week's subscription?" she asked very gravely. some long-sleeping devil of mischief awoke in stanton's senses. "equivalent to one whole week's subscription?" he repeated with mock incredulity. "a whole week--seven days and nights? oh, no! no! no! i don't think you've given me, yet, more than about--four days' worth to think about. just about four days' worth, i should think." pushing the pink veil further and further back from her features, with plainly quivering hands, the girl's whole soul seemed to blaze out at him suddenly, and then wince back again. then just as quickly a droll little gleam of malice glinted in her eyes. "oh, all right then," she smiled. "if you really think i've given you only four days' and nights' worth of thoughts--here's something for the fifth day and night." very casually, yet still very accurately, her right hand reached out to the knob of the door. "to cancel my debt for the fifth day," she said, "do you really 'honest-injun' want to know who i am? i'll tell you! first, you've seen me before." "what?" cried stanton, plunging forward in his chair. something in the girl's quick clutch of the door-knob warned him quite distinctly to relax again into his cushions. "yes," she repeated triumphantly. "and you've talked with me too, as often as twice! and moreover you've danced with me!" tossing her head with sudden-born daring she reached up and snatched off her curly black wig, and shook down all around her such a great, shining, utterly glorious mass of mahogany colored hair that stanton's astonishment turned almost into faintness. "what?" he cried out. "what? you say i've seen you before? talked with you? waltzed with you, perhaps? never! i haven't! i tell you i haven't! i never saw that hair before! if i had, i shouldn't have forgotten it to my dying day. why--" with a little wail of despair she leaned back against the door. "you don't even remember me _now_?" she mourned. "oh dear, dear, dear! and i thought _you_ were so beautiful!" then, woman-like, her whole sympathy rushed to defend him from her own accusations. "oh, well, it was at a masquerade party," she acknowledged generously, "and i suppose you go to a great many masquerades." heaping up her hair like so much molten copper into the hood of her cloak, and trying desperately to snare all the wild, escaping tendrils with the softer mesh of her veil, she reached out a free hand at last and opened the door just a crack. "and to give you something to think about for the sixth day and night," she resumed suddenly, with the same strange little glint in her eyes, "to give you something to think about the sixth day, i'll tell you that i really was hungry--when i asked you for your toast. i haven't had anything to eat to-day; and--" [illustration: "what?" cried stanton, plunging forward in his chair] before she could finish the sentence stanton had sprung from his chair, and stood trying to reason out madly whether one single more stride would catch her, or lose her. "and as for something for you to think about the seventh day and night," she gasped hurriedly. already the door had opened to her hand and her little figure stood silhouetted darkly against the bright, yellow-lighted hallway, "here's something for you to think about for _twenty_-seven days and nights!" wildly her little hands went clutching at the woodwork. "i didn't know you were engaged to be married," she cried out passionately, "and i _loved_ you--_loved_ you--_loved_ you!" then in a flash she was gone. ix with absolute finality the big door banged behind her. a minute later the street door, four flights down, rang out in jarring reverberation. a minute after that it seemed as though every door in every house on the street slammed shrilly. then the charred fire-log sagged down into the ashes with a sad, puffing sigh. then a whole row of books on a loosely packed shelf toppled over on each other with soft jocose slaps. crawling back into his morris chair with every bone in his body aching like a magnetized wire-skeleton charged with pain, stanton collapsed again into his pillows and sat staring--staring into the dying fire. nine o'clock rang out dully from the nearest church spire; ten o'clock, eleven o'clock followed in turn with monotonous, chiming insistency. gradually the relaxing steam-radiators began to grunt and grumble into a chill quietude. gradually along the bare, bleak stretches of unrugged floor little cold draughts of air came creeping exploringly to his feet. and still he sat staring--staring into the fast graying ashes. "oh, glory! glory!" he said. "think what it would mean if all that wonderful imagination were turned loose upon just one fellow! even if she didn't love you, think how she'd play the game! and if she did love you--oh, lordy; lordy! lordy!" towards midnight, to ease the melancholy smell of the dying lamp, he drew reluctantly forth from his deepest blanket-wrapper pocket the little knotted handkerchief that encased the still-treasured handful of fragrant fir-balsam, and bending groaningly forward in his chair sifted the brittle, pungent needles into the face of the one glowing ember that survived. instantly in a single dazzling flash of flame the tangible forest symbol vanished in intangible fragrance. but along the hollow of his hand,--across the edge of his sleeve,--up from the ragged pile of books and papers,--out from the farthest, remotest corners of the room, lurked the unutterable, undestroyable sweetness of all forests since the world was made. almost with a sob in his throat stanton turned again to the box of letters on his table. by dawn the feverish, excited sleeplessness in his brain had driven him on and on to one last, supremely fantastic impulse. writing to cornelia he told her bluntly, frankly, "dear cornelia: "when i asked you to marry me, you made me promise very solemnly at the time that if i ever changed my mind regarding you i would surely tell you. and i laughed at you. do you remember? but you were right, it seems, and i was wrong. for i believe that i have changed my mind. that is:--i don't know how to express it exactly, but it has been made very, very plain to me lately that i do not by any manner of means love you as little as you need to be loved. "in all sincerity, "carl." to which surprising communication cornelia answered immediately; but the 'immediately' involved a week's almost maddening interim, "dear carl: "neither mother nor i can make any sense whatsoever out of your note. by any possible chance was it meant to be a joke? you say you do not love me 'as little' as i need to be loved. you mean 'as much', don't you? carl, what do you mean?" laboriously, with the full prospect of yet another week's agonizing strain and suspense, stanton wrote again to cornelia. "dear cornelia: "no, i meant 'as little' as you need to be loved. i have no adequate explanation to make. i have no adequate apology to offer. i don't think anything. i don't hope anything. all i know is that i suddenly believe positively that our engagement is a mistake. certainly i am neither giving you all that i am capable of giving you, nor yet receiving from you all that i am capable of receiving. just this fact should decide the matter i think. "carl." cornelia did not wait to write an answer to this. she telegraphed instead. the message even in the telegraph operator's handwriting looked a little nervous. "do you mean that you are tired of it?" she asked quite boldly. with miserable perplexity stanton wired back. "no, i couldn't exactly say that i was tired of it." cornelia's answer to that was fluttering in his hands within twelve hours. "do you mean that there is someone else?" the words fairly ticked themselves off the yellow page. it was twenty-four hours before stanton made up his mind just what to reply. then, "no, i couldn't exactly say there is anybody else," he confessed wretchedly. cornelia's mother answered this time. the telegram fairly rustled with sarcasm. "you don't seem to be very sure about anything," said cornelia's mother. somehow these words brought the first cheerful smile to his lips. "no, you're quite right. i'm not at all sure about anything," he wired almost gleefully in return, wiping his pen with delicious joy on the edge of the clean white bed-spread. then because it is really very dangerous for over-wrought people to try to make any noise like laughter, a great choking, bitter sob caught him up suddenly, and sent his face burrowing down like a night-scared child into the safe, soft, feathery depths of his pillow--where, with his knuckles ground so hard into his eyes that all his tears were turned to stars, there came to him very, very slowly, so slowly in fact that it did not alarm him at all, the strange, electrifying vision of the one fact on earth that he _was_ sure of: a little keen, luminous, brown-eyed face with a look in it, and a look for him only--so help him god!--such as he had never seen on the face of any other woman since the world was made. was it possible?--was it really possible? suddenly his whole heart seemed to irradiate light and color and music and sweet smelling things. [illustration: cornelia's mother answered this time] "oh, molly, molly, molly!" he shouted. "i want _you_! i want _you_!" in the strange, lonesome days that followed, neither burly flesh-and-blood doctor nor slim paper sweetheart tramped noisily over the threshold or slid thuddingly through the letter-slide. no one apparently was ever coming to see stanton again unless actually compelled to do so. even the laundryman seemed to have skipped his usual day; and twice in succession the morning paper had most annoyingly failed to appear. certainly neither the boldest private inquiry nor the most delicately worded public advertisement had proved able to discover the whereabouts of "molly make-believe," much less succeeded in bringing her back. but the doctor, at least, could be summoned by ordinary telephone, and cornelia and her mother would surely be moving north eventually, whether stanton's last message hastened their movements or not. in subsequent experience it seemed to take two telephone messages to produce the doctor. a trifle coolly, a trifle distantly, more than a trifle disapprovingly, he appeared at last and stared dully at stanton's astonishing booted-and-coated progress towards health. "always glad to serve you--professionally," murmured the doctor with an undeniably definite accent on the word 'professionally'. "oh, cut it out!" quoted stanton emphatically. "what in creation are you so stuffy about?" "well, really," growled the doctor, "considering the deception you practised on me--" "considering nothing!" shouted stanton. "on my word of honor, i tell you i never consciously, in all my life before, ever--ever--set eyes upon that wonderful little girl, until that evening! i never knew that she even existed! i never knew! i tell you i never knew--_anything_!" as limply as any stout man could sink into a chair, the doctor sank into the seat nearest him. "tell me instantly all about it," he gasped. "there are only two things to tell," said stanton quite blithely. "and the first thing is what i've already stated, on my honor, that the evening we speak of was actually and positively the first time i ever saw the girl; and the second thing is, that equally upon my honor, i do not intend to let it remain--the last time!" "but cornelia?" cried the doctor. "what about cornelia?" almost half the sparkle faded from stanton's eyes. "cornelia and i have annulled our engagement," he said very quietly. then with more vehemence, "oh, you old dry-bones, don't you worry about cornelia! i'll look out for cornelia. cornelia isn't going to get hurt. i tell you i've figured and reasoned it all out very, very carefully; and i can see now, quite plainly, that cornelia never really loved me at all--else she wouldn't have dropped me so accidentally through her fingers. why, there never was even the ghost of a clutch in cornelia's fingers." "but you loved _her_," persisted the doctor scowlingly. it was hard, just that second, for stanton to lift his troubled eyes to the doctor's face. but he did lift them and he lifted them very squarely and steadily. "yes, i think i did--love cornelia," he acknowledged frankly. "the very first time that i saw her i said to myself. 'here is the end of my journey,' but i seem to have found out suddenly that the mere fact of loving a woman does not necessarily prove her that much coveted 'journey's end.' i don't know exactly how to express it, indeed i feel beastly clumsy about expressing it, but somehow it seems as though it were cornelia herself who had proved herself, perfectly amiably, no 'journey's end' after all, but only a way station not equipped to receive my particular kind of a permanent guest. it isn't that i wanted any grand fixings. oh, can't you understand that i'm not finding any fault with cornelia. there never was any slightest pretence about cornelia. she never, never even in the first place, made any possible effort to attract me. can't you see that cornelia _looks_ to me to-day exactly the way that she looked to me in the first place; very, amazingly, beautiful. but a traveler, you know, cannot dally indefinitely to feed his eyes on even the most wonderful view while all his precious lifelong companions,--his whims, his hobbies, his cravings, his yearnings,--are crouching starved and unwelcome outside the door. "and i can't even flatter myself," he added wryly; "i can't even flatter myself that my--going is going to inconvenience cornelia in the slightest; because i can't see that my coming has made even the remotest perceptible difference in her daily routine. anyway--" he finished more lightly, "when you come right down to 'mating', or 'homing', or 'belonging', or whatever you choose to call it, it seems to be written in the stars that plans or no plans, preferences or no preferences, initiatives or no initiatives, we belong to those--and to those only, hang it all!--who happen to love _us_ most!" fairly jumping from his chair the doctor snatched hold of stanton's shoulder. "who happen to love _us_ most?" he repeated wildly. "love _us_? _us_? for heaven's sake, who's loving you _now_?" utterly irrelevantly, stanton brushed him aside, and began to rummage anxiously among the books on his table. "do you know much about vermont?" he asked suddenly. "it's funny, but almost nobody seems to know anything about vermont. it's a darned good state, too, and i can't imagine why all the geographies neglect it so." idly his finger seemed to catch in a half open pamphlet, and he bent down casually to straighten out the page. "area in square miles--9,565," he read aloud musingly. "principal products--hay, oats, maple-sugar--" suddenly he threw down the pamphlet and flung himself into the nearest chair and began to laugh. "maple-sugar?" he ejaculated. "maple-sugar? oh, glory! and i suppose there are some people who think that maple-sugar is the sweetest thing that ever came out of vermont!" the doctor started to give him some fresh advice--but left him a bromide instead. x though the ensuing interview with cornelia and her mother began quite as coolly as the interview with the doctor, it did not happen to end even in hysterical laughter. it was just two days after the doctor's hurried exit that stanton received a formal, starchy little note from cornelia's mother notifying him of their return. except for an experimental, somewhat wobbly-kneed journey or two to the edge of the public garden he had made no attempts as yet to resume any outdoor life, yet for sundry personal reasons of his own he did not feel over-anxious to postpone the necessary meeting. in the immediate emergency at hand strong courage was infinitely more of an asset than strong knees. filling his suitcase at once with all the explanatory evidence that he could carry, he proceeded on cab-wheels to cornelia's grimly dignified residence. the street lamps were just beginning to be lighted when he arrived. as the butler ushered him gravely into the beautiful drawing room he realized with a horrid sinking of the heart that cornelia and her mother were already sitting there waiting for him with a dreadful tight lipped expression on their faces which seemed to suggest that though he was already fifteen minutes ahead of his appointment they had been waiting for him there since early dawn. the drawing room itself was deliciously familiar to him; crimson-curtained, green carpeted, shining with heavy gilt picture frames and prismatic chandeliers. often with posies and candies and theater-tickets he had strutted across that erstwhile magic threshold and fairly lolled in the big deep-upholstered chairs while waiting for the silk-rustling advent of the ladies. but now, with his suitcase clutched in his hand, no armenian peddler of laces and ointments could have felt more grotesquely out of his element. indolently cornelia's mother lifted her lorgnette and gazed at him skeptically from the spot just behind his left ear where the barber had clipped him too short, to the edge of his right heel that the bootblack had neglected to polish. apparently she did not even see the suitcase but, "oh, are you leaving town?" she asked icily. only by the utmost tact on his part did he finally succeed in establishing tãªte-ã -tãªte relations with cornelia herself; and even then if the house had been a tower ten stories high, cornelia's mother, rustling up the stairs, could not have swished her skirts any more definitely like a hissing snake. in absolute dumbness stanton and cornelia sat listening until the horrid sound died away. then, and then only, did cornelia cross the room to stanton's side and proffer him her hand. the hand was very cold, and the manner of offering it was very cold, but stanton was quite man enough to realize that this special temperature was purely a matter of physical nervousness rather than of mental intention. slipping naturally into the most conventional groove either of word or deed, cornelia eyed the suitcase inquisitively. "what are you doing?" she asked thoughtlessly. "returning my presents?" "you never gave me any presents!" said stanton cheerfully. "why, didn't i?" murmured cornelia slowly. around her strained mouth a smile began to flicker faintly. "is that why you broke it off?" she asked flippantly. "yes, partly," laughed stanton. then cornelia laughed a little bit, too. after this stanton lost no possible time in getting down to facts. stooping over from his chair exactly after the manner of peddlers whom he had seen in other people's houses, he unbuckled the straps of his suitcase, and turned the cover backward on the floor. cornelia followed every movement of his hand with vaguely perplexed blue eyes. "surely," said stanton, "this is the weirdest combination of circumstances that ever happened to a man and a girl--or rather, i should say, to a man and two girls." quite accustomed as he now was to the general effect on himself of the whole unique adventure with the serial-letter co. his heart could not help giving a little extra jump on this, the verge of the astonishing revelation that he was about to make to cornelia. "here," he stammered, a tiny bit out of breath, "here is the small, thin, tissue-paper circular that you sent me from the serial-letter co. with your advice to subscribe, and there--" pointing earnestly to the teeming suitcase,--"there are the minor results of--having taken your advice." in cornelia's face the well-groomed expression showed sudden signs of immediate disorganization. snatching the circular out of his hand she read it hurriedly, once, twice, three times. then kneeling cautiously down on the floor with all the dignity that characterized every movement of her body, she began to poke here and there into the contents of the suitcase. [illustration: he unbuckled the straps of his suitcase and turned the cover backward on the floor] "the 'minor results'?" she asked soberly. "why yes," said stanton. "there were several things i didn't have room to bring. there was a blanket-wrapper. and there was a--girl, and there was a--" cornelia's blonde eyebrows lifted perceptibly. "a girl--whom you didn't know at all--sent you a blanket-wrapper?" she whispered. "yes!" smiled stanton. "you see no girl whom i knew--very well--seemed to care a hang whether i froze to death or not." "o--h," said cornelia very, very slowly, "o--h." her eyes had a strange, new puzzled expression in them like the expression of a person who was trying to look outward and think inward at the same time. "but you mustn't be so critical and haughty about it all," protested stanton, "when i'm really trying so hard to explain everything perfectly honestly to you--so that you'll understand exactly how it happened." "i should like very much to be able to understand exactly how it happened," mused cornelia. gingerly she approached in succession the roll of sample wall-paper, the maps, the time-tables, the books, the little silver porringer, the intimate-looking scrap of unfinished fancy-work. one by one stanton explained them to her, visualizing by eager phrase or whimsical gesture the particularly lonesome and susceptible conditions under which each gift had happened to arrive. at the great pile of letters cornelia's hand faltered a trifle. "how many did i write you?" she asked with real curiosity. "five thin ones, and a postal-card," said stanton almost apologetically. choosing the fattest looking letter that she could find, cornelia toyed with the envelope for a second. "would it be all right for me to read one?" she asked doubtfully. "why, yes," said stanton. "i think you might read one." after a few minutes she laid down the letter without any comment. "would it be all right for me to read another?" she questioned. "why, yes," cried stanton. "let's read them all. let's read them together. only, of course, we must read them in order." almost tenderly he picked them up and sorted them out according to their dates. "of course," he explained very earnestly, "of course i wouldn't think of showing these letters to any one ordinarily; but after all, these particular letters represent only a mere business proposition, and certainly this particular situation must justify one in making extraordinary exceptions." one by one he perused the letters hastily and handed them over to cornelia for her more careful inspection. no single associate detail of time or circumstance seemed to have eluded his astonishing memory. letter by letter, page by page he annotated: "that was the week you didn't write at all," or "this was the stormy, agonizing, god-forsaken night when i didn't care whether i lived or died," or "it was just about that time, you know, that you snubbed me for being scared about your swimming stunt." breathless in the midst of her reading cornelia looked up and faced him squarely. "how could any girl--write all that nonsense?" she gasped. it wasn't so much what stanton answered, as the expression in his eyes that really startled cornelia. "nonsense?" he quoted deliberatingly. "but i like it," he said. "it's exactly what i like." "but i couldn't possibly have given you anything like--that," stammered cornelia. "no, i know you couldn't," said stanton very gently. for an instant cornelia turned and stared a bit resentfully into his face. then suddenly the very gentleness of his smile ignited a little answering smile on her lips. "oh, you mean," she asked with unmistakable relief; "oh, you mean that really after all it wasn't your letter that jilted me, but my temperament that jilted you?" "exactly," said stanton. cornelia's whole somber face flamed suddenly into unmistakable radiance. "oh, that puts an entirely different light upon the matter," she exclaimed. "oh, now it doesn't hurt at all!" rustling to her feet, she began to smooth the scowly-looking wrinkles out of her skirt with long even strokes of her bright-jeweled hands. "i think i'm really beginning to understand," she said pleasantly. "and truly, absurd as it sounds to say it, i honestly believe that i care more for you this moment than i ever cared before, but--" glancing with acute dismay at the cluttered suitcase on the floor, "but i wouldn't marry you now, if we could live in the finest asylum in the land!" shrugging his shoulders with mirthful appreciation stanton proceeded then and there to re-pack his treasures and end the interview. just at the edge of the threshold cornelia's voice called him back. "carl," she protested, "you are looking rather sick. i hope you are going straight home." "no, i'm not going straight home," said stanton bluntly. "but here's hoping that the 'longest way round' will prove even yet the very shortest possible route to the particular home that, as yet, doesn't even exist. i'm going hunting, cornelia, hunting for molly make-believe; and what's more, i'm going to find her if it takes me all the rest of my natural life!" xi driving downtown again with every thought in his head, every plan, every purpose, hurtling around and around in absolute chaos, his roving eyes lit casually upon the huge sign of a detective bureau that loomed across the street. white as a sheet with the sudden new determination that came to him, and trembling miserably with the very strength of the determination warring against the weakness and fatigue of his body, he dismissed his cab and went climbing up the first narrow, dingy stairway that seemed most liable to connect with the brain behind the sign-board. it was almost bed-time before he came down the stairs again, yet, "i think her name is meredith, and i think she's gone to vermont, and she has the most wonderful head of mahogany-colored hair that i ever saw in my life," were the only definite clues that he had been able to contribute to the cause. in the slow, lagging week that followed, stanton did not find himself at all pleased with the particular steps which he had apparently been obliged to take in order to ferret out molly's real name and her real city address, but the actual audacity of the situation did not actually reach its climax until the gentle little quarry had been literally tracked to vermont with detectives fairly baying on her trail like the melodramatic bloodhounds that pursue "eliza" across the ice. "red-headed party found at woodstock," the valiant sleuth had wired with unusual delicacy and caution. "denies acquaintance, boston, everything, positively refuses interview, temper very bad, sure it's the party," the second message had come. the very next northward-bound train found stanton fretting the interminable hours away between boston and woodstock. across the sparkling snow-smothered landscape his straining eyes went plowing on to their unknown destination. sometimes the engine pounded louder than his heart. sometimes he could not even seem to hear the grinding of the brakes above the dreadful throb-throb of his temples. sometimes in horrid, shuddering chills he huddled into his great fur-coat and cursed the porter for having a disposition like a polar bear. sometimes almost gasping for breath he went out and stood on the bleak rear platform of the last car and watched the pleasant, ice-cold rails go speeding back to boston. all along the journey little absolutely unnecessary villages kept bobbing up to impede the progress of the train. all along the journey innumerable little empty railroad-stations, barren as bells robbed of their own tongues, seemed to lie waiting--waiting for the noisy engine-tongue to clang them into temporary noise and life. was his quest really almost at an end? was it--was it? a thousand vague apprehensions tortured through his mind. and then, all of a sudden, in the early, brisk winter twilight, woodstock--happened! climbing out of the train stanton stood for a second rubbing his eyes at the final abruptness and unreality of it all. woodstock! what was it going to mean to him? woodstock! everybody else on the platform seemed to be accepting the astonishing geographical fact with perfect simplicity. already along the edge of the platform the quaint, old-fashioned yellow stage-coaches set on runners were fast filling up with utterly serene passengers. a jog at his elbow made him turn quickly, and he found himself gazing into the detective's not ungenial face. "say," said the detective, "were you going up to the hotel first? well you'd better not. you'd better not lose any time. she's leaving town in the morning." it was beyond human nature for the detective man not to nudge stanton once in the ribs. "say," he grinned, "you sure had better go easy, and not send in your name or anything." his grin broadened suddenly in a laugh. "say," he confided, "once in a magazine i read something about a lady's 'piquant animosity'. that's her! and _cute_? oh, my!" five minutes later, stanton found himself lolling back in the quaintest, brightest, most pumpkin-colored coach of all, gliding with almost magical smoothness through the snow-glazed streets of the little narrow, valley-town. "the meredith homestead?" the driver had queried. "oh, yes. all right; but it's quite a journey. don't get discouraged." a sense of discouragement regarding long distances was just at that moment the most remote sensation in stanton's sensibilities. if the railroad journey had seemed unhappily drawn out, the sleigh-ride reversed the emotion to the point of almost telescopic calamity: a stingy, transient vista of village lights; a brief, narrow, hill-bordered road that looked for all the world like the aisle of a toy-shop, flanked on either side by high-reaching shelves where miniature house-lights twinkled cunningly; a sudden stumble of hoofs into a less-traveled snow-path, and then, absolutely unavoidable, absolutely unescapable, an old, white colonial house with its great solemn elm trees stretching out their long arms protectingly all around and about it after the blessed habit of a hundred years. nervously, and yet almost reverently, stanton went crunching up the snowy path to the door, knocked resonantly with a slim, much worn old brass knocker, and was admitted promptly and hospitably by "mrs. meredith" herself--molly's grandmother evidently, and such a darling little grandmother, small, like molly; quick, like molly; even young, like molly, she appeared to be. simple, sincere, and oh, so comfortable--like the fine old mahogany furniture and the dull-shining pewter, and the flickering firelight, that seemed to be everywhere. "good old stuff!" was stanton's immediate silent comment on everything in sight. it was perfectly evident that the little old lady knew nothing whatsoever about stanton, but it was equally evident that she suspected him of being neither a highwayman nor a book agent, and was really sincerely sorry that molly had "a headache" and would be unable to see him. "but i've come so far," persisted stanton. "all the way from boston. is she very ill? has she been ill long?" the little old lady's mind ignored the questions but clung a trifle nervously to the word boston. "boston?" her sweet voice quavered. "boston? why you look so nice--surely you're not that mysterious man who has been annoying mollie so dreadfully these past few days. i told her no good would ever come of her going to the city." "annoying molly?" cried stanton. "annoying _my_ molly? i? why, it's to prevent anybody in the whole wide world from ever annoying her again about--anything, that i've come here now!" he persisted rashly. "and don't you see--we had a little misunderstanding and--" into the little old lady's ivory cheek crept a small, bright, blush-spot. "oh, you had a little misunderstanding," she repeated softly. "a little quarrel? oh, is that why molly has been crying so much ever since she came home?" very gently she reached out her tiny, blue-veined hand, and turned stanton's big body around so that the lamp-light smote him squarely on his face. "are you a good boy?" she asked. "are you good enough for--my--little molly?" impulsively stanton grabbed her small hands in his big ones, and raised them very tenderly to his lips. [illustration: "are you a good boy?" she asked] "oh, little molly's little grandmother," he said; "nobody on the face of this snow-covered earth is good enough for your molly, but won't you give me a chance? couldn't you please give me a chance? now--this minute? is she so very ill?" "no, she's not so very ill, that is, she's not sick in bed," mused the old lady waveringly. "she's well enough to be sitting up in her big chair in front of her open fire." "big chair--open fire?" quizzed stanton. "then, are there two chairs?" he asked casually. "why, yes," answered the little-grandmother in surprise. "and a mantelpiece with a clock on it?" he probed. the little-grandmother's eyes opened wide and blue with astonishment. "yes," she said, "but the clock hasn't gone for forty years!" "oh, great!" exclaimed stanton. "then won't you please--please--i tell you it's a case of life or death--won't you _please_ go right upstairs and sit down in that extra big chair--and not say a word or anything but just wait till i come? and of course," he said, "it wouldn't be good for you to run upstairs, but if you could hurry just a little i should be _so_ much obliged." as soon as he dared, he followed cautiously up the unfamiliar stairs, and peered inquisitively through the illuminating crack of a loosely closed door. the grandmother as he remembered her was dressed in some funny sort of a dullish purple, but peeping out from the edge of one of the chairs he caught an unmistakable flutter of blue. catching his breath he tapped gently on the woodwork. round the big winged arm of the chair a wonderful, bright aureole of hair showed suddenly. "come in," faltered molly's perplexed voice. all muffled up in his great fur-coat he pushed the door wide open and entered boldly. "it's only carl," he said. "am i interrupting you?" the really dreadful collapsed expression on molly's face stanton did not appear to notice at all. he merely walked over to the mantelpiece, and leaning his elbows on the little cleared space in front of the clock, stood staring fixedly at the time-piece which had not changed its quarter-of-three expression for forty years. "it's almost half-past seven," he announced pointedly, "and i can stay till just eight o'clock." only the little grandmother smiled. almost immediately: "it's twenty minutes of eight now!" he announced severely. "my, how time flies!" laughed the little grandmother. when he turned around again the little grandmother had fled. but molly did not laugh, as he himself had laughed on that faraway, dreamlike evening in his rooms. instead of laughter, two great tears welled up in her eyes and glistened slowly down her flushing cheeks. "what if this old clock hasn't moved a minute in forty years?" whispered stanton passionately, "it's such a _stingy_ little time to eight o'clock--even if the hands never get there!" then turning suddenly to molly he held out his great strong arms to her. "oh, molly, molly!" he cried out beseechingly, "i love you! and i'm free to love you! won't you please come to me?" [illustration: "it's only carl," he said] sliding very cautiously out of the big, deep chair, molly came walking hesitatingly towards him. like a little wraith miraculously tinted with bronze and blue she stopped and faced him piteously for a second. then suddenly she made a little wild rush into his arms and burrowed her small frightened face in his shoulder. "oh, carl, sweetheart!" she cried. "i can really love you now? love you, carl--love you! and not have to be just molly make-believing any more!" the end. [illustration: frontispiece: the girl in her norse glow and blondness would have been a marked figure any where.] the stingy receiver by eleanor hallowell abbott author of "molly make believe," "the white linen nurse," etc. with illustrations by fanny munsell new york the century co. 1917 copyright, 1917, by the century co. copyright, 1916, by the crowell publishing company published, february, 1917 to katherine k. abbott a generous giver this book is affectionately dedicated list of illustrations the girl in her norse glow and blondness would have been a marked figure any where . . . frontispiece "oh, drat you women!" he grinned sheepishly. "well, go ahead! one--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten!". . . 9 by craning his neck around the corner of the piano, he noted with increasing astonishment that the rivulet sprang from the black ferule of an umbrella . . . 87 "excuse me, miss kjelland," he said; "but this is not a picnic--it is a clinic" . . .99 as coolly as if she had been appraising a new dog or pussy, mrs. tome gallien narrowed her eyes to both the vision and the announcement . . . 127 the stingy receiver i "if i were fifty years old," said the young doctor quite bluntly, "and found myself suddenly stripped of practically all my motor powers except my pocketbook and my sense of humor; and was told that i could make one wish----" "but i am fifty years old," admitted the sick woman. "and i do find myself stripped of practically all my motor powers, except my pocketbook and my sense of humor!" "then for heaven's sake--wish!" snapped the young doctor. "oh, my goodness!" mocked the sick woman. "you're not by any chance a--a fairy god-doctor, are you?" "fairy god-doctor?" bristled the young man. "the phrase is an unfamiliar one to me," he confided with some hauteur. quizzically then for a moment among her hotel pillows the woman lay staring out through the open window into the indefinite slate-roofed vista of beyond--and beyond--and beyond. then so furtively that the whites of her eyes showed suddenly like a snarling dog's she glanced back at the young doctor's grimly inscrutable face. "you're quite sure that it isn't a will you want me to make? not a wish?" she asked. "quite sure," said the young doctor, without emotion. as two antagonists searching desperately for some weak spot in each other's mental armor, the patient's eyes narrowed to the doctor's, the doctor's to the patient's. it was the patient who fled first from the probe. "how many years can you give me?" she surrendered dully. "i can't give you any! i can't afford it!" slapped the young doctor's brisk, cool voice. "how many years can you sell me, then?" roused the woman with the first faint red flare of vigor across her cheek bones. "oh, i don't know," admitted the young doctor. sagging back a little wearily against the edge of the bureau, with his long arms folded loosely across his breast he stood staring tensely down through the woman's question into the actual case itself. "oh, i don't know," he admitted. "oh, of course, if you had some one brand-new interest to revitalize you? if the matter of congenial climate could be properly adjusted? with all your abundant financial resources? and all the extra serenities and safeguards that financial resources can wrap a sick person in? oh, i suppose one could almost positively guarantee you--guarantee you,--oh, years and years," he finished a trifle vaguely. "only that?" winced the woman. "years and years?" she quoted mockingly. "it isn't enough! not nearly enough!" she flared with sudden passion. "even so," smiled the young doctor. "that is a more definite estimate than i could, equally honestly, make for the youngest, friskiest child who prances to work or play every day through the tortuous traffic of our city streets." "oh," said the woman with a flicker of humor in her tears. "oh," smiled the doctor without an atom of humor in the smile. with her handsome gray head cocked ever so slightly to one side, the woman's eyes seemed rather oddly intent on the young doctor for an instant. "how--how thin you are--and how hungry-looking," she commented suddenly with quite irrelevant impudence. "thank you," bowed the young doctor. "ha!" chuckled the woman. "and i? 'how satiate-looking she is!' is that what you'd like to say?" "you are perfectly welcome to look any way you wish," said the young doctor with distinct coldness. indifferently then for a moment both doctor and patient seemed to relax into the centric personal hush of the sick-room itself, with its far outlying murmur of thudding feet, its occasional sharp, self-conscious click of remote elevator machinery. then the doctor snatched out his watch. "well, what is it you want me to do first?" roused the sick woman instantly. "make your wish!" said the doctor. "yes, i know," parried the woman. "but what do you want me to wish? what kind of a wish, i mean, do you want me to make?" as though personally affronted by the question, the young doctor stepped suddenly forward. "what kind of a wish do i want you to make?" he demanded. "why, what kind of a wish should i want you to make except an honest wish? not the second-hand, sanctimonious, reconsidered sort of wish that you think you ought to make. but the first glad, self-concerned, self-revitalizing whim that gushes up into your mind when anybody springs the word 'wish' at you!" "oh!" brightened the woman. "that ought to be easy enough." the sudden smile flooding into the very faintly distorted facial muscles gave a certain shrewd, waggish sort of humor to the assertion. "why not?" she persisted speculatively. "long life and happiness having been logically eliminated from my impulses, and both faith and fact having reasonably convinced me that all my loved ones are perfectly well provided for in either this world or the next, why shouldn't i wish for the one thing that will add most to my own personal diversion? oh, very well," she began to consider. whitely her eyelids drooped down across her turbid eyes. "now you count ten, doctor," she murmured quite casually. "and when you say ten i'll tell you the wish." "this isn't a game, mrs. gallien!" bristled the young doctor. very languidly the woman opened her eyes wide. "oh, isn't it?" she asked. "then i won't wish, thank you." "what are you talking about?" scolded the young doctor. "about getting well," conceded the woman. languidly the white eyelids closed again. "and if getting well isn't a game--i won't get well, either," affirmed the woman. with a gasp of irritation the young doctor snatched up his hat and left the room. but outside the door, neither up the hall nor down the hall, nor across the hall, was the nurse waiting where he had told her to wait. [illustration: "oh, drat you women!" he grinned sheepishly. "well, go ahead one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten"] with an audible imprecation he stalked back into the sick-room and threw himself down into the first chair he could reach. "oh, drat you women!" he grinned sheepishly. "well, go ahead! one--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten!" as automatically almost as a mechanical doll the sick woman opened her eyes. "oh, all right!" she smiled. "now i will tell you the wish. but first i must tell you that the thing i hate most in the world is an empty twilight. and the thing i love best is a crowded shop. oh, the joy of shopping!" she quickened. "the fun, the fury of it! buy, buy, buy, while the light lasts and the money shines! but as for the empty twilight?" she wilted again. "i wish--" her voice caught suddenly, "i wish that the last mail of the day may never leave me utterly letterless. and that i may always be expecting a package by express!" "do you really mean it?" asked the young doctor without the slightest trace of perturbance. "why, of course i mean it!" smiled the woman. "but do you dream for a moment that you can guarantee that?" "i can at least prescribe it," said the young doctor. "you have more subtlety than i thought," drawled the woman. "you have more simplicity than i had dared to hope," bowed the young doctor. again, in shrewd half-mocking appraisement, the two measured each other. then with a great, busy frown the young doctor turned to his notebook. "let me see," he estimated. "it was four weeks ago yesterday--that you fell on the street." "was it?" said the woman indifferently. "mrs. gallien," asked the young doctor with some abruptness, "just exactly where is your home?" "i have no home," said the woman. "yes, but you must live somewhere," bristled the young doctor. "only in my pocketbook and my sense of humor," quoted the woman with frank mockery. "but why make such a mystery about your domicile?" persisted the young doctor. "that's just it," said the woman. "i haven't any domicile to make a mystery of! it's seventeen years since i've lived in what you call a domicile. "where have you lived?" demanded the young doctor. "oh, on steamers mostly," conceded the woman. very faintly the pallid nostrils dilated. "i've been to australia five times," she acknowledged. "and china twice. and japan,--" she quickened. "all the little vague outlying islands, all the great jostling eager seaports! by steam, by paddle wheels, by lax, loose-flapping rainbow-colored sails!" in sudden listlessness she turned her cheek to the pillow again. "wherever the sea is salt," she murmured. "wherever the sea is salt! hunting, always and forever hunting,--yes, that's it,--always and forever hunting for lights and laughter and----" "pardon me," said the young doctor, quite abruptly. "but is your husband living?" "no," said the woman. "he died two years ago." inquisitively for a moment the young doctor studied the nerve-ravaged face before him. "pardon me," he stammered. "but--but was it a great shock to you?" "it was a great relief," said the woman, without emotion. "he had been hopelessly insane for seventeen years." "oh!" jumped the young doctor, as though the thought fairly tortured his senses. "oh!" speculated the woman quizzically, with the merciful outer callousness which the brain provides for those who are obliged to carry some one scorching thought for an indeterminate period of years. as though in sheer nervous outlet the young doctor began almost at once to pace the room. "seeing that there are no--no personal ties, apparently, to hold you here--or drive you there," he said, "the matter of congenial climate ought to be one that we can easily arrange." with half ironic amusement the sick woman lay and watched his worried, fluctuating face. "the question of climate is all arranged!" she said. "the speed that was stripped from my body last week, has at least been put back into my brain. just where i am going, just whom i am going to take with me, just what i am going to do to amuse me, every last infinitesimal detail of all the rest of my life," she smiled, "i have planned it all out while you have been dawdling there between the wardrobe and the bureau." "dawdling?" snapped the young doctor. quite abruptly he stopped his nervous pacing. "well, where is it that you want to go?" he asked. musingly the woman's eyes stared off again into the window-framed vista of the city roofs. "on an island," she said. "off the coast of south carolina there is a house. it is really rather a dreadful old place. i have not seen it since i was a girl. it was old then. it must be almost a wreck now. and the island is not very large. and there is no other house on the island. just this great rambling deserted shack. and six battered old live-oak trees half strangled with dangly gray moss. and there are blue jays always in the gray moss, and cardinal birds, and unestimable squirrels. and there is a bedroom in the house forty feet long. and in that bedroom there is a four-poster seven feet wide, and most weirdly devised of old ships' figureheads, a smirking, faded siren at one corner, a broken-nosed sailor at another,--i forget the others--but altogether in memory i see it as a rather unusually broad and amusing shelf to be laid aside on. and there, in the middle of that great ship-figured bed, in the middle of that great dingy sunken-cabin sort of room with its every ancient windowpane blearing grayly into the sea, through deck-like porches so broad, so dark, so glowering that no streak of cloud or sky will ever reach my eyes again, nor any strip of gray-brown earth--i shall lie, i say, in unutterable peace and tranquillity as other ghosts have lain before me, 'forty fathoms deep' below all their troubles. and always as i lie thus, there will be the sigh of the surf in my ears. and the swell of the tide in my eyes. eternally across my windows fin-like wings shall soar and pass and gray mosses float and flare." "cheerful!" snapped the young doctor. "yes. isn't it?" beamed the woman. with a gasp of surprise the young doctor turned and stared at her. "why, i really believe that you think so!" he stammered. "why, of course i think so!" said the woman. "why not?" she queried. "a dimming candle glows brightest in a dark room!" not a trace of morbidness was in her voice, not a flicker of sentimentality. "and besides," she smiled. "it is also my desire to remove myself as far as possible from the main thoroughfares of life." "i don't see why!" protested the young doctor. "this is the 'why,'" said the woman. "just as i fell that day," she smiled. "in my last conscious moment, i mean,--a hurrying child stumbled and stepped on me." once again the smile twisted ever so slightly to one side. "and never any more while i live," said the woman, "do i care to repeat the sensation of being an impediment to traffic." very idly for a moment she seemed to focus her entire interest on the flapping window curtain. "and i shall name my house--name my house--" she mused. with sudden impetuous conviction every lax muscle of her face tightened into action. "once--once in new england," she hurried, "i saw a scarlet-gold tulip named 'glare of the garden'! for absolute antithesis i shall call my house 'gloom of the sea!'" "do you wish to take your present young nurse with you?" asked the doctor a bit abruptly. the crooked smile on the woman's face straightened instantly into thin-lipped positiveness. "i do not!" said the woman. "i detest novices! their professional affectations drive me mad! i am born, weaned, educated, courted, married, widowed,--crippled, in the moppish time it takes them to wash my face, to straighten the simplest fork on my breakfast tray! every gesture of their bodies, every impulse of their minds, fairly creak with the laborious, studied arrogance of an immature nature thrust suddenly into authority! if i've got to have personal service all the rest of my days for goodness' sake give me a big, experienced nature reduced by some untoward reason to the utmost terms of simplicity!" as quickly as it had come, the irritation vanished from her face. "there is a chambermaid here in this hotel--i love her!" said the woman. "she was a hospital superintendent somewhere, once, until her deafness smashed it." as ingenuously as a child's the tired, worldly-wise eyes lifted to the young doctor's face. "i like deaf people," said the woman. "they never chatter, i have noticed. nor insist upon reading the newspapers to you. being themselves protected from every vocal noise that does not directly concern them, they seem instinctively to accord you the same sacristy. and besides," smiled the woman, "this ex-superintendent's hair is as gray as mine. and i adore women whose hair is just exactly as gray as mine. and also," smiled the woman, "her name happens to be 'martha'--and i have always craved the personal devotion of someone named 'martha'. and i shall pay her an extra hundred dollars a month," smiled the woman, "to call me 'elizabeth'. never in my life," said the woman, "have i ever had any food cooked for my first name. martha will do everything for me, you understand?" she added quickly. "yes, but how do you know that she'll go with you?" asked the young doctor dryly. "how do i know that she'll go with me?" flared the woman. the imperious consciousness of money was in the flare, but also the subtler surety of a temperamental conviction. "why, of course she'll go!" said the woman. as definitely as though she had assumed that sunshine would be sunshine, she dismissed the whole topic from their conversation. "oh, all right," smiled the young doctor a bit ironically. "i am to infer then that climate, locality, care, companionship, everything has been arranged except your wish for a chronic package by express?" "oh, that is all arranged too!" boasted the woman. "i don't see it," said the young doctor. "i saw it," said the woman, "while you were straightening your necktie! oh, of course, the shops can never happen again." she winced with real emotion. "all the gay, covetous fingering of silk or bronze, the shrewd explorative sallies through aisles of treasure and tiers of tantalization! but just the package part?" she rallied instantly. "oh, the package part i assure you is perfectly easy, as long as memory lasts and imagination holds. with a check book on one side of me and a few dollars worth of postage stamps on the other, all i'll have to do," she laughed, "is just to lie there on my back and study the advertising pages of all the magazines. every fascinating gown that cries for help from a fashion catalogue! every irresistible lawn mower that brags of its prowess from the columns of an agricultural journal! ten cent packages of floral miracles, or ten dollar lotions from the beauty shops! certainly never again till the end of time ought there to dawn a day when i haven't a reasonable right to expect that something will arrive! "and i shall have a wrangle boat, of course," babbled the woman impishly. "what is it? oh, 'motor boat' you call it? oh, any old kind of an engine,--i don't care, so long as it serves its purpose of keeping a man and a boy busy all day long quarreling as they always do just how to run it. and once a day, every late afternoon, i shall send the wrangle boat to the mainland--way--way out beyond the sky line of my piazza. and the instant that boat swings back into vision again, just between the droop of the roof and the lift of the railing, they will hoist a flag if there is anything for me. and if there isn't--if there isn't?" across her whimsical prophecy indescribable irritation settled suddenly. "and if there isn't anything, they need never return!" snapped the woman. "oh, of course, that's all right at first," mocked the young doctor. "but in your original description of your island i remember no mention of large storehouses or empty warerooms. after a while you know, with things arriving every day or so. and the house, i infer, except for the one big room you speak of, sustains no special acreage." "stupid!" rallied the woman. "oh, i see," puzzled the young doctor. "you--you mean that you're going to give the things away? hordes of young nieces, and poor relations and all that sort of thing? why--why, of course!" "oh, no!" said the woman. with suddenly narrowing eyes her whole face turned incalculably shrewd and cold. "oh, no! i am all through giving anything away!" defiantly for an instant she challenged the young doctor's silence, then sank back with frank indifference into her pillows again. "worldly as i am," she smiled very faintly, "and worldly as my father and mother were before me, and their father and mother, doubtless, before them, there is one little prayer that i shall never forget,--and i found it, if the fact interests you, inscribed painstakingly in faded violet ink in the back of my grandfather's first check book, before, evidently, either wealth or worldliness had quite begun to set in. and this is the little prayer: "if fortune and finance should so ordain that i may never be any kind of a giver, heaven grant that at least i may not be a stingy receiver but share unstintedly with such benefactor as may favor me the exceeding happiness which his benefaction has most surely conferred upon me!" once more the faint smile twisted into cynicism. "that's it," said the woman. "i'm tired of _stingy receivers_!" "i--i'm afraid i don't get you," said the young doctor. "don't you ever get anything?" snapped the woman explosively. it was the young doctor's turn to flare now. "oh, yes," he said. "sometimes i get awfully tired of the vagaries of women!" out of her nerves rather than her mirth the woman burst out laughing. "you are so young!" she said. "not as juvenile as your vagaries," protested the young doctor. "but my vagaries are not juvenile!" insisted the woman. "they are as old and ingrained as time itself. for seventeen years," quickened the woman, "i have been 'gathering gifts' from all over the world, ripping things out of impersonal wholesale, as it were, to apply them as best i might to this person's, or the other's, individual need. say, if you want to, that i have had nothing else to do on my travels except to spend money, yet the fact remains that as far as my own personal satisfactions are concerned in the matter of giving, i have been pouring presents for seventeen years into a bottomless pit. never once, i mean," smiled the woman, "never once, yearning over the abyss as the gift went down, have i ever heard the entrancing thud that a gift ought to make when it lands on real appreciation. never!" "well, you are a cynic!" conceded the young doctor. "i admit it," said the woman. "yet even a cynic may be fair-minded." for the first time in her tired, sophisticated face, shrewdness and irony were equally routed by sheer perplexity. "i've thought it all out as decently as i could from the other person's point of view," she puzzled. "i see his side, i think. i have no legal, constitutional right, of course, to demand a person's gratitude for any gift which is purely voluntary on my part. lots of people in all probability would infinitely rather not have a gift than be obliged thereby to write a 'thank you' for it. against such a person's wish and inclination, i mean, i've no right to pry 'thank you's' out of him, even with gold-mounted golf sticks or first editions. i've no right to be a highwayman, i mean. even if i'm literally dying for a 'thank you' i've no more right, i mean, to hold up a person with a gift than i'd have to hold him up with a gun." "then what are you fussing about?" asked the young doctor. "i'm fussing about the hatefulness of it," said the woman. all the shrewdness came suddenly back to her face. "this is what i mean!" she cried sharply. "when i stay in paris three months, for instance, to collect a trousseau for the daughter of a man who meant something to me once in my youth, and receive in due time from that girl a single page of gothic handwriting thanking me no matter how gushingly for my 'magnificent gift,' i tell you i could fairly kill her for her stingy receiving! not a word from her about hats, you understand? not a comment on shoes! not the vaguest, remotest mention of chiffon veils, silk stockings, evening gowns, street suits, mink furs, anything! just the whole outfit, trunk after trunk of 'em, all lumped in together and dismissed perfectly casually under the lump word 'gift!' and it wasn't just a 'gift' that i gave her, you understand?" said the woman with a sudden real twinge of emotion. "almost nobody, you know, ever gives just a 'gift.' what i really gave her, of course, was three whole months of my taste, time, temperament! three whole months of my wanting-to-give! three whole months of a woman's dreams for a young girl! what i really gave her, of course, was the plaudits of her elders, the envies of all her girl chums, the new, unduplicatable pride and dignity of a consciously perfect equipment! what i really gave her, of course, was the light in her bridegroom's eyes when he first saw her merge a throb of mist and pearls through the gray gloom of the cathedral chancel! what i really gave her of course was the----" "yes, but you surely know that she appreciated the gift," deprecated the young doctor. "why, of course she appreciated the gift!" snapped the woman. "but what i'm trying to find is some one who'd appreciate the giver! anybody can appreciate a gift," she added with unprecedented scorn. "pleased?" snapped the woman. "why, of course, she was pleased! the only thing i'm fussing about is that she was too stingy to share her pleasure with me! the fire i worked so hard to light, lit all right, but simply refused to warm me! that's it! why! did she note by one single extra flourish of her pen that the lining of her opera cloak was like the petalling of a pink killarney rose? or that the texture of her traveling suit would have made a princess strut with pride? when she lumped a dozen paris hats into the one word 'nice' did she dream for one single instant that she had lulled my perfectly human hunger to know whether it was the red one or the green one or the gold which most became her ecstatic little face? did it ever occur to her to tell me what her lover said about the gay little brown leather hunting suit? six months hence, freezing to death in some half-heated palace on the riviera, is there one chance in ten thousand, do you think, that she will write me to say, 'oh, you darling, how did you ever happen to think of a moleskin breakfast coat and footies?' and again!" scolded the woman. "when a stodgy old missionary on his way back to africa relaxes enough on a mid-ocean moonlight night so that it's fun a month later to send him a mule and cart just to keep his faithful, clumsy old feet off the african sands, do you think it's fun for him to send me eight smug laborious pages complimenting me--without a moon in them,--on 'the great opportunities for doing good which my enormous wealth must give me,' and commending me specially 'for this most recent account of my stewardship which i have just evidenced in my noble gift'?" for one single illuminating flash humor twitched back into the woman's eyebrow. "stewardship--bosh!" she confided. "on a picture post card--with stubby, broken-nosed pencil--i would so infinitely rather he had scribbled, 'bully for you, old girl! this is some mule!'" with a little sigh of fatigue she sank back into her pillows. "'more blessed to give than to receive?' quite evidently!" she said. "everywhere it's the same! people love pictures and never note who painted them! people love stories and never remember who wrote them! why, in any shop in this city," she roused, "i wager you could go in and present a hundred dollar bill to the seediest old clerk you saw--and go back in an hour and he wouldn't know you by sight! 'the gift without the giver is bare?'" she quoted savagely. "ha! what they really meant was 'the giver added to the gift is a bore?'" "well, what do you propose to do about it?" quizzed the young doctor a bit impatiently. "i propose to do this about it!" said the woman. "i propose to become a reformer!" "a reformer?" jeered the young doctor. "well, then--an avenger! if you like the word better," conceded the woman. "oh, i shall keep right on buying things, of course," she hastened mockingly to assure him. "and giving things, of course. one could hardly break so suddenly the habit and vice of a life time. only i shan't scatter my shots all over the lot any more. but concentrate my deadliest aim on one single individual. indeed, i think i shall advertise," mocked the woman. "in that amazing column of all daily papers so misleadingly labeled 'wants' instead of able-to-haves i shall insert some sort of a statement to the effect that: "an eccentric middle-aged woman of fabulous wealth, lavish generosity, and no common sense whatsoever, will receive into her 'lovely southern home' one stingy receiver. strictest reference required. object: reformation or--annihilation." "it would be interesting to see the answers you'd get!" rallied the young doctor with unwonted playfulness. almost imperceptibly the woman twisted her eyebrows. "oh, of course, i admit that most of them would be from asylums," she said. "offering me special rates. but there's always a chance, of course, that--that--" straight as a pencil-ruling both eyebrows dropped suddenly into line. "but i'm quite used to taking chances, thank you!" she finished with exaggerated bruskness. "what else do you propose to take?" asked the young doctor a bit dryly. "_you!_" said the woman. at the edge of the bureau the young doctor wheeled abruptly in his tracks. "well, you won t!" he said. his face was quite white with anger. "why not?" drawled the woman. as ruthlessly as a child she seemed to be estimating suddenly the faintly perceptible shine of the man's shoulder seams. only the frankness of the stare relieved it of its insolence. "why not?" she said. "is your practice here so huge that you can totally afford to ignore a salary such as i would give you?" "nevertheless," winced the young doctor, "even _you_ cannot buy everything!" "can't i?" smiled the woman. in passionate willfulness and pride her smile straightened out again into its thin-lipped line. "but i need you!" she asserted arrogantly. "i like you! if i had had my choice of every practitioner in the city, i--i!" with a precipitous whimper of nerves the tears began suddenly to stream down her cheeks. "there is--there is something about you," she stammered. "in a--in a trolley car accident, in a steamer panic, out of a--out of a thousand," she sobbed, "i instinctively would have turned to you!" as abruptly as it had come, the flood of tears vanished from her face, leaving instead a gray-streaked flicker of incredulity. "why, i don't even know how i did happen to get you!" she admitted aghast. "out of all the doctors in the city--it must have been intended! it must! if there's any providence at all it must arrange such details! how did i happen to get you?" she demanded imperiously. for the first time across the young doctor's lean, ascetic face an expression of relaxation quickened. "well if you really want to know," he said. "as you were being lifted out of your carriage at the hotel door, i was just coming out of the free lunch----" "hunger or thirst?" scoffed the woman. "none of your business," smiled the young doctor. "oh, and besides," rallied the woman instantly. "i thought, likely as not, that there might be some girl. somebody you could coach! about my passion for shopping, i mean! i don't care who gets the things! if there's anybody you like, she might just as well be the one!" "thank you," rebristled the young doctor. "but i don't happen to know any girls!" "good enough!" said the woman. "then there's nothing at all to complicate your coming!" "but i'm not coming!" stared the young doctor. the pupils of his eyes were dilated like a deer's jacked suddenly with an infuriating light. "but you are coming," said the woman without a flicker of emotion. "day after tomorrow it is. at three-thirty from the pennsylvania station." "i'm not!" said the young doctor. "you are!" said the woman. when it comes right down to the matter of statistics, just how many times in your life you've had your own way and just how many times you haven't, mrs. tome gallien was not exaggerating when she boasted to the young doctor that she was quite in the habit of having her own way. she certainly was! in the majority of incidents she had, indeed, always had her own way. and in the majority of incidents she had her own way now. that is to say, that the south carolina train did leave the pennsylvania station at just exactly the time she said it would. and martha the deaf was on that train. and she, herself, was on that train. but the young doctor was not. "not much! _not much!_" was the way the young doctor said it, if you really want to know. but he said very little else that afternoon. to be perfectly frank his luncheon had been very poor, and his breakfast, before that, and his dinner, before that. further reiteration would be purely monotonous. moreover, on this particular february day the weather was extravagantly northern, his office, as cold and dark and bleak as some untenanted back alley, and his general professional prospects as dull as, if not indeed duller than, the last puff of ashes in his pipe. yet even so he counted his situation ecstasy compared to the thought of being dragged south by the wrapper-strings of a gray-haired invalid-woman as headstrong as she was body-weak. "not much!" long after there was no tugging warm taste left in his pipe he was still tugging at the phrase. "not much!" but mrs. tome gallien on her fine train scudding south was even more chary of words than he when it came to her own comment on his defection. "idjot!" she telegraphed back from washington. the operator who repeated the message over the telephone was frankly apologetic. "yes, doctor," explained the metallic voice. "that's just exactly the way we received it. it isn't even 'idiot'" argued the voice. "because we wired back for verification. 'i-d-j-o-t!' that's what it is. maybe it's a--a code word," condoned the voice amiably. it certainly was a "code" word. and the message that it sought to convey was plainly this: "how any young struggling practitioner in a strange city, with not only his future to make but even his present, how such a one has got the nerve, the nerve, i say, to refuse a regular salaried position and all expenses, all expenses, mind you, in a salubrious climate, and with a lady,--well, with a lady whom other men infinitely wiser and more sophisticated than he have not found utterly devoid perhaps of interest and charm?" talk about being packed "cram-jam?" surely no week-end suitcase could ever have bulged more with significance than did this one tiny telegram "idjot!" and equally surely its context "dressed" the young doctor's mind quite completely for almost a week. but the great square white envelope that arrived in due time from mrs. tome gallien had nothing in it at all except a check. no reproaches, i mean, no upbraidings, no convalescent rhapsodies of gratitude even. just a plain straightforward unsentimental black and white check covering so many professional visits at so much a visit. a man might have sent it. a perfectly well man, i mean. "and so the episode ends," mused the young doctor with distinct satisfaction. but it didn't end so, of course. women like mrs. tome gallien were not created to end things but to start 'em. of such is the kingdom of leaven. it was on the following thursday that the grand piano arrived at the young doctor's office. now the young doctor's office might easily have accommodated more patients than it did. but piano movers are almost always so fat. puffing, blowing, swearing, tugging,--the whole dingy room seemed suddenly packed with brawn. "but it isn't my piano!" protested the young doctor from every chair, desk, table, of his ultimate retreat. "it _isn't_ my piano!" he yelled from the doorway. "it isn't my piano!" he scolded through the window. but it was his piano, of course! the piano movers swore that it was. the piano warerooms telephoned that it was. . . worst of all, the piano itself on one plump ankle flaunted a tag which proclaimed that it was. and the proclamation was most distinctly in mrs. tome gallien's handwriting. "for dr. sam kendrue," it said. "as a slight token of my appreciation and esteem." "'appreciation?'" groaned the young doctor. "'esteem?'" in the first venom of his emotion he sat right down and wrote mrs. gallien just exactly what he thought of her. and of it. "it" being of course the piano. "whatever in the world," he demanded, "would i do with a piano? oh, of course it's very kind of you and all that," he conceded with crass sarcasm. "but i have no possible floor space, you understand, beyond my office and the very meager bedroom adjoining it. and with a quarter of a ton's worth of wood and wire plunked down thus in the exact center of my office it leaves me, i assure you, an extraordinarily limited amount of elbow-space unless it be a sort of running track that still survives around the extreme edges of the room. and moreover the piano is of rosewood, as you doubtless already know, and all inlaid with cherubim and seraphim snarled up in wreaths of lavender roses. now botany i admit, is distinctly out of my line. but the cherubim and seraphim are certainly very weird anatomically. "and not knowing one note from another,--as indeed i remember telling you quite plainly at an earlier date, well,--excuse me if i seem harsh," he exploded all over again, "but whatever in the world would i do with a piano?" as ingenuously insolent as a child's retort came mrs. tome gallien's almost immediate reply. "yes! what would you do? that's just exactly it! i thought i'd get a rise out of you!" said mrs. tome gallien. "across my dulled horizon a whole heap of most diverting speculations have suddenly begun to flash and brighten. 'whatever in the world' _would_ you do with a piano?" "i can at least return it to the warerooms," wrote the young doctor with significant brevity. "oh, no, you can't!" telegraphed mrs. tome gallien. "apropos slight defect and large mark-down merchandise rated non-returnable." while he was yet fuming over this message mrs. tome gallien's special delivery letter overtook her telegram. "don't struggle," urged mrs. tome gallien. "after all, my dear young antagonist, when it comes right down to brass tacks, it isn't so much a question of just what you are going to do with the piano as it is of--just what the piano is going to do with you. because of course, do something it certainly will! and the madder you get of course the more it will do! and the madder you get of course the sooner it will do it! and---"oh, lying here flat on my back in all this damp, salty, sea-green stillness,--tides coming, tides going,--sands shifting,--sea-weeds floating,--my whole wild heedless past resolves itself into one single illuminating conviction. it's the giving people appropriate gifts that stultifies their characters so, pampering their vanities, and clogging alike both their impulses and their ink! yes, sir! "why, goodness, man! if i had crocheted you slippers would it have joggled you one iota out of the rut of your daily life? or would even the latest design in operating tables have quickened one single heart-beat of your snug, self-sufficient young body? or for forty stethoscopes do you imagine for one tiny instant that you would have written me twice in five days? "but if one can only make a person mad instead of glad! now that's the real kindness! so invigorating! so educative! so poignantly reconstructive! because if there's one shining mark in the world that adventure loves it's a--shining mad person. even you, for instance! having made no place in your particular rut for 'quarter of a ton of wood and wire' the advent of such a weightage is just plain naturally bound to crowd you out of your rut. and whoever side-steps his rut for even an instant? well, truly, i think you deserved just a wee bit of crowding. "so heigho, cross laddie! and rustle round as fast as you can to get yourself a new necktie or a hair-cut or a shine! 'cause something certainly is going to happen to you! happen right off, i mean! even now perhaps! even----" with a grunt of disgust the young doctor jumped up and began to pace his office,--what was left of his office, i mean, around the extreme edges of the room. and the faster he paced the madder he grew. "oh, the fantasia of women!" he stormed. "the--the exaggeration!" he was perfectly right--mrs. tome gallien was often fantastic, and certainly quite exaggerative anent the present situation. the threatened "adventure" did not happen at once! it didn't happen indeed for at least two hours! yet the fact remains, of course, that the big piano was at the bottom of the adventure. science no doubt would have refuted the connection. but fancy is no such fool. surely if there hadn't been a big piano the young doctor would never have worked himself up into such a bad temper on that particular afternoon. and if he hadn't worked himself up into such a bad temper he never would have flounced himself out into the dreary february streets to try and "walk it off." and if he hadn't tried so hard to "walk it off" he never would have developed such a perfectly ravenous hunger. and if he hadn't developed such a perfectly ravenous hunger he never would have bolted at just exactly six o'clock for the brightest lighted restaurant in sight. and it was on the street right in front of the brightest lighted restaurant that the adventure happened. even fancy, though, would never have boasted that it was anything except a very little adventure. skies didn't fall, i mean, nor walls topple, nor bags of gold roll gaily to the young doctor's feet. just a car stopped,--a great plain, clumsy everyday electric car, and from the front platform of it a girl with a suitcase in one hand, a hat box in the other, and goodness-knows-what tucked under one elbow, jumped down into the mud. even so the adventure would never have started if the goodness-knows-what hadn't slipped suddenly from the girl's elbow and exploded all over the street into a goodness-knows-how-many! it would have been funny of course if it hadn't been so clumsy. but even while deprecating the digital clumsiness of women, the young doctor leaped instinctively to the rescue. there were certainly enough things that needed rescuing! toys they proved to be. and such a scattering! a brown plush coon under the wheels of a stalled automobile! a flamboyant red-paper rose bush trampled to pulp beneath a cart horse's hoofs! a tin steam engine cackling across a hobbly brick sidewalk! a green-feathered parrot disappearing all too quickly in a fox terrier's mouth! a doll here! a paint box there! and the girl herself standing perfectly helpless in the midst of it all blushing twenty shades of pink and still hanging desperately tight to the leather suitcase in one hand and the big hat box in the other. "and it isn't at all that i am so--so stupid!" she kept explaining hectically. "but it is that when an accident occurs so in english i cannot think in english what to do! if i put down my suitcase!" she screamed, "a dog will bite it! and if i drop my box a trample might get it!" it was not until the young doctor had succeeded in reassembling owner and articles on the safe edge of the curbing that he noticed for the first time how tall the girl was and how shiningly blonde. "altogether too tall and too blonde to behave like such an idiot!" he argued perfectly illogically. with a last flare of courtesy he sought to end the incident. "were you going to take another car?" he gestured toward her crowded hands. "oh, no," said the girl with a wave of her hat box. "i was going to that restaurant over there." "why so was i," said the young doctor very formally. "so if you wish i will take your suitcase for you. that will at least help a little." without further parleying they crossed the snowy street and still all a-blow and a-glow with the wintry night bore down upon the snug little restaurant like two young guests of the north wind. in fact as well as effect the room was brightly crowded and seemed to flare up like a furnace blast into their own chilled faces. a trifle dazzled by the glare perhaps they faltered suddenly in their tracks. for one single conspicuous instant,--blonde as the moon, swarth as a pine tree's shadow,--they stood staring helplessly here, there, everywhere into a blur of frankly upturned faces. then without an atom's warning a lone woman at the small table just in front of them jumped to her feet. "why, of course, you poor dears!" she beamed. "you want to get seats together!" and fled, still beaming, to the one remaining vacant seat at a far table in the corner. a graven image could scarcely have helped grinning at the absurdity of the incident. and the young doctor was by no means a graven image. as for the girl, she giggled out right, and with an impulse scarcely american pulled out the young doctor's chair for him before she, herself, darted down into the more crumpled place which the other woman had just vacated. "after all," she conceded shruggingly, "it is not of such a consequence!" only the flaming color in her cheeks belied her nonchalance. with his left hand reaching for the menu and his right hand exploring his pockets, the young doctor sought to show that he also was perfectly nonchalant. "it--it's been a--a very cold day, hasn't it?" he essayed experimentally. from her own frowning contemplation of the card before her the girl lifted her amazingly blue eyes. "no-o," she said. "i think the chicken soup would be more of a taste than the bouillon." "what i remarked," persisted the young doctor, "was that the weather--the weather--" with his right hand still in his pocket, a most curious expression of shock passed suddenly over his face. his pocketbook was gone! quite desperately he studied the distance to the telephone booth, the quickest path to the door,--any direction, any excuse that would snatch him soonest out of the horrid predicament of finding himself penniless at a perfectly strange restaurant in the company of a perfectly strange girl. yet if he did bolt thus without explanation, as was certainly his most immediate impulse, what possible inference could the girl draw, except something crudely harsh and derogatory to her own frankly guileless personality. with a quite unwonted flush at his cheek bones he decided to make explanations. "excuse me," he grinned with a sharp edging back of his chair, "but it will not be my pleasure after all to--to sample the chicken soup with you. some mutt back there--while i was picking up those cursed toys--" quite frantically again he began to rummage through all his pockets. "some mutt has pinched my pocketbook," he finished perfectly simply. "what?" cried the girl. "what?" with her eyes still staring blue and wide, she reached out a slim, strong detaining hand to his sleeve. "you mean that you cannot thus have any supper?" she frowned. "and the night also so dark and so cold? why, what nonsense!" she beamed suddenly. "i have moneys to drown! no? is it 'to burn' that you say?" she corrected herself. and thrust her own purse at him. chucklingly like a child she began to rock herself to and fro. "certainly it is all of a very great fatedness!" she reveled. "first you pick up my shoppings for me! and now it is that i pick up your supper for you! what? no?" she stammered as the young doctor quite curtly refused the purse and rose very definitely to his feet. across the translucent blondness of her upturned face astonishment, incredulity, glowered suddenly like a dark shadow. "what? no? is it then so correct?" she protested. "is it kind? is it senselike? that for so small a trifle you should--'snub' is it that you say, a stranger in a strange land? certainly it was not of my boldness," she quickened. "but of the boldness of that demented woman yonder, that i sit here!" then as suddenly as it had come all the shadow vanished from her face leaving just laughter again and a vaguely provocative sort of challenge. "oh, go if it seems most best to be of such a silliness!" she said. "but if you go i shall certainly laugh! laugh with loudness, i mean! right out! and like this, with the handles of my knife and fork," she threatened to illustrate, "i will beat upon the table while i laugh! bah!" she gesticulated encouragingly towards the deserted chair, "what is the price of a supper between two gentlemans?" "oh, of course, if you feel like that!" conceded the young doctor as he slipped back into his seat. "quite frankly," he admitted, "i should hate to be even the innocent cause of your beating upon the table with the handles of your knife and fork. so if you really and truly think i look honest," he confided with an exaggerated resumption of interest in the bill of fare. "let me see. sixty cents, is it? and the tip? and two cents for a postage stamp? yes, i surely ought to be able to return that much by at least noon to-morrow." without a flicker of expression he lifted his dark eyes to hers. without a flicker of expression she resumed the conversation at the exact point apparently where she had been most reluctant to leave it off. "and so," she brightened. "after the chicken soup, would it not seem to you, for instance, that turkey would be infinitely more chic than--than corned beef?" quite regardless of his possible negative she turned quickly and summoned a heavy-faced waitress to her. "behold it is now a dinner party!" she confided blithely to the perfectly indifferent woman. "the soup, the turkey, the best of your salads, the blackest of your coffee! everything very chic!" "very what?" queried the waitress. "very quick!" interposed the young doctor. once again without a flicker of expression the dark eyes and the blue challenged each other across the narrow width of white table cloth. then the owner of the blue eyes reached out and drained her glass of ice water at a single draught. "ah!" she shivered. "i also am in more hurry than you. but it would not seem to me polite to nag about it." "oh, i beg your pardon," stammered the young doctor, and retreated in turn to his own glass of ice water. it was not until the soup course was almost over that he succumbed to any further conversational impulse, and even then indeed it was formality rather than sociability that drove him to the effort. "seeing that you are so kind," he succeeded in enunciating. "and so--so trusting," he relaxed ever so slightly, "the least i can do certainly is to identify myself. my name is sam kendrue. and i am a doctor." "so-o?" conceded the girl without enthusiasm. quite frankly she made it clear that the waitress approaching with the turkey was the only fact in the world that concerned her at that immediate moment. yet as one who would conscientiously acknowledge on second thought that no honest bit of information was ever really to be scoffed at, she laid down her knife and fork presently and surveyed the young doctor with a slightly reviving interest. "sam? sam kendrue?" she repeated painstakingly. "my name is solvei kjelland!" she announced with brisk matter-of-factness, and resumed her eating. "your name is--what?" puzzled the young doctor. "solvei kjelland," she smiled ever so faintly. "s-o-l-v-e-i," she spelled out as one quite familiarly accustomed to such a task. "k-j-e-l-l-a-n-d. i am a norwegian!" she flared up suddenly with the ecstatic breathlessness of one who confides a really significant surprise. "a norwegian?" rallied the young doctor. for the first time, behind the quick shield of his hand, a little teasing smile began to twitch. "really, you--you surprise me!" he recovered with an almost instantly forced gravity. "from your accent now, i had supposed all along that you were--er--celtic!" "celtic?" queried the girl. then with one shrewd glance at the young doctor's immobile face she burst out laughing. it was not a loud laugh. it was indeed a very little laugh, and most distinctly musical. but in that instant the whole attention of the room seemed to focus itself suddenly on that one helpless little table. "is there anything specially peculiar looking about us, i wonder?" bristled the young doctor. "or rather, about me, i should say?" he corrected himself quickly. "even that--that philanthropic woman," he fumed, "who vacated this table for us! well, of course i wouldn't say exactly that she was climbing up on the rungs of her chair, but----" "oh, that's nothing," said the girl with unruffled nonchalance. "she's been staring at us all of the evening. everybody's been staring at us all of the evening," she added amiably. very daintily, but none the less expeditiously, as she spoke, she began to turn her attention to the crisp green salad at her plate. "it is because we are both so tall and fine," she confided without an atom of self-consciousness. "oh, well, really, speak for yourself!" flushed the young doctor. "for myself?" she repeated a bit speculatively. once again, in a moment of temporary arrestment, she laid down her knife and fork to scrutinize the young doctor's face. "oh, no," she reassured him almost at once. "you are most tall and fine too! and so brune to my blonde!" she confided as she took up her fork again. "certainly it is most striking of us," she mused at last more to the lettuce than to the young doctor. "but that poor womans over there?" she rallied transiently. "everywhere one goes it is the same. 'old--old maid' is it that you call her? so sad! so neglected! so 'romanticks' is it that you say? everybodys she sees she thinks it is young lovers! but personally," said the girl, "i am still very hungry. let us take what dessert is proffered." "oh, of course," acquiesced the young doctor. "if i've got to be--if we've got to be--stared at, i mean, it would certainly be quite as comfortable to have something to do." "perfectly," smiled the girl. "so as we wait for the ices and the pies let us see what is survived of the toys." and before the young doctor could dissuade her she had lifted her awkwardly retied bundle to the level of the table, and was earnestly studying out the relative damages of the green-feathered parrot and the tiny tin railroad train. to confirm apparently what was her own suspicion in the matter she handed the railroad train to the young doctor for investigation. and because the young doctor was naturally and sincerely inquisitive about anything that was broken he bent his dark head to the task with a sudden real gasp of relief, and for the next five minutes at least all possible awkwardness between them seemed merged, then and there, into the easy give-and-take argument of a thoroughly familiar and accustomed association. once again their small table became the cynosure of all eyes. the dark young doctor alone was quite sufficiently striking looking. and the girl in her norse glow and blondness would have been a marked figure anywhere. but together? and now? at this very minute? so anxious, so painstaking, so brooding? if the room had thought them shy "young lovers" a scant half hour before, goodness knows what it thought them now! the woman in the corner had most certainly reconstructed her original impressions. on the way out from her own unsocial supper she stopped impulsively just behind the young doctor's chair to watch his rather surprising manipulation of the fractured toy engine wheel. her face was by no means unpleasant, but almost exaggeratedly friendly in a plaintive, deprecating sort of way. from their focus on the young doctor's hands her pale eyes lifted suddenly to the girl's glowing face, and she held out a small paper bagful of pink-frosted cakes. "take those home," she said, "instead of the poor broken toys!" "why--why, thank you!" laughed the girl. "how--how old are your little ones?" asked the woman quite irrelevantly. "eh?" jerked the young doctor. from his joggled hands the little tin railroad train crashed down into his plate. with her hands clapped playfully to her ears the girl looked thoughtfully up at her accoster. "why, lisa is four," she said quite simply. "and jonathan is six, and----" "oh, have you got a 'jonathan'?" kindled the woman. her sallow face was suddenly quite transfigured with light. "and does he look like you?" she cried. "or," sweeping the table with another deprecating glance, "or does he take after his father?" "take after his father?" repeated the girl in frank perplexity. her own sweeping glance of her companion's face did not seem somehow to elucidate the mystery. "'take?' 'take after his father?'" she flamed. "i do not know the idiot--the idio--the--idiom!" she corrected herself triumphantly. a little bit perplexed herself, the amiable stranger began suddenly to button up her coat. "well, good night!" she beamed. "good night! good night! i hope you may both live to enjoy to the uttermost the full merits of your little family!" "eh?" jumped the young doctor. white as a sheet he was suddenly on his feet, and for the first time that evening a real-looking smile had twisted itself across at least one side of his thin-lipped mouth. "madam!" he bowed, "neither this young lady here nor i have ever laid eyes on each other before! nor is it remotely probable indeed that in the normal course of events we should ever lay eyes on each other again! but if you persist so," he bowed, with a purely nervous glance at his watch, "but if you persist so--in your--in your--" he floundered futilely. "we shall doubtless be lying in the same grave by midnight!" without even a gasp then he snatched up the girl's purse, her suitcase, her hat box, his own coat and hat, and bolted for the cashier's desk. close behind him, clasping her scattered toys as best she might to her breast, followed the blonde norse girl. even when they had finally reached the electric light post on the farthest corner of the street, the color was only just beginning to flush back into the young doctor's cheek bones. "if you will now give me the address," he said tersely, "to which i can forward the supper money, i will put you on a street car." "oh, the address of course is of perfect simplicity," conceded the girl. "but i do not care for you to put me on a street car, thank you!" "why, certainly i shall put you on a street car!" insisted the young doctor. he was really quite sharp about it. "almost everything goes by here--if you only wait long enough," he shifted a bit uneasily, as he set down both box and suitcase with a most decided thump. silently then for what seemed to him an interminable time they stood there on the icy, wind-swept curbstone staring out into the passing green, red, yellow, lights. "pretty, is it not!" commented the girl at last. "'pretty?'" shivered the young doctor. "why, yes, of course, suppose so. but which car?" he laughed impatiently. "for heaven's sake, don't you know where you want to go?" "of course i know where i want to go!" flared the girl. with a little light touch on his sleeve she pointed off to another electric light post on a side street. "there!" she said. "that little pleasant fifth house from the end! that is where i am at boarding!" "well, why didn't you say so!" flushed the young doctor. very vehemently once more he snatched up her suitcase and her hat box. with a shrug of her fine athletic shoulders the girl laughed right out loud into his frowning eyes. "when a man is of such a positiveness as you are," she confided impishly, "it is a privilege to reduce his national characteristics. ever for one single instant do you ask me, 'have you finish your food?' or, 'do you want to be put on a car?' but always at your first wish you hurry out and scoot, crying, 'i put you on a car! i put you on a car!'" with a little sniff of scorn she turned on her heel and started off at a fine stride toward the house to which she had just pointed. it was the young doctor now who followed precipitously after. the street was certainly a quaint, old-fashioned one, and the boarding house in question by no means lacking in a fine though dingy sort of dignity. but the doorbell that the girl rang and rang brought no reassuring answer. fumbling anxiously in her purse for a moment, she threw out her hands with a little gesture of dismay. "it is that i must also have mislaid my key," she frowned. then like a flash of pale sunshine her smile seemed to drive every possible shadow from her mind. "oh, well," she cried. "it is after all only a scarce seven o'clock. some one in not many minutes will surely come. and meanwhile," she glowed. "of such a fine night! i will just sit down here very happy and take the air!" "take the air?" gasped the young doctor. quite unconsciously as he spoke he reached up and drew his fur collar a little bit closer about his neck. but already the girl had dropped casually down on the top step and opened the throat of her own dark-fur red coat as one who was fairly thirsting for air. "good night!" she said briskly. "good-by!" said the young doctor. before he had even reached the lower step he was congratulating himself that the incident was now safely ended,--"comfortably ended," he meant, instead of awkwardly, as it might so easily have been. "foreigners were often so irrational," he considered. even as he considered, he turned in spite of himself to investigate the sudden unmistakable rustle of a paper bag. his suspicion was frankly confirmed. "see!" brandished the girl triumphantly. "the little pink cake of the foolish woman!" with an unmistakable chuckle of joy her white teeth met through the treasure. in the flash of a second, the perfectly idiotic impulse of a joke, the young doctor lifted a warning finger at her. "you realize of course that you are eating a--a misapprehension?" he admonished her with really terrifying severity. "a misapprehension?" jumped the girl. very painstakingly then and there she began to explore the remaining piece of cake in her hand, tugging at its sponginess, peering under its frostedness. then suddenly with a little quick gasp of relief she popped the sweet morsel into her mouth and smacked her lips upon it "oh, no," she beamed. "it tastes perfectly all right to me!" like a word slipping hopelessly down a poem toward whatever chosen rhyme its poet has already in mind, the young doctor suddenly found himself bumping rather perilously close to the one big wild hoot of laughter that had evidently been lurking for him in the situation even from the very first. in a really desperate effort to fend himself as long as possible from such an undignified disaster he hastened in all sincerity to rewrap himself in his stiffest professional manner. "well, what about this 'lisa' and 'jonathan' business?" he questioned with unmistakable reproach. "oh, shucks!" shrugged the girl. "this tiresome lisa and jonathan, their whole parents are bakers! but as for me," she lowered her voice, and thrust out her hands with a soft, appealing gesture. "but as for me, until to-night, for four whole weeks i cry such salt into my food i cannot eat! homesickness, yes!" she nodded with a quick little catch of her breath. "in all the world no one to speak with except one fat lady and one thin lady and lisa and jonathan and peter, and--" in an extra impulse of confidence not unmixed evidently with a certain flare of pride she slid forward a little on the step. "i am montessori!" she said. "what?" snapped the young doctor. "why, what nonsense!" he said. "why, what are you talking about? 'montessori' is a--a system! and she's an italian, too, i mean." "yes, truly so," conceded the girl. "and in time if the homeache can be assuaged i shall then learn the system--and remain yet a norwegian." "oh, you mean you are a montessori student?" brightened the young doctor. "even so," said the girl. "i cannot wait to learn everything. from here, after i have duly studied little lisa, little peter, and all the others, whose minds most happily are of a perfect brightness, i must then go on to the sadder schools, and to that most wonderful place in your massachusetts where such first brain work of all was made on the little children. it is that in norway," she winced, "i have a little brother. our father makes much money," she added with apparent irrelevance. "and spends much and gives much. and once he married him a new wife, and there are many new children. and one of them, this little little brother, so gold, so blue, so pinky, all day long he sits and--isn't," she finished perfectly simply. "why--why, that's too bad," said the young doctor. "yes, very bad," mused the girl. "but some of these ideas here are of a great cleverness. i do not of course get any of it right yet," she acknowledged. "but some of it is quite sporting like a game. with these toys, now," she pointed, "and all glad things like industries, and the live cat, and the dog, and grasses and the flowers, you leave the little child quite loose, it seems, only watching him, watching him very close, one day, two days, a hundred if it seems best. and wherever he shall in finality--in finality--'gravitate,' is it that you say? to the sweet flowers, or the wood blocks, or the gay, smoothen cat, _there_ it is that the one big chance of his salvation will most surely be found. but the engine, or the blocks or the smoothen cat must not be forced on him, it is so you understand? of such there would make no message to his development. but out of _everything_, it is, that he himself must gravitate to it!" in the tense sweet earnestness of her up turned face, the eager, unconscious nearness of her occasional gesture, the far remoteness of her subject, the sting of the winter night, the glare of electric light over all, it dawned on the young doctor a bit startlingly that he was frowning down into the eyes of a particularly beautiful woman, and for some quite unreasonable reason his cheeks began suddenly to burn like fire. it was as though having all his life long for one conscientious reason or another denied himself "wine when it was red," he found himself now, most humiliatingly, with _ice_ itself going to his head. and just because he was so thoroughly unaccustomed to having anything go to his head, it went quite uproariously in fact, changing for that one moment his whole facial expression. and the instant his facial expression was changed of course he looked like a different man. and the instant he looked like a different man of course he began to act like a different man. "and does this wonderful theory of yours apply only to poor little children?" he asked with slightly narrowing eyes. "or am i to infer?" he laughed. "or am i to infer that after a whole year of flaunting city, a whole year of barren indifference to it, my amazing gravitation to you this evening is positive montessori proof that with you and you only rests my life's best salvation?" then without the slightest intent of doing it, without even the slightest warning to himself that he was going to do it, he swooped down suddenly and kissed her on her lips. with a little gasp of dismay the girl stumbled to her feet. there was nothing blonde now about her. towering up on the step just above him she was like a young storm-cloud all flame and shadow! "oh, what have i done that you should act thus?" she demanded. with the tears streaming down her face she lashed him with furious accusations. "you are one of these devils!" she cried. "you are a wild persons! was it my fault?" she demanded, "that my bundles burst from the car? was it my fault," she demanded, "that restaurants cannot block foolish women from their food? was it my fault that i paid for your stupid supper?" neither defending himself nor seeking relief in flight, but with a face fully if not indeed more shocked than hers the young doctor sank down on the step at her feet, and with his head in his hands sat rocking himself to and fro. "no, it isn't your fault!" he assured her and reassured her. "nor is it exactly my fault!" he insisted. "but the fault of that damned piano!" "the fault of that damned what?" quoted the girl a bit stridently. but the face that lifted to hers was frankly the face of a stricken man. only a chill added to repentance could have altered so any human countenance. "on the honor of a man freezing to death!" he attested. "there is no blame to be attached to anything in the world--except to a grand piano." "what is it that you mean?" puzzled the girl. "i am more furious with you than devils. but i must hear everything." "i mean," sneezed the poor young doctor, "that i am looking for a kind home for a grand piano!" even to himself his words sounded far away and altogether the words of a stranger. it was indeed as though he had been thrust quite unrehearsed into the leading part of a roaring farce which was already halfway through its evening performance. a fearful spirit of bravado seemed really his one chance of making any possible "get-away" with the whole mad situation. but even an irate audience could not have misjudged for a moment the acute distress and anxiety behind the bravado. "it is just this way," he began all over again. "a perfectly dreadful woman drove me out of my office to-night--with a grand piano!" from the stony expression, however, in the girl's face this did not seem to be just the cue that she was looking for. in the wisest impulse of his life he decided suddenly to throw himself upon her sense of mercy rather than upon her sense of humor. "truly it is this way!" he jumped up and implored her to believe him. "i am as new as you almost, in this big city. equally with you perhaps i suffer what you call homeacheness! it is very hard to get a good start in a strange place. lots of charity chances and all that. but very little money. i had a real patient once, though!" he bragged ironically. "a very rich woman, awfully nice and all that. but i hate her. every chance that she gets she torments me. she has a sort of theory, i think, that tormenting is very stimulating to the nervous system. it certainly is. we fight like young cats and dogs! and yet as i say she is awfully nice. and when she went away she paid me not only justly but mighty generously for my brief services. it cancelled almost a year's debts. but she was horridly mad because i wouldn't go with her,--as a kind of a trained, tame attendant you know. but i told her i couldn't leave my office. so she sent me a grand piano, the wretch!" he finished with flaming anger. to the step just below him the girl tripped down and turning about stood peering up into his face with a rather disconcerting intensity. "here am i," she gasped, "who suffer and languish for a 'grand piano' as you call it. and you?" as though in real pain she began to wring her slim hands together. "and you? a lady gives you a grand piano and you curse her as a wretchedness!" "yes, i know," deprecated the young doctor. "but you see there isn't room in my office for both the piano and myself! my office is too small, you see. and with the piano filling up the whole center of the room? why, it's absurd!" he quickened. "it's rotten! patients who come don't know whether they've come for a music lesson or to be lanced! and besides," he added as his most culminative grievance, "i don't know one note from another! and the woman knew that i didn't! and worse than anything there are hordes of the most indecent little cupids appliqued or something all over the front of the thing!" "surely, something could be done," suggested the girl with a vague sort of farawayness in her blue eyes. "yes, that's just it!" remarked the young doctor, flushing. "i've already done it!" abjectly with his bared head bowed before her he stood as one awaiting just sentence. "of a personally," said the girl with her own cheeks spotting bright red. "of a personally--i do not quite see the connection." "why the connection is perfectly clear!" insisted the young doctor. "she sent me the piano on purpose to crowd me out of my office! she wanted to crowd me out of my own office! she dared to affirm even that i needed to be crowded out of my own office! she tried to make me mad! she wanted to make me mad! she had the cheek to suggest, i mean, that nothing really interesting ever would happen to me until i once did get good and mad!" as though temporarily exhausted by his tirade he sagged back for a moment against the railing of the steps. his face did look a bit white and his teeth were almost chattering. "well, i certainly did get good and mad this afternoon," he affirmed with a wry sort of apology. "and because i was so blooming mad i dashed out for a tremendous walk. and because i took such a tremendous walk i developed an appetite like forty tigers. and because i developed an appetite like forty tigers i rushed for the first restaurant i could find. and because i rushed for the first restaurant i could find i happened to see you at the exact moment when----" "oh, stop, stop, stop!" laughed the girl with her hands clapped suddenly over her ears. "it is all too much like the--like 'the house that the jack-man built!'" "well, at least," grinned the young doctor, "it seems to be 'the adventure that the grand piano threatened.'" "the--the adventure?" puzzled the girl. "why, yes," insisted the young doctor. "that's what this mrs. tome gallien prophesied you know, that the piano would bring me an adventure! so you, very evidently, are the----" "what? i?" stammered the girl. a flush of real pleasure glowed suddenly in her face and faded again as quickly as it had come. "oh, no!" she said with some hauteur, "you--you----" "oh, truly!" begged the young doctor. "i'm most awfully sorry for what i did! i can't think what possessed me! i must have gone quite mad for the moment! why, really," he flushed, "i don't know whether you'll believe me or not--and maybe it's something anyway to be more ashamed of than to brag about,--but truly now," he floundered, "i haven't kissed a girl before since--since i was very little!" with a sudden quick jerk of sheer awkwardness he snatched a card from his pocket and handed it to her. "there! there's my address!" he cried. "and to-morrow if you'll only send me the word i'll jump off the bridge or throw myself under a truck, or make any other sort of reparation whatever that happens to occur to you. but to-night," he grinned, "i've simply got to get warm!" and started down the steps. but before he had quite reached the sidewalk the girl had overtaken him and placed a detaining hand on his coat sleeve. "how old is she?" questioned the girl. "who?" said the young doctor. "oh, the woman? she's old enough to be your mother." "i'm twenty-one," conceded the girl. "well, she's fifty," affirmed the young doctor. across the girl's translucent face a dozen conflicting emotions seemed surging suddenly. "so?" she laughed. "so?" she repeated experimentally, "if only you had not been so--so _bad_," she sighed. "well, about that piano," she ventured with a certain unwonted shyness. "in a world of so much racket is it not a pity that any harmonies should lie dumb? is it--is it a good piano?" she asked quite abruptly. "why, for heaven's sake, how do i know?" demanded the young doctor. "it may be a--a stradivarius!" he floundered wildly. "but it looks to me like the--like the devil!" "if i could only see it," whispered the girl, "i could tell in a minute of course." "if you could only see it?" scoffed the young doctor. then, "well--well--why not?" he acknowledged a trifle tardily, but with indisputable common sense. "i have an aunt here," mused the girl, "who has a rheumatism in her elbow, i think it is. on friday afternoon next--if the rheumatism perhaps should be sufficiently bad?" flushed with the anticipatory ardor of a musician she lifted her eyes to his. "why, capital!" acquiesced the young doctor. for the instant the whole suggestion struck him as being extraordinarily apt. "well, good-by then," he laughed, "until friday afternoon!" and vanished into the night. he was still a long, cold distance from home. but by the time he had finally reached there his pulses were ringing with fire rather than with frost. and as soon as he had started a bright roaring flame in his stove, and concocted for himself a most luscious and steamsome drink, and driven his frosted toes into the farthest corners of some moth-eaten old fur slippers, he sat right down in a great spirit of diablerie to tell mrs. tome gallien just what he thought of her. "i hope you're satisfied!" he began quite abruptly in a firm and emphatic black hand writing. "driven out into the winter streets by your most charming gift, i have in four short hours walked eleven miles; supped in a conspicuous restaurant with a perfectly strange girl and at her expense; been branded publicly for all time, first as the girl's beau and later as her husband and the father of certain imaginary children; and have also in due time, still included in the original four hours, you understand, kissed said girl 'good-night' on her own doorstep in the full glare of a city electric light,--and am now at ten-thirty p. m. of the aforesaid monday evening waiting patiently in my room until friday afternoon next when, heavily chaperoned by some kind of a relative with rheumatism, the said adventure will appear to investigate the piano--and myself. "once again, in the language of my opening sentence, and with all due respects, i repeat, 'i hope you're satisfied'!" then quite contented both in fancy and in fact he settled down to kill time and cure patients until friday. but the intervening days it seemed were not to be bereft entirely of sensations either confusing or bizarre. on wednesday night he heard from mrs. tome gallien. and by telegram. "bungler!" wired mrs. tome gallien. "what in creation have you done? the adventure intended for you does not arrive till saturday, office, four o'clock." the message happened to be delivered in writing this time, a flaunting yellow page, and, still clutching it tight by one twittering corner, the young doctor dropped down into the first chair he could reach, and with his chin dropped low like an old man's on his breast sat staring for an interminable time into his glowing fire. then quite suddenly at nine o'clock, with the funny new smile that he seemed to have acquired somewhere recently, he walked over to his telephone, fumbled a minute with the directory, experimented at least two minutes with central's temper, located miss solvei kjelland, and addressed her in his most formal manner. "miss solvei kjelland?" he questioned. "s-o," said the familiar voice at the other end of the wire. "this is doctor kendrue," he growled. "dr. sam kendrue." "so?" conceded the voice without a vestige of affright. "it seems, miss kjelland," he stammered, "that there has been some sort of a--of a--well, misunderstanding about friday afternoon. it is all a mistake, it seems, about your being the adventure! mrs. gallien indeed has just telegraphed to that effect. the 'real adventure,' it appears, is not due at my office until four o'clock on saturday!" "s-o?" conceded miss solvei kjelland. if she seemed to be swallowing rather extra hard once or twice the sound was not sharply discernible certainly from the little fluttering swallow of the telephone instrument. "so?" she repeated blithely. "well, that is all right. the piano keeps! and the saturday afternoon is just as good to me as the friday! and i am all as curious with joy as you to see what it is, this adventure that is more nice than me! good night!" "good--night!" admitted the young doctor. ii that the young doctor bought himself a new blue serge suit for saturday was no indication whatsoever that he looked forward to that day with any pleasurable anticipation. lots of people "doll-up" for disaster who couldn't even be hired to brush their hair for joy. quite frankly if anybody had asked him about it, the young doctor would have rated mrs. tome gallien as a disaster. if pressed further for justification of such a rating he would have argued that any rich woman who couldn't sleep was a disaster! "oh, it's all well enough for poor people," he would have admitted, "to put in the long night watches mulling over the weird things that they'd like to do. but when a person is actually able to leap up at the first gay crack of dawn and finance the weirdest fancy of his night! "oh, of course," he was honest enough to acknowledge. "poor mrs. tome gallien would never again while life lasted be able to 'leap up' at _any_ hour of the day or night! and she doubtless in her fifty eccentric years _had_ given extravagantly to no end of people who had proved themselves the stingiest sort of receivers! and her sense of humor even in her remotest, happiest youth must have been of course essentially caustic! "but how any woman could reach a point so sick, so vindictive, so caustic, so rich, that still unable to strip herself of her lifelong passion for giving she should evolve the perfectly diabolic idea of giving people only the things that they didn't want--only the things, indeed, that she was absolutely positive they didn't want? such as pianos! grand pianos! huge rosewood chunks of intricate mechanism and ornate decoration and heaven knows what expense--crammed down into the meager crowded office of some poor struggling young doctor who didn't know a note from a gnat! himself of course being the young doctor! "thought it was funny, did she? thought it would really drive him outdoors for sheer rage into some sort of an enlivening adventure? that was her theory, was it? well it _was_ funny. and it _had_ driven him out to meet a rather particularly enlivening sort of adventure! which adventure in the person of a miss solvei kjelland was now due at his office by her own insistent appointment, on saturday afternoon at four o'clock. but this miss solvei kjelland, it seems, was not the adventure which mrs. tome gallien had already arranged for him for saturday afternoon, same hour, same place?" into his muddled mind flashed transiently a half-forgotten line of a novel to the effect: "heaven help the day when the mate you made for yourself and the mate god made for you happen to meet!" "well, if it really came to a show-down between his adventure and mrs. tome gallien's?" quite unexpectedly his mouth began suddenly to twitch at one corner. speaking of "caustic humor" it was barely possible that the young doctor had just a tiny bit of caustic humor himself. when a man smiles suddenly on one side of his mouth it is proof at least that he sees the joke. nobody ought to be expected to smile on both sides till he feels the joke as well as sees it. certainly the poor young doctor was not feeling very much of anything at just this time except a sense of impending doom. but in this sense of impending doom flickered the one ray of light that at least he knew what his own adventure was: she was young, lithe, blonde, why as tall as himself, almost! a trifle unconventional, perhaps? yes, even a good bit amazing! but thoroughly wholesome! and human? yes that was just it, so deliciously and indisputably human! but mrs. tome gallien's adventure? a woman like mrs. tome gallien wouldn't stop at anything! it might be a pair of llamas from peru! or a greasy witchy-gypsy to tell his fortune! or a homeless little jet-black pickaninny with a banjo and--consumption! or--or an invitation even to lecture on physiology at a girls school! but whatever it proved to be he might just as well realize now that it would be something that he hated. mrs. tome gallien in her present mood would certainly never seek to lull him with a "glad" as long as she saw any possible chance to rouse him with a "mad"! "well, he wouldn't get mad yet, anyway!" he promised himself with unwonted whimsicality. "and if it _was_ llamas--which perhaps on the whole would be his preference out of the various possibilities anticipated--they would at least, judging from the woolly pictures in the geographies, be free from any possible danger of barking their shins against the sharper edges of the piano. whereas a committee of any size come to request a series of lectures on----" thus with one form or another of light mental exercise did he try to keep his brain clear and his pulse normal for the approaching saturday. but saturday itself dawned neither clear nor normal. rain, snow, slush, wind, had changed the whole outdoor world into a blizzard. it was one of those days when anything might blow in. but how in the world would it ever blow out again? with this threat of eternity added to uncertainty the young doctor decided quite impulsively to dust his desk, and investigate his ice-chest. to his infinite relief he found at least very little food in the ice-chest. whatever happened it could not possibly prove a very long siege! a half pound of butter, a box of rusks, a can of coffee, six or seven eggs, divided up among any kind of a committee, or even between two llamas? at the increasing excitability of his fancies he determined very suddenly to sober himself with hard reading. with this intent, as soon as he had finished his breakfast he took down from his bookcase a very erudite treatise on "the bony ankylosis of the temporomandibular joint" and proceeded to devote himself to it. "now here was something serious. thoroughly serious. science! heaven be praised for science!" by noon, indeed, he was so absorbed in "the bony ankylosis of the temporomandibular joint" that he quite forgot about luncheon. and at three o'clock he looked down with a glance of surprise to see that the toes of his boots were dipping into a tiny rivulet which seemed flowing to him from the farther side of the room. by craning his neck around the corner of the piano he noted with increasing astonishment that the rivulet sprang essentially from the black ferule of an umbrella, and that just beyond the dripping black ferule of that umbrella was the dripping black ferule of another umbrella, and beyond that, still an other! jumping joyously to his feet he made three apologies in one to the group that loomed up before him. "why, i beg your pardon," he began to the wheezy old man who sat nearest him. "really i--i--had no idea," he explained painstakingly to the small freckled boy just beyond. "with all this wind and everything--and the way the rain rattles against the window," he stammered to the crape-swathed woman in the far corner. none of these was presumably mrs. tome gallien's adventure, but it was surely adventure enough of itself on the old oak settle, where almost no one ever sat even on pleasant days, to behold three patients sitting crowded--and in a blizzard! "i was so absorbed in my book!" he boasted with sudden nonchalance. "oh, that's all right, sir," wheezed the old man. "i was just waitin' for a car. and it looked drier in here than where i was standin' outdoors." [illustration: by craning his neck around the corner of the piano, he noted with increasing astonishment that the rivulet sprang from the black ferule of an umbrella.] and "say, mister, do you pull teeth?" questioned the small freckled boy. but the crape-swathed lady was a real patient. though goodness knows the young doctor would gladly have drawn either the old man or the small boy in her place. all his life long he had particularly disapproved of "mourning." it was false, spiritually, he thought. it was bad, psychologically. everybody knew of course that it was unwise hygienically. but worst of anything perhaps the woman before him now made him think of a damp black cat. it was perfectly evident, however, that the lady herself cherished no such unpleasant self-consciousness. with perfect complacency at his request she came forward to the light, or at least to such light as the storm-lashed window allowed and, still swathed as blackly from view as any harem lady, stated her case. "i have such a pain--here," she pointed with black-gloved hand toward her black-veiled face. did she also take him for a tooth puller? mused the young doctor. with all haste he sought to settle the matter at once. "if you will kindly remove your--er--bonnet--is it that you call it?" he asked. compliantly the unpleasant black-gloved hands busied themselves for a moment with pin or knot until emerging slowly from its dank black draperies there lifted at last to the young doctor's gasping stare the most exquisitely-featured, dreamy-eyed young brunette face that he had ever seen outside a salon catalogue. "here! just here is the pain!" pointed the black-gloved finger to a spot right in front of the most absurd little ear. "bony ankylosis of the temporomandibular joint!" gasped the young doctor just like a swear. even as scientifically as he touched the pain-spot he felt his own wrist wobble most unscientifically with the contact. it was no wonder perhaps that the dark eyes before him dilated with a vague sort of alarm. "is it--is it as bad as that?" faltered his patient. "why, it isn't that at all!" hastened the young doctor with a sudden resumption of sagacity. "it's probably just a sort of rheumatism. what made me cry out so was just a mere funny coincidence. this particular kind of pain being a subject that i--that i--if i may say so--have been giving rather special attention to lately." "oh, then i trust that i have come to just the right person," smiled the dark eyes with a kindling surface-sweetness that seemed nevertheless quite frankly bereft of any special inner enthusiasm. "we will certainly hope so!" flushed the young doctor. "how about this pain--?" he began quite abruptly. "it hurts me when i eat," said the girl. her voice was very low and soft and drawling. "and when i drink. and when i talk," she confided. "but especially when i sing." "oh, you sing?" questioned the young doctor. "yes!" said the girl. for the first time her classic, immobile little face was quick with a very modern emotion. "personally," confessed the young doctor, "i should like very much to try a little experiment on you if you don't mind. it will help me, even if it hurts you." "as you wish," acquiesced the girl with the same imperturbable little smile. from his precipitous retreat into the other room he returned after due delay with a plate of rusks and a steaming hot cup of coffee. "it's such a horrid day," he said. "and you look so wet and cold, perhaps a taste of coffee wouldn't come in altogether amiss. but it's these rusks that i'm really interested in. i want you to bite down hard on them. and then presently perhaps i will ask you to sing so that i may watch the--oh, by the way," he interrupted himself irrelevantly. "i neglected, i think, to ask your name." "my name," said the girl, "is kendrue." "what?" questioned the young doctor. "why that is my name," he smiled. "yes, i know," murmured the girl. "coincidences of that sort are certainly very strange. it was one of the first things my aunt spoke of when i asked her advice about what physician to go to. i am a comparative stranger in the city," she added a bit shiveringly. "but didn't my aunt tell you i was coming?" she quickened suddenly. "didn't my aunt, mrs. tome gallien, write you--or something--that i was coming?" "mrs. tome gallien?" jumped the young doctor. chaotically through his senses quickened a dozen new angers, a dozen new resentments. a girl? so this was mrs. tome gallien's threatened "adventure," was it? of all the spiteful possibilities in the world, now wasn't this just like the amiable lady in question to foist another girl into a situation quite sufficiently embarrassed with "girl" as it was! "is--is mrs. tome gallien your--aunt?" he demanded with such sudden stentorious sternness that even the most bona fide blood-relation would hardly have acquiesced without pausing an instant to reconsider the matter. "well, not of course, not exactly a real aunt," admitted the girl. "but i have always called her my aunt. we have always been very intimate. or rather perhaps i should say she had always been very, very kind to me. and now, since my father--" with the unmistakable air of one who strives suddenly to suppress an almost overwhelming emotion she pointed irrelevantly to the piano and waved off the plate of rusks and the cup of coffee which the young doctor still stood proffering. "you must excuse me if i--if i--seem distrait," she stammered. "but in addition to the very real annoyance that this little pain in my jaw is giving me i am--i am so bewildered about that piano! where did you get it?" she asked quite bluntly. "why it came from such-and-such warerooms i believe," admitted the young doctor with as much frankness as he could summon at the moment. with a little soft sigh the girl reached out and touched the dark, gleaming woodwork. "i thought so," she whispered. "and--oh, how you must love it! it is certainly the most beautiful instrument that i ever saw in my life! the most melodious, i mean! the most nearly perfect sounding-board! an utter miracle of tone and flexibility as an accompanist to the human voice!" "u--m--mmmm," said the young doctor. "for two months," persisted the girl, "i have been haunting the warerooms you speak of! for two months i have been moving heaven and earth in an effort to possess it! but my means being temporarily tied up," she shivered again ever so slightly, "i was not able immediately to--" with that odd, inert little smile she reached out for the plate of rusks and took one as the young doctor had requested. "yes, here is the pain," she explained conscientiously. "but only last week," she winced, "on my birthday it was! i had every reason in the world to believe that mrs. tome gallien was going to give the piano to me! she has given me so many wonderful things! but she sent me instead the deed to a duck blind down somewhere on the south carolina coast,--shooting, you know? and dreadful guns! and dogs! and all that! i, who wouldn't even hurt a sparrow, or scare a kitten!" with his hands clapped to his head the young doctor swung around suddenly and started for the window. "was this a comic opera? a farce? a phantasy of not enough work and too much worry? was every mention of mrs. tome gallien's name to be a _scream_? as long as life lasted? as long as--?" startled by a tiny gasp he turned to find his little visitor convulsed with tears but still struggling bravely to regain her self-possession. "oh, please don't think i'm always as--as weak as this," she pleaded through her sobs. "but with pain and disappointment and everything happening so all at once. and with my big loss so recent----" "how long ago did you lose your father?" asked the young doctor, very gently. "my father?" stammered the girl. white now as the death she mourned she lifted her stricken face to his. "why it wasn't father i was talking about," she gasped. "it was my husband." "your husband?" cried the young doctor. two minutes ago was _this_ the situation that he had cursed out as a farce, a comic opera? this poor, stricken, exquisite, heartbroken little widow, tagged out by mrs. tome gallien as an "adventure" and foisted on his attention like some gay new kind of a practical joke? it was outrageous! he fumed. "inexcusably brutal!" "colorado--is where it happened," he had to bend his head to hear. "almost a year and a half ago," strangled the poor little voice, "and we hadn't been married a year. lung trouble it was, something dreadfully acute. mrs. tome gallien did everything. she's always done everything. it's something about my father i think. oh, ages and ages ago they were lovers it seems. but--but she chose to make a worldier marriage. and later, my father--why she bought my whole trousseau for me!" suffered the sweet voice afresh. "went to paris herself for it, i mean!" across the young doctor's memory a single chance sentence came flashing back "the daughter of a man who once meant something to me in my youth." so this was the girl? the little "stingy receiver"? among all mrs. tome gallien's so-called "stingy receivers" the one unquenchable pang in an otherwise reasonably callous side? precious undoubtedly, poignant, eternally significant, yet always and forever the flesh that was not of her flesh nor the spirit quite of her spirit. familiar eyes--perhaps? an alien mouth? a dimple that had no right, possibly, haunting a lean, loved cheek line? fire, flame, ice, ashes? a torch to memory, a scorch to hope! but whose smile was it, anyway? that maddeningly casual and inconsequent little "thank you" smile searing its way apparently with equal impartiality across chiffon or crape,--a proffered chair, or eagerest promise of relief from pain? had mrs. tome gallien's life, by chance, gone a-wreck on just that smile? and why in heaven's name, if people loved each other, did they let anything wreck them? and back of that--what did people want to love each other for anyway? what good was it? all this old loving-and-parting-and-marrying-some-one-else fretting its new path now all over again into chiffon-and-crape! "bony-ankylosis-of-the-temporomandibular-joint!" at the very taste of the phrase his mind jumped out of its reverie and back to the one real question at hand. "if you please, now!" he implored his visitor. "just a little of the coffee! just a crunch or two of the rusk!" urgently as he spoke he began proffering first one and then the other. "and this crying?" he persisted. "does this also hurt you?" from the doorway beyond him he sensed suddenly the low sound of footsteps and looked up into solvei kjelland's laughing face. blue as a larkspur in a summer hail-storm, crisp, shimmery, sparkling with frost, even her blonde hair tucked into a larkspur-blue storm hat, she stood there shaking a reproachful finger at both the young doctor and his patient. "oh, ho! for what a pity!" she laughed. "if you had but told me that mrs. tome gallien's adventure was to be a picnic then i also could have brought the food!" [illustration: "excuse me, miss kjelland," he said; "but this is not a picnic--it is a clinic."] "picnic?" frowned the young doctor. before the plaintive bewilderment in the dark eyes that lifted at just that instant to his an unwonted severity crisped into his voice. "excuse me, miss kjelland," he said; "but this is not a picnic--it is a clinic." "so? who is a clinic?" cried solvei kjelland perfectly undaunted, and swished bluely forward to join them. "it is not of course of a propriety, doctor kendrue," she laughed, "that i should come thus without the sick aunt! but in a storm so unwholesome for aunt is it not best that i buy some good medicine?" in a shimmer of melting snowflakes she perched herself on the arm of the first chair she could reach, and extracting the familiar little purse from her big blue pocket handed the young doctor a one-dollar bill. "medicine for the sick aunt!" she commandeered gaily. then with only the most casual glance at the piano she whirled around to scrutinize the desolate little figure before her. if she noticed the tears she certainly gave no sign of it. "ah! it is as i thought!" she triumphed. "most surely in my mind did i say that you would be a girl!" in one sweeping blue-eyed glance she seemed to be appraising suddenly every individual tone and feature of the dark, exquisite little face that lifted so bewilderedly to hers. then quite unexpectedly a most twinkling smile flickered across her own sharply contrasted blondeness and like a fine friendly child she held out her hand in greeting. "most certainly," she conceded, "you are more cute than i! but also in some ways," she beamed, "i am of course more cute than you!" while the young doctor waited for the skies to fall, he saw instead, to his infinite amazement, that the little brunette though still bewildered was returning the handshake with unquestionable cordiality. "awfully well-bred women were like that," he reasoned quickly. "no matter how totally disorganized they might be by silly things like mice or toads you simply couldn't faze them when it came to a purely social emergency." and in a situation which had thus precipitously reached a point so hopelessly non-professional there seemed after all but one thing left for him to do. "miss kjelland!" he essayed with a really terrifying formality, "this is mrs. kendrue!" the instant the phrase had left his lips his very ears were crimsoning with the one possible implication which miss solvei kjelland would draw from such an announcement, and more panic-stricken than any woman would have been with a mouse he turned and fled for his medicine cabinet in the very farthest corner of the room. "your wife?" faltered solvei kjelland in frank astonishment. "s-o?" she laughed. "and i have only just come! mix me a quarter's worth more of the good medicine, mr. doctor!" she called back over her shoulder, and dropped down on the low stool at the other girl's feet. "now about this piano!" she began precipitously. "i am not doctor kendrue's wife!" protested the little black figure bewilderedly. "why--why i thought you were his wife," she confided with increasing confusion. from the direction of the medicine cabinet the sound of some one choking was distinctly audible. both girls rose instinctively to meet--only the young doctor's perfectly inscrutable face. "who now is eating a miss--mis-apprehension?" beamed solvei. "mrs. kendrue is a patient of mine," affirmed the young doctor with some coldness. "o-h," conceded the norse girl with equal coldness. "a patient? that is most nice. but--" as though suddenly muddled all over again by this latest biographical announcement she threw out her hands with a frank gesture of despair. "if this should be a patient," she implored, "who then is the 'other adventure'?" behind the little black figure's back the young doctor lifted a quick warning finger to his lips. "s-s-h!" he signaled beseechingly to her. on solvei kjelland's forehead the incongruous frown deepened from perplexity into something very like impatience. "well certainly," she attested. "you are of a great sobriety in your office, but most wild on the doorstep. as for me," she confided, "it is of the piano and the piano only that i care!" "that's just it," said the young doctor, "it is of the piano and the piano only that mrs. kendrue cares!" with her finger-tips already touching the ivory keys the norse girl swung sharply around. "what is that?" she demanded. with a sudden impish conviction that mrs. tome gallien, being already responsible for so many awkward situations in the world, might just as well now be responsible for everything, the young doctor gathered breath for his latest announcement. "mrs. kendrue," he smiled with studied calm, "is the niece,--as it were, of the lady who gave me the piano." "what," stammered both girls in a single breath. but it was the little widow's turn this time to be the most dumfounded. "what," she repeated with a vague new sort of pain. "what? you mean that mrs. tome gallien gave _you_ the piano--when--when she knew how i had been longing for it all these months? been haunting the warerooms day after day!" she explained plaintively over her black shoulder to the other girl. "why--why do _you_ love music so?" she demanded with sudden vehement passion of the young doctor. "are you a real musician, i mean?" "on the contrary," bowed the young doctor, "i am as tender-hearted about pianos as you are about ducks. nothing under heaven would induce me to lay my rough, desecrating hand upon a piano." in an impulse of common humanity he turned to allay the new bewilderment in solvei kjelland's face. "this allusion about ducks," he explained, "concerns another little idiosyncrasy of mrs. tome gallien's." "yes!" quickened the little widow. "when she sent doctor kendrue this wonderful piano she sent me a--a dreadful duck blind--way down somewhere in south carolina!" "what is that?" puzzled solvei kjelland. "why a place to shoot!" snapped the young doctor. "wild ducks, you know! 'quack-quack!' a--a sporting camp!" his whole face was suddenly alight. "o-h! and this little mrs. kendrue does not sport," reflected solvei. in another instant her own face was all alight too. "oh, of what a nonsense!" she laughed. "of what a silliness! it is of course a mistake, most funny, most conflictable! in some way it is that the gifts should get mixed in the mails!" "oh, no!" wagged the young doctor's head. "oh, no!" he reiterated with some emphasis. "careless as i assure you many of the post-offices are there is very little likelihood of a grand piano and a duck blind getting mixed in the mails." "o-h," subsided the norse girl, but only for an instant. "what my idea should be," she resumed cheerfully, "and what the idea of my aunt should be, is that if you would let us take the piano--one month, two months, three, we would in return give you some lessons in this music, either in the piano or of the vocal." "u-m-m," said the young doctor, "yes--yes, of course that would undoubtedly be very humanizing and all that, but with so much unexpected competition, as it were, one must move very,--er--slowly in the matter. just what--just what would be your idea, mrs. kendrue?" he turned and asked quite abruptly. "my idea?" flushed the little widow. "why--why, of course i didn't have any idea because i didn't even know that you possessed the piano until just now. but if you are still willing to part with it after--after the estate is settled," she hurried with evident emotion, "why, then--perhaps--i--" yearningly as she spoke she stepped forward to the piano and fingered out one chord after another, soft, vibrant, experimental, achingly minor, a timid, delicate nature's whole unconscious appeal to life for help, love, tenderness. "dear me!" mused the young doctor. "oh! do you play?" cried solvei kjelland ecstatically. "oh, no," deprecated the little widow. "i just sing. do _you_ sing?" she in turn demanded as though her very heart jumped with the question. "oh, no," said solvei kjelland, "i just play." yearningly she in turn stepped forward and struck a single chord. but there was nothing soft or minor about this one chord. sharp, clear, stirring as a clarion call it rang out through the dingy room. "oh, dear!" thought the young doctor. and as though flaming then and there with the musical fervor so long suppressed the norse girl swung impetuously round upon her companion. "you do not play! and i do not sing! so let us!" she cried excitedly and dropping down on the piano stool seemed literally melting her fluent finger-tips into ivory-key and melody. indefinitely for a brilliant, chaotic moment or two, chord heaped upon chord and harmony upon harmony, and then suddenly to the young doctor's musically untutored mind it seemed as though the crashing waves of sound were literally parting on either side to let a little tune come through. and such a "pleasant familiar tune" he rated it delightedly. he didn't remember that verdi wrote it. he didn't stop to consider that it was from trovatore. all he cared was that it was a tune, and a tune that said things, and a tune that always said the same things whether you heard it chopped through a hurdy-gurdy on an asphalt pavement or roared stentoriously by a band at the beach. "home to our mountains!" was what it said, and oh, other things too, undoubtedly, but that was all that really mattered, "home to our mountains!" it was perfectly evident, though, that the little widow cared who wrote it, and what it was from, and where it was going to! with thrilling sweetness, astonishing technique, and most amazing volume, her rich contralto voice rang suddenly through the room. and in the precipitous jump of his heart was it any wonder that the poor young doctor couldn't have told for the life of him whether the mischief was all in one girl's voice or another girl's finger-tips, or partly in the voice and partly in the finger-tips--or--? "home to our mountains," soared the lovely voice, then quivered suddenly, like some wounded thing, and with her hands pressed tightly to her cheek, the little singer sank weakly down in the first chair she could reach. "why, what is it!" jumped the young doctor. through a haze of tears the dark eyes lifted to his. "oh, nothing special," faltered the little singer. "just everything!" with an irrelevant crash of chords solvei kjelland swung sharply round from the piano. "who is this mrs. tome gallien, anyways?" she demanded fiercely. "and where is her habit? and what good is she? to hold back from people thus the things they want and stuff them all choke-up with what they don't want,--it is a scandal i say! it is a monstrosity!" with a quick, jerky sort of defiance she rose to her feet and commenced straightening her blue hat and tightening up her blue collar. "i am a failure as one adventure," she laughed. "and i also get nothing! neither the piano, nor the medicine for the sick aunt. give me the address of this woman," she demanded. "and i will write to her in my leisure and tell her what my thoughts of her should be!" "do!" urged the young doctor. "nothing would please her more! when a woman has the ego that mrs. tome gallien has there's nothing in the world that tickles her vanity so as to hear just what people think of her, be it good, bad, or indifferent." with deliberate malice he tore a leaf from his notebook, scribbled the desired address on it and handed it to the norse girl. "if it doesn't do anything else," he commended her with mock gravity, "it may at least draw the fire!" "'draw the fire'?" repeated the norse girl a bit perplexedly. then as though to shrug all perplexity aside she turned suddenly to the young widow. "as for you--" she beamed. "you are a cunning little thing! and i loves you!" with unmistakable tenderness she stooped and kissed the astonished little singer on the forehead. "and i hope you will soon be of a perfect wellness," she coaxed. "and sing the perfectly whole songs to whatever piano it is that you should love the best! as for me?" she called briskly to the young doctor. "it is that you understand i am perfectly resigned?" "resigned to what?" frowned the young doctor. "oh, this language!" laughed solvei. "do you know your own words? to? of? it is the _from_ that i would say! complete _from_ the adventure i am resigned!" "s-s-h! s-sh!" warned the young doctor's frowning face once more. almost anxiously he accompanied her to the door. "s-sh--s-s-h!" he implored her. "the poor little girl must never know of mrs. tome gallien's audacity in sending her here as an 'adventure.' with all the sorrow she's in just now, and the pain--" "yes, quite so," acquiesced solvei kjelland with perfect docility. then all of a blue-blonde flutter in the open doorway she turned to call back her blithe "good-by." "good-by, doctor and mrs. kendrue!" she called. "what? _no_?" she flushed at the very evident consternation in both uplifted faces. "good-by then, mrs. and doctor kendrue!" she revised her adieus hastily. "_what_? _n-o_?" she flared with her first real sign of impatience. "well then, good-by, mrs. and _not_ doctor kendrue!" she finished triumphantly, and vanished into the snowstorm. turning back to his somber office and his sad little patient it seemed suddenly to the young doctor as though the first blue bird had fled, leaving only a single black iris bud to presage spring for the garden. "blue birds were darlings!" quickened the young doctor. "and yet?" poignantly to his memory revived a misty may time years and years ago when he had sat cross-legged in the grass a whole day through--to watch the unfolding miracle of a black iris bud! in consideration of the particular speed and energy which solvei kjelland applied that afternoon to her homeward plunge through jostling traffic and resonant subways it is of interest to note that the first thing she did on reaching her room was to sit right down in her larkspur-blue coat and hat and investigate the word "leisure" in her english dictionary. out of all the various definitions given, "vacancy of mind" seemed to suit her fancy best. "in the vacancy of my mind is it that i have promised for this writing?" she questioned. "of a very good wellness then! when else should my mind or my heart be more vacated than now?" true to this impulse she sat down that very evening to tell mrs. tome gallien just exactly what she thought of her. on some very pale, pale yellow note paper, with the blue ink which she adored, and in the spirited handwriting so characteristic of her nationality, the very page was a blonde flare of personality. mrs. tome gallien, dearest madam (she wrote): how do you do's, and i know all! do not do it, i say. do not do it. they do not like it and if you so persist in thus teasing of them you will most certainly defeat the one object which i am of an inclination to suspect that you have tucked away in one side of the mind. is it not so? you are of course very clever and of much wealthiness and some pain. and, it is of course very diverting and most droll lying thus to plan how one may yet motivate the destinies, is it, that you say? and it is doubtless as you well think--the little widow lady has mourned too long, and is too delicate of the indoors, and moons too much over the singing-voice. and this young doctor in his own turn he also is a mistake, so sarcasms, so severe, and hates all womans and all pianos both, except for minutes. and you have thought that if thus across the little pain in the lady's bone these two could be brought to scold about the pianos and the blind ducks much good might yet come and of a most loving adjustingment? but no, madam it is a great mistake! these people are not at all as bright as you think. and also in their hearts is there none of that most happy greed which makes all comical things as they come one joke! no! it is only that they see in your gifts one great make-them-mad which if you persist in so doing with other comics will make them cold with hate and humiliation for each other. and when you tag the poor little lady as an adventure you have yet outraged complete the chivalries of the young doctor so that he cannot even see in his sense that even so little a widow may yet be a very great adventure. do not do it, i say! do not do it! it is cruel. and there is no law but your own honor that can stop it. if the malice is so formed that you cannot stop it but must persist in this most foolish custom of giving people the things what they do not want i would respectfully suggest that you send them to me. i am young. i am strong. and very laughing. if you can find anything in the world at just this time that i do not want _i dare you to send it to me!_ yours very truly, solvei kjelland. being satiate then with justice and the english language solvei reverted once more to the pursuit of juvenile pedagogics and the general discussion of human events with her own aunt and in her own tongue. sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, nothing except pedagogics and the aunt even remotely threatened her horizon. and by thursday every gesture of her fine young body, every changing expression of her fine young face, seemed frankly indicative of some seething inner triumph that as yet remained unspoken. by friday night, however, even this self-control slipped its leash, and she closed her eyes for sleep with a very distinct and definite expression of emotion. "ah!" she laughed, "that gallien lady down yonder is good and fixed! yes!" it was not until saturday night, late, by special delivery, that mrs. tome gallien's answer came. stumbling sleepily down the stairs just be fore midnight to answer the doorbell that no one else seemed awake to answer, solvei kjelland received the insignificant looking envelope into her own hands. small as it was, heavily overshadowed by special delivery postage, and almost quaveringly directed in a pale, fine writing it might well have suggested to anybody a suppliant for mercy, or at least for pity. with a first faint twinge of remorse solvei tore it open to discover no contents whatever--except a railroad ticket to the little mainland town in south carolina where mrs. tome gallien had established her official address. scowlingly for a moment and in dumb perplexity the girl stood shifting from one slippered foot to another in a really desperate effort to decipher each word, phrase, comma, asterisk, in the momentous little document be fore her. then quite suddenly a smile that was by no means mirthful flashed brilliantly across her blue eyes and her gleaming teeth. "_stinged_!" said solvei kjelland, and gathering her big gray blanket wrapper a little bit closer around her fled back precipitously to her bed. with the first faint ray of morning light perhaps she might have waked to an instant's reassuring conviction that the whole ticket episode was a dream if only her subconscious deductions from that episode had not waked first on her lips like a wry taste. "the one things in the world that i did not want--at just this time? that lady is a witchess!" was the phrase that waked on her lips. it was not until early the following week, however, that she called up the young doctor to tell him the news. "how do you do?" she telephoned. "this is solvei kjelland. and i am to say good-by." "good-by? why, what do you mean?" questioned the young doctor's frankly surprised voice. "it is that i am going away," said solvei, "on a little--what it is you would call a trip." "oh," said the young doctor. "where?" if the statement could ever be made that a person "shrugged" his voice solvei certainly "shrugged" hers. "oh, through the tunnel!" she said. "and then off!" "yes, but where?" persisted the young doctor. "oh, to the southern carolines to visit this mrs. tome gallien," sing-songed the girl as one who had rehearsed the line even to the point of monotony. "what?" cried the young doctor. "why--why, what do you mean?" "mean?" bridled solvei instantly. "for why should it be a meanness? is not this mrs. tome gallien as fine a lady as i? am i not as fine a lady as mrs. tome gallien? for why if two ladies like to visit it should not be so? have i not explain it all to the sick aunt?" "yes, but do you really mean that you wrote to mrs. tome gallien?" stammered the young doctor. "what did you say? for heaven's sake what did you say?" "what i did say should be sealed in my own heart," affirmed solvei with some coldness. "yes, but my dear child!" protested the young doctor. "you don't seem to have any idea of just what you're going to! it's not at all a cheerful sort of place you understand. why even its name you know is 'gloom of the sea.'" "even so," said solvei, "there is no special pain in that. in my time have i not already seen several glooms of the land? why then should i not, for sheer geography, start out to investigate a 'gloom of the sea'?" "yes, but it's a--it's a desert island, you know!" persisted the young doctor. "so-o?" brightened solvei. "and will there then be camels? n-o?" with a soft sigh of regret her whole personality seemed to fade for a moment into the indeterminate blur and buzz of crossed telephone wires. then clear as a bell her voice rang out again. "and have you seen the little sad lady once more?" she asked. "why she's here in my office now," said the young doctor. "she has to come almost every day." "so?" mused the norse girl. "and will it take the long time perhaps to mend the little pain in the bone?" "i certainly hope so!" laughed the young doctor. and for the first time since she had heard it there was no irony in the laugh but sheer boyish happiness. "you do not seem quite to get the ideas of this little trip that i should make," she reproached him briskly. "it is not just that i go! but that i stay! it is not just for the once it would seem but for the all time that this lady so desires me! the ticket that she so kindly sends is but one-sided. it does not return." "ticket?" exclaimed the young doctor. "why, this is preposterous! you don't really mean it, surely? there's nothing that can make you go, you know!" "so?" said solvei. "did i not make the dare to her? should i not pay? is it not then as you say? i have drawn the fire!" across the astonishing gravity of her tone a most joyous laugh broke suddenly. "your words are of such a mixedness," she laughed. "drawn? drawn? is it not rather as the strong banks would say, miss solvei kjelland by one lady from the south has been withdrawn from the circulations? but i adore this america!" she confided blithely. "always around every corner there is something that you did not first expect when you curled that corner." "yes, i know," admitted the young doctor. "but what about all this montessori study and everything? are you going to chuck it? and the little brother? the little lad who isn't?" he asked with real regret. "it will all keep," said solvei. "it is only what is, it would seem, that should pass." "oh, but miss kjelland," insisted the young doctor, "this whole thing is absurd! i--i believe you're making it all up, just for a joke! if you're going to be home next sunday afternoon couldn't i come around and--and laugh the thing out with you?" "next sunday afternoon?" mused solvei, with the manner of one who pauses for an instant to count the days on the fingers. "and this now, this minute, is a tuesday?" she questioned, still speculatively. "yes," agreed the young doctor. "no! it will not be possible!" said solvei. "i leave!" "yes, but when?" asked the young doctor. "now," said solvei. "already it is that i can hear the taxicab adding at the door." "what?" cried the young doctor. "under the river!" waved solvei's clear young voice. "under the river, dr. sam kendrue!" like a gigantic gray-brown wonder bulb the northern winter is dumped down thus at will into the sunny, plushy forcing frame of a new york pullman to bloom in perfect scent and glory only one day, two days, three days later in some welcoming southland. if solvei kjelland was astonished, however, at the first bland sights that met her blizzard-habituated eyes it is only fair to say that mrs. tome gallien in all her years of experience in every kind of a southland had never seen any thing that astonished her as much as the sight of solvei kjelland. fuming helplessly in her great mahogany bed with its weird-carven bed-posts of pirate and sailor and siren, the sick woman lay staring blankly from the ceiling to the piazza railing and from the piazza railing to the dull gray sea when the vision first burst upon her. "why--why--martha!" she screamed to her deaf woman. "there is a bright blue girl in the wrangle boat! and nobody is wrangling! they are coming right along, i mean! scudding! and the girl is running the engine!" from her own quick glance at the scene the deaf woman's answering voice came back as calm, as remote, as de-magnetized as the voice of an old letter. "you sent for a girl to come, i believe," said the deaf woman. "yes, i know," fumed mrs. tome gallien. "but i hardly dreamed for a moment that she really would!" "what?" said the deaf woman. "never--dreamed--that--she--would!" repeated mrs. tome gallien as economically as she could. "most things that you send for--seem to come," monotoned the deaf woman by no means unamiably. "there's no room left in the storeroom now for the last box of japanese bric-a-brac, or the french wedding gown or the new-fangled fireless cooker. where shall we put the girl?" "in the fireless cooker!" snapped mrs. tome gallien. from the vague acquiescent smile on martha's face it was evident that she sensed the spirit if not the words of the suggestion. the next direction however was startlingly clear. with a quite unmistakable gesture mrs. tome gallien pointed toward the stairs. "martha! go to it!" she screamed. to a person lying in bed voices travel so much quicker than do the owners of the voices. through what seemed an eternity then of time and noise, boat-keels grounding, men grumbling, boys shouting, women chattering, the sick woman waited in the lonely hush of her immediate surroundings with a very perceptible shiver of nervousness flashing from moment to moment across her spine. [illustration: as coolly as if she had been appraising a new dog or pussy, mrs. tome gallien narrowed her eyes to both the vision and the announcement.] then all a-glow and a-blow and theatrically incongruous like some splendid young viking of old rigged out in a girl's blue and ultramodern rain-coat, the stranger loomed up suddenly at the foot of the bed with martha's portly white figure backgrounding every radiant flutter and line of the blue and gold silhouette. "i am come!" said solvei kjelland. as coolly as if she had been appraising a new dog or pussy mrs. tome gallien narrowed her eyes to both the vision and the announcement. "certainly you are a very good-looking young person!" she conceded at last. "but of such an ungodly name! is there no way to overcome it?" "over--come it?" puzzled solvei for a single shadowed instant. "oh, that is most easy," she brightened, almost at once. "solway it is as though it was. and ch-chelland." "you may call me 'elizabeth,'" said mrs. tome gallien without the flicker of an eyelash. "e-lee-sa-buth?" repeated the girl painstakingly. "oh, i suppose that will do," sighed mrs. tome gallien, struggling up a little bit higher on her pillows. "but whatever in the world made you come?" she demanded tartly. but if the question was like a dash of cold water, solvei's reaction to it was at least the reaction of a duck's back. "you mean you did not really want me?" she preened and fluttered. her voice was ecstasy, her eyes like stars. "i certainly did not," sliced mrs. tome gallien's clear incisive voice. "oh, of what a joyousness and retribution!" beamed solvei. "of what a gloriosity! as the shooting camping is to the sad little lady, and the piano to the young doctor,--so thus am i to you! what then shall happen to everyone of us is yet on the lap of the gods! let us kiss!" she suggested as one prize fighter might proffer his hand to another. "i am not a kisser, thank you," said mrs. tome gallien with some coldness. "so-o?" acquiesced the girl softly. if her spirit faltered for an instant, her blue eyes fortunately faltered no lower than the great clutter of boxes that flanked mrs. gallien's bed in every direction. "for why are there so many boxes?" she looked up suddenly to ask with a smile that would have disarmed a tartar. "why--why those are just some things i've been buying lately," relaxed mrs. tome gallien ever so slightly. "there isn't so very much to do here, some days, except just to read the advertisements in the back of the magazines--and send for things. martha hates it!" she added with a sudden wry glance at martha's impassive face. "o-h!" said solvei. and the word was divided absolutely evenly between praise of the boxes and disparagement of martha. the boxes seemed to have heard their part of it anyway. the string on a huge brown paper package burst suddenly as though for sheer excitement. "martha will show you to your room," said mrs. tome gallien quite imperviously. "and whatever else you try to jar, pray don't waste your energies trying to jar martha. by a most merciful dispensation of providence her sensibilities have been wrapped in a cotton batting silence for the past twenty years. you may in time learn to understand me," she smiled faintly with her first kindness. "but you will never understand martha. come back to me after supper, if you wish. and wear something blue if you have it. i like you in blue." it was long after supper when solvei returned. but at least she was in blue, and a very neat and trim blue it was and essentially boyish with its soft collar rolling back sailor-wise from her slender throat. like one fairly consumed with the winter novelty of boats and beaches, too full of a hundred new excitements to speak, she dropped down on the low footstool by mrs. tome gallien's pungent, smoky, lightwood fire, and with her blue elbows on her blue knees and her white chin cupped in her white hands, sat staring wide-eyed at her hostess. the whole breathless significance of youth was in her face. youth struggled eternally for its own best self-expression. but when she spoke, a single sentence only burst from her lips. "what was in that big brown bundle-box that should burst so?" she asked with a sudden elfish impudence. but instead of being annoyed by the question, mrs. tome gallien seemed on the contrary to be rather amused with it. "you like boxes?" she asked with a faintly quizzical lift of her eyebrows. "boxes?" flamed solvei. "it is like the new day! when the string breaks--it is the dawn! 'what should there then be in it?' jumps the heart. what is there yet that will come?" "oh, dear me," smiled mrs. tome gallien. "if you feel like that about it by all means come and open it. i forget myself what is in it, there are so many. nuts maybe," she laughed, "or a new carpet sweeper. or a sable muff even!" with all the frank eagerness of a child solvei kjelland jumped up to investigate the mystery, and like a kitten snarling itself into worsteds disappeared for the moment into interminable pale-colored tissue papers, only to emerge at last brandishing on high the plumpest, gaudiest, altogether most hideous hand-embroidered sofa pillow that human eyes were ever forced to contemplate. "it is not nuts," said solvei kjelland. in another moment she had clasped the pillow to her breast. "oh, of what a horror!" she laughed. "and how beloved! is it the work then," she demanded, "of a blind one? or of one crazy? or of one both blind and crazy?" back of the laughter and the question was a sincere and unmistakable concern. "a clergyman's widow makes them," confided mrs. tome gallien. "somebody over in alabama,--i saw the advertisement in a country newspaper. i take a whole lot of country newspapers for just that sort of amusement," she added a bit drily. "there seems to be such an everlasting number of bunglers in the world who are trying so desperately hard to make a little money. this woman i believe is trying to send her boy to college." with the pillow extended precipitously to full arm's length solvei sat for a moment staring from the chaotic embroidery to mrs. tome gallien's perfectly composed face. "could a boy come to any of the good that should go to college on a pillow like that?" she demanded uproariously, while all the laughing curves of her mouth seemed reaching suddenly up to fend off the threat of tears in her eyes. once again she clasped the pillow to her breast. "oh, the bridge that it does make into the other's life!" she cried. "can you not see all at once, the house, the desolation, the no store anywhere with fine goods to compare with! the boy so thin, so white, so eager perhaps, so watching of every stitch! that most dreadful magenta? will there be by the grace of the good god a chance perhaps for the latin? that screaming oranges? should it be humanly possible that so much joys as histories and boots might yet be in the same world with the latin. and the mother? so pricked with needles? so consumed with hopings----" "you--you see it, do you?" drawled mrs. tome gallien. "see it?" flamed solvei. "i _am_ it!" with the gesture of one who sought suddenly to hide her emotion she swung around abruptly toward the other side of the room. "what else is there then?" she asked, all laughter and mischief again. "that box so wooden, so busted at the top? is that also a bridge to some other livings?" "if you choose to call it so," nodded mrs. tome gallien. a frankly quizzical invitation to explore was in the nod. solvei certainly needed no urging. in another instant down on her knees before the great wooden box, she was slowly extracting from wads of excelsior, piece after piece of the most exquisitely delicate and transparent turquoise blue china beaded in gold and airily overwrought with soaring sea gulls. there was a big breakfast cup, and a middle-sized breakfast cup, and a big plate, and a middle-sized plate, and a cereal saucer and another cereal saucer, and a most stately little coffee pot and all the other attendants and attendants to attendants which fashion assigns to just that sort of a service. "oh, it is for the fairies then?" gasped solvei. "or a princess?" deftly as she spoke she pulled a great white sheet of paper to her and spread it on the floor as a cloth. "no!" she quickened. "it is for lovers! see? the first breakfast of the new home?" as cautiously as though she had been handling butterfly wings she began to dramatize the scene, the big plate there, the middle-sized plate here, a man's elbow-room, thus, a woman's daintiness, so! in the ingenuousness of her own visualization she lifted the bride's cup to her lips and sipped an ecstatic draught from it. "mocha or java?" mocked mrs. tome gallien. "joy!" said solvei kjelland. in a sudden fit of abstraction then the girl struggled slowly to her knees and knelt thus staring very thoughtfully all around her. "so is it then with all these boxes?" she asked. "that from this desert island lying so you would make constantly such little bridges across to other people's livings? in time, it is, i mean, as soon as you should bear to part with them you would build even these most heavenish dishes across to some young happiness? but will such a young happiness ever take the troubles to cross back to you?" she demanded with sudden fierceness. "that is it, i say! that is it! a prattling note perhaps? a praise-you for being so rich? but do they ever yet write more late to tell that the gift is still well, that it has made new joy that very morning perhaps, that even yet after one month, six months, twenty, it is still so dear?" "they never have," admitted mrs. tome gallien. in utter irrelevance the girl sank back on her heels and crossing her arms on her breast began to rock herself joyously to and fro. "oh, i do love this place so!" she confided. "i do love it so! and if you should then keep me," she beamed. "and i should be quite pleasant,--there is a lawn mower i read in yesterday's paper! most wonderful it is, and runs by the gasolene, so that all one needs to do is to follow singing gaily. could you send for such?" "a lawn mower?" sniffed mrs. tome gallien. "you noticed, i trust, that there was no nice grass whatsoever on this island?" "yes, that is most so," admitted solvei. "neither equally is there any young happinesses or bare-toed boys making for latin. but if we were possessed of such a lawn mower and its wonderfulness we could at least make the fine green lawns in the mind." "solvei!" snapped mrs. tome gallien, "i am dreadfully afraid that i am going to like you! but before i actually commit myself," she frowned, "i want to ask you one question. are you in the habit of letting strange young men kiss you?" "what?" jumped solvei. very significantly mrs. tome gallien repeated the question. "strange young men?" she revised it. "are you in the habit of letting strange young men kiss you?" "oh!" flushed solvei. "it is then the young doctor that you mean? was it so that he thus confessed it to you?" she questioned a bit bewilderedly. "so shamed he was, so worried, i had not just thought that he should tell. yes, it is as you say he is one most strange young man." "yes, but you?" persisted mrs. tome gallien. "how did you feel about it? that's what i want to know!" "how should i feel?" laughed solvei. "why it was so mad i was, so strong, i could have crushed him on the steps! and then suddenly i see his face! bah!" shrugged solvei. "i have one father and nine brothers and all the world is most full of men! it is not from such a face as the young doctor's that any evil should come. it is just as i have said, one very sad accident!" "it does not seem to be just the sadness of the accident that lingers longest in your mind," drawled mrs. tome gallien. with her chin tip-tilted and her eyes like stars the girl met the sarcasm without a flicker of resentment. "no!" she laughed. "it is not the sadness of the accident that remains longest in the mind!" "u-m-mmmm," mused mrs. tome gallien. "all the same," she resumed with sharpness, "i certainly think it was most cruel, most brutal of him, not to make the trip down here with me! it would have done him good," she insisted. "just the mere balmy change of it! he is so grim!" "oh, but he cannot help the being grim," flared solvei. "he is so poor and so wanting things! how should he yet achieve them except by sticking close to that most saddest of all truths that the only ways to get ahead is to stay behind and attend to one's business?" "solvei!" asked mrs. tome gallien quite abruptly. "have you gotten the impression in any way that the young doctor was--was attracted at all to my little widow friend?" "oh, of a surety!" attested solvei. "he is i think what one would say 'crazy' of her." "oh, i hardly dare to hope that," mused mrs. tome gallien. "but of course--" in some far-away speculation the sentence faded suddenly off into silence. "she will of course be very rich some day, i suppose," she resumed a bit haughtily. "i shall, i suppose, make her my heir." "s-o?" said solvei kjelland. "solvei!" snapped mrs. tome gallien with another spurt of abruptness. "speaking of 'attending to one's business,' if _you_ should decide to stay here and make _me_ your business, what do you think you could do for me?" "oh, i could do the reading aloud," brightened solvei instantly. "and i could thus open the boxes! and i could run the wrangle boat!" she quickened and glowed. "and also if it should so seem best i could scrub the blue flannel crockings from the wrangle boy's neck!" "on the whole--as a really steady employment," conceded mrs. tome gallien, "suppose we begin on the reading aloud. i adore being read to." "oh, i am very fine on this reading aloud!" preened solvei. "so dramatic is it that you say? so intensed?" with absolute self-assurance she picked up the only book in reach, it happened to be the "golden treasury," and just out of sheer temperamental eagerness selected the biggest-looking poem she could find. "it should be an 'ode,' is it that you call it?" she confided. "and it is about--about--? i do not know such words," she faltered for a single second only and passed the page to mrs. tome gallien. "oh," said mrs. tome gallien, "wordsworth, you mean. 'ode on intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood.'" "s-o?" conceded solvei. "all that? it is not certainly of a poetry sound but more--later perhaps it will tell. all the rest is most easy looking. "there was--some time" (she began) "when--when meadows, groves, also streams, "the earth and all things perfectly--ordinary "to me did--did seems "ap-pareled--" i do not know that word and here is another- "in ce--les--tial lightings, "the----" "yes--anybody could see at once that you are a remarkable reader!" slashed mrs. tome gallien's coolest, thinnest voice. "the picture it suggests of our long spring evenings together is----" with a startled glance upward solvei detected for the first time the actual glinting mockery in the older woman's eyes. "what is it?" she stammered. "what?" still like some one more bewildered than hurt she struggled to her feet. "even as from the first," she questioned, "is it that you are making the sport of me when i wish so hard to do the things that would please you? through and through, is your heart then so cruel?" she demanded, "that it must make mockerings of the confused and the far-from-homes?" "oh, solvei!" cried the older woman suddenly. "smile again! laugh again! i can't bear it! it's as though the sun had died! it's as though the moon had gone! if you are angry and leave me, i shall be left all alone again with just the fog and the sea! i am a brute, and i know it! but oh, if you will only just smile again! even just once, i mean! oh, my poor dear little girl," she implored her. "oh, my poor dear touchy little blonde girl!" "i am not a 'poor--poor little blonde girl,'" asserted solvei with some spirit. "i am indeed as i said, very young, very strong. and very laughing," she insisted without even the remotest flicker of a smile. "are you young enough and strong enough and laughing enough to come over here and sit on my bed?" rallied mrs. tome gallien. "i am young enough and strong enough and laughing enough to do anything!" said solvei kjelland. stiff and stern as a ramrod she went over and sat on the side of the sick woman's bed. without an atom of self-consciousness or embarrassment both women began all over again to study each other's faces. "could i put my hand on your yellow hair?" asked mrs. gallien at last quite surprisingly. "you could put your hand on my yellow hair," said solvei. "if i should apologize fairly decently for existing at all," experimented mrs. tome gallien a little further, "would you be willing to kiss now? "i should never be willing," sighed solvei, "to kiss any lips that tasted of mockerings." "what would you be willing to do?" ventured mrs. tome gallien. "what would you want me to do?" relaxed solvei ever so slightly. through mrs. tome gallien's busy brain a dozen possible answers tested themselves one against the other. "well, would you be willing to--to tell me a little story?" she chose as the most promising one. "tell you a little story?" queried solvei. once again her whole face darkened with suspicion. "yes, about my little island," hurried mrs. tome gallien. "it was dark when i came and they put me right into this bed. i do not leave my bed, you know." "what?" quivered solvei. "this most beautiful little island, you have not seen it--since you came?" in the very tensity of the question all the blue seemed to surge back suddenly to her eyes, all the pink to her cheeks. "why of a sureness," she cried, "will i tell you about this little island!" softly then for a moment she patted her skirts and recrossed her slippered feet and fumbled with the big silk tie that closed her collar. then quite geographically she began her narrative. "first of all," she explained, "it is a round little island." "really, you surprise me," said mrs. tome gallien purely automatically. "so many islands are square." "and there are fish upon it!" glowed the narrator. "oh, surely not upon it?" shivered mrs. tome gallien. "and there are seven monstrous what you call 'live-oak' trees dripping with gray beards,--it is most terrible," gloated the narrator. "and in one tree alone have i seen with my own eyes seven most scarlet birds and two blue birds. and in yet another tree there is a fine snake.--and all along by what you should call the edge of the porch blue violets are coming. and on the roof where the wrangle boat sleeps there is an green vine that shall yet be yellow and sweet, martha tells. and--and--" around the corners of the girl's red lips a faint little smile showed suddenly. "and there is one little black pig, so grunting!" she announced with rapture. "and--and----" so the sweet, eager, revitalizing young voice ran on till martha herself appeared to announce sleeping time, and mrs. tome gallien whose "sleeping time" for years had been a farce of ghost and specter dozed off before she was even half undressed to dream like a child of budding violets and flitting birds and a glow that should be of jessamine instead of gold. hours fall so easily out of a day, days out of a week, weeks out of a month! the jessamine glow did come in its own good time as did also various other things which nature had ordained, march winds, march rains, march tides, march sunshine. other wonders came too that were of course mrs. tome gallien's ordaining rather than nature's fabulous shoppings from all the big marts of the world, and little pitiful, home made products from backwoods settlement or lonely prairie. once and for all time relieved of the hazardous task of reading aloud to a capricious invalid, solvei came and went like a young sea breeze, whistling through the halls, singing through the rooms, sweeping across the island, frolicking on the water. if it was fair to rate her as a rather exceptionally clever and daring young navigator on the sea of fact it was only fair to acknowledge her equally clever, equally daring in the realms of fancy. smiling knowingly into martha's silences, laughing at the wrangle boat man or boy, waving a slim hand in and out of mrs. tome gallien's narrow sea-blue vista, scudding to and from the mainland on interminable errands, or curled up for long cozy evenings on the foot of mrs. tome gallien's bed to visualize their mutual magic path across one new box or another into "other people's livings," solvei kjelland as a companion was frankly a success. then one day very late in march, or even the first of april, something came which was partly of nature's ordaining and partly of mrs. tome gallien's, though most thoroughly a surprise to the latter one concerned. it was a letter from dr. sam kendrue. and very northern. whatever the new york winter had been it was plainly evident that the new york spring was still exceedingly cold. mrs. tome gallien, dear madam (said the letter): as it seems best to me at just this time that mrs. kendrue should supplement her treatment with a trip south, it is my intention to accompany her. in view of this fact i will take the liberty of calling upon you on tuesday next. trusting that your island experience has proved beneficial to your health, i am, yours truly, etc., etc. "u-m-mmmm," smiled mrs. tome gallien. but before the dull, fretted bewilderment in solvei kjelland's face, her smile sharpened suddenly into impatience. "why surely, solvei," she scolded. "with all your english you might at least understand that." "n-o," shifted solvei from one slim ankle to the other. "it does not seem to me of any understanding whatever--whether it should be dr. sam kendrue's mrs. kendrue who comes or just mrs. kendrue's mrs. kendrue?" "o-h, of course," rallied mrs. tome gallien's good nature. "one could hardly expect them to be married by now, or even engaged perhaps. but at least they must be awfully interested! how about your poor hardworking young doctor _now_?" she gloated; "couldn't take the tiniest holiday for a poor old gray-haired, crippled creature like me! but has got time to burn when it comes to some little soft dark-eyed thing with a creak in her singing-voice!" "love is sure some pranks," admitted solvei. "_a_ prank," corrected mrs. tome gallien. "a prank," repeated solvei with perfect docility. from the increasing sweetness of her day dreams mrs. tome gallien turned idly to the calendar on the table by her bedside. the week's page had not been torn off, nor the week before that, if the whole truth must be known. "why, good lack!" she jerked suddenly. "to-day is tuesday!" "so?" jumped solvei. both women turned simultaneously toward the clock. "it will take you half an hour to make the mainland and that train!" cried mrs. tome gallien. "and for goodness sake, brush your hair! and change those old sea-faring clothes." "i will not brush the hair," tossed solvei's bright wind-blown head. "always it is my preference to wear it thus hither-and-hang! nor will i part ever from my friend this old blue jersey! and even so--if the sun does not fade between the here and the mainland i may yet achieve three new freckles on my nose!" "don't argue!" fumed mrs. tome gallien. "just hurry!" "it is only when one hurries that one has time to argue," persisted the girl. "oh, stop your nonsense!" ordered mrs. tome gallien. "whose nonsense will then be left to us?" flared solvei. "but do not thus make all this extra worrisome," she admonished with sudden gentleness. "time is always more fat than you think! but for two such fancy fine packages as i go now to fetch," she flared again ever so slightly, "there will not be room also in the boat for the face of the wrangle boat man nor yet for the legs of the boy. it is alone i insist that i should go!" "for mercy's sake!" fretted mrs. tome gallien. "i don't care how you go, if you'll only go!" without further parleying, solvei started for the stairs. in another minute with a few jumps and slides she had reached the front door. once outside, it took but a fraction more of time to settle the wrangle boat man and boy. "sitting here in perfect peace on the shore," she admonished them, "watch thus how one isolated person with no words but oil can make a boat prance on the waves! all aboard!" she called back exultantly to them. with a chug like a great, pounding heartthrob the wrangle boat sprang for the sea. just for a moment then at the last signaling point solvei lifted her hand in unfailing cheeriness to the sick woman and the deaf woman left behind, and turned her own inordinately sharpened young senses toward the mainland. but when the ructious little wrangle boat drew up a half hour later alongside the dilapidated mainland wharf before an admiring audience of jet black pickaninnies and mangy hounds there was only one passenger waiting impatiently there, and that passenger was dr. sam kendrue. "how do you do, dr. sam kendrue?" said solvei. "how do _you_ do, miss solvei kjelland?" grinned doctor kendrue. with more agility than one might have dared to hope for from one who boasted so much winter in his blood, the young doctor snatched up his valise, jumped down into the wrangle boat and pushed off. to avoid running into a sunken rowboat and a floating snag, solvei was compelled to start her engine, and turn sharply out to sea. "where then is your mrs. kendrue?" she called a bit breathlessly above the lap of wind and water. "it is my mrs. kendrue that i have come to get!" said the young doctor. with a little oil can poised abruptly in midair, solvei opened the same old bewildered blue eyes at him. "oh, no," she hastened to disillusion him. "your mrs. kendrue is not yet on our island." "no, of course she isn't," laughed the young doctor. "and there's a jolly good reason why, and the reason is--because she's right here in the boat!" "what?" stammered solvei. with frenzied haste she began very suddenly to oil everything in reach. "what?" she repeated vaguely. "i mean just what i say," said the young doctor, and made a slight move as of one who would cross one cramped knee over the other. with all the joy of a foreigner easing his dictional panic with an idiom, solvei snatched out at the first phrase she could think of that had a familiar word in it. "sit down! you're rocking the boat!" she screamed. "silly!" said the young doctor. "i was once in a boat before!" quite wretchedly he began then and there to try and recover his old manner, the irony, the mocking. "really, miss kjelland," he ducked as a great cloud of spray went by him. "really miss kjelland, you're awfully rough with boats! oh, but solvei," he broke through again in spite of himself. "you understand what i'm trying to say, now don't you?" "no, i don't," said solvei kjelland with her great blue eyes staring straight ahead through the veil of her windblown hair at some far focal point just over the wrangle boat's prancing bow. once again a great cloud of spray missed the young doctor by the width only of his dodge. "and how is it then about mrs. kendrue's mrs. kendrue?" asked solvei quite suddenly out of the gusty sky. "oh!" said the young doctor with the most surprising revival of cheerfulness. "why--why she's gone on down to investigate her new duck blind with the rest of her party. there's a tenor, it seems, who is rather,--well, contenting. you could hardly use any other word with her, she's so awfully inexpressive. anyway it's a diverting friendship for her, though whether the tenor can hit a high duck as niftily as he can hit a high note, remains of course to be seen." "s-o?" said solvei with indifferent interest. "and is the piano well?" "oh, fairly well," conceded the young doctor. "but if ever i saw a piano that needed a mother's care! i had to board it out, you know?" "s-o?" crooned solvei's sweet low voice. it was astonishing though how soon the sea calmed down after that. at least there was no more spray. skirting round at last along the sunny sheltered side of the little island instead of splashing boldly up to the regular landing as was her usual custom, it seemed indeed as though solvei was suddenly trying to feed out serenity to the man before her. the floating gray moss of the live-oak trees was certainly serene, the twitter of birds, the soft, warm drone of insect. without an interrupting word she drove the boat's nose into a roughly improvised harbor of floating logs and a raft, jumped out upon the raft and beckoned the young doctor to follow her. but at the first soft-padded thud of his foot on the turf it was the young doctor himself who broke the vocal silence. "oh, but solvei!" he protested. "you've got to know that you are the only mrs. kendrue that i want!" "s-o?" queried solvei, glancing back with a vaguely skeptical smile across her blue jersey shoulder. "oh, of course," admitted the young doc tor, "just right away at the very first i didn't know it perhaps. you were so--so,--well, so sort of unusual," he flushed, "and so awfully independent! about the adventure and the little widow and everything, you made it so perfectly plain you didn't need me that it wasn't till you'd actually gone that i half woke up to the fact how much i needed you! why, solvei, after you ran away the city was like a gray fog with no light in it, no laughter, no anything! the days were a week long, the nights, a month! is it any wonder that i should feel as though i'd loved you for almost ever and ever? why, if it hadn't been for my work, and the knowledge that work and work only could bring me to you--? oh, i know it's awfully sudden and everything!" he persisted desperately. "but why people prate so everlastingly about 'love at first sight' and never make any talk at all about 'love at first absence'! solvei you've simply got to understand!" he cried out. in her few steps lead of him the girl stopped suddenly and turned around. "but of what good is it that i should understand?" she asked with a little appealing gesture of her hands. "in my far norway is it not that i have still the cause of the little brother? and here?" she puzzled, "how could i yet leave elizabeth?" "elizabeth?" questioned the young doctor. "mrs. tome gallien," explained the girl. "elizabeth?" repeated the young doctor with increasing astonishment. "you mean you are such friends as that?" "yes," nodded the girl. "i am such friends as that." across the lovely earnestness of her face sun and shadow flickered intermittently. softly her blue eyes brooded. her bright gold hair was like a flame. in all that sunny, singing island there was no radiance like her unless perhaps it was the blue bird who flashed through the gray moss just beyond her. "i cannot leave the little brother," she said. "nor can i leave the elizabeth." as though kindled by the spring's own sweet her whole musing face flamed suddenly with joy. "nor yet.--i am so greedy!" she cried, "_nor yet can i leave you_!" all unbeknown then to mrs. tome gallien or even to martha, they crept up the stairs at last to mrs. tome gallien's room, where with the poor young doctor relegated ignominiously behind her, solvei chose for her own whimsical purposes to make her dramatic entrance. "good afternoon to you, then, elizabeth!" she hailed casually to the impatient sick woman on the bed. "this of a surety is 'one time when meadows, groves, also streams, to me--did seems a--apparelled in celestial lightings!'" "what?" gasped mrs. tome gallien. "why, what makes your cheeks so red?" she demanded suddenly. "i got kissed again," said solvei. "what?" snapped mrs. tom gallien. "they did not come," said solvei. "no such kendrues combination as you suggested. nothing came!" said solvei. "except just one big package for me!" "for you?" frowned mrs. tome gallien. "for me!" shrugged solvei. "and though it should be hard yet to tell just what livings it shall lead to--it shall at least lead to much lovings." "what?" puzzled mrs. tome gallien. "this is it!" said solvei, and dragged the young doctor into the room. "_what_?" screamed mrs. tome gallien. "it is for _me_! you understand?" beamed the girl. in the convulsive laughter that overtook the young doctor he did not at the moment notice mrs. tome gallien's face. but there was no laughter of any kind in mrs. tome gallien's face, only shock, and a most furious rage. "so it is thus you have been deceiving me?" she cried out to solvei. "all this time that you knew what my heart was fixed on, my hopes, my everything! all this time that you have been here a guest in my house! and quite safe i supposed from any such----" "oh, now really, mrs. gallien!" interposed the young doctor's grimmest, sternest voice. "oh, of what a nonsense!" laughed solvei. "there is no blames anywhere--unless it should be to this montessori theory! out of the whole wide world is it not that a child must gravitate to his own wantings? it cannot be chosen for him?" then with all the young laughter gone from her face she reached out her slim brown hand to the young doctor's reassuring clasp and led him to the bed. "elizabeth," she said. "you are rich and you are sick and you are sometimes very cross. but you cannot buy the loving! here then are two children who would love you all your life long--all their lives long. if you thus furiously so refuse the gift, who then is the stingy receiver?" "what?" stammered mrs. tome gallien. "what?" across her haggard, rage-stricken face a smile of incredulous enlightenment flickered suddenly. "what?" she surrendered. "you--you--_rascals_!" and held out her aching arms to them. [illustration: "what's the matter?" said charlie. "a great, horrid green worm," said i. page 53. _miss elliot's girls._] miss elliot's girls stories of beasts, birds, and butterflies by mrs. mary spring corning [illustration] a.l. burt company, publishers new york copyright 1886, by congregational sunday-school and publishing society. chapter i. greeny, blacky, and sly-boots. sammy ray was running by the parsonage one day when miss ruth called to him. she was sitting in the vine-shaded porch, and there was a crutch leaning against her chair. "sammy," she said, "isn't there a field of tobacco near where you live?" "yes'm; two of 'em." "to-morrow morning look among the tobacco plants and find me a large green worm. have you ever seen a tobacco worm?" sammy grinned. "i've killed more'n a hundred of 'em this summer," he said. "pat heeley hires me to smash all i can find, 'cause they eat the tobacco." "well, bring one carefully to me on the leaf where he is feeding; the largest one you can find." before breakfast the next morning ruth elliot had her first sight of a tobacco worm. "take care!" said sammy, "or he'll spit tobacco juice on you. see that horn on his tail? when you want to kill him, you jest catch hold this way, and"-"but i don't want to kill him," she said. "i want to keep him in this nice little house i have got ready for him, and give him all the tobacco he can eat. will you bring me a fresh leaf every, morning?" while she was speaking she had put the worm in a box with a cover of pink netting. on his way home sammy met roy tyler, and told him (as a secret) that the lame lady at the minister's house kept worms, and would pay two cents a head for tobacco worms. "anyway," said sammy, "that's what she paid me." if there was money to be got in the tobacco-worm business, roy wanted a share in it; and before night he brought to miss ruth, in an old tin basin, eight worms of various sizes, from a tiny baby worm just hatched, to a great, ugly creature, jet black, and spotted and barred with yellow. the black worm miss ruth consented to keep, and roy, lifting him by his horn, dropped him on the green worm's back. "now you have a blacky and a greeny," the boy said; and by these names they were called. roy and sammy came together the next morning, and watched the worms at their breakfast. "how they eat!" said sammy; "they make their great jaws go like a couple of old tobacco-chewers." "yes; and if they lived on bread and butter 't would cost a lot to feed 'em, wouldn't it?" said roy. "look at my woodbine worm, boys," miss ruth said, as she lifted the cover of another box. "isn't he a beauty? see the delicate green, shaded to white, on his back, and that row of spots down his sides looking like buttons! i call him sly-boots, because he has a trick of hiding under the leaves. he used to have a horn on his tail like the tobacco worms." "where that spot is, that looks like an eye?" "yes; and one day he ate nothing and hid himself away, and looked so strangely that i thought he was going to die; but the next morning he appeared in this beautiful new coat." "how funny! say, what is he going to turn into?" but miss ruth was busy house-cleaning. first she turned out her tenants. they were at breakfast; but they took their food with them, and did not mind. then she tipped their house upside down, and brushed out every stick and stem and bit of leaf, spread thick brown paper on the floor, and put back greeny and blacky snug and comfortable. the next time sammy and roy met at the parsonage, three flower-pots of moist sand stood in a row under the bench. "winter quarters," miss ruth explained when she saw the boys looking at them; "and it's about time for my tenants to move in. greeny and blacky have stopped eating, and sly-boots is turning pale." "a worm turn pale!" "yes, indeed; look at him." it was quite true; the green on his back had changed to gray-white, and his pretty spots were fading. "he looks awfully; is he going to die?" "yes--and no. come this afternoon and see what will happen." but when they came, blacky and sly-boots were not to be seen. their summer residence, empty and uncovered, stood out in the sun, and two of the flower-pots were covered with netting. "i couldn't keep them, boys," miss ruth said; "they were in such haste to be gone. only greeny is above ground." greeny was in his flower-pot. he was creeping slowly round and round, now and then stretching his long neck over the edge, but not trying to get out. soon he began to burrow. straight down, head first, he went into the ground. now he was half under, now three quarters, now only the end of his tail and the tip of his horn could be seen. when he was quite gone, sammy drew a long breath and roy said, "i swanny!" "how long will he have to stay down there?" "all winter, roy." "poor fellow!" "happy fellow! _i_ say. why, he has done being a worm. his creeping days are over. he has only to lie snug and quiet under the ground a while; then wake and come up to the sunshine some bright morning with a new body and a pair of lovely wings to spread and fly away with." "why, it's like--it's like"-"what is it like, sammy?" "ain't it like _folks_, miss ruth?" grandma sings:- 'i'll take my wings and fly away in the morning,' "yes," she said; "it _is_ like folks." then glancing at her crutch, repeated, smiling: "in the morning." when the woodbine in the porch had turned red, and the maples in the door-yard yellow, the flower-pots were removed to the warm cellar, and one winter evening sammy ray wrote greeny's epitaph:- "a poor green worm, here i lie; but by-and-by i shall fly, ever so high, into the sky." he came often in the spring to ask if any thing had happened, and one day miss ruth took from a box and laid in his hand a shining brown chrysalis, with a curved handle. "what a funny little brown jug!" said sammy. "greeny is inside; close your hand gently and see if you feel him." "how cold!" said the boy; and then: "oh! oh! he _is_ alive, for he kicks!" in june greeny and blacky came out of their shells, but no one saw them do it, for it was in the night; but sly-boots was more obliging. one morning miss ruth heard a rustling, and lo! what looked like a great bug, with long, slender legs, was climbing to the top of the box. soon he hung by his feet to the netting, rested motionless a while, and then slowly, slowly unfolded his wings to the sun. they were brown and white and pink, beautifully shaded, and his body was covered with rings of brown satin. blacky and greeny were not so handsome. they had orange-spotted bodies, great wings of sober gray, and carried long flexible tubes curled like a watch-spring, that could be stretched out to suck honey from the flowers. at sunset miss ruth sent for the boys. she placed the uncovered box where the moths waited with folded wings, in the open window. up from the garden came a soft breeze sweet with the breath of the roses and petunias. there was a stir, a rustle, a waving of dusky wings, and the box was empty. so greeny and blacky and sly-boots "took their wings and flew away," and the boys saw them no more. chapter ii. the patchwork quilt society. the minister's wife came home from a meeting of the sewing society one afternoon quite discouraged. "only nine ladies present!" she said, "and very little accomplished; and the barrel promised to that poor missionary out west, before cold weather--i really don't see how it is to be done." "what work have you on hand?" miss ruth inquired. "we have just made a beginning," mrs. elliot answered with a sigh. "there's half a dozen fine shirts to make, and a pile of sheets and pillowcases, dresses and aprons for four little girls, table-cloths and towels to hem, and i know not what else. we always have sent a bed-quilt, but this barrel must go without it. it's a pity, too, for they need bedding." "why, so it is," said miss ruth. "susie,"--to a little girl sitting close beside her,--"why can't some of you girls get together one afternoon in the week and make a patchwork quilt to send in the barrel?" susie put her head on one side and considered. "where could we meet, aunt ruth?" "here in my room, susie, if mamma has no objection." "certainly not," mrs. elliot said; "but are you well enough to undertake it, ruth?" "yes, indeed, mary; i shall really enjoy it." "and would you cut out the blocks for us, and show us how to keep them from getting all _skewonical_, like the cradle-quilt i made for amelia adeline?" amelia adeline was susie's doll. "yes; and i could tell you stories while you were working. how would that do?" "why, it would be splendid!" said the little girl. "there comes mollie, i guess, by the noise. won't she be glad? say, mollie!--why, what a looking object!" this exclamation was called forth by the appearance of the little girl, who had been heard running at full speed the length of the piazza, and now presented herself at the door of miss ruth's room, her face flushed, her hair in the wildest confusion, and the skirt of her calico frock quite detached from the waist, hanging over her arm. "wasn't it lucky that the gathers ripped?" she cried, holding up the unlucky fragment. "if they hadn't, mamma, i should be hanging, head down, from the five-barred gate in the lower pasture, and no body to help me but the cows. you see, i set out to jump, and my skirt got caught in a nail on the post." "o mollie!" said her mother, "what made you climb the five-barred gate?" "'cause she's a big tom-boy," said lovina tibbs, who had come from the kitchen to call the family to supper. "ain't yer 'shamed of yerself, mary elliot?--a great girl like you, most ten years old, walkin' top o' rail fences and climbin' apple-trees in the low pastur'!" "no, i'm not!" said mollie, promptly. "hush, mollie," said mrs. elliot. "lovina, that will do. wash your face and hands, mollie, and make yourself decent to come to supper." an hour later, seated in the hammock, the girls discussed their aunt's plan. "we'll have the jones girls," said susie, "and grace tyler, and nellie dimock, she's such a dear little thing; and i suppose we must ask fan eldridge, because she lives next door, though i dread to have her come, she gets mad so easy; but mamma wouldn't like to have us leave her out; and then, let's see--oh! we'll ask florence austin, the new girl, you know." "would you?" said mollie, doubtfully. "we don't know her very well, and she dresses so fine and is kind of _citified_, you know. ar'n't you afraid she'll spoil the fun?" "no," said susie, decidedly. "mamma said we were to be good to her because she's a stranger; and i think she's nice, too--not a bit proud, though her father is so rich." "well," mollie assented, who, though thirteen months older than her sister, generally yielded to susie's better judgment; "let her come, then. that makes six besides us, and aunt ruth said half a dozen would be plenty. sue, i think it's going to be real jolly, don't you?" chapter iii. the story of dinah diamond. miss ruth elliot was the minister's sister. and two years before, when she came to live in the parsonage, an addition of two rooms was built for her on the ground floor because she was an invalid, and lame, and could not climb the stairs. they were pretty rooms, with soft carpets, pictures on the walls, and in the winter time the sun shining in all day at the south window and the glass door. in summer with this door wide open and the piazza cool and shady with woodbine and clematis, you would have agreed with the little girls who made up ruth elliot's sewing circle, that first wednesday afternoon, that they were "just lovely!" all were there--the jones' twins, ann eliza and eliza ann, tall girls as like each other as two peas and growing so fast one could always see where their gowns were let down; grace tyler with curly black hair and rosy cheeks; nellie dimock, a little dumpling of a girl with big blue eyes and a funny turned up nose; fannie eldridge, looking so sweet and smiling, you would not suspect she could be guilty of the fault susie had charged her with; and florence austin, whose father had lately purchased a house in green meadow, and with his family had come to live in the country. last of all, the minister's two little daughters, whom you have already met. ruth elliot was sitting at a table covered with piles of bright calico pieces cut and basted for sewing, and when each girl had received a block with all necessary directions for making it, needles were threaded, thimbles adjusted, and the patchwork quilt society was in full session. "now, aunt ruth," said susie, "you promised to tell us a story, you know." "yes; tell us about dinah diamond, please," said mollie. "you and susie have heard that story before, mollie." "that does not make a bit of difference, auntie. the stories we like best we have heard over and over again. besides, the other girls haven't heard it. come, aunt ruth, please begin." and so, while all sat industriously at work, ruth elliot related to the little girls the true story of dinah diamond. "when i was a little girl," she began, "i had a present from a neighbor of a black kitten. i carried her home in my apron, a little ball of black fur, with bright blue eyes that turned yellow as she got bigger, and a white spot on her breast shaped like a diamond. i remember she spit and clawed at me all the way home, and made frantic efforts to escape, and for a day or two was quite homesick and miserable; but she soon grew accustomed to her surroundings, and was so sprightly and playful that she became the pet of the house. "the first remarkable thing she did, was to set herself on fire with a kerosene lamp. we were sitting at supper one evening, when we heard a crash in the sitting-room, and rushing in, found the cloth that had covered the center table and a blazing lamp on the floor. it was the work of an instant for my father to raise a window, wrap the lamp in the table-cloth, and throw both into the street. this left the room in darkness, and i don't think the cause of the accident occured to any of us, till there rushed from under the sofa a little ball of fire that flew round and round the room at a most astonishing pace. "'oh, my kitten! my kitten!' i screamed. 'she's burning to death! catch her! catch her! put her out! throw cold water on her! oh, my poor, poor dinah!' and i began a wild chase in the darkness, weeping and wailing as i ran. the entire family joined in the pursuit. we tumbled over chairs and footstools. we ran into each other, and i remember my brother charlie and i bumped our heads together with a dreadful crash, but i think neither of us felt any pain. they called out to each other in the most excited tones: 'head her off there! corner her! you've got her! no, you haven't! there she goes! catch her! catch her!' while i kept up a wailing accompaniment, 'oh, my poor, precious dinah! my burned up dinah diamond,' etc. "well, my mother caught her at last in her apron and rolled her in the hearth rug till every vestige of fire was extinguished and then laid her in my lap. "don't laugh, mollie," said tenderhearted nellie dimock--"please don't laugh. i think it was dreadful. o miss ruth, was the poor little thing dead?" "no, indeed, nellie; and, wonderful to relate, she was very little hurt. we supposed her fine thick coat kept the fire from reaching her body, for we could discover no burns. her tongue was blistered where she had lapped the flame, and in her wild flight she had lamed one of her paws. of course her beauty was gone, and for a few weeks she was that deplorable looking object--a singed cat. but oh, what tears of joy i shed over her, and how i dosed her with catnip tea, and bathed her paw with arnica, and nursed and petted her till she was quite well again! my little brother walter ("that was my papa, you know," mollie whispered to her neighbor), who was only three years old, would stand by me while i was tending her, his chubby face twisted into a comical expression of sympathy, and say in pitying tones: 'there! there! poo-ittle dinah! i know all about it. how oo must huffer' (suffer). the dear little fellow had burned his finger not long before and remembered the smart. "i am sorry to say that the invalid received his expressions of sympathy in a very ungracious manner, spitting at him notwithstanding her sore tongue, and showing her claws in a threatening way if he tried to touch her. as fond as i was of dinah, i was soon obliged to admit that she had an unamiable disposition." "why, miss ruth, how funny!" said ann eliza jones. "i didn't know there was any difference in cats' dispositions." "indeed there is," miss ruth answered: "quite as much as in the dispositions of children, as any one will tell you who has raised a family of kittens. well, dinah made a quick recovery, and when her new coat was grown it was blacker and more silky than the old one. she was a handsome cat, not large, but beautifully formed, with a bright, intelligent face and great yellow eyes that changed color in different lights. she was devoted to me, and would let no one else touch her if she could help it, but allowed me to handle her as i pleased. i have tucked her in my pocket many a time when i went of an errand, and once i carried her to the prayer-meeting in my mother's muff. but she made a serious disturbance in the midst of the service by giving chase to a mouse, and i never repeated the experiment. "dinah was a famous hunter, and kept our own and the neighbors' premises clear of rats and mice, but never to my knowledge caught a chicken or a bird. she had a curious fancy for catching snakes, which she would kill with one bite in the back of the neck and then drag in triumph to the piazza or the kitchen, where she would keep guard over her prey and call for me till i appeared. i could never quite make her understand why she was not as deserving of praise as when she brought in a mole or a mouse; and as long as she lived she hunted for snakes, though after a while she stopped bringing them to the house. she made herself useful by chasing the neighbors' hens from the garden, and grew to be such a tyrant that she would not allow a dog or a cat to come about the place, but rushed out and attacked them in such a savage fashion that after one or two encounters they were glad to keep out of her way. "once i saw her put a flock of turkeys to flight. the leader at first resolved to stand his ground. he swelled and strutted and gobbled furiously, exactly as if he were saying, 'come on, you miserable little black object, you! i'll teach you to fight a fellow of my size. come on! come on!' dinah crouched low, and eyed her antagonist for a moment, then she made a spring, and when he saw the 'black object' flying toward him, every hair bristling, all eyes, and teeth, and claws, the old gobbler was scared half out of his senses, and made off as fast as his long legs would carry him, followed by his troop in the most admired disorder. "i was very proud of one feat of bravery dinah accomplished. one of our neighbors owned a large hunting dog and had frequently warned me that if my cat ever had the presumption to attack his dog, bruno would shake the breath out of her as easy as he could kill a rat. i was inwardly much alarmed at this threat, but i put on a bold front, and assured mr. dixon that dinah diamond always had come off best in a fight and i believed she always would, and the result justified my boast. "it happened that dinah had three little kittens hidden away in the wood-shed chamber, and you can imagine under these circumstances, when even the most timid animals are bold, how fierce such a cat as dinah would be. unfortunately for bruno he chose this time to rummage in the wood-shed for bones. we did not know how the attack began, but suppose dinah spied him from above, and made a flying leap, lighting most unexpectedly to him upon his back, for we heard one unearthly yell, and out rushed bruno with his unwelcome burden, her tail erect, her eyes two balls of fire, and every cruel claw, each one as sharp as a needle, buried deep in the poor dog's flesh. how he did yelp!--ki! ki! ki! ki! and how he ran, through the yard and the garden, clearing the fence at a bound, and taking a bee-line for home! half-way across the street, when dinah released her hold and slipped to the ground, he showed no disposition to revenge his wrongs, but with drooping ears and tail between his legs kept on his homeward way yelping as he ran. nor did he ever give my brave cat the opportunity to repeat the attack, for if he chanced to come to the house in his master's company, he always waited at a respectful distance outside the gate. "it would take too long to tell you all the wonderful things dinah did, but i am sure you all agree with me that she was a remarkable cat. she came out in a new character when i was ill with an attack of fever. she would not be kept from me. again and again she was driven from the room where i lay, but she would patiently watch her opportunity and steal in, and when my mother found that she was perfectly quiet and that it distressed me to have her shut out, she was allowed to remain. she would lie for hours at the foot of my bed watching me, hardly taking time to eat her meals, and giving up her dearly loved rambles out of doors to stay in my darkened room. i have thought some times if i had died then dinah would have died too of grief at my loss. but i didn't die; and when i was getting well we had the best of times, for i shared with her all the dainty dishes prepared for me, and every day gave her my undivided attention for hours. it was about this time that i composed some verses in her praise, half-printing and half-writing them on a sheet of foolscap paper. they ran thus:- 'who is it that i love so well? i love her more than words can tell. and who of all cats is the belle? my dinah. whose silky fur is dark as night? whose diamond is so snowy white? whose yellow eyes are big and bright? black dinah. who broke the lamp, and in the gloom a ball of fire flew round the room, and just escaped an awful doom? poor dinah. who, to defend her kittens twain, flew at big dogs with might and main, and scratched them till they howled with pain? brave dinah. who at the table takes her seat with all the family to eat, and picks up every scrap of meat? my dinah. who watched beside me every day, as on my feverish couch i lay, and whiled the tedious hours away? dear dinah. and when thou art no longer here, over thy grave i'll shed a tear, for thou to me wast very dear, black dinah.' "did you really used to set a chair for her at the table and let her eat with the folks?" fanny eldridge asked. "well, fannie, that statement must be taken with some allowance. occasionally when there was plenty of room she was allowed to sit by me, and i assure you she behaved with perfect propriety. i kept a fork on purpose for her, and when i held it out with a bit of meat on it she would guide it to her mouth with one paw and eat it as daintily as possible. i never knew her to drop a crumb on the carpet. indeed, i know several boys and girls whose table manners are not as good as dinah diamond's." "i suppose you mean me, auntie," said mollie. "mamma is always telling me i eat too fast, and i know i scatter the bread about sometimes when i'm in a hurry." "well, mollie," said miss ruth, laughing, "i was _not_ thinking of you, but if the coat fits, you may put it on." "what became of dinah at last, miss ruth?" "she made a sad end, fannie, for as she grew older her disposition got worse instead of better, until she became so cross and disagreeable that she hadn't a friend left but me. she would scratch and bite little children if they attempted to touch her, and was so cruel to one of her own kittens that we were raising to take her place--for she was too old and infirm to be a good mouser--that we were afraid she would kill the poor thing outright. one morning, after she had made an unusually savage attack on her son solomon, my mother said: 'we must have that cat killed, and the sooner the better. it isn't safe to keep such an ugly creature a day longer.' dinah was apparently fast asleep on her cushion in the corner of the kitchen lounge when these words were spoken. in a few minutes she jumped down, walked slowly across the room and out at the kitchen door, and we never saw her again." "why, how queer! what became of her?" "we never knew. we inquired in the neighborhood, and searched the barn and the wood-shed, and in every place we could think of where she would be likely to hide, but we could get no trace of her, and when weeks passed and she did not return we concluded that she was dead." "you don't think--_do_ you think, miss ruth, that she understood what was said and knew if she stayed she would have to be killed?" "_i_ do," said mollie, positively. "i'm sure of it!--and so the poor thing went off and drowned herself, or, maybe, died of a broken heart." "oh!" said nellie dimock, "poor dinah diamond!" "nonsense, mollie!" said susie elliot. "cats don't die of broken hearts." "she had been ailing for some days," miss ruth explained, "refusing her food and looking forlorn and miserable, and i am inclined to think instinct taught her that her end was near. you know wild animals creep away into some solitary place to die, and dinah had a drop or two of wild-cat blood in her veins. i fancy she hid herself in some hole under the barn and died there. it was a curious coincidence, that she should have chosen that particular time, just after her doom was pronounced, to take her departure. but what grieved me most was that, excepting myself, every member of the family rejoiced that she was dead. "poor dinah diamond! she was beautiful and clever, and constant and brave, but she lived unloved and died unlamented because of her bad temper." chapter iv. a swallow-tailed butterfly. "if i can't have the seat i want, i won't have any; and i think you are real mean, mollie elliot! i ain't coming here any more." these were the words miss ruth heard spoken in loud angry tones as she opened the door connecting her bedroom with the parlor, where the little girls were assembled, and caught a glimpse of an energetic figure in pink gingham running across the lawn that separated the minister's house from his next door neighbor. "now, auntie," said mollie, in answer to miss ruth's look of inquiry, "i am not in the least to blame. i'll leave it to the girls if i am. fan eldridge is so touchy! she came in a minute ago and nellie tyler happened to be sitting by me, and fan marched up to her and says, 'i'll take my seat if you please'; and i said, 'it's no more your seat than it is nellie's,' we don't have any particular seats, you know we don't, auntie, but sit just as it happens. well, she declared it was her seat because she had had it the last two afternoons, and i told nellie not to give up to her because she acted so hateful about it, and then she went off mad. i'm sure i don't care; if she chooses to stay away she can." "you don't quite mean that, mollie," her aunt said gravely. "the patchwork society can't afford to lose one of its members, certainly not for so small a difference as the choice of a seat. we must have fanny back, if i give up my seat to her. but come into this room, girls. i have something pretty to show you. softly! or you will frighten him away." there was a honeysuckle vine trained close to the window, in full bloom, and darting in and out among the flowers, taking a sip now and then from a honey-cup, or resting on a leaf or twig, was a large butterfly with black-velvet wings and spots and bands of blue and red and yellow. "o you beauty!" said miss ruth. "do you know, girls, of all the moths and butterflies i have raised from the larvã¦,--and i have had painted ladies, and luna moths, and one lovely cecropia which was the admiration of all beholders,--my favorite has always been the swallow-tailed? perhaps it was because he was my first love. i was no older than you, nellie, when, half curious and half disgusted, i held at arm's length on a bit of fennel-stalk, and dropped in an old ribbon-box aunt susan provided for the purpose, the great green worm that, after various stages of insect life, turned into just such a beautiful creature as you see flying about among the flowers. since then i have raised dozens of them." "i don't see how you could have any thing to do with worms," said eliza jones. "i hate them--the horrid, squirming things!" "so did i, eliza, till i studied into their ways and learned what wonderful things they can do; and now, i assure you, i have a high respect and admiration for them." "will you tell us about it?" florence asked. "i've always wanted to know just how worms turned into butterflies," "and i should like nothing better than to tell you," she answered. "'making butterflies,' as a dear little boy once defined my favorite occupation, and telling those who are interested in such things how they are made, is very delightful to me," "come, then, girls, hurry!" said nellie: "the sooner we get to work the sooner the story will begin. good-by, mr. swallow-tail,--i wonder what they call you so for,--we are going to hear all about you," but when they returned to the other room they found sammy ray and roy tyler on the piazza, close to the open door. roy beckoned to his sister, and they held a whispered conference during which the words, "you ask her," energetically spoken by roy, could be plainly heard by those inside. nellie turned presently, half laughing, but a little embarrassed. "the boys want to know if they can't come in," she said. "i tell them it's ridiculous for boys to attend a sewing society, but they won't go away till i've asked." here the boys stepped forward and took off their hats. their faces shone with the scrubbing with soap and water they had given them, and both had on clean collars. sammy dived in his trowsers pocket and brought out a couple of big brass thimbles and some needles stuck in a bit of flannel. "we are willing to help sew," said the boy, and bravely stood his ground, though all the girls laughed, and even miss ruth looked amused at the sight of these huge implements. "if we let you in at all, boys," she said, "it must be as guests. what do you say, girls? suppose we put it to vote. as many of you as are in favor of admitting samuel ray and roy tyler to the meeting of the patchwork quilt society, now in session, will please to signify it by raising the right hand." every hand was lifted. "it is a unanimous vote," she announced. "walk in, boys. one more chair, susie. now, then, are we ready?" but this was fated to be a day of interruptions, for while she was speaking the door opened and in walked lavina tibbs, bearing a plate piled high with something covered with a napkin. "miss elliot's compliments," she said, "and would the bed-quilt society accept some gingerbread for luncheon?" she set the plate on the table, removed the napkin with a flourish, and added on her own account:-"it's jest out of the oven, an' if it ain't good i don't know how to make soft gingerbread, that's all!" good? if you had inhaled its delicious odor, and seen its lovely brown crust and golden interior, you would have longed (as did every boy and girl in the room) to taste it directly; and, having tasted, you would have eaten your share to the last crumb. miss ruth gave susie a whispered direction, and the little girl brought from a corner cupboard a pile of pink-and-white china plates, and napkins with pink borders to correspond. the plates had belonged to miss ruth's grandmother, and were very valuable; but ruth elliot believed that nothing was too good to be used, and that the feast would be more enjoyable for being daintily served. but when all were helped, she still appeared to think some thing was wanting, and, after looking round the circle, her glance rested upon mollie. the little girl had been unusually quiet ever since her dispute with fannie, for she knew very well, though not a word of reproof had been spoken, that her aunt was not pleased with her. she dropped her eyes before miss ruth's gaze, and grew red in the face; then suddenly jumping up, she said:-"i'll go and ask fan eldridge to come back, shall i, auntie? and she may have any seat she likes; i'm sure i don't care." "yes, dear," miss ruth said, in the tone mollie loved best to hear, "and be quick, do! or the gingerbread will be cold." fannie was standing idly at the window looking toward the parsonage, already repenting of her hasty departure, when mollie rushed in. "come back, fan, do! we all want you to," she said. "mamma has sent in some hot gingerbread, and sam ray and roy tyler are there, and auntie is going to tell us about swallow-tailed butterflies, and she doesn't like to begin without you. come, now, do! and you may have my seat." the little girl needed no urging, but her mother interposed. "fannie was greatly to blame," mrs. eldridge said. "she has told me all about it, and i think she deserves to be punished by staying at home." "oh, but please, mrs. eldridge," said mollie, "let her off this time! it was my fault as well as hers, for you see i provoked her by answering back." "say you are sorry, fannie." "yes, truly, mamma, i am," said fannie, with tears in her eyes; "and i'll take any seat, or i'll stand up all the afternoon, if you'll only let me go, and i _will_ try to break myself of getting angry so easy; see if i don't!" on the strength of these promises mrs. eldridge gave her consent, and the little girls crossed the lawn hand-in-hand, in loving companionship. so harmony was restored in the society, and all ate their gingerbread with a relish. sammy and roy would have liked better to have munched their share on the piazza-steps, without plate or napkin. under the circumstances, however, they behaved very well; for, though roy took rather large mouthfuls, and sammy licked his fingers when he thought no one was looking, these were small delinquencies, and you will be glad to know that the girls were too well-bred to appear to notice. mollie, now fully restored to favor, was allowed to pass the finger-bowl, while susie collected the plates, distributed the work, and made every thing snug and tidy in the room. then miss ruth commenced the story of the swallow-tailed butterfly. "when i was ten years old, my brother charlie and i spent a summer with aunt susan, who lived in the old homestead some miles out of town. "one night after tea she sent us into the garden to gather some sprigs of fennel for her to take to prayer-meeting--all the old ladies in vernon took dill or fennel to evening meeting. i had just put my hand to the fennel-bush when i drew it back with a scream. "'what's the matter?' said charlie. "'a great, horrid green worm,' said i. 'i almost touched it!' "'here, let me smash him!' said charlie; 'where is he?' "'oh, don't touch him!' i cried; 'he might bite you. oh, dear, i hate worms! i wonder what they were made for!' "'that kind was made to turn into butterflies,' said tim rhodes. "tim was working aunt susan's garden on shares that summer, and had heard all we said, for he was weeding the onion-bed close by. "'what, that fellow!' said charlie; 'will he turn into a butterfly?' and we both of us looked at the caterpillar. he was about as long and as thick as my little finger, of a bright leafy green, with black-velvet rings dotted with orange at even distances along his body. he lay at full length on a fennel-stalk, and seemed to be asleep; but when charlie touched him with a little stick, instantly there shot out of his head a pair of orange-colored horns, and the air was full of the pungent odor of fennel. "'it smells like prayer-meeting,' said charlie, and ran off to play; but i wanted further information. "'mr. rhodes,' said i, 'how do you know this kind of worm makes butterflies?' "'because i've seen 'em do it, child. if you should put that fellow now in a box with some holes in the top, so as he could breathe, and give him plenty of fresh fennel to eat, in a week (or less time if he's full grown) he'll wind himself up, and after a spell he'll hatch out a butterfly--a pretty one, too, i tell you,' "'i mean to try it,' i said; and i ran to the house and aunt susan gave me an old ribbon-box, and mr. rhodes punched a few holes in the cover with his pocket-knife; and after a little hesitation i picked the fennel-stalk with the worm on it, and laid it carefully in the box, making sure that the cover was tight. the box was then taken to the house and deposited on a bench in the porch, for aunt susan objected to entertaining this new boarder indoors. "i gave my worm his breakfast the next morning before i had my own, and, forgetting my aversion, sat by the open box and watched him eat, as his strong jaws made clean work with leaf and stem. "'he isn't so ugly, after all, charlie,' i said; 'he is almost handsome for a worm, with all those bright colors on him,' "then charlie caught a little of my enthusiasm, and said _he_ meant to keep a worm too. so he searched the fennel-bush and found three, and tumbled them unceremoniously into the box. "'now they'll have good times together,' said he; 'that fellow was awful lonesome shut up by himself,' "at aunt susan's suggestion i improved my worm-house by removing the top of the box and stretching mosquito-netting across, fastening it securely along the edges lest my prisoners should escape. and it was well i took this precaution; for, though for several days they made no attempt to get away, and seemed to do nothing but eat and sleep, one morning i found my largest and handsomest worm in a very disturbed and restless condition. he was making frantic efforts to escape. up and down, round and round, over and under his companions, who were still quietly feeding, without a moment's pause, he was pushing his way. i watched him till i was tired; but when i left him he was still on his travels. "in the afternoon, however, he had settled himself half-way up the side of his house. his head was moving slowly from side to side, and a fine white thread was coming out of his mouth. when i looked again he had fastened himself to the box by the tip of his tail and by a loop of fine silk passing round the upper part of his body. there he hung motionless two, three, almost four, days. the green and orange and black faded little by little, his body shrank to half its size, and he looked withered, unsightly, dead. i thought he _was_ dead; but tim rhodes (who all along had shown a friendly interest in my pursuit) took a look at my poor dead worm,' and pronounced him all right. "'keep a watch on him this afternoon,' said tim,' and you'll see something queer,' "so we did; and aunt susan was summoned to the porch by the news that 'the worm had split in the back and was coming out of his skin.' by the time she had got on her glasses and was ready to witness this wonderful sight, it was over. a heap of dried skin lay in the bottom of the box, and a pretty chrysalis of a delicate green color hung in place of the worm. "'o auntie!' said charlie, 'you ought to have seen him twist and squirm and make the split in his back bigger and bigger till it burst open and tumbled off, just as a boy wriggles out of a tight coat, you know!' "after this came three weeks of waiting, during which the green chrysalis turned gray and hard and the other worms, one by one, went through the same changes, until four gray chrysalis were fastened to the sides of the box. "every day i looked, but nothing happened, until it seemed to me, tired of waiting, that nothing ever _would_ happen. but one bright morning i forgot all my weariness when i found, clinging to the netting, a beautiful creature like the one we saw on the honeysuckle this afternoon, with a slender black body and wings spotted with yellow and scarlet and lovely blue. when i opened the box he didn't try to fly. he was weak and trembling, and his wings were damp, but every moment they grew larger and his colors brighter in the sunshine. "while charlie and i stood watching him, we discussed, in our own way, a problem that has puzzled wiser heads than ours--how three distinct individuals (the worm, the chrysalis, and the butterfly) could be one and the same creature, and how from a low-born worm that groveled and crawled could be born this bright ethereal being--all light and beauty and color--that seemed fitted only for the sky. "aunt susan listened to our talk a while and then repeated a text of scripture:-"'who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body?'" "while we talked the butterfly grew stronger and more beautiful, until at last, spreading his wings to their widest extent, he darted high into the air and we lost him. but from the day i took the green worm from the fennel-bush in aunt susan's garden i date my introduction to a delightful study which i have followed all my life as i have found opportunity. so you see it is no wonder i am fond of the swallow-tailed butterfly; and i have another reason, for once on a time i tamed one so that it sucked honey from my finger." "auntie, you are joking!" "indeed, no. it was a poor little waif which, mistaking chimney heat for warm spring weather, hatched himself out of season, and whose life i prolonged by providing him with food." "the dear little thing! tell us about it, please." "well, i had put away some chrysalids for the winter in a closet in my sleeping-room, and one day my nurse--i was ill at the time--heard a rustling in the box where they lay and brought it to me for investigation; and, behold! when i opened it there was a full-grown swallow-tail, who, waking too soon from his winter's nap, left the soft bed of cotton where his companions lay sleeping side by side and, wide awake and ready to fly, was impatiently waiting for some one to let him out into the sunshine. "but the march sunshine was fitful and pale, and the cold wind would have chilled him to death before night; so we resolved to keep him indoors. we gave him the liberty of the room, and he fluttered about the plants in the window, now and then taking a flight to the ceiling, where, i am sorry to say, he bruised his delicate wings; but he seemed to learn wisdom by experience, for after a while he contented himself with a lower flight. every day my bed was wheeled close to the window, and i amused myself for hours watching my pretty visitor. he would greedily suck a drop of honey, diluted with water, from the leaf of a plant or from the end of my finger, and by sight or smell, perhaps by both senses, soon learned where to go for his dinner. "and so he lived and thrived for a fortnight, and i had hopes of keeping him till spring; but one cold night the furnace fire went out, and in the morning my pretty swallow-tail lay dead on the window-sill. wasn't it a pity? "oh," said florence, "i like to hear about butterflies! will you please tell us about some of the other kinds you have kept?" "tell us about that big fellow you said every body made a fuss over. ce-ce--i can't remember what you called him." "cecropia!" said susie, promptly. "yes, do, auntie! if you are not tired." if ruth elliot had been ever so weary i think she would have forgotten it at sight of the interested faces of her audience; but in fact she was not in the least tired, but was as pleased to tell as they were to listen to the story of the cecropia moth. "one day in november," she said, "a man who used to do odd jobs about the place for my father, and whom we always called josh,--his name was joshua wheeler,--left his work to bring to the house and put into my hand a queer-looking pod-shaped package firmly fastened to a stout twig. it was of a rusty gray color and looked as much like a thick wad of dirty brown paper as any thing i can think of. "'i found this 'ere cur'us lookin' thing,' he said, 'under a walnut-tree on the hill yonder, where i was rakin' up leaves--an', thinks i, there's some kind of a crittur stored away inside, an' miss ruth she's crazy arter bugs an' worms an' sich like varmints, an' mebbe she'd like to see what comes out o' this 'ere; so i've fetched it along.' "you may be sure i thanked him heartily and gave him a sixpence besides, which i am afraid went to buy tobacco. 'law, doctor, don't i know it?' josh used to reply when my father urged him to break off a habit that was making a shaky old man of him at sixty; 'don't i know it's a dretful bad habit; but then you see a body must have somethin' to be a-chawin' on.' "but what was in the brown package? that was the question i puzzled my brains over. i had never seen a cocoon in the least like it before, and i had no book on entomology to help me. with the point of a needle i carefully picked away the outer layer till i came to loose silken fibers that evidently were the covering of an inside case. whatever was there was snugly tucked away in a little inner chamber with the key inside, and i must wait with what patience i could command till he chose to open the door. "i kept my precious cocoon all winter in a cold, dry place; but when warm spring weather came it lay in state on my work-table, in a box lined with cotton, where i could watch it all day long. nothing happened till one bright day in june i heard a faint scratching inside the brown case. it grew louder and louder every moment. evidently my tenant was bestirring himself and, with intervals of rest, was scraping and tearing away his silken wrappings. presently an opening was made and out of this were poked two bushy legs with claws that held fast by the outside of his house, while the creature gradually pulled himself out. "first a head with horns; then a part of the body and two more legs; then, with one tremendous effort, he was free!--an odd beast of no particular color, looking exceedingly damp and disagreeable, with his fat chunky body and short legs, like an exaggerated bumble-bee, only not at all pretty. he was shaky on his legs and half tumbled from his box to the window-sill, along which he walked trembling till he came to the tassel of the shade, just within his reach. this he grabbed with all four claws, his wings hanging down. "'it's nothing but a homely old brown bug!' said my brother charlie, whom i had called to see the sight. "'no,' i said, "'it isn't a bug. i'm sure i don't know what it is,' "i was ready to cry with disappointment and vexation, for i had expected great things from my brown chrysalis. "the tassel was gently swaying with the weight of the clumsy creature, and in the warm sunshine which was gradually drying body and wings faint colors began to show--a dull red, a dash of white, a wavy band of gray, with patches of soft brown that began to look downy like feathers. every moment these colors grew more distinct and took new shapes. none of them were bright, but they were beautifully blended and the whole body was of the texture of the finest velvet. "but the wings! how can i describe to you how those thick, crumpled, unsightly appendages grew and grew, changing in color from a dingy black to a dark brown, with bands of gray and red? how the great white patches took distinct form, and some were dashed with red and bordered with black, and others eye-shaped with crescents of pale blue? it must have taken an hour for all this to come about--for the great wings to unfurl to their widest extent and the cecropia moth to show himself in all his beauty to our admiring gaze. "the whole family had gathered to see the show. my father lingered, hat and riding-whip in hand, though he had a round of twenty miles to make among his patients before night; and aunt susan, who was on a visit, stood peering through her spectacles, too much absorbed to notice black dinah taking a nap in her work-basket and the kitten making sad havoc with her knitting. josh was called in from the wood-shed, and, with his hat on the back of his head and hands deep in his pockets, gazed in silence. "'wal,' he said at length, 'if that don't beat all natur'! look at the size of that crittur, will you, and the hole he's jest crawled out of. why, he's as big as a full-grown bat, measures full seven inches across from wing to wing. wal, now, i'd gin consider'ble to know what's be'n goin' on for a spell back in that leetle house where he's passed his time; and i'll bet, doctor, with all your larnin', _you_ can't tell.'" chapter v. furry-purry becoming gold elsie. miss ruth found on her table the next wednesday afternoon a note very neatly and carefully written, which read as follows:- miss ruth,--will you please tell us another cat story, becaus i like them best. so does fannie eldridge she said so after you told worm stories. miss ruth i have named my black kitty after your dinah diamond, her last name has to be spot becaus her spot is not a diamond, this is from your friend. nellie dimock. "i hold in my hand," miss ruth said, when she had carefully perused this epistle, "a written request from two members of our society for another cat story. susie and mollie, have i any more cat stories worth telling?" "yes, indeed, auntie" said mollie. "don't you remember the pretty fairy story you used to tell us about the good little girl who saved a cat from being drowned by some bad boys, and carried her home? and she turned out to be a fairy cat and gave that girl every thing she wished for--cakes and candy, and a lovely pink silk frock packed in a nutshell for her to wear to the party?" "o mollie! that's too much of a baby story," said susie. "tell us about the musical cat who played the piano by walking over the keys, and all the people in the house thought it was a ghost." "yes, auntie; and the funny story of the cat and the parrot--how the parrot got stuck up to her knees in a pan of dough, and in her fright said over every thing she had learned to say: 'polly wants a cracker!' 'oh, my goodness' sakes alive!' 'get out, i say!' 'here's a row!' 'scat, you beast!' and so on;--and how the cat got her out." "these are old stories, girls, and you have told them for me." "our old cat jane," said eliza ann jones, "is a regular cheat. you see, she _would_ lie in grandma's chair. she used to jump in if grandma left it only for a minute; and grandma wouldn't know she was there, and two or three times sat right down on her. why, it was just awful, and scared poor grandma half to death. well, ma whipped the old cat every time she caught her in the chair, and we thought she was cured of the habit; but one day ma came into the room and there was nobody there but jane, and she was stretched on the rug and seemed to be fast asleep; but grandma's chair was rocking away all by itself. ma wondered what made the chair go, so she thought she'd watch. she left the door on a crack and peeped through, and as soon as the cat thought she was alone she jumped into the chair and settled herself for a nap; but when ma made a little noise, as if somebody were coming out, she hopped out and stretched herself on the rug and made believe she was fast asleep. 'twas her jumping out so quick that set the chair rocking. now, wasn't that cute?" "i never knew till the other day," said florence austin, "that cats scatter crumbs to attract the birds, and then watch for them and spring out on the poor things when they are feeding." "what a shame! i wouldn't keep a cat who played such a cruel trick," mollie said. "my dinah spot doesn't catch birds or chickens," said nellie dimock; "only mice." mrs. elliot had come in with a message to her sister while this talk went on, and had lingered to hear eliza's story of old jane. "girls," she said, "with your president's permission, i will tell you a story about a cat. it is curious, because it proves that a cat remembers and reasons much as a man or woman would in similar circumstances. susie and mollie, i have told it to you before, but you will not mind hearing it again. "when my brother charles was a young man he kept a bachelor establishment in the country, and with other pets owned a beautiful gray cat he had; brought with him from germany. she was very intelligent and docile, a great favorite with her master, and was allowed many privileges in the house. she came in and out through a small door cut in the side of the house which she opened and closed for herself. a chair was regularly placed for her at the table; she slept at the foot of my brother's bed, and perched herself on his shoulder when he took a stroll in the garden. she could distinguish the sound of his bell from any other in the house, and was greatly disturbed if the servant delayed in answering his call. "one summer my sister helen and her two boys were staying with charles, and in the midst of the visit he was called away on business, and was absent for several weeks. now, carl and teddy were dear little fellows, but full of mischief; and in their uncle's absence they so teased and tormented poor miess, taking advantage of her amiable disposition, that she was forced at length to keep out of their way. about a week before charles came home she had kittens, which she carefully hid behind a heavy book-case in the library. "the morning of his return he had the cat in his lap petting and caressing her as usual, and then went out for an hour. as soon as he was gone, pussy brought her kittens one by one from their hiding-place and laid them on the rug in the corner of the room where she had nursed and tended all her young families before. now she must have reasoned in this way: 'my good, kind master has come home, and those dreadful boys who have pinched my ears and tied things to my tail, and teased and frightened me almost to death, will be made to behave themselves. all danger to me and to my babies is over. why must the pretty dears be hidden away in that musty place? of course master wants to see them, and they are well worth looking at. the thing for me to do is to bring them out of that dark hole and put them where i always have put my kittens before.'" "wise old miess!" said mollie. "mamma, please tell the girls how she saved uncle's pet canary from a strange cat." "yes, dear. miess was so obedient and well trained that her master often trusted her in the room while he gave the bird his airing, and bobby became so accustomed to the cat's presence that he hopped fearlessly about the floor close to pussy's rug, and more than once lighted on her back; but one day your uncle discovered miess on the table with the bird in her mouth. for an instant he thought her cat nature had got the upper hand, and that bobby's last moment had come; then he discovered a strange cat in the room and knew that his good cat had saved the canary's life. as soon as the intruder was driven out, bobby fluttered away safe and sound." "wasn't that nice of miess, auntie?" said susie. "i have thought of a story for you to tell us this afternoon--the story of the barn-cat that wanted so much to become a house-cat. don't you remember that story you used to tell us long ago?" "oh, yes!" mollie said; "her name was furry-purry, and she lived with granny barebones, and there was tom--tom--some thing; what _was_ his name? tell us that, aunt ruth, do!" "isn't it open to the objection you made to mollie's choice a while ago, susie?" she asked. "i remember it went with 'the three bears' and 'old mother pig' and 'the little red hen.'" "no, auntie, i think not; it's different, somehow." "very well, then, if you are sure you haven't outgrown it." "is it a true story?" nellie dimock wanted to know. "it is made out of a true story, nellie. a young cat which was born and brought up in a barn became dissatisfied with her condition in life, and made up her mind to change it. she chose the house of a friend of mine for her future home, and presented herself every morning at the door, asking in a very earnest and humble way to be taken in. when driven away she went sadly and reluctantly, but in a few moments was back again waiting patiently, quietly, hour after hour, day after day. if noticed or spoken to, she gave a plaintive mew, looked cold and hungry, but showed no signs of discouragement. she didn't once try to steal into the house, as she might have done, but waited patiently for an invitation. "and when one morning she brought a mouse and laid it on the door-step, and looking up, seemed to say: 'kind lady, if you will take me for your cat, see what i will do for you,' my friend could no longer refuse. the door was opened, the long-wished-for invitation was given, and very soon the little barn-cat became the pet and plaything of the family. she proved a valuable family cat, and her descendants, to the fourth generation, are living in my friend's family to-day. "out of these materials i have dressed up the story of how furry-purry became gold elsie. "the door of the great house stood open and furry-purry looked in. "furry-purry was a small yellow cat striped down the back with a darker shade of the same color. her paws, the lower part of her body, and the spot on her breast were white. "this is what the little cat saw, looking through the open door into the great house:-"a pleasant room hung with pictures, the floor covered with a soft carpet, where all kinds of bright-colored flowers seemed to be growing, and, in the sunniest corner, lying in an arm-chair piled with cushions, a large tabby cat. "just then a gust of wind closed the door, and furry-purry ran round the house to the barn and remained all day hidden in her hole under the boards. "that night there was a storm, and several cats in the neighborhood crept into the barn for safety. there was old mrs. barebones, a cat with a bad cough, which was thought to be in a decline; tom skip-an'-jump, a sprightly young fellow with a tenor voice which he was fond of using on moonlight nights; and robber grim, a fierce, one-eyed creature--the pest of the neighborhood--with a great head and neck and flabby, hanging cheeks and bare spots on his tawny coat where the fur had been torn out in his fierce battles. "the thunder roared overhead and the lightning, shining through the cracks, played on the barn floor and showed the cats sitting gravely in a circle. only tom skip-an'-jump, who still kept his kittenish tricks, went frisking after his tail and turning somersaults in the hay. presently he tumbled over furry-purry and bit her ear. "'come, play!' said he: 'it's a jolly time for puss-in-the-corner.' "'tom,' said furry-purry, 'i never shall play again. i am very unhappy. i have seen mrs. tabitha velvetpaw lying on a silk cushion, while i make my bed in the hay. she walks on a lovely soft carpet, and i have only this barn floor. o tom, i want to be a house-cat.' "'a house-cat!' repeated tom disdainfully. 'they sleep all day. they get their tails pulled and their ears pinched by horrid monsters with only two legs to walk on, and nights--beautiful moonlight nights when we barn-cats are roaming the alleys and singing on the roofs and having a good time generally--they are locked in cellars and garrets and made to watch rat-holes. oh, no! not for tom.' "he was off with a whisk of his tail to the highest beam in the barn, looking down on them with the greenest of green eyes, and singing,- 'some love the home of a lazy drone, and a bed on a cushioned knee; but in wild free ways i will spend my days, and at night on the roofs i'll be. oh, 'tis my delight, on a moonlight night'-"'don't listen to him, my dear,' said mrs. barebones, the consumptive cat; 'he's a wild, thoughtless creature, quite inexperienced in the ways of the world. heed the counsels of one whose sands of life are almost run and who, before she goes to the land of cats, would fain warn a youthful friend and, if possible, avert her from her own sad fate. this racking cough (ugh! ugh!) and this distressing _cat_-arrh, (snuff! snuff!) with which you see me afflicted were brought on by the hardships and exposure incident to the life of a barn-cat: midnight rambles, my dear (ugh!), in frost and snow; days when not so much as a mouse's tail has passed my hungry jaws, and winter nights when my coat was too thin to keep out the cold. and all these sufferings, past and present, are in consequence of my being a barn-cat.' "'now, may the dogs get me, if i ever heard such a string of nonsense!' said robber grim. 'don't believe a word she says. she's an old granny. she's got the fidgets. she wants a dose of catnip-tea. don't believe tom skip-an'-jump, either. what does _he_ know about war? he never was shot at. look at me! i'm robber grim! i'm an old one, i am! i've got good blood in my veins. my great-grandfather was a catamount and his grandmother was a tiger-cat. i've been in a hundred battles. i've had one eye knocked out and an ear bit off. i left a piece of my tail in a trap. i've been scalded with hot water and peppered all over with shot. _i'll_ teach you how to get a living without being a house-cat. i hate houses and the people who live in them, and i do them all the mischief i can. i eat up their chickens and i suck their eggs. i climb in at the pantry window and skim their milk. once when the cook left the kitchen door open i snatched the beefsteak from the gridiron and made off with the family dinner. they hate me--they do. they've tried to kill me a dozen times; but i'm robber grim, ha! ha! and i've got nine lives!' "at this instant there came a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder that shook the barn to its foundations, and every cat fled in terror to its hole. "the next morning mrs. tabitha velvetpaw took a stroll round the garden and down the lane a little way, where the catnip grew. the ground was wet after the shower, and she was daintily picking her way along, very careful not to soil her beautiful feet, of which she was justly proud, when suddenly there glided from behind a tree and stood directly in her path a small yellow cat. "'oh, my paws and whiskers!' exclaimed mrs. tabitha, surprised out of her usual dignity. "'if you please,' said furry-purry,--for it was she,--'i have made bold to come out and meet you to ask your advice. i am a poor little barn-cat, and i was contented with my lot till i saw you yesterday in your beautiful home; but now i feel that i was intended for a higher sphere. tell me--oh, tell me, mrs. velvetpaw, how i may become a house-cat!' "'well, did i ever!' said mrs. velvetpaw. 'the idea!' and she moved a step or two away from poor furry-purry, her manner, as well as her words, expressing astonishment and disdain. "'i know it seems presuming, mrs. velvetpaw, but'-"'presuming! i should say so. what is this generation of cats coming to, when a low creature reared in a barn--a paw-paw (pauper) cat, as i may say--dare lift her eyes to those so far above her?' "'i have heard my mother say "a cat may look at a king,"' said furry-purry. "'go away, you low-born creature! how dare you quote your mother to me? go away, this instant! i am ashamed to be seen talking with you! what if my friend mrs. silvercoat or major mouser should happen to pass! begone, i say! scat!' "'o mrs. tabitha,' said the poor little cat, 'don't send me away! i can't go back to that barn. indeed, indeed, after spending this short time in your company, i can never endure to live with tom skip-an'-jump and mrs. barebones and that horrid robber grim. if you refuse to help me i will go straight to growler's kennel. when he has worried me to death, won't you be sorry you drove me to such a fate? dear, dear mrs. velvetpaw, your face is kinder than your words. oh, pity the sorrows of a poor little cat!' "now, mrs. tabitha was not at heart an ill-natured puss; and when she saw furry-purry's imploring face, and listened to her eloquent appeal, she was moved with compassion. "'rather than see you go to the dogs,' said she, 'i will lend a paw to help you. but what can i do, you silly thing?' "'mrs. velvetpaw, you have lived a long time in this neighborhood?' "'all my life, yellow cat.' "'and you know every body?' "'if you mean in the first rank of society--yes. your barebones, and hop-an'-jumps, and creatures of that vulgar herd, are quite out of my _cat_egory.' "'perhaps you know of some house-cat dead or gone away?' "'and if i do?' "'you might put me in her place, you know.' "'yellow cat,' said mrs. tabitha, severely. "'if you please, my name is furry-purry.' "'well, furry-purry, then. your presumption can only be pardoned in consideration of your ignorance of the usages of society. house-cats, you must know, hold their position in families by hereditary descent. my place, for instance, was my mother's and my grandmother's before me. we are prepared by birth and education for the position we occupy. have you considered how utterly unfitted you are for the life to which you aspire? i am sorry to disappoint you, but i fear your hopes are vain. there is, indeed, a vacancy in the brick house opposite. cã¦sar--a venerable cat--died last week. he was much admired for his gentlemanly and dignified deportment. "who shall come after the king?"' "'i, mrs. tabitha, i'-"'you, indeed!' she interrupted, scornfully. "'oh, yes, if you will but condescend to give me instructions. i am quick to learn. the short time i have been so happy as to be in your company i have gained much knowledge. i am sure i can imitate the _mew_-sic of your voice. i know i can gently wave my tail, and touch my left whisker with my paw as you do. when i leave you i shall spend every moment till we meet again in practising your airs and graces, till i make them all my own. dear friend,--if you will let me call you so,--help me to king cã¦sar's place.' "there was much that was flattering to mrs. velvetpaw in this speech. "'well,' said she, 'i will see what can be done. there, go home now, and the first thing to be done is to make yourself perfectly clean. wash yourself twelve times in the day, from the end of your nose to the tip of your tail. take particular pains with your paws. a cat of refinement is known by the delicacy and cleanliness of her feet. farewell! after three days, meet me here again.' "you can imagine how faithfully furry-purry followed these directions--how with her sharp tongue she smoothed and stroked every hair of her pretty coat, and washed her face again and again with her wet paws. "'you are wretchedly thin!' mrs. tabitha said at their next meeting. 'that fault can only be remedied by a generous diet. you must look me full in the face when i talk to you. really, you have no need to be ashamed of your eyes, for they are decidedly bright and handsome. when you walk, don't bend your legs till your body almost touches the ground. that gives you a wretchedly hang-cat appearance. tread softly and daintily, but with dignity and grace of carriage. there must be other bad habits i have not mentioned.' "'i am afraid i spit sometimes.' "'don't do that--it is considered vulgar. don't bristle your tail. don't show your claws except to mice. keep such control over yourself as never to be surprised out of a dignified composure of manner.' "just here, without the slightest warning, there rushed from the thicket near them a large fierce-looking dog. up went mrs. velvetpaw's back in an arch. every hair of her body stood on end. sharp-pointed claws protruded from each velvet foot, and, hissing and spitting, she tumbled over furry-purry in her haste, and scrambled to the topmost branch of the pear-tree. the little cat followed, imitating her guide in every particular. as for the dog, which was in pursuit of game, he did not even look at them; and when he was out of sight they came down from the tree, mrs. tabitha descending with the dignified composure she had just recommended to her young friend. she made no allusion to her hurried ascent. "'to-morrow night,' said she, 'as soon as it is dark, meet me in the backyard of the brick house.' "half glad and half frightened, furry-purry walked by her side the next evening, delighting in the soft green turf of the yard and the sweet-smelling shrubs against which she ventured to rub herself as they passed. mrs. tabitha led her round the house to a piazza draped with clustering vines. "'come here to-morrow,' said she. 'walk boldly up the steps and seat yourself in full view of that window. look your prettiest--behave your best. assume a pensive expression of countenance, with your eyes uplifted--so. if you are driven away, go directly, but return. be strong, be brave, be persevering. now, my dear, i have done all i can for you, and i wish you good luck,' "the next morning a little girl living in the brick house, whose name was winnie gay, looked out of the dining-room window. "'come quick, mamma!' she called; 'here's a cat on our piazza--a little yellow cat, and she's looking right up at me. may i open the door?' "'no, indeed!' said mrs. gay; 'we want no strange cats here.' "'but she looks hungry, mamma. she has just opened her mouth at me without making a bit of noise. can't i give her a saucer of milk?' "'come away from the window, winnie, and don't notice her. you will only encourage her to come again. there, pussy, run away home; we can't have you here.' "'now, mamma, you have frightened her. see how she keeps looking back. i'm afraid you've hurt her feelings. dear little pussy! i wish i might call you back.' "furry-purry was not discouraged at this her first unsuccessful attempt. the child's blue eyes beamed a welcome, and the lady's face was gentle and kind. "'if i catch a mouse,' thought the cat, 'and bring it to them to show what i can do, perhaps i shall gain their favor.' then she put away all the fine airs and graces mrs. velvetpaw had taught her, and became the sly, supple, watchful creature nature had made her. by a hole in the granary she crouched and waited with unwearied patience one, two, almost three, hours. then she gave a sudden spring, there was one sharp little shriek from the victim, a snap of pussy's jaws, and her object was accomplished. she appeared again on the piazza, and, laying a dead mouse on the floor, crouched beside it in an attitude of perfect grace, and looked beseechingly in mrs. gay's face. "'well, you _are_ a pretty creature!' that lady said, 'with your soft white paws and yellow coat,' "'may i have her for my cat, mamma?' winnie said. 'i thought i never should love another cat when dear old cã¦sar died; but this little thing is such a beauty that i love her already. may i have her for mine?' "but while mrs. gay hesitated, furry-purry, who could not hear what they said, and who, to tell the truth, was in a great hurry to eat her mouse, ran off with it to the barn. the next morning, however, she came again, and mr. gay, who was waiting for his breakfast, was called to the window. "'my cat has come again, papa, with another mouse--a monstrous one, too.' "'that isn't a mouse,' mr. gay said, looking at the plump, silver-gray creature furry-purry carefully deposited on the piazza-floor. 'bless me! i believe it is that rascal of a mole that's gnawed my hyacinth and tulip bulbs. i offered the gardener's boy two dollars if he would catch the villain. to whom does that cat belong, winnie? she's worth her weight in gold.' "'i don't believe she belongs to anybody, papa; but i think she wants to belong to us, for she keeps coming and coming. _may_ i have her for mine? i am sure mamma will say yes if you are willing.' "'why not?' said he. 'run for a saucer of milk, and we will coax her in.' "we who are acquainted with furry-purry's private history know how little coaxing was needed. "as soon as the door was opened she walked in, and, laying the dead mole at mr. gay's feet, rubbed herself against his leg, purred gently, looked up into his face with her round bright eyes, and, in very expressive cat language, claimed him for her master. when he stooped to caress her, and praised and petted her for the good service she had rendered him, the happy creature rolled over and over on the soft carpet in an ecstasy of delight. "then winnie clapped her hands for joy. "'you are our own cat,' she said. 'you shall have sugar and cream to eat. you shall lie on cã¦sar's silk cushion; and because you are yellow, and papa says you are worth your weight in gold, your name shall be gold elsie,' "so furry-purry became a family cat. "the first time she met mrs. velvetpaw after this change in her life, that excellent tabby looked at her with evident admiration. "'how handsome you have grown!' said she; 'your eyes are topaz, your breast and paws are the softest velvet, your coat is spun gold. my dear, you are the belle of cats,' "'dear mrs. velvetpaw,' said gold elsie, 'my beauty and my prosperity i owe in large measure to you. but for your wise counsels i should still be a'-"'hush! don't speak the word. my dear, never again allude to your origin. it is a profound secret. you are received in the best society. mrs. silvercoat tells me it is reported that your master sought far and wide to find a worthy successor to king cã¦sar, and that he esteems himself specially fortunate in that, after great labor and expense, he procured _you_. the ignorance you sometimes exhibit of the customs of genteel society is attributed to your foreign breeding.' "'mrs. tabitha, i feel at times a strong desire to visit my old friends in the barn once more.' "'let me entreat you, my dear miss elsie, never again to think of it.' "'but there is poor mrs. barebones almost gone with a consumption. i should like to show her some kindness.' "'her sufferings are ended. she has passed to the land of cats,' "'poor mrs. barebones! and robber grim? do you happen to have heard any thing of him?' "silently mrs. tabitha beckoned her to follow, and, leading the way to the orchard, pointed to a sour-apple tree, where gold elsie beheld a ghastly sight. by a cord tied tightly about his neck, his jaws distended, his one eye starting from its socket, hung robber grim--stiff, motionless, dead. "they hurried away, and presently gold elsie timidly inquired after her former playmate, tom skip-an'-jump. "'don't, my dear!' said mrs. velvetpaw; 'really, i can not submit to be farther _cat_echized. if you are truly grateful to me, elsie, for the service i have rendered you, and wish to do me credit in the high position to which i have raised you, you must, you certainly must, break every tie that binds you to your former life.' "'i will, mrs. tabitha, i will,' said the little cat; and never again in mrs. velvetpaw's presence did she mention tom skip-an'-jump's name," "and didn't she ever see him again?" nellie dimock wanted to know. "i am sure there was no harm in tom." "well, but you know she couldn't go with _that set_ any more after she had got into good society," said mollie elliot. "mollie has caught mrs. velvetpaw's exact tone," said florence austin, at which all the girls laughed. "well, i don't care," mollie answered; "she was a nice little cat, and deserved all her good fortune." chapter vi. tommy tompkins' yellow dog. "i have a letter to read to you this afternoon, girls," said miss ruth; "also the story of a yellow dog. the letter is from a friend of mine who spends her summers in a quiet village in maine, in a fine old mansion overlooking green fields and a beautiful lake with hills sloping down to it on every side. here is the letter she wrote me last june:-"'we have come back again to our summer home--to the old house, the broad piazza, the high-backed chairs, and the blue china. the clump of cinnamon roses across the way is one mass of spicy bloom, and soon its fragrance will be mingled with that of new-mown hay. there is nothing new about the place but don quixote, the great handsome english mastiff. do you know the mastiff--his lion-like shape, his smooth, fawn-colored coat, his black nose, and kind, intelligent eyes, their light-hazel contrasting with the black markings around them? if you do, you must pardon this description. "'i am very fond of don, and he of me. he belongs to our cousin, whose house is but one field removed from ours; but he is here much of the time. he evidently feels that both houses are under his protection, and passes his nights between the two. often we hear his slow step as he paces the piazza round and round like a sentinel. he is only fifteen months old, and of course feels no older than a little dog, though he weighs one hundred and thirty pounds, and measures six feet from nose to tail. "'he can't understand why he isn't a lap-dog, and does climb our laps after his fashion, putting up one hind leg and resting his weight upon it with great satisfaction. we have good fun with him out of doors, where his puppyhood quite gets the better of his dignity, and he runs in circles and fetches mad bounds of pure glee. "'one day, lying in my hammock, with don on the piazza at my feet, i put his charms and virtues together in verses, and i send them to you as the most succinct account i can give of my new pet. as i conned them over, repeating them half-aloud, at the frequent mention of his name don raised his head with an intelligent and appreciative look. here are the verses. i call them dog-gerel. 'don! don! beautiful don! graceful and tall, with majestic mien, fawn-colored coat of the softest sheen, the stateliest dog that the sun shines on, beautiful don! don! don! frolicsome don! chasing your tail at a game of tag, dancing a jig with a kitchen rag, rearing and tearing, and all for fun, frolicsome don! don! don! affectionate don! looking your love with soft kind eyes, climbing our laps, quite forgetting your size; with kissing and coaxing you never are done, affectionate don! don! don! chivalrous don! stalking all night piazza and yard, sleepless and watchful, our sentinel guard, squire of dames is the name you have won, chivalrous don! don! don! devotional don! when the bible is opened you climb to your place, and listen with solemn, immovable face, nor frolic nor coax till the chapter is done, devotional don! don! don! wonderful don! devotional, faithful, affectionate one, if owning these virtues when only a pup, what will you be when you are grown up? wonderful don!' "and now by way of contrast," said miss ruth as she folded the letter, "i have a story to tell you of a poor little forlorn, homely, insignificant dog, of low birth and no breeding, which was picked up on the street by a boy i know, and which made for himself friends and a good home by seizing the first opportunity that offered to do his duty and protect the property of those who had taken him in. i have no doubt that don quixote, intelligent, faithful, kind, with not a drop of plebeian blood in his noble body, will fulfill all the expectations of his friends, and we shall hear of many a brave and gallant deed of his performing; but when you have heard what tommy tompkins has to tell, i think you will say that not even don quixote could have done himself more credit under the circumstances than tommy tompkins' yellow dog. "tommy shall tell the story as he told it to me:-"'yes, marm, he's my dog. his name's grip. my father paid five dollars for that dog. you look as if you thought he wasn't worth it; but i wouldn't take twice the money for him, not if you was to pay it over this minute. i know he ain't a handsome dog. i don't think yellow is a pretty color for a dog, do you? and i wish he had a little more of a tail. liz says he's cur-tailed (liz thinks it's smart to make puns), but he'll look a great deal better when his ear gets well and his hair grows out and covers the bare spots--don't you think so? but father says, "handsome is that handsome does," and nobody can say but that our dog did the handsome thing when he saved over two hundred dollars in money and all mother's silver spoons and lots of other things from being stolen--hey, grip? we call him grip 'cause he hung on to that fellow so till the policeman got in to take him. "'what fellow? why, the burglar, of course. didn't you read about it in the newspaper? there was a long piece published about it the day after it happened, with headings in big letters: "the house no. 35 wells avenue, residence of thomas tompkins, the well-known dealer in hardware, cutlery, etc., was entered last night by burglars. much valuable property saved through the courage and pluck of a small dog belonging to the family." they didn't get that part right, for he didn't belong to us then. you just wait, and i'll read the whole piece to you. i've got it somewhere in my pockets. you see, i cut it out of the paper to read to the boys at school. "'you'd rather i told you about it? well. lie down, grip! be quiet! can't you? he don't mean any thing by sniffing round your ankles in that way; anyhow, he won't catch hold unless i tell him to; but you see, ever since that night he wants to go for every strange man or woman that comes near the place. liz says "he's got burglars on the brain." "'i guess i'll begin at the beginning and tell you how i came by him. one night after school i'd been down to the steamboat landing on an errand for father, and along on river street there was a crowd of loafers round two dogs in a fight. this dog was one of 'em, and the other was a bulldog twice his size. the bulldog's master was looking on, without so much as trying to part 'em; but nobody was looking after the yellow dog: he didn't seem to have any master. well, i want to see fair play in every thing. it makes me mad to see a fellow thrash a boy half his size, or a big dog chew up a little one. so i steps up and says to the bulldog's master, "why don't you call off your dog?" but he only swore at me and told me to mind my own business. "'well, i know a trick or two about dogs, and i ran into a grocer's shop close by and got two cents' worth of snuff, and i let that bulldog have it all right in his face and eyes. of course he had to let go to sneeze; and i grabbed the yellow dog and ran. it was great fun. i could hear that dog sneezing and coughing, and his master yelling to me, but i never once held up or looked behind me till i was half-way up brooks street. "'then i set the yellow dog down on the sidewalk and looked him over. my! he's a beauty now to what he was then, for he's clean and well-fed and respectable looking; but then he was nothing but skin and bone, and covered all over with mud and dirt, and one ear was torn and one eye swelled shut, and he limped when he walked, and--well, never mind, old grip! you was all right inside, wasn't you? "'well, i never dreaded any thing more in all my life than taking that dog home. mother hates dogs. she never would have one in the house, though i've always wanted a dog of my own. i knew liz would call him a horrid little monster, and fred would poke fun at me--and, oh, dear! i'd rather have gone to the dentist's or taken a saturday-night scrub than go into that dining-room with grip at my heels. "'but it had to be done. they were all at supper, and mother took it just as i was afraid she would. if she only would have waited and let me tell how i came by the dog, i thought maybe she would have felt sorry for the poor thing; but she was in such a hurry to get his muddy feet off the dining-room carpet that she wouldn't listen to a single word i said, but kept saying, "turn him out! turn him out!" till i found it was no use, and i was just going to do as she said when father looked up from his supper, and says he: "let the boy tell his story, mother. where did you get the dog, tommy?" "'we were all surprised, for father hardly ever interfered with mother about us children--he's so taken up with business, you know, he hasn't any time left for the family. but i was glad enough to tell him how i came by the dog; and he laughed, and said he didn't see any objection to my keeping him over night. i might give him some supper and tie him up in the shed-chamber, and in the morning he'd have him taken round to police-station c, where, if he wasn't claimed in four days, he'd be taken care of. "'i knew well enough how they'd take care of him at station c. they'd shoot him--that's what they do to stray dogs without any friends. but anyhow, i could keep him over night, for mother would think it was all right, now father had said so. so i took him to the shed-chamber and gave him a good supper,--how he did eat!--and i found an old mat for him to lie on, and got a basin of warm water and some soap, and washed him as clean as i could and rubbed him dry, and made him warm and comfortable: and he licking my hands and face and wagging his stump of a tail and thanking me for it as plain as though he could talk. "'but oh, how he hated to be tied up! fact is, he made such a fuss i stayed out there with him till past my bed-time; and when at last i had to go i left him howling and tugging at the string. well, i went to sleep, and, after a while, i woke up, and that dog was at it still. i could hear him howl just as plain, though the shed-chamber was at the back of the house, ever so far from my room. i knew mother hadn't come upstairs, for the gas was burning in the halls, as she always turned it off the last thing; and i thought to myself: "if she hears the dog when she comes up, maybe she'll put him out, and i never shall see him again." and before i knew what i was about i was running through the hall and the trunk-room, and so out into the shed. it was pitch dark out there, but i found my way to grip easy enough by the noise he made when he saw me; and it didn't take long to untie the string and catch him up and run back with him to my room. i knew he would be as still as a mouse in there with me. you were lonesome out there in the shed, weren't you, grip? "'what would mother say? well, you see, i meant to keep awake till she came upstairs and tell her all about it; but i was so tired i dropped asleep in a minute, and the first thing i knew i was dreaming that i was running up brooks street with grip in my arms, and the bull-dog close after us, and just as he was going to spring mother screamed, and somebody kept saying, "'st, boy! 'st, boy! stick to him, good dog! stick to him!" and then i woke up, and mother really was screaming, and 'twas fred who was saying, "stick to him! stick to him!" and the gas was lit in the hall, and there was a great noise and hubbub out there, and i rushed out, and there was a man on the floor and the yellow dog had him by the throat. father stood in the door-way with his pistol cocked, and he said in a quiet kind of way (just as father always speaks when he means business): "if you stir you are a dead man!" but i should like to know how he could stir with that grip on his throat! "'then there came a banging and ringing at our front door, and fred ran to open it, and in rushed our policeman--i mean the one that takes our street on his beat. he had heard the noise outside, you see, and, for a wonder, was on hand when he was wanted; and he just went for that fellow on the floor and clapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists as quick as you could turn your hand over; and when he got a look at him he says: "oh, it's you, bill long, is it? we've been wanting you for some time at the lodge (that was his name for the police-station). well, get up and come along!" "'but i called the dog off. "'we didn't one of us go to bed again that night. father and fred looked through the house, and father said it was the neatest piece of work in the burglary line he ever saw done--real professionals, they were. there was two of 'em. they'd taken plenty of time. the forks and the spoons and the two hundred dollars in money was all done up in neat packages, and they'd been through father's desk and the secretary drawers; and they'd had a lunch of cold chicken and mince-pie, and left the marks of their greasy hands on the best damask napkins bridget had ironed that day and left to air by the kitchen range. and then, you see, while one stayed below to keep watch, the other went up to finish the job; and he would have finished it, too, and both would have got away with all the things if it hadn't have been for that dog. look at him! will you? i believe he understands every word i say as well as you do. "'well, right at the door of father's room, grip took him. how did he lay the fellow on his back? we suppose he was creeping into the room on his hands and knees,--they often do, father says,--and the dog made a rush at him in front and gripped him in the throat, and the weight of the dog threw him backward; and once down, grip kept him there--see? "'next morning at breakfast father said: "tommy, how came the dog in the upper hall last night? i told you to tie him up in the shed-chamber." then i had to own up, and tell how i went late in the evening and brought him to my room because he howled so. i said i was real sorry, and father said he would try to forgive me, seeing it all turned out well, and if grip hadn't been there we should have lost so much money. and says i: "father, don't you mean to take him round to station c this morning?" "no, i don't," says father. then mother said she didn't know but she'd about as soon lose the silver as to keep such a dog as that in the house, and fred said if i must have a dog, why didn't father get me a black-and-tan terrier--"or a lovely pug," says liz; and between 'em they got me so stirred up i didn't know what to do. i said i didn't want a black-and-tan, and i'd throw a pug out of the window! and if nobody wanted to keep grip, we'd go off together somewhere and earn our living, and i guessed the next time burglars got into the house and carried off all the money and things because we weren't there to stop 'em, they'd be sorry they 'd treated us so. then i looked out of the window and winked hard to keep from crying. wasn't i a silly? "'for they were only teasing me, and every one of them wanted to keep grip. well, that's all. no, it isn't quite all either; for one morning a man came to the house and wanted to see father--horrid man with a red face and a squint in one eye. i remembered him right away. he was one of the crowd looking on at the dog-fight down in river street. he said he'd lost a dog, a very valuable dog, and he'd heard we'd got him. father asked what kind of a dog, and he said yellow, and went on describing our grip exactly, till i couldn't hold in another minute for fear father would let him have the dog. so i got round behind father's chair and whispered: "buy him, father! buy him!" "'fred called me a great goony, and said if i'd kept still father could have got the dog for half what he paid for him. just because fred is sixteen he thinks he knows every thing, and he's always lording it over me. he says i'll never make a business man--i ain't sharp enough. but i think five dollars is cheap enough for a dog that can tackle a burglar and scare off tramps and pedlars--don't you?'" chapter vii. one day in a model city. "i will tell you, to-day," said miss ruth, after the members of her society were quietly settled at their work, "about a race of little people who lived thousands and thousands of years ago. when the great trees were growing, out of which the coal we use was made, this race inhabited the earth as they do now in great numbers. we know this because their bodies are found perfectly preserved in pieces of coal and amber. amber, you know, is a kind of gum that drops from certain trees and hardens, becoming very transparent and of a pretty yellow color. it is supposed that the little creatures found imbedded in it came to their death in running up the trunks of these trees, their feet sticking in the soft gum, and drop by drop trickling down on them till they were fast imprisoned in a beautiful transparent tomb. "i remember seeing once at a museum a small black ant preserved in amber, and he looked so natural and lifelike, so like the ants we see running about to-day, that it was hard to realize that he came to his death so long, so very long ago; in fact, before this earth of ours was ready for the creation of man. what strange sights those little bead-eyes of his must have seen! "when our ancestors were rude barbarians, living in caves and in holes they dug in the ground, the little people dwelt in cities built with wonderful skill and ingenuity; and while our forefathers were leading a rude, selfish life,--herding together, it is true, but with no organized government or fixed principles of industry and good order, living each one for himself, the strong oppressing the weak,--the little folks were ruled by a strict civil and military code. they lived together as brethren, having all things in common--were temperate, cleanly, industrious, civilized. "well, there are plenty of their descendants living all about us to-day, and i want you to become better acquainted with them, for they are very wise and cunning in their ways. whenever you cross a meadow, or even when you are walking on the public road, unless you take heed to your steps, the chances are that you set your foot more than once on a little heap of loose sand that we call an ant-hill. the next time you discover the accident--i am sure you will not do it on purpose--wait a few moments and see what will happen. what you have done is to block up the main entrance to an underground city, sending a quantity of loose earth down the avenue, which the inhabitants must at great labor remove. "let us hope none of the little people were at that instant either leaving or entering the city by that gate, for if so, they were either killed outright or badly hurt. soon you will see one and another citizen pushing his way through the _dã©bris_, running wildly and excitedly about, as though greatly frightened and distressed at the state of things. then more carefully surveying the ruins, apparently consulting together as to what is best to be done, until, a plan of action having been devised and settled upon, if you wait long enough, you will see a band of workers in an orderly, systematic manner begin to repair the damage. all this happens every time you tread on an ant-hill. if a passing animal breaks down the embankment,--a horse or a cow,--of course the injury done is much greater. in such a case every worker in the city is put to hard labor till the streets are cleared, the houses rebuilt, and all traces of the disaster removed. "i am sure you will be interested to know what goes on from morning till night in one of these ant-cities, and i have written out on purpose to read to you this afternoon an account of one day's proceedings. i call my paper life in an ant-hill; or, one day in a model city. "at sunrise the doors and gates were opened, and every body was awake and stirring, from the queen in her palace to the servants who brought in the meals and kept things tidy about the houses; and then, in accordance with a good old custom handed down from generation to generation, the first thing every body did on getting out of bed was to take a bath. such a washing and scrubbing and sponging off and rubbing down as went on in every house, you can imagine. it made no difference what kind of work one was going about,--plastering, brick-laying, or digging of ditches,--like a sensible fellow, he went fresh and clean to it every day. "of course the queen-mother and the little princes and princesses, with a palace full of servants to wait on them, had all these offices of the toilet performed for them; but what do you think of common working folks going about from house to house to help each other wash up for the day? fancy having a neighbor step in bright and early to wash your face and hands for you, or give you a sponge-bath, or a nice dry rub! "after the wash came milking-time. now, all the cows were pastured outside the city, and the servants who had the care of them hurried off as fast as they could, because the milk was needed for breakfast, especially for the babies. a beautiful road led to the milking-ground, broad and level, and so clean and well kept that not a stick or stone or rut or mud-hole was to be found in it from beginning to end. and this was true of all the streets and avenues, lanes and alleys, about the city. "i don't know how they managed to keep them in such good condition--whether they appointed street commissioners or a committee on highways; but i wish those who have the care of the roads in greenmeadow would take a lesson from them, so that two little girls i know needn't be kept from church so many sundays in the spring because the mud is deep at the crossings. "but i must tell you about the cows. there were a great many of them quietly feeding in their pleasant pasture, and they were of several different kinds. i don't know by what names their masters called them, but i do know these gentle creatures were to them just what the pretty alderneys and durhams are to us, and that they were treated with all the kindness and consideration the wise farmer gives to his domestic animals. there was one kind, a little white cow with queer crooked horns and quite blind. these they made pets of, not putting them out to pasture with the rest of the herd, but allowing them to walk the streets and go in and out of the houses at their pleasure, treating them much as we treat our cats and dogs. "while the milking was going on, every cow was stroked and patted and gently caressed, and the good little creatures responded to this treatment by giving down their milk without a kick or a single toss of the horns. such nice milk as it was--as sweet and as rich as honey! and the babies who fed on it got as fat as little pigs. "by the time breakfast was over, the sun was well up, and all in the city went about the day's business. there was much building going on, for the place was densely populated and was growing rapidly. great blocks were rising, story upon story, every part going on at the same time, with halls and galleries and closets and winding staircases, all connected and leading into each other, after a curious and wonderful fashion. of course it took a great many workmen to construct these buildings--carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plasterers, besides architects and engineers; for the houses were all built on scientific principles, and there were under-ground passages to be built that required great skill and practical knowledge in their construction. "the mortar and bricks were made outside the city gates, and all day gangs of workers journeyed back and forth to bring in supplies. they were hurrying, bustling, busy, but in good order and at perfect understanding with each other. if one stopped to exchange greetings with an acquaintance, to hear a bit of gossip perhaps, or to tell the latest news, he would pick up his load in a great hurry and start off at a round trot, as though he meant to make up for lost time. more than one overburdened worker was eased of a part of his load, some good-natured comrade adding it to his own. thousands of bricks and as many loads of mortar were brought into the city by these industrious people every day, and their work was done quietly, thoroughly, and with wonderful quickness and precision. "all this while there was plenty of indoor work going on; and the queen's body-guard, the babies' nurses, the attendants on the princes and princesses, the waiters and tenders, the sweepers and cleaners--all were as busy as you please. it was a pretty sight to see the nurses bring the babies out-of-doors for a sun-bath. the plump little things--some of them wrapped in mantles of white or yellow silk, others with only their skins to cover them--were laid down in soft spots on the grass, where they were watched with the tenderest care by their foster-mothers. if they were hungry, they had but to open their mouths and there was plenty of food ready for them. if so much as a breath of wind stirred the grass, or a little cloud obscured the sun, every nurse snatched a baby and scampered back with it to the nursery, lest it should take cold. "at noon the queen, attended by her body-guard, made a royal progress through the city. she was of a portly presence, had pretty silky hair, and was dressed plainly in dark velvet. the little princesses wore ruffles and silk mantillas, of all the colors of the rainbow; but the queen-mother had far more important business to attend to than the adornment of her person, and in her self-devotion to her commonwealth had long ago, of her own free will, laid aside flounces and furbelows. what a good motherly body she was! and how devoted her subjects were to her! every-where she went she was followed by an admiring crowd. no home was too humble for her to enter, and under each roof she was received with the liveliest demonstrations of loyalty and delight. the happy people thronged about her. they skipped, they danced, they embraced each other in their joy. at times it was hard to restrain them within proper bounds of respect to the royal person; but the guard well understood their duties. they watched her every step, shielding and protecting her with respectful devotion. they formed a barrier about her when she rested, offered her refreshment at her first symptom of weariness, and presently conducted her in regal state back to the palace, hastening her progress at the last, that she might be spared the sight of a sad little cavalcade just then approaching the gate. "there had been an accident to the workers employed in excavating an under-ground road. a portion of the earth-works had caved in, and two unfortunates had been buried in the ruins. their companions, after hours of arduous and indefatigable labor, had succeeded in recovering the bodies, and were bringing them home for burial; while a third victim--still living, but grievously crushed and wounded--was borne tenderly along, with frequent stoppages by the way as his weakness required. a crowd of sympathizing neighbors and friends went out to meet the wonderful procession. strong, willing arms relieved the weary bearers of their burden, and the sufferer was conveyed to his home, where his poor body was cleansed, and a healing ointment of wonderful efficacy and power applied to his wounds. meanwhile the corpses were decently disposed outside the gates, awaiting burial; graves were prepared in the cemetery, and at sunset the funeral took place. "but the day was not to end with this sad ceremony; for at twilight a sentinel ran in with the glad news that two well-beloved citizens, sent on an embassy to a distant country, and who had remained so long away that they had been given up for dead, were returning: in fact, were at that moment coming up the avenue to the gate. then was there great rejoicing, the whole city turning out to welcome them; and the poor travelers, footsore and weary, and ready but now to lie down and die by the road-side, so spent were they by the perils and hardships they had undergone, suddenly found themselves within sight of home, surrounded by friends, companions, brothers, who embraced them rapturously, praising them for their fortitude and bravery, pitying their present weakness, caressing, cheering, comforting them. so they were brought in triumph back to their beloved city, where a banquet was prepared in honor of their return. "so general and engrossing was the interest felt in this event, that a public calamity had well-nigh followed. the attendants on the princes and princesses (usually most vigilant and faithful), in the excitement of the occasion, forgot their charge, and the young folks instantly seized the opportunity to rush out of the city by a side gate; and when they were discovered were half-way across the meadow, and making for the wood beyond. in this wood (very dark and dreary) great danger, possibly death, would have overtaken them; but the silly things, impatient of the wholesome restraint in which, by order of the government, they were held till they should arrive at years of discretion, thought only of gaining their freedom, and were pushing on at a great pace, frisking and frolicking together as they went. they were, however, seen in time to avert the catastrophe, speedily brought back to duty, and given decidedly, though respectfully, to understand that, though scions of a royal race, they were still to consider themselves under tutors and governors. "then all was quiet. the gates were closed, the good little people laid themselves down to sleep, the sentinels began their watch, and night settled down upon the peaceful city. presently the moon rose, lighting its single shapely dome, the deserted road lately trod-den by so many busy feet, and the dewy meadow where the cattle were resting. "and now i wish we might say goodnight to the simple, kindly people whose occupations we have followed for a day, leaving them in the assurance that many such days were to follow, and that they were long to enjoy the peace and prosperity they so richly deserved. how pleasant to think of them building their houses, tending their flocks, taking care of the little ones, waiting upon their good queen, in the practice of all those virtues that make a community happy and prosperous! but, alas! this very day the chieftains of a neighboring tribe had met and planned an assault upon this quiet city that was to result in great loss of property and life, and of that which to them was far more precious than either. "there was not the shadow of an excuse for the invasion. the hill people--a fierce, brave tribe, trained under a military government, and accustomed to fighting from their youth--had no quarrel with the citizens of the plain, who had no mind to fight with their neighbors or to interfere with any one's rights. but the hill people were slave-holders, and, whenever their establishments wanted replenishing, they sent out an army to attack some neighboring city; and if they gained the victory (as they were pretty sure to do, for they were a fierce, brave race), they would rush into every house in the city and carry off all the babies they could find, to be brought up as slaves. "and this is what they had planned to do to the pretty city lying asleep in the moonlight on a july evening. "they started about noon--a large body of infantry, making a fine show; for they wore polished armor as black as jet, that shone in the sun, and every one of them carried a murderous weapon. the advance guard was made up of the biggest and bravest, while the veterans, and the young soldiers who lacked experience, brought up the rear. "they had a long wearisome march across a rocky plain and up a steep hill. then there was a river to cross, and on the other side a stretch of desert land, where the hot sun beat upon their heads, and where it must have been hard to keep up the rapid pace at which they marched. but they pressed on, and woe to him who stumbled and fell! for not a soldier was allowed to stop an instant to help his fallen comrade. the whole army swept on and over him, and there was no straggling from the close ranks or resting for one instant till the day's journey was accomplished. "the last stage of the journey was through a dreary wood. here they were exposed to many unseen dangers. beasts of prey sprang out upon and devoured them. a big bird swooped down and carried aloft some poor wretch whose fate it was to fill the hungry maw of a baby bird. and many an unfortunate, getting entangled in a soft gray curtain of silk that hung across the path, struggled vainly to extricate himself, till the hairy monster which had woven the snare crept out of his den and cracked his bones and sucked the last drop of his blood. "it was night when, weary and dusty, the army reached the borders of the wood. but they forgot both their fatigue and their losses by the way when they saw before them in the middle of a green meadow, its dome glittering in the light of the setting sun, the pretty, prosperous city they had braved all these dangers to rob. "they rested that night, but were on the march soon after sunrise. a few rushed forward to surprise the sentinels on guard, while the main body of the army advanced more slowly, in solid phalanx, their brave coats-of-mail catching the early rays of the sun. "meanwhile the peaceful inhabitants, all unconscious of coming disaster, pursued their usual occupations--waiting on the queen-mother, milking the kine, building houses, cleaning the streets. then came the alarm: 'the foe is at the gate!' and you should have seen of what brave stuff the little folks were made; how each one left his occupation or dropped his implement of labor, and from palace, hall, and hut, ran out to defend the beloved city. only the queen's body-guard remained and a few of the nurses left in charge of the babies. "and it was wonderful to mark how their courage gave them strength. their assailants were of a taller, stronger race than they; but the little folks had the advantage in numbers, were quiet and light in their movements, and possessed a double portion of the bravery good patriots feel in the defence of the commonwealth. "they threw themselves face to face and limb to limb upon their assailants. with their living bodies they raised a wall across the track of the army, and, as they came once and again, and yet again, they drove them back. hundreds were slain at every onslaught, but hundreds instantly filled their places. there were plenty of single combats. one would throw himself upon his antagonist and cling there till he was cut in pieces and fell to the ground, and another and another would spring to take his place to meet the same fate. dozens fought together--heads, legs, and bodies intertwining in an indistinguishable mass, each held in a savage grip that only loosened in death. a dozen devoted themselves to certain death for the chance of killing a single antagonist. surely such desperate bravery, such generous heroism, deserved to gain a victory! "but there was a sudden rush, a break in the ranks, and, lo! the little people were running back to the city,--back in all haste,--if, by any possibility, they might save from the victor's clutch the treasures they prized most. but what availed their efforts? the enemy was close behind them, forcing their way through the main entrance and the side gates, till the whole army was pouring into the devoted city. "can you imagine the scene that followed? the queen-mother and the young princes and princesses were left undisturbed in their apartments, but into every other house in the city, the rude soldiers rushed, searching for the poor babies. many of them their nurses had hidden away, hoping that in the confusion their hiding-places would not be discovered; but the cunning fellows--old hands some of them at the business--seemed to know just where to look. hundreds and hundreds of little ones were captured that day. the faithful attendants clasped and clung to them, suffering themselves to be torn in pieces before giving them up, but the sacrifice was in vain. "the moon shone down that night upon a ghastly scene. the dead and dying strewed the ground, and the avenues leading to the city were choked with the slain. hundreds of homes were made desolate, that only the night before were full of peaceful content. "meanwhile, the conquering army, laden with spoils, after another difficult and toilsome journey had reached their home. the captive babies were consigned to the care of slaves, procured long ago in a similar way, and who, apparently contented and happy, for they knew no other life, devoted all their energies to the service of their captors. "well, it is an old story. ever since the world began the strong have oppressed the weak,--and ants or men, for greed or gold, will do their neighbors wrong." "well," said mollie, as miss ruth laid down the last sheet of her manuscript, "if you hadn't told us beforehand that it was ants you were going to read about i should certainly have thought they were people. don't they act for all the world just like folks? and who would ever think such little creatures could be so wise!" "what i want to know," said susie, "is, if the ant-cities are underground, how can any one see what goes on in them?" "that is easily managed," miss ruth answered. "a nest is taken up with a quantity of the earth that surrounds it, then it is cut down from the top--as you would halve a loaf of bread--and the divided parts are placed in glass cases made purposely to receive them. of course, the little people are greatly disturbed for a time, and no wonder; but they soon grow accustomed to the new surroundings and go on with their every-day employments as if nothing had happened. the sides of the case make a fine firm wall for their city; they are furnished with plenty of food and building material, and soon they can be seen busy at work clearing their streets, building houses, feeding the babies, and quite contented and happy in their glass city. if, after months of separation, an ant from one half of the divided nest should be put into the other he would be recognized at once and welcomed with joy; but if a stranger were introduced he would be attacked and probably killed." "we had a great time with the ants at our house last summer," said eliza jones: "little mites of red things, you know, and they _would_ get into the cake-chest and the sugar-bucket, and bothered ma so she had to keep all the sweet things on a table with its legs in basins of water. they couldn't get over that, you see." "why not?" mollie asked. "can't they swim?" "ours couldn't; lots of them fell in the water and were drowned." "ants are usually quite helpless in the water," miss ruth said, "though a french writer who has made the little folks a study, tells a story of six soldier ants who rescued their companions from drowning. he put his sugar-basin in a vessel of water, and several adventurous ants climbed to the ceiling and dropped into it. four missed their aim and fell outside the bowl in the water. their companions tried in vain to rescue them, then went away and presently returned accompanied by six grenadiers, stout fellows, who immediately swam to their relief, seized them with their pincers and brought them to land. three were apparently dead, but the faithful fellows licked and rubbed them quite dry, rolling them over and over, stretching themselves on them, and in a truly skillful and scientific manner sought to bring back life to their benumbed bodies. under this treatment three came to life, while one only partly restored was carefully borne away. 'i have seen it' is du pont de nervours's comment on what he thinks may be considered a marvelous story, though it seems no more wonderful to me than many well-attested facts in the lives of the little people." "it's all wonderful," susie said. "it seems as though they must think and reason and plan just as we do. don't you think so, auntie?" "indeed i do, susie. one who has long studied their ways ranks them next to man in the scale of intelligence, and says the brain of an ant--no larger perhaps than a fine grain of sand--must be the most wonderful particle of matter in the world." "but they can't talk, auntie?" "i am not so sure of that. their voices may be too fine and high-pitched for our great ears to hear. i fancy there is a deal of conversation carried on in the grass and the bushes and the trees, that we know nothing about." "how funny! what did you mean, auntie, when you said the queen laid off all her flounces and furbelows." "i was rather fancifully describing her wings, dear, which she takes off herself when she enters the nest, having no further use for them. there are three kinds of ants in every nest: perfect males and females, and the workers. there are many different races of ants, from the great white ant of africa--a terror to the natives, though in some respects his good friend--down to the little red-and-yellow meadow ants so common among us. the ants i have told you about, the rufians and the fuscans, are natives of america, and are found in new england. the big black ant so common here, sometimes called the jet ant, is a carpenter and a wood-carver. his great jaws bore through the hardest wood, and his pretty galleries and winding staircases penetrate through the beams and rafters of many an old mansion. not long ago i accidentally killed a carpenter ant, and in a few minutes a comrade appeared who slowly, and apparently with great labor and fatigue, bore away the body. i felt as though i were looking on at a funeral. "i wish i had time to tell you about the agricultural ant of texas, and the umbrella ants of florida, who cut bits of leaf from the orange-trees and march home with them in procession, holding each leaf in an upright position. fancy how odd they must look! but we have talked long enough for this time about the little people, and i am sure you all agree with king solomon that they are 'exceeding wise.'" "i never will step on an ant-hill again if i can possibly help it," said susie. "it's too bad to make those hard-working folks so much trouble. "and i mean to put my ear close down to the ground," said nellie dimock, "and listen and listen, so as to hear the ants talk to each other." chapter viii. the story of old star. "say, sam!" said roy tyler, as the two boys were driving old brindle home from pasture the next evening, "don't you wish she'd tell us some stories about horses? i'm tired of hearing about cats and ants." "well, i don't know," sammy answered; "'twas funny about old robber grim. there's just such an old cat round our barn, catchin' chickens and suckin' eggs. i've fired more rocks at that feller--hit him once in the hind leg an' he went off limpin'." "well, i want a horse story, and i know she'd just as soon tell one as not, if somebody would only ask her. those girls will be wantin' another cat story if we don't start something else. girls always do like cats," said roy, a little scornfully. "say, sam, you ask her, will you?" "why don't you ask her yourself?" "oh, i don't know. i tried to yesterday, but somehow i couldn't get it out." "well, i'll tell you what i will do," said good-natured sammy. "you come round to-night after i get my chores done up, and we'll go together and have it over with." "all right; i'll come," said roy. they found miss ruth alone, for it was thursday night and the minister's family were at the prayer-meeting. the september evening was chilly, and she was sitting before an open fire. "you do the talking," roy whispered at the door, and accordingly sammy, after fidgeting in his seat a little, opened the subject. "roy wants me to ask you," he began, and then stopped at a punch in the side from roy's knuckles, and began again: "me and roy would like--if it wouldn't be too much trouble, and you'd just as soon as not--to have you tell us a horse story next time." then in a loud whisper aside to roy: "you _did_ ask me! you know you did." "well, you needn't put it all on me, if i did," roy answered, in the same tone. miss ruth appeared not to notice this by-play. "a horse story," she said pleasantly; "yes, why not?" "you see," sammy continued, "we like to hear about cats well enough, and that ant battle was first-rate--i'd like to have seen it, i know; but roy, he says the girls might be writin' notes askin' you to tell more cat stories and--and--well"-"yes, i see," she said; "too much of a good thing. well, i will tell no more cat stories, and it shall be all horse next wednesday. will that suit you, sammy? and roy, do you like horses very much?" "yes, 'm," said roy, bashfully. "he says," said sammy, rather enjoying the office of spokesman, "when he grows up he means to have a fast trotter. i'd like to own a good horse myself," continued sam. "i know a boy about your age," said miss ruth, "whose father gave him, for a birthday present, a canadian pony; a funny looking little beast, not much larger than a big dog, but strong enough to carry double herbert's weight." "like the shetland ponies at the show?" "yes; but larger, and not so costly. he is a thick-set, shaggy fellow, always looking as if he were not half-groomed, with his coat all rough and tumbled, his legs covered with thick hair, his mane hanging on both sides of his neck, and his forelock always getting into his bright little eyes." "what color?" said roy. "dark brown; not handsome, but so affectionate and intelligent that you would love him dearly. he is as frolicsome as a kitten, and i laughed and laughed again to see him racing round the yard, hardly able to see for the shag of hair tumbling over his eyes, playing queer tricks and making uncouth gambols, more like a big puppy than a small horse. to be sure he has a will of his own, and has more than once--just for fun--thrown his young master over his head; but he always stands stock still till the boy is on his back again, and as herbert says: 'it is only a little way to fall from his back to the ground.'" "how fast will he go?" roy asked. "fast enough for a boy to ride. from five to seven miles an hour, perhaps, and keep it up all day, if need be, for the canadian horses have great strength and endurance. the last time i saw herbert he told me a pretty story about elf king." "is that his name?" "yes; isn't it a pretty name? elf for fairy, you know, and king for the head of the fairies. but perhaps i am keeping you, boys. is there any thing you ought to be doing at home?" "no, no!" both answered together, and sammy answered that he did up all his chores before he came away. "very well; then i will tell you about elf king's visit to the blacksmith." "instead of next wednesday?" "oh, dear, no! i have a long story for next wednesday. this is very short, and doesn't count; is just a little private entertainment thrown in on our own account." roy, who had all this time sat uncomfortably on the edge of his chair, settled back, and sammy made use of his favorite expression:-"all right!" "when elf king came into herbert's possession he had never been shod; but very soon he was taken to the village blacksmith and four funny little shoes fitted to his feet, which, when he was accustomed to, he liked very much. "one day the blacksmith saw the pony trotting up to his shop without a halter. he supposed the little thing had strayed from home, and drove him off, and when he refused to go, threw stones at him to make him run away. but in a few moments back he came again. when the blacksmith went out a second time to drive him off he noticed his feet and saw that one shoe was missing. so he made a shoe, the pony standing by, quietly waiting. when the new shoe was fitted elf king pawed two or three times to see if it felt comfortable, gave a pleased little neigh, as much as to say, 'yes, that's all right; thank you!' and started for home on a brisk trot. "think how surprised and pleased herbert was when he went to the stable to ride elf king to the blacksmith's, to find that the sharp little pony had taken the business into his own hands." "i tell you," said roy, "that's a horse worth having. what do you suppose that boy would take for him?" "more money than you could raise in a hurry," said sammy. "miss ruth, if you had a horse now that jibbed, would you lick him?" "that jibbed," she repeated doubtfully. "why, yes; stopped in the road, you know; wouldn't go." "oh, yes; now i understand. no, indeed, sammy! if i had a horse that--jibbed, i should be very patient with him and try to cure him of the bad habit by kindness. i should know that beating would make him worse." "well, that's what i think, and the other day pa and i were huskin' corn in the barn, and there was a horse jibbed on our hill, and the driver got down and licked him with the butt end of his whip, and kicked him with his great cowhide boots, and i asked pa if i might take out a measure of oats and see if i couldn't coax that horse to take his load up the hill--you see pa owned a jibber once and i knew how he used to manage him. and pa said i might, only i'd better look out or the fellow would use me as he was usin' the horse. but i wasn't afraid, for he was half-drunk, and i knew i could clip it faster'n he could. "well, sir, i went out there and i stood around a while, and says i, 'what'll you bet i can't get your horse to the top of the hill?' and he said he wouldn't bet a red cent. 'well,' says i,'will you let me try just for fun?' and he said, 'yes, i might try all day if i wanted to.' and i got him to stand one side, where the horse couldn't see him, and i went up to the horse's head and stroked his nose and gave him a handful of oats, just a little taste, you know, and when he was kind of calmed down i went a ways ahead holdin' out the measure of oats, and if that horse didn't follow me up that hill just as quiet as an old sheep, and the man he stood by and looked streaked, i tell you!" sammy told his story with considerable animation and some forcible gestures. "that was well done," said miss ruth, "and i hope the cruel fellow profited by the lesson you gave him. i don't think i'm naturally vindictive, but when i see a man beating a horse i find myself wishing i was strong enough to snatch the whip from him and lay it well about his own shoulders. but come, boys, the fire is down to coals--just right for popping corn. sammy, you know the way to the kitchen. ask lovina for the corn-popper and a dish, and, roy, you'll find a paper bag full of corn in the cupboard yonder. quick, now, and we'll have the dish piled by the time susie and mollie are back from meeting." "haven't we had a gay old time," said roy, on the way home, "and ain't you glad i put you up to coming, sam ray?" and sammy admitted that he was. * * * * * "now, girls and boys," said miss ruth, on the next wednesday afternoon, "i am going to take you on a long journey,--in fancy, i mean,--over the hills and plains and valleys, to the country of the far west, with its rolling prairies and big fields of wheat and corn. you shall be set down in a green meadow, with a stream running through it, shallow and clear at this time of year, but a little later, when the september rains have filled it, rushing along full of deep, muddy water. "under a big oak in about the middle of the pasture you will find an old horse feeding. he is fat and sleepy looking, and has a kind face, and a white spot on his forehead. this is old star, farmer horton's family-horse. you may pat his neck and stroke his nose and feed him a cookie or a bit of gingerbread,--i am afraid the old fellow hasn't teeth enough left to chew an apple,--and then you may sit near him on the grass, and while i read aloud to you, fancy that he is talking, and, if you have plenty of imagination, you will get the story of old star, told by himself. "i hope nobody thinks i am turned out in this pasture because i am too old to work. horses pass here every day drawing heavy loads, older by half a dozen years than i am, poor broken-down hacks too, most of them, while i--well, if it wasn't for a little stiffness in the joints and a giving out of wind, now and then, i can't see but what i'm as well able to travel as i ever was. "the fact is, i never was put to hard work. there were always horses enough besides me on the place to do the farm work and the teaming--tom and jerry and the colt, you know; not filly's colt: he died, poor thing, before he was a year old, of that disease with a long name that carried off so many horses all over the country: but a great shambling big-boned beast old master swapped a yoke of steers for, over to skipton mills. we called him goliath, he was so tall: strong as an elephant, too: a powerful hand at a horse-rake and mowing-machine. well, well, how time flies, to be sure! he's been dead and gone these five years, and tom and jerry, they were used up long ago--there's a deal of hard work to be done on a farm of this size, i can tell you; and as to filly, she came to a sad end, for she got mired down in the low pasture, and had to be hauled out with ropes, poor critter, and died of the wet and the cold. "well, as i was saying, i never was put to hard work. i was born and raised on the place, and i do suppose--though i say it, who shouldn't--that i was an uncommon fine--looking colt, dark chestnut in color, and not a white hair on me except this spot in my forehead that gave me my name. when i was three months old, master made a present of me to his oldest boy on his sixteenth birthday, and every half-hour master fred could spare from his work, he used to spend in dressing down and feeding me and teaching me cunning tricks. i could take an apple or a lump of sugar from his pocket, walk down the slope behind the barn on two legs, with my forefeet on his shoulders, and shake hands, old master used to say, 'just like a christian.' "master fred set great store by me, as well he might. he's traveled hundreds of miles on my back over the prairies, and we've been out together many a dark night when he'd drop the lines on my neck and say, "well, star, go ahead if you know the way, for not one inch can i see before my nose." that was after he learned by experience that i knew better than he did where to go, and when to stop going. for he lost his temper and called me hard names one night, when i stopped short in the middle of the road and wouldn't budge an inch for voice or whip, with the wind blowing a gale, and the rain coming down in bucketsful. but when a flash of lightning showed the bridge before us clean washed away, and only a few feet between us and the steep bank of the river, master fred changed his tune. afraid! not i; but i'm willing to own i _was_ a little scared the day we got into the water down by cook's cove, for you see i was hitched to the buggy and the lines got tangled about my legs, and there were chunks of ice and lots of driftwood floating about, and the current sucking me down; but master had got to shore and stood on the bank calling, "this way, star, this way!" and when i heard his voice i--well, i don't know how i managed to do it, but i turned square round and swam upstream with the buggy behind me, and got safe and sound to land. i've heard master fred say my back was covered with river-grass, and i trembled all over with the fright and the hard pull. "but, dear me, all that happened long ago when master was courting old tim bunce's daughter martha, down stony creek road. how that girl did take to me! she used to say she knew the sound of my hoofs on the road, of a still night, when we were a mile away; and she'd say over a little rhyme she'd got hold of somehow:- 'star, star, good and bright, i wish you may and i wish you might bring somebody to me i want to see to-night.' "if she said that twice, looking straight down the road, she told us we were sure to come. she was a plump rosy-cheeked girl when master fred brought her to be mistress here, though you mightn't think it to see her now, what with the cooking and the dairy-work and raising a big family of children. but if you want to know what mistress was like twenty years ago, you've only to look at our ada. "now, there's a girl for you, as good as she is pretty, and getting to be a woman grown; though i remember, as though it happened yesterday, her mother's coming out one spring day to where i was nibbling grass in the door-yard, with her baby in her arms, and holding up the little thing to me, and saying, 'this is ada, star,--you must be good friends with ada,' friends! i should say so. before that child was a year old, she used to cry to be held on my back for a ride, and when she was getting better of the scarlet fever, she kept saying, 'me 'ant to tee ole 'tar,' till, to pacify her, they led me to the open window of the room where she lay, and she reached her mite of a hand from the bed to stroke my nose and give me the lump of sugar she had saved for me under her pillow. "bless the child! and it was just so with all the rest, tim and martha and fred and jenny and baby may--there was a new baby in that house every year. those young ones would crawl over me, and sit on me, when i was lying down in the stable; ride me, three or four at a time, without bridle or saddle, and cling to my neck and tail when there was no room left on my back. they shared their apples and gingerbread with me, and brought me goodies on a plate sometimes so that i might eat my dinner, they said, 'like the rest of the folks,' i fetched them to and from school, and trotted every day to the post-office and the corners to do the family errands; and when our ada was old enough to be trusted to drive, the whole lot of them would pile into the carryall, and away we would go for a long ride, through the lanes and the shady woods that border the pond, stopping a dozen times for the girls to clamber out and pick the wild posies and for the boys to skip stones or wade in the water. for _i_ was in no hurry to go on. there was plenty of tender grass to be cropped by the roadside, and the young leaves of the maples and white birch were sweet and juicy. "'take good care of them, star,' mistress used to say, standing in the door-way to see us off; 'you have a precious load, but we trust you, kind, faithful old friend,' "and so she might. i knew i must just creep down the hills with those children behind me, and never stop for a drink at rocky brook, though i were ever so thirsty, because of the sharp pitch down to the watering-trough. and though from having been scared nearly to death, when i was a colt, by a wheelbarrow in the road, i always _have_ to shy a little when i see one, our ada will tell you, if you ask her, that in the circumstances, i behaved very well. "_she_ behaved well. she always chose the well-traveled roads, and gave me plenty of room to turn. once, i remember, they all wanted to take a short cut by way of an old corduroy road; and though, if master had been driving, i should have made no objection, and, as like as not, with a little jolting and pitching, we should have got safe over, i didn't feel like taking the responsibility, with all those young ones along, of going that way; so i tried to make our ada understand the state of my mind, and after a while she did; for she said: 'well, star, if you don't want to draw us over those logs, i'm not going to make you,' now, wasn't that sensible? "well, if i was proud and happy to be trusted with master's family on week-days, think how i must have felt of a sunday morning in the summer time, with mistress dressed in her silk gown, and our ada in muslin and pink ribbons, and the boys in their best clothes, and master riding along-side on tom or jerry, all going to meeting together. i liked hearing the bells ring, and i liked being hitched under the maple-trees, with all the neighbors' horses to keep me company. we generally dozed while the folks were indoors, and woke up brisk and lively, and started for home in procession. "but, dear! dear! there came a time when, with five horses on the farm, not one could be had to give the children a ride or to do a stroke of work, when master had to foot it to the corners, and the two steers, old poke and eyebright, dragged mistress and the children to meeting in the ox-cart. "for we were all down with the epizoã¶tic, coughing and sneezing enough to take our heads off, and so sick and low, some of us, that we couldn't stand in our stalls, and a man with a red face, master fred had over from skipton mills, pouring nasty stuff down our throats, and making us swallow big black balls of medicine that hurt as they went down--as if we hadn't enough to suffer before! but our jenny came to the stable with a piece of pork-rind, and a bandage she'd made out of her little red-flannel petticoat, and she wanted master fred to put it on my neck; for, says she: 'that's what ma put on me when i had the sore throat,'--the blessed child! "well, we all pulled through except filly's colt. he keeled over one morning, poor fellow! and was dragged out and buried under the oaks in the high pasture. but for some reason, i didn't pick up as quick as the others. the cough held on, and i was pestered for breath, and i didn't get back my strength; and what i ate didn't seem to fatten me up much, for master fred says one day, laughing, 'well, old star, we've saved your skin and bones, and that's about all!' however, i got round again, only my legs had a bad habit of giving way under me, without the least bit of warning. "our ada did all she could to keep me up, holding a tight rein, and saying, 'steady, star! steady!' when she saw any signs of stumbling. but trying to keep from it seemed to make me do it all the more, and down i would come on my poor knees and spill those children out of the wagon, like blackberries from a full basket. "one day, after this had happened, master told our ada she was not to drive me any more, and before i had got over feeling bad about that, there came some thing a great deal worse; for i was standing by the pump in the backyard one day, and master and mistress were in the porch, and i heard him tell her he had had an offer from jones the milkman, to buy me. 'twould be an easy place, and he'd promised to treat me well, and he'd about made up his mind to take up with it; for he couldn't afford to keep a horse on the place that--well, i don't care to repeat the rest of the speech. 'twas rather hard on me, but i haven't laid it up against master. fact is, he had a deal to worry him about that time, for he was disappointed in the wheat crop, and the heavy rains had damaged his corn, and he was feeling mighty poor. "but mistress was up in arms in a minute. 'what, sell star!' says she, 'our good, faithful star, who's been in the family ever since you were a boy! and to ki jones to peddle milk round skipton mills and hull station! o pa!' says mistress, says she, 'have we got down so low as that? why 't would break our ada's heart, and mine too, to see star hitched to a milk-cart. rather than have you do that, says she, 'i'll go in rags, and keep the children on mush and molasses;' and she put her apron to her eyes. "'well, well, don't fret!' says master,--and i thought he looked kind o' ashamed,--'i haven't sold him yet i've a notion to turn him out to grass a while, and see what that'll do for him,' so the next day he put me in this pasture. "you see that plank bridge yonder, over the creek? that's where our ada fell into the water. master has put up a railing, and made all safe since the accident happened. 't was a risky place always, though the children have crossed it hundreds of times, and none of them ever tumbled over before. "but i hadn't been here a week, when one sunshiny afternoon our ada came through the pasture, on her way to visit the sick simmonses--there's always some of that tribe down with the chills. she came running up to me--her little basket, full of goodies, on her arm,--stopped to talk a minute and feed me an apple, and then passed along, while i went on nibbling grass, till i heard a scream and a splash, and knew, all in a minute, she must have fallen off the plank bridge into the water. dear! dear! what was to be done? i ran to the fence, and looked up and down the road. some men were burning brush at the far end of the next field. i galloped toward them, and back again to the creek, and whinnied and snorted, and tried my best to make them understand that they were needed; but they didn't appear to notice, and i just made up my mind, that if any thing was done to save our ada from drowning, i was the one to do it. "i made my way through the alder-bushes down by the bank, to a place where the current sets close in shore. at first i couldn't see any thing, then all at once, there floated on the muddy water close to me, the little red shawl she wore, then a hand and arm, and her white face and brown hair all streaming. i caught at her clothes, and though ada is a stout girl of her age, and the wet things added a deal to her weight, i lifted her well out of the water. i remember thinking, 'if only my poor legs don't give out, i shall do very well,' and they didn't give out, for when help came--it seems those men in the field _had_ noticed me, and came to see what was the matter--they found me all in a lather of sweat, and my eyes starting out of their sockets, but with my feet braced against a rock, keeping our ada's head and shoulders well above water. "they got her home as quick as they could, and put her to bed between hot blankets, and the next day she was none the worse for her ducking, though she carried the print of my teeth in her tender flesh for many a day; for how was i to know where the child's clothes left off and her side began. "of course they made a great fuss over me. mistress came running to meet me, and put both arms around my neck, and said: 'o star, you have saved our darling's life!' and the little ones hugged and kissed me, and the boys took turns rubbing me down; and i stood knee deep in my stall that night in fresh straw, and besides my measure of oats, had a warm mash, three cookies, and half a pumpkin-pie for my supper. "but master only patted my neck, and said: 'well done, old star!' master fred and i always did understand one another. "there hasn't been any thing more said about selling me to ki jones. in the winter i have a stall at the south side of the stable, where i get the sun at my window all day, and in summer i live in this pasture, with shady trees, and cool water, and grass and clover-tops in plenty. i have nothing to do the live-long day, but to eat and drink and enjoy myself; but i do hope folks passing along the road don't think i'm turned out in this field because i'm too old to work." "good-by, old star!" said mollie, as her aunt laid down the paper. "we are much obliged for your nice story, and we hope you'll live ever so many years. i wouldn't hint for the world that you aren't as smart as you used to be." "isn't he rather a self-conceited old horse?" said nellie dimock. "well, yes; but that is natural. i suppose he has been more or less spoiled and petted all his life." "when he told about going to meeting," fannie eldridge said, "it reminded me of a story mamma tells, of an old horse up in granby, that went to church one sunday all by himself." "how droll! how did it happen, fannie?" "why, he belonged to two old ladies who went to church always, and exactly at such a time every sunday morning dobbin was hitched to the chaise and brought round to the front door and miss betsey and miss sally got in and drove to church. but one sunday something hindered them, and dobbin waited and waited till the bell stopped ringing and all the other horses which attended church had gone by; and at last he got clear out of patience, and started along without them. mamma says the people laughed to see him trot up to the church-door and down to the sheds and walk straight into his own place, and when service was over back himself out and trot home again." "what did miss betsey and miss sally do?" "oh, they had to stay at home. when they came out they saw the old chaise ever so far off, going toward the church, and they felt pretty sure old dobbin was going to meeting on his own account. that is a true story miss ruth, every word of it--mamma says so." "our old ned cheated us all last summer," said florence austin, "by pretending to be lame. he really was made lame, at first, one day when mamma was driving, by getting a stone in his foot, and she turned directly and walked him all the way back to the stable. but when william had taken out the stone, he seemed to be all right, and the next afternoon mamma and alice and i started for a drive. we got about a mile out of town, when all at once ned began to limp. mamma and alice got out of the phaeton, and looked his feet all over, for they thought may be he had picked up another stone; but they couldn't see the least thing out of the way, only that he limped dreadfully as if it half-killed him to go. well, there was nothing to be done but to give up our drive; for we couldn't bear to ride after a lame horse!" "i can't either!" mollie interjected. "well, he had been lately shod, and our coachman thought that perhaps a nail from one of the shoes pricked his foot, so he started to take him to the blacksmith's. but don't you think, as soon as ned knew that william was driving, he started off at a brisk trot and wasn't the least bit lame i but the next time mamma took him out, he began to limp directly, and kept looking round as much as to say: 'how can you be so cruel as to make me go, when you must see every step i take hurts me?' but when mamma came home with him again, william said: 'it's chatin' you he is, marm.'" "and what did your mother do?" "well, as soon as she made up her mind that he was shamming, she took no notice of his little trick, but touched him up with the whip, and made him go right along. he knew directly that she had found him out. oh, he is _such_ a knowing horse! the other day alice was leading him through the big gate, to give him a mouthful of grass in the door-yard. alice likes to lead him about. when he stepped on her gown, and she held it up to him all torn, and scolded him, she said: 'o ned! aren't you ashamed of yourself? how could you be so clumsy and awkward?' and she said he dropped his head and looked so sorry and ashamed, as if he wanted to say: 'oh, i beg pardon! i didn't mean to do it,' that she really pitied him, and answered as if he had spoken: 'well, don't worry, ned; it's of no consequence,' ned is such a pet. papa got him in canada, on purpose for mamma and alice to drive; and it was so funny when he first came--he didn't understand a word of english, not even whoa. he belonged to a frenchman way up the country, and had never been in a large town, and acted so queer--like a green countryman, you know, turning his head and staring at all the sights. and it's lovely to see him play in the snow. he was brought up in the midst of it, you know. when there's a snow-storm he's wild to be out of the stable, and the deeper the drifts, the better pleased he is. he plunges in and rolls over and over, and rears and dances. oh, it is too funny to see him! but i beg pardon, miss ruth! i didn't mean to talk so long about ned." "we are all glad to hear about him," she said, and susie added that it was very interesting. "my uncle john owned a horse," said roy tyler, "that opened a gate and a barn-door to get to the oat-bin, and he shut the barn-door after him too. i guess you can't any of you tell how he did that!" "he jumped the gate, and shoved his nose in the crack of the door and pried it open," said sammy. "no, he didn't. that wouldn't be _opening_ the gate, would it?" roy retorted. "and how did he shut it after him?" "i think you had better tell us, roy," said miss ruth. "well, he reached over the fence, and lifted the latch with his teeth, that's how he opened the gate; and he shut it by backing up against it till it latched itself. then he pulled out the wooden pin of the barn-door, and it swung open by its own weight--see?" "well, pa had a horse that slipped his halter and shoved up the cover of the oat-bin, when he got hungry in the night and wanted a lunch," said sammy; "and i read about a horse the other day which turned the water-tap when he wanted a drink, and pulled the stopper out of the pipe over the oat-bin, just as he 'd seen the coachman do, so the oats would come down, and"-"but really now," ruth elliot, interrupted, "interesting and wonderful as all this is, we must stop somewhere. i have another story to tell you, about a minister's horse, but it can wait over till next week. lay aside your work, girls; it is past five o'clock." chapter ix. tufty and the sparrows. florence austin came early to the society the next wednesday afternoon, and found miss ruth on the piazza, "i am glad to see you, florence," she said. "i was just wishing for a helper. mollie and susie have gone on an errand, and i am alone in the house, and here is a whole family in trouble that i can't relieve." "what is the matter?" said the little girl. "a baby bird has fallen out of the nest, and i am too lame to-day to venture down the steps; and papa and mamma are in great distress, and the babies in the nest half-starved, and can't have their dinner because the old birds dare not leave poor chippy a moment lest some stray cat should get him. see the little thing down there in the grass just under the woodbine!" florence descended the piazza-steps at two jumps, and was back with the young bird in her hand. "now where shall i put him, miss ruth?" ruth elliot pointed out the nest. it was in the thickest growth of the woodbine, just over their heads; and when florence had climbed in a chair, she had her first look at a nest of young birds. the little city girl was delighted. "how cunning!" she exclaimed. "oh, how awfully cunning! four in all--three of them with their mouths wide open. no wonder this little fellow got pushed out. here, you droll little specimen, crowd in somewhere! he isn't hurt at all, for he seems as lively as any of them." as florence jumped down from the chair, susie and mollie and the jones girls came up the walk. "what are you two doing?" mollie called out. "florence has just restored a lost baby to his distressed family," her aunt answered. "come into the house, girls, and let papa and mamma chippy get over their fright and look after the babies. florence, i am greatly obliged to you. i should have felt very sorry if harm had come to the little one, for i have watched that nest ever since the old birds began to build." the little girl replied politely that she was glad she had been of use. "i know what chippies' nests are made of," said mollie: "fine roots and fibers, and lined beautifully with soft fine hair," "did you watch the birds while they were making it, mollie?" "no; but one night after tea, when auntie and susie and i were playing at choosing birds,--telling which bird we liked best and why, you know,--papa came along and said: 'i choose the chirping sparrow for my bird'; and when we laughed at him and called for his reasons (because chippies are such insignificant things, you know, and no singers), he told us he liked them because they were tame and friendly, and because they built such neat, pretty nests; and he pulled an old nest he had saved in pieces, and showed us how it was put together." "yes," said susie; "and the other reason he gave for liking them best was, that they got up early and rang the rising-bell for all the other birds. that was such a funny reason for papa to give, for we all know he dearly loves his morning nap." "really, now, do the chippies get up first in the morning?" said florence. "with the first peep of day," miss ruth answered. "this morning i heard their cheerful twitter before a ray of light had penetrated to my room; and a welcome sound it was, for it told me the long night was over. one dear little fellow sang two or three strains before he succeeded in waking any body; then a robin joined in, in a sleepy kind of way; then two or three wrens, and then a cat-bird; and, last of all, my little weather-bird, which, from the topmost branches of the elm-tree, warbled out to me that it was a pleasant day. oh, what a sweet concert they all gave me before the sun rose!" "i never heard of a weather-bird, aunt ruth." "your uncle charlie gave him that name, susie, when we were children. his true name is warbling verio; but we used to fancy the little fellow announced what kind of day it would be. if clear he called out: 'pleasant day!' three times over, with a pause between each sentence and a long-drawn-out yes at the close; or, if it rained, he said 'rainy day' or 'windy day,' describing the weather, whatever it might be, always with an emphatic _yes_. "one day he talked to me, but it was not about the weather. things had gone wrong with me all the morning. i had spoken disrespectfully to my grandmother, and had been so cross and impatient with baby walter that mother had taken him from me, though she could ill spare the time to tend him. then i ran through the garden to a little patch of woods behind the house, and sat on an old log, in a very bad humor. "presently, high above my head in the branches of the walnut-tree, the weather-bird began his monotonous strain. i paid no attention to him at first, i was so taken up with my own disagreeable thoughts, till it came to me all at once that he was not telling me it was a pleasant day, though the sun was shining gloriously and a lovely breeze rustled the green leaves. what was it the little bird was saying over and over again, as plain as plain could be? 'naughty girl! naughty girl! naughty girl! y-e-s.' "i rubbed my eyes and pinched my arm, to make sure i was awake; for i thought i must have dreamed it. but no, there it was again, sweet, sad, reproachful: 'naughty girl! naughty girl! naughty girl! y-e-s,' "i jumped up in a rage, and called it a horrid thing; and when it wouldn't stop, but kept on reproaching me with my evil behavior, i could bear it no longer, but put my fingers in my ears and ran back to the house and up to my own room, where i cried with anger and shame. but solitude and reflection soon brought me to a better state of mind; and, long before the day was over, i had confessed my fault and was forgiven. but though i wanted very much to see a new water-wheel charlie set up that afternoon in the brook, i dared not go through the wood to get to it, lest that small bird should still be calling, 'naughty girl! y-e-s.' "charlie grumbled the next morning when i wakened him out of a sound sleep by shouting gayly from my little bed in the next room that his weather-bird was calling, 'pleasant day!' 'why, what _should_ he call,' he wanted to know, 'with the sun shining in at both windows?' "i never told my brother how the bird had given voice to my accusing conscience, nor has the lesson ever been repeated; for from that day to this the warbling verio has made no more personal remarks to me." "there's a bird down in maine" said ann eliza jones, "they call the yankee bird, 'cause he keeps saying, 'all day whittling--whittling--whittling.'" "yes; and the quails there always tell the farmers when they must hurry and get in their hay," said her sister. "when it's going to rain they sing out: 'more wet! more wet!' and 'no more wet!' when it clears off." "aunt ruth," said mollie, "please tell us about the funny little bantam rooster who used to call to his wife every morning: 'do--come out--n-o-w!'" "very well; but we are getting so much interested in this bird-talk that we are making rather slow progress with our work. suppose we all see how much we can accomplish in the next ten minutes." upon this mollie caught up the block lying in her lap, florence re-threaded her needle, nellie dimock hunted up her thimble, which had rolled under the table, and industry was the order of the day. and while they worked, miss ruth told the story of the widow bantam. "she belonged to our next-door neighbor, and we called her the widow because her mate--a fine plucky little bantam rooster--was one day slain while doing battle with the great red chanticleer who ruled the hen-yard. "i took pity on the little hen in her loneliness, and singled her out from the flock for special attention. she very soon knew my voice, would come at my call, and used to slip through a gap in the fence and pay me a visit every day. if the kitchen door were open she walked in without ceremony; if closed, she flew to the window, tapped on the glass with her bill, flapped her wings, and gave us clearly to understand that she wished to be admitted. once inside, she set up a shrill cackling till i attended to her wants, and scolded me at the top of her voice if i kept her long waiting. when she had eaten more cracked corn and indian meal than you would think so small a body could contain, she walked about in a slow, contented way, and was ready for all the petting we chose to give her. "she was a pretty creature, with a speckled coat and a comb the color of red coral: very small, but lively and vigorous, and exhibiting in all her movements both grace and stateliness. she would nestle in my lap, take a ride on my shoulder, and walk the length of my arm to peck at a bit of cake in my hand, regarding me all the while with a queer sidelong glance, and croaking out her satisfaction and content. when she was ready to go she walked to the kitchen door, and asked in a very shrill voice to be let out. she continued these visits till late in the fall, when she was shut up with the rest of our neighbor's flock for the winter. "one bitter cold day in january we heard a faint cackle outside, and, opening the kitchen door, found our poor widow in a sorry plight. one foot was frozen, her feathers were all rough and dirty, her wings drooping, her bright comb changed to a dull red. how she escaped from the hen-house, surmounted the high fence, and hobbled or flew to our door, we did not know; but there she was, half-dead with hunger and cold. "we did what we could for her. i bathed and bandaged the swollen foot, and made a warm bed for her in a box in the shed, from which she did not offer to stir for many days. i fed her with bits of bread soaked in warm milk, and charlie said, nursed and tended her as if she had been a sick baby. she was very gentle and patient, poor thing! and allowed me to handle her as i pleased, always welcomed my coming with a cheerful little cackle, and, as she got stronger, trotted after me about the shed and kitchen like a pet kitten. "in the spring, when she was quite well again, i restored her to her rightful owner. perhaps she had grown weary of her solitary life, for she seemed delighted to rejoin her old companions; but every day she made us a visit, and at night came regularly to roost in the shed. "one morning we heard two voices instead of one outside our window, and behold! mrs. bantam had taken another mate--a fine handsome fellow, so graceful in form and brilliant in plumage that we at once pronounced him a fit companion to our favorite hen. they were evidently on the best of terms, croaking and cackling to each other, and exchanging sage opinions about us as we watched them from the open door. i am sure she must have told him all about her long illness the previous winter, and pointed me out as her nurse, for he nodded and croaked and cast sidelong looks of friendly regard in my direction. "but when mrs. bantam came into the kitchen for her luncheon she could not induce captain bantam to follow. in vain she coaxed and cackled, running in and out a dozen times to convince him there was nothing to fear. he would not believe her nor budge one inch over the door-sill. she lost patience at last, and rated him soundly; but as neither coaxing nor scolding availed, and she was eating her meal with a poor relish inside, while he waited unhappily without, we settled the difficulty by putting the dish on the door-step, where they ate together in perfect content. "but a more serious trouble came at bed-time, for mrs. bantam expected to roost as usual in the shed, while the captain preferred the old apple-tree where the rest of the flock spent their nights. the funny little couple held an animated discussion about it which lasted far into the twilight--and neither would yield. the captain was very polite and conciliatory. he evidently had no mind to quarrel: but neither would he give up the point. he occasionally suspended the argument by a stroll into the garden, where, by vigorous scratching, he would produce a choice morsel, to which he called her attention by an insinuating 'have a worm, dear?' she never failed to accept the offering, gulping it down with great satisfaction, but was too old a bird to be caught by so shallow a trick, for she would immediately return to her place by the shed window, and resume her discourse. when she had talked herself sleepy she ended the contest for that night by flying through the window and settling herself comfortably in the old place, while the captain took his solitary way across the garden and over the fence to the apple-tree. every night for a week this scene occurred under the shed window; then, by mutual consent, they seemed to agree to go their several ways without further dispute. about sunset the captain might be seen politely escorting his mate to her chosen lodging-house, and, after seeing her safely disposed of for the night, quietly betaking himself to his roost in the apple-tree. "he was at her window early every morning crowing lustily. charlie and i were sure he said: 'do--come--out--now! do--come--out--n-o-w!' and were vexed with the little hen for keeping him waiting so long. but his patience never failed; and, when at last she flew down and joined him, a prouder, happier bantam rooster never strutted about the place. all day long he kept close at her side, providing her with the choicest tidbits the garden afforded, and watching her with unselfish delight while she swallowed each dainty morsel. in the middle of the day they rested under the currant-bushes, crooning sleepily to each other or taking a quiet nap. "one day we missed them both, and for three weeks saw them only at intervals, mrs. bantam always coming alone, eating a hurried meal, and stealing away as quickly as possible; while the captain wandered about rather dejectedly, we thought, in the society of the other hens. "but one bright morning we heard mrs. bantam clucking and calling with all her old vigor; and there she was at the kitchen-door, the prettiest and proudest of little mothers, with three tiny chicks not much larger than the baby chippies you saw in the nest, florence, but wonderfully active and vigorous for their size. we named them bob and dick and jenny, and, as they grew older, were never tired of watching their comical doings. their mother, too, afforded us great amusement, while we found much in her conduct to admire and praise. she was a fussy, consequential little body, but unselfishly devoted, and ready to brave any danger that threatened her brood. charlie and and i learned more than one useful lesson from the bantam hen and her young family. "one of these lessons we put into verse, which, if i can remember, i will repeat to you. we called it chicken dick the bragger. 'scratch! scratch! in the garden-patch, goes good mother henny; cluck! cluck! good luck! good luck! come, bob and dick and jenny! a worm! a worm! see him squirm! who comes first to catch it! quick! quick! chicken dick, you are the chick to snatch it! "peep! peep! while you creep, my long legs have won it! cuck-a-doo! i've beat you! don't you wish you'd done it?" dick! dick! that foolish trick of bragging lost your dinner; for while to crow you let it go, bob snatched it up--the sinner! bob! bob! 't was wrong to rob your silly little brother, and in the bush to fight and push, and peck at one another. but bobby beat, and ate the treat.- dear children, though you're winners, be modest all; for pride must fall, and braggers lose their dinners.' "and now i will tell you an adventure of young dick's, in which a habit he had of crowing on all occasions proved very useful to him. he grew to be a fine handsome fellow, and was sold to a family who lived on the meadow-bank. "there was a big freshet the next autumn, the water covering the meadows on both sides of the river, and creeping into cellars and yards and houses. it came unexpectedly, early one morning, into the enclosure where dick, with his half-dozen hens, was confined, and all flew for refuge to the roof of the neighboring pig-pen. but the incoming flood soon washed away the supports of the frail building, and it floated slowly out into the current to join company with the wrecks of wood-piles and rail fences, the spoils from gardens and orchards, in the shape of big yellow pumpkins and rosy apples, bobbing about in the foaming muddy stream, and all the other queer odds and ends a freshet gathers in its course. "from his commanding position, dick surveyed the scene, and thought it a fitting occasion to raise his voice. he stretched himself to the full height of his few inches, flapped his wings, and crowed--not once or twice, but continually. over the waste of waters came his shrill 'cock-a-doodle-doo!' all the cocks along the shore answered his call; all the turkeys gobbled, and the geese cackled. his vessel struck the heavy timber of a broken bridge, and lurched and dipped, threatening every moment to go to pieces. the waves splashed and drenched them, and the swift current carried them faster and faster down to the sea. it was all dick and his little company could do to keep their footing, and still the plucky little fellow stood and crowed. "a neighbor who was out in his boat gathering drift-wood, recognizing dick's peculiar voice, went to the rescue, and, taking this strange craft in tow, brought the little company, with their gallant leader, drenched and draggled but still crowing lustily, safe to land. "and that is all i can tell you about dick, for it is five o'clock, and time to put up our work." "i like every kind of bird," said florence austin at the next meeting of the society, "except the english sparrows. they are a perfect nuisance!" "why, what harm do they do?" nellie asked. "harm!" said florence; "you don't know any thing about it here in the country. we had to cut down a beautiful wisteria-vine that climbed over one side of our house because the sparrows would build their nests in it, and made such a dreadful noise in the morning that nobody on that side of the house could sleep. and they drive away all the other birds. we used to have robins hopping over our lawn, and dear little yellow-birds used to build their nests in the pear-trees; but since the sparrows have got so thick, they have stopped coming. my father says the english sparrow is the most impudent bird that ever was hatched. he actually saw one snatch away a worm a robin had just dug up. i believe i hate sparrows!" "i don't," said nellie. "i have fed them all winter. they came to the dining-room window every morning, and waited for their breakfast; and a funny little woodpecker, blind of one eye, came with them sometimes." "they do lots of good in our gardens," said mollie, "digging up grubs and beetles. papa told us so." "there's nobody in this world so bad," said susie, sagely, "but that you can find something good to say about them." at which kindly speech aunt ruth smiled approval. "i think," she said, "this will be a good time to tell you a story about an english sparrow and a canary-bird i will call it tufty and the sparrow. "one morning in april a young canary-bird whose name was tufty escaped through an open window carelessly left open while he was out of his cage, and suddenly found himself, for the first time in his life, in the open air. he alighted first on an apple-tree in the yard, and then made a grand flight half-way to the top of the elm-tree. "the sun was bright and the air so still that the light snow which had fallen in the night yet clung to the branches and twigs of the tree, and tufty examined it with interest, thinking it pretty but rather cold as he poked it about with his bill, and tucked first one little foot, and then the other, under him to keep it warm. presently he heard an odd little noise below him, and, looking down, saw on the trunk of the tree a bird about his own size, with wings and back of a steel-gray color, a white breast with a dash of dull red on it, and a long bill, with which he was making the noise tufty had heard by tapping on the tree. "'good-morning!' said tufty, who was of a friendly and social disposition, and was beginning to feel the need of company. "'morning!' said the woodpecker, very crisp and shorthand not so much as looking up to see who had spoken to him. "if you had heard this talk you would have said tufty called out: 'peep! peep!' and the woodpecker--but that's because you don't understand bird-language. "'what are you doing down there?' said tufty, continuing the conversation. "'getting my breakfast,' said the woodpecker. "'why, i had mine a long time ago!' said tufty. "he didn't in the least understand how that knocking on the tree was to bring mr. longbill's morning meal; but he was afraid to ask any more questions, the other had been so short with him. "just then he heard a hoarse voice overhead saying, 'come along! come along!' and, looking up, saw a monstrous black creature sailing above the tops of the trees. it was only a crow on his way to the swamp, and he was trying to hurry up his mate, that always would lag behind in that corn-field where there wasn't so much as a grain left; but tufty, which by this time you must have discovered was a very ignorant bird, thought the black monster was calling _him_, and piped back feebly: 'i can't! i can't!' and was all of a tremble till mr. crow was quite out of sight. "he sat quiet, looking a little pensive, for the fact was, he was beginning to feel lonely, when there flew past him a flock of brown birds chirping and chattering away at a brisk rate. 'now for it!' thought tufty, 'here's plenty of good company;' and he spread his wings and flew after them as fast as he could. but he could not keep up with them, but, panting and weary, alighted on the roof of a house to rest. and here he saw such a pretty sight; for on a sunny roof just below him were two snow-white pigeons. one was walking about in a very consequential way, his tail-feathers spread in the shape of a fan, and turning his graceful neck from side to side in quite a bewitching fashion. just as tufty alighted, the pretty dove began to call: 'come, dear, come! do, dear, do!' in such a sweet, soft, plaintive voice, as if his heart would certainly break if his dear _didn't_ come, that tufty, who in his silly little pate never once doubted that it was he the lovely white bird was pining for, felt sorry to disappoint him, and piped back: 'oh, if you please, i should like to ever so much! but you see i must catch up with those brown birds over there;' and, finding his wind had come back to him, he flew away. the pigeon, which had not even seen him, and had much more important business to attend to than to coax an insignificant little yellow-bird, went on displaying all his beauties, and crooning softly, 'do, dear! do! do! do!' "tufty had no trouble in finding the brown birds, for long before he came to the roof of the barn where they had alighted he heard their loud voices in angry dispute; and they made such an uproar, and seemed so fractious and ill-tempered, that tufty felt afraid to join them, but lingered on a tree near by. "presently one of them flew over to him. she was a young thing--quite fresh and trim-looking for a sparrow. "'good-morning!' she said, hopping close to him and looking him all over with her bright little eyes, "'good-morning!' said tufty, as brisk as you please. "'now, i wonder where you come from and what you call yourself,' said the sparrow. 'i never saw a yellow-bird like you before. how pretty the feathers grow on your head!' and she gave a friendly nip to tufty's top-knot. "tufty thought she was getting rather familiar on so short an acquaintance, but he answered her politely, told her his name, and that he came from the house where he had always lived, and was out to take an airing. "'i want to know!' said the sparrow. 'well, my name is brownie. captain bobtail's brownie, they call me, because brownie is such a common name in our family. it's pleasant out-of-doors, isn't it? oh, never mind the fuss over there!'--for tufty's attention was constantly diverted to the scene of the quarrel--'they are always at it, scolding and fighting. come, let's you and i have a good time!' "'what is the fuss about?' said tufty. "'a nest,' said brownie, contemptuously. 'ridiculous, isn't it? snow on the ground, and not time to build this two weeks; but you see, _he_ wants to keep the little house on top of the pole lest some other bird should claim it, and _she_ wants to build in the crotch of the evergreen, and the neighbors are all there taking sides. she has the right of it--the tree is much the prettier place; but dear me! she might just as well give up first as last, for he's sure to have his way--husbands are such tyrants!' said captain bobtail's brownie, with a coquettish turn of her head; 'but come, now, what shall we do?' "'i'm too cold to do any thing,' said tufty, dolefully. "the sun was hidden by a cloud and a cold wind was blowing, and the house-bird, accustomed to a stove-heated room, was shivering. "'take a good fly,' said brownie; 'that will warm you,' "'but i'm hungry,' piped tufty. "'all right!' said brownie. 'i know a place where there's a free lunch set out every day for all the birds that will come--bread-crumbs, seeds, and lovely cracked corn. come along! you'll feel better after dinner,' "so they flew, and they flew, and brownie was as kind as possible, and stopped for a rest whenever tufty was tired, and chatted so agreeably and pleasantly, that before they reached their journey's end tufty had quite fallen in love with her. then, too, the sun was shining again, and the brisk exercise of flying had set the little bird's blood in motion, so that he was warm again, but oh, so hungry! "they came at last to a brown cottage with a broad piazza, and it was on the roof of this piazza that a feast for the birds was every day spread. but as they flew round the house tufty became very much excited. "'stop, brownie!' he cried; 'let me look at this place! surely i've been here before. that red curtain, that flower-stand in the window, that--oh! oh! there's my own little house! why, captain bobtail's brownie, you've brought me home!' "now, all this time tufty's mistress had been in great trouble. as soon as she discovered her loss she ran out-of-doors, holding up the empty cage and calling loudly on her little bird to return. but he was high up in the elm-tree watching the woodpecker, and, if he heard her call, paid no attention to it. very soon he flew after the sparrows, and she lost sight of him. not a mouthful of breakfast could the poor child eat. "'i shall never see my poor little tufty again, mamma!' she said. 'i saw him flying straight for the swamp, and he never can find his way back!' and she cried as if her heart would break. "in the middle of the forenoon her brother jack called to her from the foot of the stairs:-"'what will you give me, kittie,' he said, 'if i will tell you where tufty is?' "'o jack! do you know? have you seen him? where? where?' cried the little girl, coming downstairs in a great hurry. "'be quiet!' said jack. 'now, don't get excited; your bird is all right, though i'm sorry to say he's in rather low company,' and he led her to the dining-room window that looked into the garden, and there, sure enough, was tufty on a lilac-bush. brownie was there too. she was hopping about and talking in a most earnest and excited manner. it was easy to see that she was using all her powers of persuasion to coax tufty not to go back to his old home, but to help her build a little house out-of-doors, where they could set up housekeeping together. "kittie knew just what to do. she ran for the cage and for a sprig of dried pepper-grass (of all the good things she gave her bird to eat, he liked pepper-grass best), and, standing in the open door-way, called: 'tufty! tufty!' he gave a start, a little flutter of his wings, and then, with one glad cry of recognition, and without so much as a parting look at poor brownie, flew straight for the door, and alighted on the top of his cage. "'how strangely things come about, mamma?' kittie said that evening as they talked over this little incident. 'jack has laughed at me all winter for feeding the sparrows, and called them hateful, quarrelsome things, and said i should get nicely paid next summer when they drove away all the pretty song-birds that come about the house. and now, don't you see, mamma, one of the sparrows i have fed all winter--i knew her right away by a funny little dent in her breast--has done me such good service? why, i am paid a hundred thousand times over for all i have ever done for the sparrows.'" "and what became of poor brownie?" nellie asked. "i almost hoped tufty would stay out with her, she was such a good little sparrow." "she lingered about the garden for a while, making a plaintive little noise; but when the family of brownies came to dinner she ate her allowance, and flew away with them, apparently in good spirits. but tufty moped for a day or two, and, as long as he lived, showed great excitement at the sight of a flock of sparrows; and it is my private opinion that, if a second opportunity had been given him, kittie grant's tufty would have gone off for good and all with captain bobtail's brownie." susie elliot walked part of the way home with florence austin, and the two little girls, who were fast becoming intimate friends, talked over the events of the afternoon. "how much your auntie knows about animals and birds!" said florence; "she seems almost as fond of them as if they were people." "yes," susie answered; "she was always fond of pets, papa says; and, ever since she has been ill, she has spent a great deal of time watching them and studying their ways. i think it makes her forget the pain," "is it the pain that keeps her awake at night, susie? you know she said this afternoon she was glad to hear the chippy-birds, because then she knew the long night was over; and she looked so white, and couldn't get down those three little easy steps to pick up the baby-bird. but she walks about the garden sometimes with a crutch, doesn't she?" "oh, yes! and she's better than when she first came here to live, only she never can be well, you know. today is one of her poor days; but she used to be so ill that she was hardly ever free from pain. you never would have known it, though, she was always so cheerful and doing something to give us good times." "can't she ever be made well, susie? there's doctors in town, you know, who cure _every thing_," said the little girl. susie shook her head. "papa says she has an incurable disease;" and then seriously--"i think if jesus were here he would put his hands on auntie and make her well." chapter x. parson lorrimer's white horse. "and now for the story of the minister's horse," mollie elliot said, when miss ruth's company of workers had assembled on the next wednesday afternoon. "i suppose he was an awfully good horse, which set an example to all the other horses in the parish to follow. say, auntie, wasn't he?" "when my grandmother was a little girl," ruth elliot began, "she lived with her father and mother in a small country town among the new hampshire hills: and of all the stories she told in her old age about the quiet simple life of the people of hilltown, the one her grandchildren liked best to hear was the story of parson lorrimer's white horse. "parson lorrimer had lived thirty years in hilltown before he owned a horse. he began to preach in the big white meeting-house when he was a young man, and, as neither he nor his people wanted a change, when he was sixty years old he was preaching there still. it was a scattered parish, with farm-houses perched on the hill-sides and nestled in the valleys; and the minister, in doing his work, had trudged over every mile of it a great many times. he made nothing of walking five miles to a meeting on a december evening, with the thermometer below zero, or of climbing the hills in a driving snow-storm to visit a sick parishioner. he was a tall, spare man, healthy and vigorous, with iron-gray hair, a strong kind face, and a smile in his brown eyes that made every baby in hilltown stretch out its arms to him to be taken. "not a chick or child had parson lorrimer of his own. he had never married, but lived in the old parsonage, a stately mansion, with rooms enough in it to accommodate a big family, with only an elderly widow and her grown-up son to minister to his wants and to keep him company. his study was at the back of the house, and looked out upon the garden and orchard, so that the smell of his pinks and roses came to him as he wrote, and the same robins, year by year, built their nests within reach of his hand in the branches of the crooked old apple-tree that shaded his window. "the minister was fond of caring for living creatures, both small and great, and every domestic animal about the place knew it. the cat jumped fearlessly to his knee, sure of a welcome. the cow lowed after him if he showed himself at the window. the little chicks fluttered to his shoulder when he appeared in the door-yard, and the old sow with her litter of pigs kept close at his heels as he paced the orchard, pondering next sunday's sermon. "he remembered them all. there was always a handful of grain for the chickens in the pocket of his study-gown, a ripe pumpkin in the shed for sukey; and the good man would laugh like a school-boy, as the funny little baby-pigs rolled and tumbled over each other for the apples he tossed them. a great, good, gentle man, learned and wise in theology and knowledge of the scriptures, with tastes and habits as simple as a child. "but i must hurry on with my story, or you will think i am telling you more about the parson than his horse. the good man realized, one day, that he was not as young as he used to be, and that climbing harrison hill on a july afternoon and walking five miles in a drizzling rain after a preaching service were not so easy to do as he had found them a dozen years before. so he wisely concluded to call in the aid of four strong legs in carrying on his work, and that is how he came to buy a horse. "the people of hilltown heartily approved of this plan, and several were anxious to help him. "deacon cowles had a four-year-old colt, raised on the farm, 'a real clever steady-goin' creetur, that he guessed he could spare--might be turned in for pew-rent;' and si olcott didn't care if he traded off his gray mare on the same conditions. she was about used up for farm-work, but had considerable go in her yet--could jog round with the parson for ten years to come. "the minister received these offers with politeness, and promised to think of them; and then one day after a brief absence from home, set every body in the parish talking, by driving into town seated in an open wagon, shining with fresh paint and varnish, and drawn by a horse the like of which had never been seen in hilltown before. "he was of a large and powerful build, and most comely and graceful in proportion, with a small head, slender legs, and flowing mane and tail. in color, he was milk-white, while his nose and the inside of his pointed ears were of a delicate pink. he held his head high, stepping proudly and glancing from side to side in a nervous, excited way; but he had a kind eye, and the watching neighbors saw him take an apple from the hand of his new master, after they turned in at the parsonage gate. in answer to all questions, the parson said he had purchased the horse at winterport, of a seafaring man, that he was eight years old, and his name was peter. but to neither man nor woman in hilltown did he ever tell the sum he paid in yellow gold and good bank-notes for the white horse, "a few days after the purchase, parson lorrimer attended a funeral, and when the service at the house was ended, and he had shaken hands all round with the mourners, and exchanged greetings with neighbors and friends, he stepped out to the side-yard, where he had fastened his horse, and drove round the house to take his place before the hearse; for in hilltown it was the custom for the minister to lead the procession to the burying-ground. "it was peter's first appearance in an official capacity, and he stepped with sufficient dignity into the street, where a long line of wagons and chaises, led off by the mourners' coach and the big black hearse, waited the signal to start, while in the door-yard and along the sidewalk were ranged the foot-passengers; for at a funeral in hilltown everybody went to the grave. "a passing breeze caught a piece of paper lying in the road, and flirted it close to peter's eyes. he gave a tremendous leap sideways, and it was a marvel no one was struck by his flying heels, then gathering himself together he ran. how he did run! the good folks scattered right and left with amazing quickness, considering their habits of life; for in the slow little town, every body took things fair and easy, and the white horse dashed past the string of wagons, the mourners' equipage, and the tall black hearse. there was a cloud of dust, a rattling of wheels, a clatter of hoofs, and peter and the parson were far down the road. the people gazed after their departing spiritual guide in speechless astonishment. the mourners' heads were thrust far out of the coach windows. even the sleepy farm-horses pricked up their ears: while old bill, the sexton's clumsy big-footed beast, which for fifteen years had carried the dead folks of hilltown to their graves, and had never before been known, on these solemn occasions to depart from his slow walk, made a most astonishing departure; for, taking his driver unawares, he suddenly started after the flying white steed, breaking into a lumbering gallop, that set plumes nodding, curtains flapping, and glasses rattling, and made the huge unwieldly vehicle lurch and bob about in a way to threaten a shocking catastrophe. "a vigorous twitch of the lines, and a loud 'whoa, now, bill! whoa, i tell ye!' soon brought the sexton's beast to a stand-still. i am sure he must have shared his master's surprise at such unseeming conduct, who wondered 'what in time had got into the blamed crittur!' but neither voice nor rein checked peter's speed. on he flew, down the hill past the post-office, the meeting-house, and the tavern. it was a straight road, and his driver kept him to it. fortunately there were no collisions, and at the last long ascent his pace slackened and he turned of his own accord in at the parsonage gate. "at the village store and the tavern that evening, peter's evil behavior was talked about. "'he's a sp'iled horse,' jonathan goslee, the minister's hired man, said, 'though you can't make parson think so. he's dead sure to run ag'in. a horse knows when he's got the upper hand, jest as well as a child, and he'll watch his chance to try it over ag'in, you see if he don't.' "but the next time peter shied and tried to run, it was the minister who got the upper hand; and when the short excitement was over, and the horse quiet and subdued, he was driven back to within a few paces of the object of his fright. a neighbor was called to stand at his head, while his master took down the flaming yellow placard that had caused all the trouble, and slowly and cautiously brought it to him, that he might see, smell, and touch it, talking soothingly to him and petting and caressing him. when he had become accustomed to its appearance, and had learned by experience that it was harmless, it was nailed to the tree again and peter passed it the second time without trouble. "'if i'd owned the horse,' the minister's helper said, when he told this story, 'i s'pose i should have _licked_ him by,--but i guess, in the long run, parson's way was best.' "this was one of many lessons peter received to correct his only serious fault. he was willing and swift, intelligent and kind, but so nervous and timid, and made so frantic by his fear of any unknown object, that he was constantly putting the minister's life and limbs in jeopardy. but he had a wise, patient teacher, and he was apt to learn. "my grandmother was fond of telling some of the means adopted to bring about the cure;--how one day after peter had shied at sight of a wheelbarrow, the parson trundled the obnoxious object about the yard for half an hour in view of the stable window, then emptied a measure of oats in it, and opened the stable door; how the horse trotted round and round, drawing each time a little nearer, then came close, snorted and wheeled,--his master standing by encouraging him by hand and voice,--until, unable longer to resist the tempting bait, he put his pink nose to the pile and ate first timidly, then with confidence. after that, the old lady said, peter felt a particular regard for wheelbarrows in general, hoping in each one he happened to pass to find another toothsome meal. "he suffered at first agonies of terror at sight of the long line of waving, flapping garments he had to pass every monday in his passage from the big gate to the stable; but, through the minister's devices, grew so familiar with their appearance, that he took an early opportunity of making their closer acquaintance, and mouthed the parson's ruffled shirt, and took a bite of the widow goslee's dimity short-gown. "and so the kindly work went on. peter gained trust and confidence every day, learning little by little that his master was his friend, that under his guidance no harm came to him, no impossible task was given to him; until at length confidence cast out fear, and the white horse became as docile and obedient as he had always been willing and strong. "these qualities, on one occasion, stood him in good stead; for the parsonage barn and stable one night burned to the ground. peter's stall was bright with the red light of the fire, and the flames crackled overhead in the barn-loft when the parson led out his favorite, trembling in every limb, his eyes wild with terror, but perfectly obedient to his master's hand. it was as if he had said: 'i must go, even through this dreadful fire, if master leads the way.' "there was a fourth of july celebration in the next parish, and parson lorrimer was invited to deliver the oration. he rode over on horseback, took the saddle from peter's back, and turned him loose in a pasture where other of the guests' horses were grazing. a platform was erected on the green, with seats for the band, the invited guests, and the speaker of the day; while the people gathered from both parishes were standing about in groups waiting for the exercises to commence. flags were flying, bells ringing, and a field-piece, that had seen service in the war of the revolution, at intervals belched out a salute in honor of the day. the band was playing a lively tune, when suddenly there was a stir and a dividing to the right and left of the crowd gathered about the stand, and through the lane thus formed came the minister's white horse. "he trotted leisurely up, stopped before the platform, and made a bow, then began to dance, keeping time to the music, and going round and round in a space quickly cleared for him by the lookers-on. i don't know whether it was a waltz the band was playing, or if horses were taught to waltz so long ago; but whatever kind of dance it was,--gallopade, quickstep, or cotillion,--peter, in his horse-fashion, danced it well. faster and faster played the music, and round and round went the pony. the people laughed and shouted, and peter made his farewell bow and trotted soberly out of the ring, in the midst of a great shout of applause. "how did parson lorrimer feel? of all that amused and wondering crowd, not one was more taken by surprise than he--both at this exhibition of peter's accomplishments and at the tale it told of his early days; for it was impossible to doubt that at some time in his life he had been a trained horse in a circus. from the field near by he had recognized the familiar strains that used to call him to his task, and had leaped the fence and made his way to where the crowd was gathered, to play his pretty part on the village green, before the sober citizens of centerville and hilltown, as he had played it hundreds of times before, under the canvas, to the motley crowd drawn together by the attractions of the ring. "of course the minister felt sorry and ashamed when he learned, in this public way, of the low company peter had kept in his youth. whenever a traveling circus had stopped at winterport, parson lorrimer had not failed to warn his young people from the pulpit to keep their feet from straying to this place of sinful amusement. but mingled with his chagrin, i think he must have felt a little pride in the ownership of the beautiful creature, so intelligent to remember, and so supple of limb to perform, the unaccustomed task. "he took pains to narrate more fully than he had thought necessary before, how he had come in possession of the animal. he had gone, he said, on business to winterport, and on the wharf, early one morning, had met a man in the dress of a sailor leading the white horse. in answer to inquiries, the stranger said he had taken the horse in payment of a debt, and was about to ship him on board a trading-vessel then lying in the dock, bound to the east indies. would he sell, the minister asked, on this side of the water? yes, if he could get his price. while they talked, parson lorrimer caressed the horse, who responded in so friendly a way that the minister, who had lost his heart at first sight to the beautiful creature, then and there made the purchase, waiting only till the banks were open to pay over the money. he had asked few questions; had known, he said, by peter's eyes that he was kind, and by certain unmistakable marks about him that he came of good stock. of the stranger, he had seen nothing from that day, and could not even remember his name. "'i always knew,' jonathan goslee said, 'that the critter had tricks and ways different from common horses, i've catched him at 'em sometimes. one day i found him with his bran-tub bottom upwards, amusin' himself tryin' to stand with all four legs on it at once. and he'll clear marm's clothes-line at a leap as easy as you'd jump over a pair of bars. but i never happened to catch him practisin' his dancin'-lesson--must have done it, though, on the sly, or he couldn't have footed it so lively that day over to centerville. well, sometimes i think--and then ag'in i don't know. if that there sailor feller stole the horse he sold in such a hurry to parson, why didn't the owner make a hue and cry about it, and follow him up? 'twould have been easy enough to track the beast to hilltown. and then ag'in, if 'twas all fair and square, and he took the horse for a debt, why didn't he sell him to a show company for a fancy price, instead of shippin' him off to the indys in one of them rotten old tubs, that as like as not would go under before she'd made half the voyage. but there, we never shall get to the bottom facts in the case, any more than we shall ever know how much money parson paid down for that horse,' "and they never did. "my grandmother remembered parson lorrimer as an old man, tall and straight, with flowing white hair, a placid face, and kind, dim eyes that gradually grew dimmer, till their light faded to darkness. for the last four years of his life he was totally blind, she remembered how he used to mount the pulpit-stairs, one hand resting upon the shoulder of his colleague, and, standing in the old place, with lifted face and closed eyes, carry on the service, repeating chapter and hymns from memory, his voice tremulous, but still sweet and penetrating. "she remembered going to visit the old man in his study. it was summer-time, and he sat in his arm-chair at the open window, and on the grass-plat outside--so near that his head almost touched his master's shoulder--the old white horse was standing; for they had grown old together, and together were enjoying a peaceful and contented old age. every bright day for hours peter stood at the window, and in the winter-time, when he was shut in his stable, the old man never failed to visit him. "but one november afternoon, parson lorrimer being weary laid himself down upon his bed, where presently the sleep came to him god giveth to his beloved. "the evening after his funeral a member of the household passing the study-door was startled at seeing in the pale moonlight a long, ghostly white face peering in at the window. "it was only peter, that had slipped his halter and wandered round to the old place looking for his master. he allowed them to lead him back to his stable, but every time the door was opened he whinnied and turned his head. as the days passed and the step he waited for came no more, hope changed to patient grief. his food often remained untasted; he refused to go out into the sunshine; and so, gradually wasting and without much bodily suffering, he one day laid himself down and his life slipped quietly away. "he was buried outside the grave-yard, at the top of the hill, as near as might be to the granite head-stone that recorded the virtues of 'ye most faithful servant and man of god silus timothy lorrimer who for 52 yrs did minister to this ch and congregation in spiritual things. 'the faithful memory of the just shall flourish when they turn to dust.' "peter has no head-stone to mark his grave, but his memory is green in hilltown. the old folks love to tell of his beauty, his intelligence, and his life-long devotion to his master; and there is a tradition handed down and repeated half-seriously, half in jest, that when gabriel blows his trumpet on the resurrection morning, and the dead in hilltown grave-yard awake, parson lorrimer will lead his flock to the judgment riding on a white horse." chapter xi. the quilting. the patchwork quilt was finished. the pieces of calico miss ruth from week to week had measured and cut and basted together, with due regard to contrast and harmony of colors, were transformed into piles of gay-colored blocks; the blocks multiplied and extended themselves into strips, and the strips basted together had kept sixteen little hands "sewing the long seam" for three wednesday afternoons. and now it was finished, and the quilting had begun. miss ruth had decided, after a consultation with the minister's wife, that the girls might do this most important and difficult part of the business. she wanted the gift to be theirs from beginning to end--that, having furnished all the material, they should do all the work. how pleased and proud they were to be thus trusted, you can imagine, while the satisfaction they took in the result of the summer's labor repaid their leader a hundred-fold for her share in the enterprise. never was a quilt so admired and praised. of all the odds and ends the girls had brought in, ruth elliot had rejected nothing, not even the polka-dotted orange print in which mrs. jones delighted to array her baby or the gorgeous green-and-red gingham of nellie dimock's new apron. it took two long afternoons of close work for the girls (not one of whom had ever quilted before) to accomplish this task; but they did it bravely and cheerfully. there were pricked fingers and tired arms and cramped feet, and the big dictionary that raised nellie dimock to a level with her taller companions must have proved any thing but an easy seat; but no one complained. let us look in upon the patchwork quilt society toward the close of this last afternoon. "i was sewing on this very block," mollie elliot is saying, leaning back in her chair to survey her work, "when aunt ruth was telling us how captain bobtail's brownie brought tufty home. "that pink-and-gray block over there in the corner," said fannie eldridge, pointing with her needle, "was the first one i sewed on. i made awful work with it, too; for when dinah diamond set herself on fire with the kerosene lamp i forgot what i was about, and took ever so many long puckery stitches that had to be picked out," "if i should sleep under that bed-quilt," said sammy ray (sammy and roy had been invited to attend this last meeting of the society), "what do you suppose i should dream about?" no one could imagine. "a white horse and a yellow dog," the boy said, "'cause i liked those stories best." "yes," said mollie; "and of course nellie dimock would dream about cats, wouldn't you, nell? and roy tyler about moths and butterflies, and florence austin about birds, and i--well, i should dream of all the beasts and the birds aunt ruth has told us about, all jumbled up together." "i shall always remember one thing," nellie dimock said, "when i think about our quilt." "what is that, nellie?" "not to step on an ant-hill if i can possibly help it, because it blocks up the street, and the little people have to work so hard to cart away the dirt." "i ain't half so afraid of worms as i used to be," eliza ann jones announced, "since i've found out what funny things they can do; and next summer i'm going to make some butterflies out of fennel-worms," "roy says," sammy began, and stopped; for roy was making forcible objections to the disclosure. "well, what does roy say?" miss ruth asked, knowing nothing of the kicks administered under the table. "he won't let me tell," said sammy. "he's always telling what i say," said roy. "why don't he speak for himself?" "well, i never!" said sammy. "i thought you was too bashful to speak, and so i'd do it for you." "what was it, roy?" "why, i said, when i owned a horse, if he should happen to shy, you know, i'd cure him of it just as that minister cured peter." here there was a pushing back of chairs and a stir and commotion, for the last stitch was set to the quilting. then the binding was put on, and the quilt was finished; but the september afternoon was finished too, and lovina tibbs lighted the lamps in the dining-room before she rang the bell for tea. lovina had exerted herself in her special department to make this last meeting of the society a festive occasion. she gave to the visitors what she called "a company supper"--biscuits deliciously sweet and light, cold chicken, plum-preserves, sponge-cake, and for a central dish a platter containing little frosted cakes, with the letters "p.q.s." traced on each in red sugar-sand. when the feast was over, one last-admiring look given to "our quilt" and the girls and boys had all gone home, susie and mollie sat with their mother in miss ruth's room. "auntie," said susie, who for some moments had been gazing thoughtfully in the fire, "i have been thinking how nice it would be if, when our quilt goes to the home missionary, all the interesting stories you have told us while we were sewing on it could go too. then the children in the family would think so much more of it--don't you see? i wish there was some way for a great many more boys and girls to hear those stories." "why, that's just what florence austin was saying this afternoon," said mollie. "she said she wished all those stories could be printed in a book." "you hear the suggestion, ruth," mrs. elliot said. but ruth smiled and shook her head, "they are such simple little stories," said she. "for simple little people to read--'for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' think, ruth, if, instead of one eliza jones 'making butterflies out of fennel-worms' next summer, and in that way getting at some wonderful facts far more effectively than any book could teach her, there should be a dozen, aria perhaps as many boys resolving, like roy, to use kindness and patience instead of cruelty and force in their dealings with a dumb beast. but you know all this without my preaching. ten times one make ten, little sister." "if i thought my stones would do good," she said. "come, i have a proposition to make," said the minister's wife. "you shall write out the stories--you already have some of them in manuscript--and i will fill in with the doings of the patchwork quilt society. do you agree?" and that is how this book was written. the end the girl chum's series all american authors. all copyright stories. a carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. these are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. handsome cloth binding. price, 60 cents. benhurst, club, the. by howe benning. bertha's summer boarders. by linnie s. harris. billow prairie. a story of life in the great west. by joy allison. duxberry doings. a new england story. by caroline b. le row. fussbudget's folks. a story for young girls. by anna f. burnham. happy discipline, a. by elizabeth cummings. jolly ten, the; and their year of stories. by agnes carr sage. katie robertson. a girl's story of factory life. by m.e. winslow. lonely hill. a story for girls. by m.l. thornton-wilder. majoribanks. a girl's story. by elvirton wright. miss charity's house. by howe benning. miss elliot's girls. a story for young girls. by mary spring corning. miss malcolm's ten. a story for girls. by margaret e. winslow. one girl's way out. by howe benning. pen's venture. by elvirton wright. ruth prentice. a story for girls. by marion thorne. three years at glenwood. a story of school life. by m. e. winslow. for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d street, new york * * * * * the girl comrade's series all american authors. all copyright stories. a carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. these are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. handsome cloth binding. price, 60 cents. a bachelor maid and her brother. by i.t. thurston. all aboard, a story for girls. by fanny e. newberry. almost a genius. a story for girls. by adelaide l. rouse. annice wynkoop, artist. story of a country girl. by adelaide l. rouse. bubbles. a girl's story. by fannie e. newberry. comrades. by fannie e. newberry. deane girls, the. a home story. by adelaide l. rouse. helen beaton, college woman. by adelaide l. rouse. joyce's investments. a story for girls. by fannie e. newberry. mellicent raymond. a story for girls. by fannie e. newberry. miss ashton's new pupil. a school girl's story. by mrs. s.s. robbins. not for profit. a story for girls. by fannie e. newberry. odd one, the. a story for girls. by fannie e. newberry. sara, a princess. a story for girls. by fannie e. newberry. for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d street, new york * * * * * the blue grass seminary girls series by carolyn judson burnett handsome cloth binding _splendid stories of the adventures of a group of charming girls_ the blue grass seminary girls' vacation adventures; or, shirley willing to the rescue. the blue grass seminary girls' christmas holidays; or, a four weeks' tour with the glee club. the blue grass seminary girls in the mountains; or, shirley willing on a mission of peace. the blue grass seminary girls on the water; or, exciting adventures on a summer's cruise through the panama canal * * * * * the mildred series by martha finley handsome cloth binding _a companion series to the famous "elsie" books by the same author_ mildred keith mildred at roselands mildred and elsie mildred's married life mildred at home mildred's boys and girls mildred's new daughter for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d street, new york. * * * * * the camp fire girl series by hildegard g. frey. the only series of stories for camp fire girls endorsed by the officials of the camp fire girls' organization. handsome cloth binding. price, 60 cents per volume. the camp fire girls in the maine woods; or, the winnebagos go camping. this lively camp fire group and their guardian go back to nature in a camp in the wilds of maine and pile up more adventures in one summer than they have had in all their previous vacations put together. the camp fire girls at school; or, the wohelo weavers. how these seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school life the spirit of work, health and love and yet manage to get into more than their share of mischief, is told in this story. the camp fire girls at onoway house; or, the magic garden. migwan is determined to go to college, and not being strong enough to work indoors earns the money by raising fruits and vegetables. the winnebagos all turn a hand to help the cause along and the "goingson" at onoway house that summer make the foundation shake with laughter. the camp fire girls go motoring; or, along the road that leads the way. in which the winnebagos take a thousand mile auto trip. the camp fire girls larks and pranks; or, the house of the open door. the camp fire girls on ellen's isle; or, the trail of the seven cedars. the camp fire girls on the open road; or, glorify work. the camp fire girls do their bit; or, over the top with the winnebagos. the camp fire girls solve a mystery; or, the christmas adventure at carver house. the camp fire girls at camp keewaydin; or, down paddles. for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d street, new york * * * * * the amy e. blanchard series miss blanchard has won an enviable reputation as a writer of short stories for girls. her books are thoroughly wholesome in every way and her style is full of charm. the titles described below will be splendid additions to every girl's library. handsomely bound in cloth, full library size. illustrated by l.j. bridgman. price, 60 cents per volume, postpaid. the glad lady. a spirited account of a remarkably pleasant vacation spent in an unfrequented part of northern spain. this summer, which promised at the outset to be very quiet, proved to be exactly the opposite. event follows event in rapid succession and the story ends with the culmination of at least two happy romances. the story throughout is interwoven with vivid descriptions of real places and people of which the general public knows very little. these add greatly to the reader's interest. wit's end. instilled with life, color and individuality, this story of true love cannot fail to attract and hold to its happy end the reader's eager attention. the word pictures are masterly; while the poise of narrative and description is marvellously preserved. a journey of joy. a charming story of the travels and adventures of two young american girls, and an elderly companion in europe, it is not only well told, but the amount of information contained will make it a very valuable addition to the library of any girl who anticipates making-a similar trip. their many pleasant experiences end in the culmination of two happy romances, all told in the happiest vein. talbot's angles. a charming romance of southern life. talbot's angles is a beautiful old estate located on the eastern shore of maryland. the death of the owner and the ensuing legal troubles render it necessary for our heroine, the present owner, to leave the place which has been in her family for hundreds of years and endeavor to earn her own living. another claimant for the property appearing on the scene complicates matters still more. the untangling of this mixed-up condition of affairs makes an extremely interesting story. for sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price by the publishers a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d street, new york * * * * * the boy allies (registered in the united states patent office) with the navy by ensign robert l. drake handsome cloth binding, price 60 cents per volume frank chadwick and jack templeton, young american lads, meet each other in an unusual way soon after the declaration of war. circumstances place them on board the british cruiser "the sylph" and from there on, they share adventures with the sailors of the allies. ensign robert l. drake, the author, is an experienced naval officer, and he describes admirably the many exciting adventures of the two boys. the boy allies on the north sea patrol; or, striking the first blow at the german fleet. the boy allies under two flags; or, sweeping the enemy from the seas. the boy allies with the flying squadron; or, the naval raiders of the great war. the boy allies with the terror of the sea; or, the last shot of submarine d-16. the boy allies under the sea; or, the vanishing submarine. the boy allies in the baltic; or, through fields of ice to aid the czar. the boy allies at jutland; or, the greatest naval battle of history. the boy allies with uncle sam's cruisers; or, convoying the american army across the atlantic. the boy allies with the submarine d-32; or, the fall of the russian empire. the boy allies with the victorious fleets; or, the fall of the german navy. for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d st., new york * * * * * the boy allies with (registered in the united states patent office) the army by clair w. hayes handsome cloth binding, price 60 cents per volume in this series we follow the fortunes of two american lads unable to leave europe after war is declared. they meet the soldiers of the allies, and decide to cast their lot with them. their experiences and escapes are many, and furnish plenty of the good, healthy action that every boy loves. the boy allies at liege; or, through lines of steel. the boy allies on the firing line; or, twelve days battle along the marne. the boy allies with the cossacks; or, a wild dash over the carpathians. the boy allies in the trenches; or, midst shot and shell along the aisne. the boy allies in great peril; or, with the italian army in the alps. the boy allies in the balkan campaign; or, the struggle to save a nation. the boy allies on the somme; or, courage and bravery rewarded. the boy allies at verdun; or, saving france from the enemy. the boy allies under the stars and stripes; or, leading the american troops to the firing line. the boy allies with haig in flanders; or, the fighting canadians of vimy ridge. the boy allies with pershing in france; or over the top at chateau thierry. the boy allies with the great advance; or, driving the enemy through france and belgium. the boy allies with marshal foch; or, the closing days of the great world war. for sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. a.l. burt company, 114-120 east 23d st., new york transcriber's note: inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. italic text is denoted by _underscores_. books by katharine holland brown published by charles scribner's sons the hallowell partnership. 12mo net, $1.00 the messenger. 16mo net, .50 philippa at halcyon. illustrated. 12mo $1.50 the hallowell partnership [illustration: marian could only lie by the fire and tease empress and fret the endless hours away.] the hallowell partnership by katharine holland brown author of "philippa at halcyon," etc. _illustrated_ new york charles scribner's sons 1912 copyright, 1912, by charles scribner's sons published october, 1912 to the house of the brown thrush the author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of _the youth's companion_, in permitting this publication of "the hallowell partnership." illustrations marian could only lie by the fire and tease empress and fret the endless hours away _frontispiece_ facing page on the edge of the opposite bank stood the quaintest, prettiest group that her eyes had ever beheld 62 "well, captain lathrop!" commodore mccloskey's voice rang merciless and clear 138 marian was on her knees by his chair, clasping his cold hands in her own 234 the hallowell partnership chapter i when slow-coach got his fighting chance "rod!" no answer. "rod, what did that messenger boy bring? a special-delivery letter? is it anything interesting?" marian hallowell pushed empress from her knee and turned on her pillows to look at roderick, her brother, who sat absorbed and silent at his desk. roderick did not move. only empress cocked a topaz eye, and rubbed her orange-tawny head against marian's chair. "rod, why don't you answer me?" marian's thin hands twitched. a sharp, fretted line deepened across her pretty, girlish forehead. it was not a pleasant line to see. and through her long, slow convalescence it had grown deeper every day. "_roderick hallowell!_" roderick jumped. he turned his sober, kind face to her, then bent eagerly to the closely written letter in his hand. "just a minute, sis." "oh, very well, slow-coach!" marian lay back, with a resigned sniff. she pulled empress up by her silver collar, and lay petting the big, satiny persian, who purred like a happy windmill against her cheek. her tired eyes wandered restlessly about the dim, high-ceiled old room. of all the dreary lodgings on beacon hill, surely roderick had picked out the most forlorn! still, the old place was quiet and comfortable. and, as roderick had remarked, his rooms were amazingly inexpensive. that had been an important point; especially since marian's long, costly illness at college. that siege had been hard on rod in many ways, she thought, with a mild twinge of self-reproach. in a way, those long weeks of suffering had come through her own fault. the college physician had warned her more than once that she was working and playing beyond her strength. yet she felt extremely ill-used. "it wasn't nearly so bad, while i stayed in the infirmary at college." she sighed as she thought of her bright, airy room, the coming and going of the girls with their gay petting and sympathy, the roses and magazines and dainties. "but here, in this tiresome, lonely place! how can i expect to get well!" here she lay, shut up in rod's rooms, alone day after day, save for the vague, pottering kindnesses of rod's vague old landlady. at night her brother would come home from his long day's work as cub draughtsman in the city engineer's office, too tired to talk. and marian, forbidden by overstrained eyes to read, could only lie by the fire, and tease empress, and fret the endless hours away. at last, with a deep breath, rod laid down the letter. he pulled his chair beside her lounge. "tired, sis?" "not very. what was your letter, rod?" "i'll tell you pretty soon. anything doing to-day?" "isabel and dorothy came in from wellesley this morning, and brought me those lovely violets, and told me all about the barn swallows' masque dance last night. and the doctor came this afternoon." "h'm. what did he say?" marian gloomed. "just what he always says. 'no more study this year. out-door life. bread and milk and sleep.' tiresome!" roderick nodded. "hard lines, sister. and yet--" he dropped his sentence, and sat staring at the fire. "rod! are you never going to tell me what is in that letter?" "that letter? oh, yes. sure it won't tire you to talk business?" "of course not." "well, then--i have an offer of a new position. a splendid big one at that." "a new position? truly?" marian sat up, with brightening eyes. "yes. but i'm not sure i can swing it." rod's face clouded. "it demands a mighty competent engineer." "well! aren't you a competent engineer?" marian gave his ear a mild tweak. "you're always underrating yourself, you old goose. tell me about this. quick." rod's thoughtful face grew grave. "it's such a gorgeous chance that i can't half believe in it," he said, at length. "through professor young, i'm offered an engineer's billet with the breckenridge engineering and construction company. the breckenridge company is the largest and the best-known firm of engineers in the united states. breckenridge himself is a wonder. i'd rather work under him than under any man i ever heard of. the work is a huge drainage contract in western illinois. one hundred dollars a month and all my expenses. it's a two-year job." "a two-year position, out west!" marian's eyes shone. "the out-west part is dreadful, of course. but think of a hundred-dollar salary, after the sixty dollars that you have been drudging to earn ever since you left tech! read professor young's letter aloud; do." roderick squirmed. "oh, you don't want to hear it. it's nothing much." "yes i do, too. read it, i say. or--give it to me. there!" there was a short, lively scuffle. however, marian had captured the letter with the first deft snatch; and roderick could hardly take it from her shaky, triumphant hands by main force. he gave way, grumbling. "professor young always says a lot of things he doesn't mean. he does it to brace a fellow up, that's all." "very likely." marian's eyes skimmed down the first page. "'--and as the company has asked me to recommend an engineer of whose work i can speak from first-hand knowledge, i have taken pleasure in referring them to you. to be sure, you have had no experience in drainage work. but from what i recall of your record at tech, your fundamental training leaves nothing to be desired. when it comes to handling the mass of rough-and-ready labor that the contract employs, i am confident that your father's son will show the needed judgment and authority. it is a splendid undertaking, this reclamation of waste land. it is heavy, responsible work, but it is a man's work, straight through; and there is enough of chance in it to make it a man's game, as well. if you can make good at this difficult opportunity, you will prove that you can make good at any piece of drainage engineering that comes your way. this is your fighting chance at success. and i expect to see you equal to its heaviest demands. good luck to you!' "that sounds just like professor young. and he means it. every word." marian folded the letter carefully and gave it back to her brother. "honestly, rod, it does sound too good to be true. and think, what a frabjous time you can have during your vacations! you can run over to the ozarks for your week-ends, and visit the moores on their big fruit ranch, and go mountain-climbing--" roderick chortled. "the ozarks would be a trifling week-end jaunt of three hundred miles, old lady. didn't they teach you geography at wellesley? as to mountains, that country is mostly pee-rary and swamp. that's why this contract will be a two-year job, and a stiff job at that." "what does district drainage work mean, anyway?" "in district drainage, a lot of farmers and land-owners unite to form what is called, in law, a drainage district. a sort of mutual benefit association, you might call it. then they tax themselves, and hire engineers and contractors to dig a huge system of ditches, and to build levees and dikes, to guard their fields against high water. you see, an illinois farmer may own a thousand acres of the richest alluvial land. but if half that land is swamp, and the other half lies so low that the creeks near by may overflow and ruin his crops any day, then his thousand mellow acres aren't much more use than ten acres of hard-scrabble here in new england. to be sure, he can cut his own ditches, and build his own levee, without consulting his neighbors. but the best way is for the whole country-side to unite and do the work on a royal scale." "how do they go about digging those ditches? where can they find laboring men to do the work, away out in the country?" "why, you can't dig a forty-foot district canal by hand, sis! that would be a thousand-year job. first, the district calls in an experienced engineer to look over the ground and make plans and estimates. next, it employs a drainage contractor; say, the breckenridge firm. this firm puts in three or four huge steam dredge-boats, a squad of dump-carts and scrapers, an army of laborers, and a staff of engineers--including your eminent c. e. brother--to oversee the work. the dredges begin by digging a series of canals; one enormous one, called the main ditch, which runs the length of the district and empties into some large body of water; in this case, the illinois river. radiating from this big ditch, they cut a whole family of little ditches, called laterals. the main ditch is to carry off the bulk of water in case of freshets; while the laterals drain the individual farms." "it sounds like slow, costly work." "it is. and you've heard only half of it, so far. then, following the dredges, come the laborers, with their teams and shovels and dump-carts. along the banks of the ditch they build low brush-and-stone-work walls and fill them in with earth. these walls make a levee. so, even if the floods come, and your ditch runs bank-full, the levee will hold back the water and save the crops from ruin. do you see?" "ye-es. but it sounds rather tangled, rod." "it isn't tangled at all. look." rod's pencil raced across the envelope. "here's a rough outline of this very contract. this squirmy line is willow creek. it is a broad, deep stream, and it runs for thirty crooked miles through the district, with swampy shores all the way. a dozen smaller creeks feed into it. they're swampy, too. so you can see how much good rich farm-land is being kept idle. "this straight line is the main ditch, as planned. it will cut straight through the creek course, as the crow flies. do you see, that means we'll make a new channel for the whole stream? a straight, deep channel, too, not more than ten miles long, instead of the thirty twisted, wasteful miles of the old channel. the short lines at right angles to the main ditch represent the little ditches, or laterals. they'll carry off surplus water from the farm-lands: even from those that lie back from the creek, well out of harm's way." [illustration] "what will your work be, rod?" "i'll probably be given a night shift to boss. that is--if i take the job at all. the laborers are divided into two shifts, eleven hours each. the dredges have big search-lights, and puff along by night, regardless." "how will you live?" "we engineers will be allotted a house-boat to ourselves, and we'll mess together. the laborers live on a big boat called the quarter-boat. the firm furnishes food and bunks, tools, stationery, everything, even to overalls and quinine." "quinine?" "yes. those illinois swamps are chock-full of chills and fever." "cheerful prospect! what if you get sick, rod?" "pooh. i never had a sick day in all my life. however, the farm-houses, up on higher ground, are out of the malaria belt. if i get so miss nancy-fied that i can't stay in the swamp, i can sleep at a farm-house. they say there are lots of pleasant people living down through that section. it is a beautiful country, too. i--i'd like it immensely, i imagine." "of course you will. but what makes you speak so queerly, rod? you're certainly going to accept this splendid chance!" rod's dark, sober face settled into unflinching lines. "we'll settle that later. what about you, sis? if i go west, where will you go? how will you manage without me?" "oh, i'll go up to ipswich for the summer. just as i always do." rod considered. "that won't answer, marian. now that the comstocks have moved away, there is nobody there to look after you. and you'd be lonely, too." "well, then, i can go to dublin. cousin evelyn will give me a corner in her cottage." "but cousin evelyn sails for norway in june." "dear me, i forgot! then i'll visit some of the girls. isabel was teasing me this morning to come to their place at beverly farms for august. though--i don't know----" rod's serious young eyes met hers. a slow red mounted to his thatched black hair. "i don't believe that would work, sis. i hate to spoil your fun. but--we can't afford that sort of thing, dear." "i suppose not. to spend a month with isabel and her mother, in that tudor palace of theirs, full of man-servants, and maid-servants, and regiments of guests, and flocks and herds of automobiles, would cost me more, in new clothes alone, than the whole summer at ipswich. but, rod, where can i stay? i'd go cheerfully and camp on my relatives, only we haven't a relative in the world, except cousin evelyn. besides, i--i don't see how i can ever stand it, anyway!" her fretted voice broke, quivering. mindful of rod's boyish hatred of sentiment, she gulped back the sob in her throat; but her weak hand clutched his sleeve. "there are only the two of us, rod, and we've never been separated in all our lives. not even for a single week. i--i can't let you go away out there and leave me behind." now, on nine occasions out of ten, slow-coach was rod's fitting title. this was the tenth time. he stooped over marian, his black eyes flashing. his big hand caught her trembling fingers tight. "that will just do, sis. stop your forebodings, you precious old 'fraid-cat. i'm going to pack you up and take you right straight along." "why, roderick thayer hallowell!" marian gasped. she stared up at her brother, wide-eyed. "why, i couldn't possibly go with you. it's absurd. i daren't even think of it." "why not?" "well, it's such a queer, wild place. and it is so horribly far away. and i'm not strong enough for roughing it." "nonsense. illinois isn't a frontier. it's only two days' travel from boston. as for roughing it, think of the vermont farm-houses where we've stayed on fishing trips. remember the smothery feather-beds, and the ice-cold pickled beets and pie for breakfast? darkest illinois can't be worse than that." "n-no, i should hope not. but it will be so tedious and dull!" "didn't the doctor order you to spend a dull summer? didn't he prescribe bread and milk and sleep?" "rod, i won't go. i can't. i'd be perfectly miserable. there, now!" roderick gave her a long, grave look. "then i may as well write and decline the breckenridge offer, sis. for i'll take you with me, or else stay here with you. that's all." "rod, you're so contrary!" marian's lips quivered. "you must go west. i won't have you stay here and drudge forever at office work. you must not throw away this splendid chance. it isn't possible!" "it isn't possible for me to do anything else, sis." roderick's stolid face settled into granite lines. marian started at the new ring of authority in his voice. "haven't you just said that you couldn't stand it to be left behind? well, i--i'm in the same boat. i can't go off and leave you, sis. i won't run the chances of your being sick, or lonely, while i'm a thousand miles away. so you'll have to decide for us both. either you go with me, or else i stay here and drudge forever, as you call it. for i'd rather drudge forever than face that separation. that's all. run along to bed now, that's a good girl. you'll need plenty of sleep if you are to start for illinois with me next week. good-night." "well, but rod----" "run along, i say. take empress with you. i want to answer this letter, and she keeps purring like a buzz-saw, and sharpening her claws on my shoes, till i can't think straight." "but, rod, you don't understand!" marian caught his arm. her eyes brimmed with angry tears. "i don't _want_ to go west. i'll hate it. i know i shall. i want to stay here, where i can be with my friends, where i can have a little fun. it's not fair to make me go with you!" "oh, i understand, all right." roderick's eyes darkened. "you will not like the west. you'll not be contented. i know that. but, remember, i'm taking this job for both of us, sis. we're partners, you know. i wish you could realize that." his voice grew a little wistful. "if you'd be willing to play up----" "oh, i'll play up, of course." marian put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a pettish kiss. "and i'll go west with you. though i'd rather go to moscow or the sahara. come, empress! good-night, rod." the door closed behind her quick, impatient step. roderick sat down at his desk and opened his portfolio. he did not begin to write at once. instead, he sat staring at the letter in his hand. he was a slow, plodding boy; he was not given to dreaming; but to-night, as he sat there, his sober young face lighted with eager fire. certain phrases of that magical letter seemed to float and gleam before his eyes. --"'a splendid undertaking ... heavy, responsible work, but a man's work, and a man's game.... this is your fighting chance. if you can make good.... and i expect to see you equal to its heaviest demands.'" rod's deep eyes kindled slowly. "i'll make good, all right," he muttered. his strong hand clinched on the folded sheet. "it's my fighting chance. and if i can't win out, with such an opportunity as this one--then i'll take my name off the _engineering record_ roster and buy me a pick and a shovel!" chapter ii travellers three "ready, marian? the limited starts in thirty minutes. we haven't a minute to spare." "y-yes." marian caught up her handbag and hurried into the cab. "only my trunk keys--i'm not sure----" "your trunk keys! you haven't lost them, of all things!" "no. here they are, safe in my bag. but empress has been so frenzied i haven't known which way to turn." poor insulted empress, squirming madly in a wicker basket, glared at rod, and lifted a wild, despairing yowl. "you don't propose to leave mount vernon street for the wilds of illinois without a struggle, do you, empress?" chuckled rod. "never you mind. you'll forget your blue silk cushion and your minced steak and cream, and you'll be chasing plebeian chipmunks in a week. look at the river, marian. you won't see it again in a long while." marian followed his glance. it was a silver hoar-frost morning. the sky shone a cloudless blue, the cold, delicious air sparkled, diamond-clear. straight down mount vernon street the exquisite little panel of the frozen charles gleamed like a vista of fairyland. marian stared at it a little wistfully. "it will all be very different out west, i suppose. i wonder if any western river can be half as lovely," she pondered. roderick did not answer. a sudden worried question stirred in his thought. yes, the west would be "different." very different. "maybe i've done the worst possible thing in dragging marian along," he thought. "but it's too late to turn back now. i can only hope that she can stand the change, and that she'll try to be patient and contented." marian, on her part, was in high spirits. she had been shut up for so long that to find herself free, and starting on this trip to a new country, delighted her beyond bounds. at south station, a crowd of her wellesley chums stormed down upon her, in what rod described later as a mass-play, laden with roses and chocolates and gay, loving farewells. marian tore herself from their hands, half-laughing, half-crying with happy excitement. "oh, rod, i know we're going to have the grandest trip, and the most beautiful good fortunes that ever were!" she cried, as he put her carefully aboard the train. "but you aren't one bit enthusiastic. you stodgy tortoise, why can't you be pleased, too?" "i'm only too glad if you like the prospect, sis," he answered soberly. marian's spirits soared even higher as the hours passed. roderick grew as rapt as she when the train whirled through the winter glory of the berkshires. every slope rose folded in dazzling snow. every tree, through mile on mile of forest, blazed in rainbow coats of icy mail. the wide rolling new york country was scarcely less beautiful. at buffalo, the next morning, a special pleasure awaited them. a party of friends met them with a huge touring car, and carried them on a flying trip to the ice-bridge at niagara falls. to marian, every minute spelled enchantment. she forgot her dizzy head and her aching bones, and fairly exulted in the wild splendor of the blue ice-walled cataract. roderick, on his part, was so absorbed by the marvellous engineering system of the great power-plant that for once he had no eyes nor thought for his sister, nor for any other matter. their wonderful day closed with an elaborate dinner-party, given in their honor. neither marian nor rod had ever been guests at so grand an affair. as they dashed to their train in their host's beautiful limousine, marian looked up from her bouquet of violets and orchids with laughing eyes. "if this is the west, rod, i really think it will suit me very well!" rod's mouth twisted into a rueful grin. "glad you enjoy it, sis. gloat over your luxury while you may. you'll find yourself swept out of the limousine zone all too soon. by this time next week you'll be thankful for a spring wagon." by the next morning, marian's spirits began to flag. all day they travelled in fog and rain, down through a flat, dun country. not a gleam of snow lightened those desolate, muddy plains. there seemed no end to that sodden prairie, that gray mist-blotted sky. marian grew more lonely and unhappy with every hour. she struggled to be good-humored for roderick's sake. but she grew terribly tired; and it was a very white-faced girl who clung to roderick's arm as their train rolled into the great, clanging terminal at saint louis. roderick hurried her to a hotel. it seemed to her that she had scarcely dropped asleep before rod's voice sounded at the door. "sorry, sis, but we'll have to start right away. it's nearly eight o'clock." "oh, rod, i'm so tired! please let's take a later train." "there isn't any later train, dear. there isn't any train at all. we're going up-river on a little steamer that is towing a barge-load of coal to our camp. that's the only way to reach the place. there is no railroad anywhere near. there won't be another steamer going up for days. it's a shame to haul you out, but it can't be helped." an hour later, they picked their way down the wet, slippery stones of the levee to where the _lucy lee_, a tiny flat-bottomed "stern-wheeler," puffed and snorted, awaiting them. as they crossed the gang-plank, the pilot rang the big warning bell. immediately their little craft nosed its way shivering along the ranks of moored packets, and rocked out into mid-channel. marian peered back, but she could see nothing of the city. a thick icy fog hung everywhere, shrouding even the tall warehouses at the river's edge, and drifting in great, gray clouds over the bridges. "the river is still thick with floating ice," said the captain, at her elbow. "the _lucy_ is the first steam-boat to dare her luck, trying to go up-stream, since the up-river ice gorge let go. but we'll make it all right. it's a pretty chancy trip, yet it's not as dangerous as you'd think." marian twinkled. "it looks chancy enough to me," she confessed. she looked out at the broad, turbid stream. here and there a black patch marked a drifting ice cake, covered with brush, swept down from some flooded woodland. through the mist she caught glimpses of high, muddy banks, a group of sooty factories, a gray, murky sky. "i don't see much charm to the mississippi, rod. is this all there is to it? just yellow, tumbling water, and mud, and fog?" "it isn't a beautiful stream, that's a fact," admitted rod. yet his eyes sparkled. he was growing more flushed and alert with every turn of the wheels that brought him nearer to his coveted work, his man's game. "this is too raw and cold for you, marian. come into the cabin, and i'll fix you all snug by the fire." "the cabin is so stuffy and horrid," fretted marian. yet she added, "but it's the cunningest place i ever dreamed of. it's like a miniature museum." "a museum? a junk-shop, i'd call it," rod chuckled, as he settled her into the big red-cushioned rocker, before the roaring cannon stove. the tight little room was crowded with solemn black-walnut cabinets, full of shells and arrowheads, and hung thick with quaint, high-colored old pictures. languishing ladies in chignons and crinoline gazed upon lordly gentlemen in tall stocks and gorgeous waistcoats; "summer prospects," in vivid chromos fronted "snow scenes," made realistic with much powdered isinglass. crowning all, rose a tall, cupid-wreathed gilt mirror, surmounted by a stern stuffed eagle, who glared down fiercely from two yellow glass eyes. his mighty wings spread above the mirror, a bit moth-eaten, but still terrifying. "look, empress. don't you want to catch that nice birdie?" poor bewildered empress glared at the big bird, and sidled, back erect, wrathfully sissing, under a chair. travel had no charms for empress. "will you look at that old yellowed pilot's map and certificate in the acorn frame? '1857!'" chuckled rod. "and the red-and-blue worsted motto hung above it: 'home, sweet home!' i'll wager grandma noah did that worsted-work." "not grandma noah, but grandma mccloskey," laughed the captain. "she was the nicest old lady you ever laid eyes on. she used to live on the boat and cook for us, till the rheumatism forced her to live ashore. her husband is old commodore mccloskey; so everybody calls him. he has been a pilot on the mississippi ever since the day he got that certificate, yonder. he's a character, mind that. he shot that eagle in '58, and he has carried it around with him ever since, to every steamer that he has piloted. you must go up to the pilot-house after a bit and make him a visit. he's worth knowing." "i think i'd like to go up to the pilot-house right away, rod. it is so close and hot down here." obediently rod gathered up her rugs and cushions. carefully he and the captain helped her up the swaying corkscrew stairs, across the dizzy, rain-swept hurricane deck, then up the still narrower, more twisty flight that ended at the door of the high glass-walled box, perched like a bird-cage, away forward. inside that box stood a large wooden wheel, and a small, twinkling, white-bearded old gentleman, who looked for all the world like a santa claus masquerading in yellow oilskins. "ask him real pretty," cautioned the captain. "he thinks he runs this boat, and everybody aboard her. he does, too, for a fact." with much ceremony roderick rapped at the glass door, and asked permission for his sister to enter. with grand aplomb the little old gentleman rose from his wheel and ushered her up the steps. "'tis for fifty-four years that i and me pilot-house have been honored by the ladies' visits," quoth he, with a stately bow. "ye'll sit here, behind the wheel, and watch me swing herself up the river? sure, 'tis a ticklish voyage, wid the river so full of floatin' ice. i shall be glad of yer gracious presence, ma'am. it will bring me good luck in me steerin'." marian's eyes danced. she fitted herself neatly into the cushioned bench against the wall. the pilot-house was a bird-cage, indeed, hardly eight feet square. the great wheel, swinging in its high frame, took up a third of the space; a huge cast-iron stove filled one corner. for the rest, marian felt as if she had stepped inside one of the curio-cabinets in the cabin below; for every inch of wall space in the bird-cage was festooned with mementoes of every sort. a string of beautiful wampum, all polished elks' teeth and uncut green turquoise; shell baskets, and strings of buckeyes; a four-foot diamond-back rattlesnake's skin, beautiful and uncanny, the bunch of five rattles tied to the tail. close beside the glittering skin hung even an odder treasure-trove: a small white kid glove, quaintly embroidered in faded pink-and-blue forget-me-nots. "great-aunt emily had some embroidered gloves like that in her trousseau," thought marian. "i do wonder----" "ye're lookin' at me keepsakes?" the pilot sighted up-stream, then turned, beaming. "maybe it will pass the time like for me to tell ye of them. there is not one but stands for an adventure. that wampum was given to me by chief ogalalla; a famous sioux warrior, he was. 'twas back in sixty-wan, and the string was the worth of two ponies in thim days. three of me mates an' meself was prospectin' down in western nebraska. there came a great blizzard, and chief ogalalla and three of his men rode up to our camp, and we took them in for the night." "and he gave you the wampum in payment?" "payment? never! a man never paid for food nor shelter on the plains. no more than for the air he breathed. 'twas gratitude. for chief ogalalla had a ragin' toothache, and i cured it for him. made him a poultice of red pepper." "mercy! i should think that would hurt worse than any toothache!" "maybe it did, ma'am. but at least it disthracted his attention from the tooth itself. that rattlesnake, i kilt in a swamp near vicksburg. me and me wife was young then, and we'd borrowed a skiff, an' rowed out to hunt pond-lilies. mary would go in the bog, walkin' on the big tufts of rushes. her little feet were that light she didn't sink at all. but the first thing i heard she gave a little squeal, an' there she stood, perched on a tuft, and not three feet away, curled up on a log, was that great shinin' serpent. just rockin' himself easy, he was, makin' ready to strike. an' strike he would. only"--the small twinkling face grew grim--"only i struck first." marian shivered. "and the little white glove?" the old pilot beamed. "sure, i hoped ye'd notice that, miss. that glove points to the proud day f'r me! it was the summer of '60. i was pilotin' the _annie kilburn_, a grand large packet, down to saint louis. we had a wonderful party aboard her. 'twas just the beginnin' of war times, an' 'twould be like readin' a history book aloud to tell ye their names. did ever ye hear of the little giant?" "of stephen a. douglas, the famous orator? why, yes, to be sure. was he aboard?" "yes. a fine, pleasant-spoke gentleman he was, too. but 'tis not the little giant that this story is about. 'twas his wife. ye've heard of her, sure? ah, but i wish you could have seen her when she came trippin' up the steps of me pilot-house and passed the time of day with me, so sweet and friendly. afterward they told me what a great lady she was. though i could see that for meself, she was that gentle, and her voice so quiet and low, and her look so sweet and kind. i was showin' her about, an' feelin' terrible proud, an' fussy, an' excited. i was a young felly then, and it took no more than her word an' her smile to turn me foolish head. an' i was showin' her how to handle the wheel, and by some mischance, didn't i catch me blunderin' hand in the frame, an' give it a wrench that near broke every bone! i couldn't leave the wheel till the first mate should come to take me place. and madame douglas was that distressed, you'd think it was her own hand that she was grievin' over. she would tear her lace handkerchief into strips, and bind up the cut, and then what does she do but take her white glove, an' twist it round the fingers, so's to keep them from the air, till i could find time to bandage them. i said not a word. but the minute her silks an' laces went trailin' down the hurricane ladder, i jerked off that glove an' folded it in my wallet. an' there it stayed till i could have that frame made for it. and in that frame i've carried it ever since, all these long years. "those were the grand days, sure," he added, wistfully. "before the war, we pilots were the lords of the river. i had me a pair of varnished boots, an' tight striped trousers, an' a grand shiny stove-pipe hat, an' i wouldn't have called the king me uncle. it's sad times for the river, nowadays." he looked away up the broad, tumbling yellow stream. "look at her, will ye! no river at all, she is, wid her roily yellow water, an' her poor miry banks, an' her bluffs, all washed away to shiftin' sand. but wasn't she the grand stream entirely, before the war!" marian looked at the framed river-chart above the wheel. she tried to read its puzzle of tangled lines. the old man sniffed. "don't waste yer time wid that gimcrack, miss. steer by it? never!" he shrugged his shoulders loftily. "it hangs there by government request, so i tolerate it to please the department. i know this river by heart, every inch. i could steer this boat from natchez to saint paul wid me eyes shut, the blackest night that ever blew!" marian dimpled at his majestic tone. "will you show me how to steer? i've always been curious as to how it is done." "certain i will." keenly interested, marian gripped the handholds, and turned the heavy wheel back and forth as he directed. suddenly her grasp loosened. down the stream, straight toward the boat, drifted a rolling black mass. "mercy, what is that? it looks like a whole forest of logs. it's rolling right toward us!" "ye're right. 'tis a raft that's broke adrift. but we have time to dodge, be sure. watch now." his right hand grasped the wheel. his left seized the bell-cord. three sharp toots signalled the engine-room for full head of steam. instantly the _lucy_ jarred under marian's feet with the sudden heavy force of doubled power. slowly the steam-boat swung out of her course, in a long westward curve. past her, the nearest logs not fifty feet away, the great, grinding mass of tree-trunks rolled and tumbled by, sweeping on toward the gulf. "'tis handy that we met those gintlemen by daylight," remarked the pilot, cheerfully. "for one log alone would foul our paddle-wheels and give us a bad shaking up. and should all that donnybrook fair come stormin' into us by night, we'd go to the bottom before ye could say jack robinson." marian's eyes narrowed. she stared at the dusk stormy yellow river, the blank inhospitable shores. she was not by any means a coward. but she could not resist asking one question. "do we go on up-river after nightfall? or do we stop at some landing?" "there's no landing between here and grafton, at the mouth of the illinois river. we'll have to tie up along shore, i'm thinkin'." the old man spoke grudgingly. "if i was runnin' her meself, 'tis little we'd stop for the night. but the captain thinks different. he's young and notional. tie up over night we must, says he. but 'tis all nonsense. chicken-hearted, i'd call it, that's all." marian laughed to herself. inwardly she was grateful for the captain's chicken-heartedness. a loud gong sounded from below. the pilot nodded. "yon's your supper-bell, miss. i thank ye kindly for the pleasure of yer company. i shall be honored if ye choose to come again. and soon." marian made her way down to the cabin through the stormy dusk. the little room was warm and brightly lighted; the captain's negro boy was just placing huge smoking-hot platters of perfectly cooked fish and steak upon the clean oil-cloth table. they gathered around it, an odd company. marian and roderick, the captain, the _lucy's_ engineer, a pleasant, boyish fellow, painfully embarrassed and redolent of hot oil and machinery; and two young dredge-runners, on their way, like rod, to the breckenridge contract. save the captain and rod, they gobbled bashfully, and fled at the earliest possible moment. rod and the captain were talking of the contract and of its prospects. marian trifled with her massive hot biscuit, and listened indifferently. "i hope your coming on the work may change its luck, mr. hallowell," observed the captain. "for that contract has struggled with mighty serious difficulties, so far. breckenridge himself is a superb engineer; but of course he cannot stay on the ground. he has a dozen equally important contracts to oversee. his engineers are all well enough, but somehow they don't seem to make things go. carlisle is the chief. he is a good engineer and a good fellow, but he is so nearly dead with malaria that he can't do two hours' work in a week. burford, his aid, is a young southerner, a fine chap, but--well, a bit hot-headed. you know our northern labor won't stand for much of that. then there is marvin, who is third in charge. but as for marvin"--he stopped, with a queer short laugh--"as for marvin, the least said the soonest mended. he's a cub engineer, they call him; a grizzly cub at that. he may come out all right, with time. you can see for yourself that you haven't any soft job. with a force of two hundred laborers, marooned in a swamp seven miles from nowhere, not even a railroad in the county; with half the land-owners protesting against their assessments, and refusing to pay up; with your head engineer sick, and your coal shipments held up by high water--no, you won't find your place an easy one, mind that." "i'm not doing any worrying." rod's jaw set. his dark face glowed. marian looked at him, a little jealously. his whole heart and thought were swinging away to this work, now opening before him. this was his man's share in labor, and he was eager to cope with its sternest demands. "well, it's a good thing you have the pluck to face it. you will need all the pluck you've got, and then some." the captain paced restlessly up and down the narrow room. "wonder why we don't slow down. we must be running a full twelve miles an hour. altogether too fast, when we're towing a barge. and it is pitch dark." he stooped to the engine-room speaking-tube. "hi, smith! why are you carrying so much steam? i want to put her inshore." a muffled voice rose from the engine-room. "all right, sir. but mccloskey, he just rung for full speed ahead." "he did? that's mccloskey, all over. the old rascal! he has set his heart on making grafton landing to-night, instead of tying up alongshore. hear that? he's making that old wheel jump. to be sure, he knows the river channel like a book. but, even with double search-lights, no man living can see ice-cakes and brush far enough ahead to dodge them." "let's take a look on deck," suggested rod. once outside the warm, cheerful cabin, the night wind swept down on them, a driving, freezing blast. the little steamer fairly raced through the water. her deck boards quivered; the boom of the heavy engine throbbed under their feet. "thickest night i've seen in a year," growled the captain. "i say, mccloskey! slow down, and let's put her inshore. this is too dangerous to suit me." no reply. the boat fled pitching on. "_mccloskey!_" at last there came a faint hail. "yes, captain! what's yer pleasure, sir?" "the old rascal! he's trying to show off. he's put his deaf ear to the tube, i'll be bound. best go inside, miss hallowell, this wind is full of sleet. mccloskey! head her inshore, i say." on rushed the _lucy_. her course did not change a hair's breadth. "no wonder they call him commodore mccloskey!" rod whispered wickedly. "even the captain has to yield to him." "mccloskey!" the captain's voice was gruff with anger. "_head her inshore!_ unless you're trying to kill the boat----" crash! the captain's sentence was never finished. chapter iii enter mr. finnegan with that crash the floor shot from under their feet. stumbling and clutching, the three, marian, rod, and the captain, pitched across the deck and landed in a heap against the rail. the lighted cabin seemed to rear straight up from the deck and lunge toward them. there was an uproar of shouts, a hideous pounding of machinery. marian shut her eyes. then, with a second deafening crash, the steamer righted herself; and, thrown like three helpless ninepins, marian, rod, and the captain reeled back from the rail and found themselves, bumped and dizzy, tangled in a heap of freight and canvas. rod was the first on his feet. he snatched marian up, with a groan. "sister! are you hurt? tell me, quick." "nonsense, no." marian struggled up, bruised and trembling. "i whacked my head on the rail, that's all. what has happened?" "we've struck another bunch of runaway logs. they've fouled our wheel," shouted the captain. "put this life-preserver on your sister. swing out the yawl, boys!" for the deck crew was already scrambling up the stairs. "here, where's smith?" "he's below, sir, stayin' by the boiler. the logs struck us for'ard the gangway. she's got a hole stove in her that you could drive an ice-wagon through," answered a fireman. "smith says, head her inshore. maybe you can beach her before she goes clean under." the captain groaned. "her first trip for the year! the smartest little boat on the river! mccloskey!" he shouted angrily up the tube. "head her inshore, before she's swamped. you hear that, i reckon?" "ay, ay, sir." it was a very meek voice down the tube. very slowly the _lucy_ swung about. creaking and groaning, she headed through the darkness for the darker line of willows that masked the illinois shore. for a minute, roderick and marian stood together under the swaying lantern, too dazed by excitement to move. on marian's forehead a cheerful blue bump had begun to rise; while rod's cheek-bone displayed an ugly bruise. suddenly marian spoke. "rod! where is empress! she will be frightened to death. we must take her into the yawl with us." the young fireman turned. "that grand big cat of yours, ma'am? you'll never coax a cat into an open boat. they'll die first. but have no fear. we are not a hundred yards from shore, and in shallow water at that. 'tis a pity the _lucy_ is hurt, but it's fortunate for us that she can limp ashore." marian felt a little foolish. she pulled off the cork jacket which rod had tied over her shoulders. "we aren't shipwrecked after all, rod. we're worse frightened than hurt." "i'm not so sure of that. keep that life-preserver on, sis." the _lucy_ was blundering pluckily toward shore. but the deck jarred with the thud and rattle of thrashing machinery, and at every forward plunge the boat pitched until it seemed as if the next fling would surely capsize her. rod peered into the darkness. "we'll make the shore, i do believe. shall i leave you long enough to get our bags and empress?" "oh, i'll go too. you'll need me to pacify empress. she will be panic-stricken." poor empress was panic-stricken, indeed. the little cabin was a chaos. the shock of the collision had overturned every piece of furniture. even the wall cabinets were upset, and their shells and arrowheads were scattered far and wide. the beautiful old-time crystal chandeliers were in splinters. worst, the big gilt mirror lay on the floor, smashed to atoms. only one object in all that cabin held its place: the stuffed eagle. and high on the eagle's outspread wing, crouched like a panther, snarling and spitting, her every silky hair furiously on end, clung poor, terrified empress. rod exploded. "you made friends with the nice bird, after all, didn't you, empress! come on down, kitty. let me put a life-preserver on you too." no life-preservers for empress! marian coaxed and called in vain. she merely dug her claws into the eagle's back and growled indignant refusal. "let's go back on deck, sis. she'll calm down presently." the _lucy_ was now working inshore with increasing speed. but, as they stepped on deck, the boat careened suddenly, then stopped, with a sickening jolt. "never mind, miss," the young fireman quickly assured her. "she has struck a sand-bar, and there she'll stick, i fear. but we are safe enough, for the water is barely six feet deep. we'll have to anchor here for the night, but don't be nervous. she can't sink very far in six feet of water." "i suppose not." yet marian's teeth chattered. inwardly she sympathized with empress. what a comfort it would be to climb the stuffed eagle and perch there, well out of reach of even six feet of black icy water! the captain was still more reassuring. "well, we're lucky that we've brought her this near shore." he wiped his forehead with a rather unsteady hand. "ten minutes ago my heart was in my mouth. i thought sure she'd sink in mid-stream. you're perfectly safe now, miss hallowell. better go to your state-room and get some sleep." "yes, the _lucy_ will rest still as a church now," said the young fireman, with a heartening chuckle. "she's hard aground. though that's no thanks to our pilot. i say, mccloskey! where were you trying to steer us? into a lumber-yard?" down the hurricane deck came mr. mccloskey, white beard waving, eyes twinkling, jaunty and serene as a may morning. "this little incident is no fault of me steerin'," said he, with delightful unconcern. "'twas the carelessness of thim raftsmen, letting their logs get away, no less. sure, captain dear, i'd sue them for damages." "i'll be more likely to sue you for running full speed after dark, against orders," muttered the captain. then he laughed. "i ought to put you in irons. but the man doesn't live that can hold a grudge against you, mccloskey. take hold now, boys. bank your fires, then we'll patch her up as best we can for the night." marian went to her state-room, but not to sleep. there was little sleep that night for anybody. in spite of protecting sand-bar and anchor, the boat careened wretchedly. strange groans and shrieks rose from the engine-room; hurrying footsteps came and went through the narrow gangway. and the rush of the swift current, the bump of ice-cakes, and the sweep of floating brush past her window kept her aroused and trembling. it seemed years before the tiny window grew gray with dawn. the captain's voice reached her ears. "no, the _lucy_ isn't damaged as badly as we thought. but it will take us two days of bulkheading before we dare go on. you'd best take your sister up to the camp in my launch. it is at your service." "that's good news!" sighed marian. "anything to escape from this sinking ship. i don't like playing casabianca one bit." she swallowed the hot coffee and corn bread which the captain's boy brought to her door, and hurried on deck. their embarking was highly exciting; for poor empress, having been coaxed with difficulty from the eagle's roost, where she had spent the night, promptly lost her head at sight of the water and fled shrieking to the pilot-house. rod, the pilot, the engineer, and the young fireman together hunted her from her fastness, and, after a wild chase, returned scratched but victorious, with empress raging in a gunny-sack. "best keep her there till you're ashore, miss," laughed the young fireman. and marian took the precaution to tie the mouth of the sack with double knots. up-stream puffed the launch, past grafton landing into the narrower but clearer current of the illinois river. now the black mud banks rose into bluffs and wooded hills. here and there a marshy backwater showed a faint tinge of early green. but there was not a village in sight; not even a solitary farm-house. hour after hour they steamed slowly up the dull river, beneath the gray mist-hooded sky. marian looked resentfully at her brother. he had unrolled a portfolio of blue-prints, and sat over them, as absorbed and as indifferent to the cold and discomfort as if he were sitting at his own desk at home. "he's so rapt over his miserable old contract that he is not giving me one thought," marian sulked to herself. "i just wish that i had put my foot down, and had refused, flatly, to come with him. if i had dreamed the west would be like this!" presently the launch whistled. an answering whistle came from up-stream. rod dropped his blue-prints with a shout. "look, marian. there is the contract camp, the whole plant! see, straight ahead!" marian stared. there was not a house to be seen; but high on the right bank stood an army of tents; and below, moored close to shore, lay a whole village of boats, strung in long double file. midway stood a gigantic steam-dredge. its vivid red-painted machinery reared high on its black, oil-soaked platform, its strange sprawling crane spread its iron wings, like the pinions of some vast ungainly bird of prey. around it were ranked several flat-boats, a trim steam-launch, a whole regiment of house-boats. rod's eyes sparkled. he drew a sharp breath. "this is my job, all right. isn't it sumptuous, marian! will you look at that dredge! isn't she magnificent? so is the whole outfit, barges and all. that's worth walking from boston to see!" "is it?" marian choked back the vicious little retort. "well, i'd be willing to walk back to boston--to get away!" "ahoy the launch! this is mr. hallowell?" a tall, haggard man in oilskins and hip boots came striding across the dredge. "glad to see you, sir. we hoped that you would arrive to-day. i am carlisle, the engineer in charge." he leaned over the rail to give rod's hand a friendly grip. he spoke with a dry, formal manner, yet his lean yellow face was full of kindly interest. "and this is your sister, miss hallowell? you have come to a rather forlorn summer resort, miss hallowell, but we will do our best to make it endurable for you." roderick, red with pleasure, stood up to greet his new chief. behind mr. carlisle towered a broad-shouldered, heavily built young man, in very muddy khaki and leggings, his blond wind-burnt face shining with a hospitable grin. "this is our mr. burford, mr. hallowell. at present, you and he will superintend the night shifts." mr. burford gave roderick a hearty handshake, and beamed upon marian. "mr. burford will be particularly glad to welcome you, miss hallowell, on mrs. burford's account. she has been living here on the work for several months, the only lady who has graced our camp until to-day. i know that she will be eager for your companionship." mr. burford grew fairly radiant. "sally lou will be wild when she learns that you are really here," he declared eagerly, in his deep southern drawl. "she has talked of your coming every minute since the news came that we might hope to have you with us. you will find us a mighty primitive set, but you and sally lou can have plenty of fun together, i know. i'd like to bring her and the kiddies to see you as soon as you feel equal to receiving us." "thank you very much." marian tried her best to be gracious and friendly. but she was so tired that young burford's broad smiling face seemed to blur and waver through a thickening mist. "i'm sure i shall be charmed----" "hi, there!" an angry shout broke upon her words. "mr. carlisle, will you look here! that foreman of yours has gone off with my skiff again. if i'm obliged to share my boat with your impudent riffraff----" "mr. marvin, will you kindly come here a moment?" the chief's voice did not lose its even tone; but his heavy brows narrowed. "i wish you to meet mr. hallowell, who is your and mr. burford's new associate. miss hallowell, may i present mr. marvin?" marian bowed and looked curiously at the tall, dark-featured young man who shuffled forward. she remembered the captain's terse description--"a cub engineer, and a grizzly cub at that." mr. marvin certainly acted the part. he barely nodded to her and to roderick, then clamored on with his grievance. "you know i've told the men time and again to leave my boat alone. but your foreman borrows my launch whenever he takes the notion, and leaves her half-swamped, or high and dry, as he chooses. if you won't jack him up for it, i will. i'll not tolerate----" "i'll take that matter up later, mr. marvin." marvin's sullen face reddened at the tone in his chief's voice. "mr. hallowell, i have found lodgings for your sister three miles up the canal, at the gates farm. mr. burford will take you to gates's landing, thence you will drive to the farm-house. your own quarters will be on the engineers' house-boat, and we shall hope to see you here for dinner to-night. good-by, miss hallowell. i hope that mrs. gates will do everything to make you comfortable." the launch puffed away up the narrow muddy canal. it was a straight, deep stream of brown water, barely forty feet wide. its banks were a high-piled mass of mire and clay, for the levee-builders had not yet begun work. beyond rose clumps of leafless trees. then, far as eye could see, muddy fields and gray swampy meadows. rod gazed, radiant. "isn't it splendid, marian! the finest equipment i ever dreamed of. look at those barges!" "those horrid flat-boats heaped with coal?" "yes. think of the yardage record we're making. five thousand yards a day!" marian rubbed her aching eyes. "i don't know a yardage record from a bushel basket," she sighed. "what is that queer box-shaped red boat, set on a floating platform?" "that is the engineers' house-boat, where your brother is to live. mayn't we take you aboard to see?" urged burford. marian stepped on the narrow platform and peered into the cubby-hole state-rooms and the clean, scoured mess-room. she was too tired to be really interested. "and that funny, grass-green cabin, set on wooden stilts, up that little hill--that play-house?" burford laughed. "that's my play-house. sally lou insists on living right here, so that she and the babies and mammy easter can keep a watchful eye on me. you and sally lou will be regular chums, i know. she is not more than a year or so older than you are, and it has been pretty rough on her to leave her home and come down here. but she says she doesn't care; that she'd rather rough it down here with me than mope around home, back in norfolk, without me. it surely is a splendid scheme for me to have her here." he laughed again, with shy, boyish pride. "sally lou is a pretty plucky sort. and, if i may say it, so are you." marian managed to smile her thanks. inwardly she was hoping that the marvellous sally lou would stay away and leave her in peace. she was trembling with fatigue. through the rest of the trip she hardly spoke. at gates's landing they were met by a solemn, bashful youth and a buckboard drawn by two raw, excited horses. they whirled and bumped through a rutted woods road and stopped at last before a low white farm-house. marian realized dimly that rod was carrying her upstairs and into a small tidy room. she was so utterly tired that she dropped on the bed and slept straight through the day. she did not waken until her landlady's tap called her to supper. mr. and mrs. gates, two quiet, elderly people, greeted her kindly, and set a homeric feast before her: shortbread and honey, broiled squirrels and pigeon stew, persimmon jam and hot mince pie. she ate dutifully, then crept back to her little room, with its mournful hair wreaths and its yellowed engravings of "night and morning" and "the death-bed of washington," and fell asleep again. the three days that followed were like a queer, tired dream. it rained night and day. the roads were mired hub deep. roderick could not drive over to see her, but he telephoned to her daily. but his hasty messages were little satisfaction. the heavy rains had overflowed the big ditch, he told her. that meant extra work for everybody on the plant. carlisle was wretchedly sick, so rod and burford were sharing their chief's watch in addition to their own duties. worst, marvin had quarrelled with the head runner of the big dredge, and "we're having to spend half our time in coddling them both for fear they'll walk off and leave us," as rod put it. in short, roderick had neither time nor thought for his sister. marian realized that her brother was not inconsiderate. he was absorbed in his work and in its risks. yet she keenly resented her loneliness. "it isn't rod's fault. but if i had dreamed that the west would be like this!" but on the fourth day, while she sat at her window looking out at the endless rain, there came a surprising diversion. "a gentleman to see you, miss hallowell. will you come downstairs?" "why, commodore mccloskey!" marian hurried down, delighted. "how good of you to come!" commodore mccloskey, dripping from his sou'wester to his mired boots, beamed like a drenched but cheery santa claus. "i've taken the liberty to bring a friend to call," he chuckled. "he's young an' green, an' 'tis few manners he owns, but he's good stock, an'--here, ye rascal! shame on ye, startin' a fight the minute ye enter the house!" marian gasped. past her, with a wild miauw, shot a yellow streak. that streak was empress. straight after the streak flew a fat, brown, curly object, yapping at the top of its powerful lungs. up the window-curtain scrambled empress. with a frantic leap she landed on the frame of grandpa gates's large crayon portrait. beneath the portrait her curly pursuer yelped and whined. "why, he's a collie puppy. oh, what a beauty! what is his name?" "beauty he is. and his name is finnegan, after the poem, 'off again, on again, gone again, finnegan.' do ye remember? 'tis him to the life. he is a prisint to ye from missis mccloskey and meself. an' our compliments an' good wishes go wid him!" "how more than kind of you!" marian, delighted, stooped to pat her new treasure. finnegan promptly leaped on her and spattered her fresh dress with eager, muddy paws. he then caught the table-cover in his teeth. with one frisky bounce he brought a shower of books and magazines to the floor. mr. mccloskey clutched for his collar. the puppy gayly eluded him and made a dash for the pantry. marian caught him just as he was diving headlong into the open flour-barrel. "i do thank you so much! he'll be such a pleasure; and such a protection," gasped marian, snatching mrs. gates's knitting work from the puppy's inquiring paws. "'tis hardly a protector i'd call him," mr. mccloskey returned. "but he'll sure keep your mind employed some. good-day to ye, ma'am. and good luck with finnegan." poor empress! in her delight with this new plaything, marian quite forgot her elder companion. moreover, as mr. mccloskey had said, finnegan could and did keep her mind employed, and her hands as well. "that pup is energetic enough, but he don't appear to have much judgment," said mrs. gates, mildly. in two hours finnegan had carried off the family supply of rubbers and hid them in the corn-crib; he had torn up one of rod's blue-prints; he had terrorized the hen-yard; he had chased empress from turret to foundation-stone. at length empress had turned on him and cuffed him till he yelped and fled to the kitchen, where he upset a pan of bread sponge. "suppose you take him for a walk, down to the big ditch. maybe the fresh air will calm him down." marian made a leash of clothes-line and marched finnegan down the sodden woods toward the ditch. she was so busy laughing at his droll performances that she quite forgot the dull fields, the wet, gray prospect. crimson-cheeked and breathless, she finally dragged him from the third alluring rabbit-hole, despite his pleading whines, and started back up the canal. as she pushed through a hedge of willows a sweet, high, laughing voice accosted her. "good-morning, my haughty lady! won't you stop and talk with us a while?" startled, marian turned toward the call. across the ditch, high on the opposite bank, stood the quaintest, prettiest group that her eyes had ever beheld. a tall, fair-haired girl of her own age, dressed in a bewitching short-waisted gown of scarlet and a frilly scarlet bonnet, stood in the leafless willows, a tiny white-clad child in her arms. behind her a stout beaming negress in bandanna turban and gay plaid calico was lifting another baby high on her ample shoulder. marian stared, astonished. the whole group might well have stepped straight out of some captivating old engraving of the days before the war. "haven't you time to pass the time o' day?" the sweet, mischievous voice entreated. "you are miss hallowell, i know. i'm sarah louisiana burford, and i am just perishin' to meet you. there is a board bridge just a rod or so up the canal. we'll meet you there. do please come, and bring your delightful dog. march right along now!" and marian, laughing with amusement and delight, marched obediently along. chapter iv the martin-box neighbors marian picked her way up the shore to the board bridge, with finnegan prancing behind her. she felt a little abashed as she remembered her rather tart indifference to young burford's cordial invitation of the week before. but all her embarrassment melted away as she crossed the little bridge and met sally lou's welcoming face, her warm clasping hands. "you don't know how hungry i have been to see you," vowed sally lou, her brown eyes kindling under the scarlet bonnet. "we've been counting the hours till we should dare to go to call on miss northerner, haven't we, kiddies? this is my son, edward fairfax burford, junior, miss hallowell. three years old, three feet square, and weighs forty-one pounds. isn't he rather gorgeous--if he does belong to me! and this is thomas tucker burford. eighteen months old, twenty-six pounds, and the disposition of an angel, as long as he gets his own way. and this is mammy easter, who came all the way from norfolk with me, to take care of the babies, so that i could live here on the contract with ned. wasn't she brave to come out to this cold, lonesome country all for me? and this martin-box is my house, and it is anxious to meet you, too, so come right in!" [illustration: on the edge of the opposite bank stood the quaintest, prettiest group that her eyes had ever beheld.] marian climbed the high, narrow outside steps that led to the tiny play-house on stilts, and entered the low, red doorway, feeling as if she had climbed jack's bean-stalk into fairyland. inside, the martin-box was even more fascinating. it boasted just three rooms. the largest room, gay with mother goose wall-paper and rosy chintz, was obviously the realm of edward, junior, and thomas tucker. the next room, with its cunning miniature fireplace, its shelves of books, its pictures and photographs, and its broad high-piled desk, was their parents' abode; while the third room boasted fascinating white-painted cupboards and sink, a tiny alcohol stove, and a wee table daintily set. "aren't you shocked at folks that eat in their kitchen?" drawled sally lou, observing marian with dancing eyes. "but all our baking and heavy cooking is done for us, over on the quarter-boat. i brought the stove to heat the babies' milk; and, too, i like to fuss up goodies for ned when he is tired or worried. poor boys! they're having such an exasperating time with the contract this week! everything seems possessed to go awry. we'll have to see to it that they get a lot of coddling so's to keep them cheered up, won't we?" "why, i--i suppose so. but how did you dare to bring your little children down here? they say that this is the most malarial district in the state." "i know. but they can't catch malaria until may, when the mosquitoes come. then i shall send them to a farm, back in the higher land. mammy will take care of them; and i'll stay down here with ned during the day and go to the babies at night. they're pretty sturdy little tads. they are not likely to catch anything unless their mother is careless with them. and she isn't careless, really. is she, tom tucker?" she snatched up her youngest son, with a hug that made his fat ribs creak. "come, now! let's brew some stylish afternoon tea for the lady. get down the caravan tea that father sent us, mammy, and the preserved ginger, and my georgian spoons. and fix some chicken bones on the stoop for miss northerner's puppy. this is going to be a banquet, and a right frabjous one, too!" it was a banquet, and a frabjous one, marian agreed. sally lou's tea and mammy's nut-cakes were delicious beyond words. the bright little house, the dainty service, sally lou's charming gay talk, the babies, clinging wide-eyed and adorable to her knee, all warmed and heartened marian's listless soul. she was ravished with everything. she looked in wonder and delight at the high sleeping-porch, with its double mosquito bars and its duck screening and its cosey hammock-beds. ("ned sleeps so much better here, where it is quiet, than on that noisy boat," sally lou explained.) she gazed with deep respect at the tiny pantry, built of soap-boxes, lined with snowy oil-cloth. she marvelled at the exquisite old silver, the fine embroidered table-linen, the delicate china. and she caught her breath when her eyes lighted upon the beautiful painting in oils that hung above young burford's desk. it was a magical bit of color: a dreamy italian garden, walled in ancient carved and mellowed stone, its slopes and borders a glory of roses, flaunting in splendid bloom; and past its flowery gates, a glimpse of blue, calm sea. she could hardly turn her eyes away from the lovely vista. it was as restful as an april breeze. and across the lower corner she read the clear tracing of the signature, a world-famous name. sally lou followed her glance. "you surely think i'm a goose, don't you, to bring my gold teaspoons, and my wedding linen, and my finest tea-set down to a wilderness like this? well, perhaps i am. and yet the very best treasures that we own are none too good for our home, you know. and this _is_ home. any place is home when ned and the babies and i are together. besides, the very fact that this place is so queer and ugly and dismal is the best of reasons why we need all our prettiest things, and need to use them every day, don't you see? so i picked out my sacredest treasures to bring along. and that painting--yes, it was running a risk to bring so valuable a canvas down here. but doesn't it just rest your heart to look at it? that is why i wanted it with us every minute. you can look at that blue sleepy sky, and those roses climbing the garden wall, and the sea below, and forget all about the noisy, grimy boats, and the mud, and sleet, and malaria, and the cross laborers, and the broken machinery, and everything else; and just look, and look, and dream. that is why i carted it along. especially on ned's account, don't you see?" "y-yes." at last marian took her wistful eyes from the picture. "i wish that i had thought to bring some good photographs to hang in rod's state-room. i never thought. but there is no room to pin up even a picture post-card in his cubby-hole on the boat. i must go on now. i have had a beautiful time." "there goes your brother this minute! in that little red launch, see? he is going up the ditch. ring the dinner-bell, mammy, that will stop him. he can take you and your dog up to gates's landing and save you half an hour's muddy walk." mammy's dinner-bell pealed loud alarm. roderick heard and swung the boat right-about. his sober, anxious face lighted as marian and sally lou gayly hailed him. "i'm glad that you've met mrs. burford," he said, as he helped marian aboard and hoisted finnegan astern with some difficulty and many yelps; for finnegan left his chicken-bones only under forcible urging. "she is just about the best ever, and i hope you two will be regular chums." "i love her this minute," declared marian, with enthusiasm. "where are you bound, rod? mayn't finnegan and i tag along?" rod's face grew worried. "i'm bound upon a mighty ticklish cruise, sis. it is a ridiculous cruise, too. do you remember what i told you last week about the law that governs the taxing of the land-owners for the making of these ditches?" "yes. you said that when the majority of the land-owners had agreed on doing the drainage work, then the law made every owner pay his tax, in proportion to the acreage of his land which would be drained by the ditches, whether he himself wanted the drainage done or not. and you said that some of the farmers did not want the ditches dug, and that they were holding back their payments and making trouble for the contractors; while others were making still more trouble by blocking the right of way and refusing to let the dredges cut through their land. but how can they hold you back, rod? the law says that all the district people must share in the drainage expenses, whether they like to or not, because the majority of their neighbors have agreed upon it." "the law says exactly that. yes. but there are a lot of kinks to drainage law, and the farmers know it. burford says that two or three of them have been making things lively for the company from the start. but just now we have only one troublesome customer to deal with. and she is a woman, that is the worst of it. she is a well-to-do, eccentric old lady, who owns a splendid farm, just beyond the gateses. she paid her drainage assessment willingly enough. but now she says that, last fall, the boys who made the survey tramped through her watermelon-field and broke some vines and sneaked off with three melons. at least, so she indignantly states. maybe it is so; although the boys swear it was a pumpkin-field, and that they didn't steal so much as a jack-o'-lantern. furthermore, she has put up barb wire and trespass notices straight across the contract right of way; and she has sent us notice that she is guarding that right of way with a gun, and that the first engineer who pokes his nose across her boundary line is due to receive a full charge of buckshot. sort of a shot-gun quarantine, see? now we must start dredging the lateral that crosses her land next monday, at the latest. it must be done at the present stage of high water, else we'll have to delay dredging it until fall. carlisle planned to call on her to-day, and to mollify her if possible, but he's too sick. so i must elbow in myself, and see what my shirt-sleeve diplomacy can do. i'm glad that i can take you along. perhaps you can help to thaw her out." "of all the weird calls to make! what is the old lady like, rod?" "burford says that she is a droll character. she has managed her own farm for forty years, and has made a fine success of it. her name is mrs. chrisenberry. she is not educated, but she is very capable, and very kind-hearted when you once get on the right side of her. yonder is her landing. don't look so scared, sis. she won't eat you." marian's fear dissolved in giggles as they teetered up the narrow board walk to the low brick farm-house. they could not find a door-bell; they rapped and pounded until their knuckles ached. finnegan yapped helpfully and chewed the husk door-mat. at last, a forbidding voice sounded from the rear of the house. "you needn't bang my door down. come round to the dryin' yard, unless you're agents. if you're agents, you needn't come at all. i'm busy." meekly rod and marian followed this hospitable summons. across the muddy drying yard stretched rows of clothes-line, fluttering white. beside a heaped basket of wet, snowy linen stood a very short, very stout little old lady, her thick woollen skirts tucked up under a spotless white apron, her small nut-cracker face glowering from under a sun-bonnet almost as large as herself. she took three clothes-pins from her mouth and scowled at rod. "well!" said she. "name your business. but i don't want no graphophones, nor patent chick-feed, nor golden-oak dinin'-room sets, nor gems of poesy with gilt edges. mind that." marian choked. rod knew that choke. tears of strangling laughter stood in his eyes as he humbly stuttered his errand. "w-we engineers of the breckenridge company wish to offer our sincere apologies for any annoyance that our surveyors may have caused you. we are anxious to make any reparation that we can. and--er--we find ourselves obliged, on account of the high water, to cut our east laterals at once. we will be very grateful to you if you will be so kind as to overlook our trespasses of last season, and will permit us to go on with our work. i speak for the company as well as for myself." the old lady stared at him, with unwinking, beady eyes. there was a painful pause. "well, i don't know. you're a powerful slick, soft-spoken young man. i'll say that much for you." marian gulped, and stooped hurriedly to pat finnegan. "and i don't know as i have any lastin' gredge against your company. them melons was frost-bit, anyway. but if you do start your machinery on that lateral, mind i don't want no more tamperin' with my garden stuff. and i don't want your men a-cavortin' around, runnin' races on my land, nor larkin' evenings, nor comin' to the house for drinks of water. one of them surveyors, last fall, he come to the door for a drink, an' i was fryin' crullers, an' he asked for one, bold as brass. says i, 'help yourself.' well, he did that. there was a blue platter brim full, and if he didn't set down an' eat every single cruller, down to the last crumb! an' then he had the impudence to tell me to my face that they was tolerable good crullers, but that he'd wager the next platterful would taste better than the first, an' he'd like to try and find out for sure!" "i don't blame him. i'd like to try that experiment myself," said rod serenely. the old lady glared. then the ghost of a twinkle flickered under the vasty sun-bonnet. "well, as i say, i ain't made up my mind yet. but i'll let you know to-night, maybe. now you'd better be goin'. looks like more rain." "can't we help you with the clothes first?" asked marian. the old lady shook out a huge, wet table-cloth and stood on tip-toe to pin it carefully on the line. "you might, yes. take these pillow-cases. but don't you drop them in the mud. my clothes-line broke down last week, and didn't i spend a day of it, doin' my whole week's wash over again!" the strong breeze caught the big cloth and whipped it like a banner. finnegan, who had been waiting politely in the background, beheld this signal with joy. with a gay yelp he bolted past marian and seized a corner of the table-cloth in his teeth. "scat!" cried mrs. chrisenberry, startled. "where did that pup come from? shoo!" finnegan, unheeding, took a tighter grip, and swung his fat heavy body from the ground. there was a sickening sound of tearing linen. marian stood transfixed. rod, his arms full of wet pillow-slips, dashed to the rescue. but he was not in time. "scat, i say!" mrs. chrisenberry flapped her apron. amiable creature, she wanted to play with him! enchanted, the puppy let go the table-cloth and dashed at her, under full steam. his sturdy paws struck mrs. chrisenberry with the force of a young battering-ram. with an astonished shriek she swayed back, clutching at the table-cloth to steady herself. but the table-cloth and clothes-pins could not hold a moment against the onslaught of the heavy puppy. by good fortune, the basketful of clothes stood directly behind mrs. chrisenberry. as the faithless table-cloth slid from the rope, back she pitched, with a terrified squeal, to land, safely if forcibly, in its snowy depths. marian, quite past speech, sank on the porch steps. rod stood gaping with horror. mrs. chrisenberry rose up with appalling calm. "you! you come here. you--varmint!" finnegan did not hesitate. trustfully he gambolled up; gayly he seized her apron hem in his white milk teeth and bit out a feather-stitched scallop. mrs. chrisenberry stooped. her broad palm landed heavily on finnegan's curly ear. alas for discipline! finnegan dodged back and eyed her, amazed. one grieved yelp rent the air. then, instantly repenting, he leaped upon her and smothered her with muddy kisses. this was merely the lady's way of playing with him. how could he resent it! then rod came to his wits. he seized mr. finnegan by the collar and cuffed him into bewildered silence. he caught up the wrecked table-cloth and the miry pillow-slips, he poured out regrets and apologies and promises in an all but tearful stream. mrs. chrisenberry did not say one word. her small nut-cracker face set, ominous. "you needn't waste no more soft sawder," said she, at length. "i 'low these are just the rampagin' doings i could look for every day if i once gave you folks permission to bring your dredge on my land. so i may's well make up my mind right now. tell your boss that those trespass signs an' that barb wire are still up, and that they'll most likely stay up till doomsday. good-mornin'." "well! i don't give much for my shirt-sleeve diplomacy," groaned rod, as they teetered away, down the board walk. "i'm sorry, rod." then marian choked again. weak with laughter, she clung to the gate-post. "it was j-just like a moving picture! and when she vanished into the basket--oh, dear--oh, dear!" "you better believe it was exactly like a moving picture," muttered rod. "it all went so fast i couldn't get there in time to do one thing. it went like a cinematograph--zip! and off flew all our chances for all time. finnegan, you scoundrel! do you realize that your playful little game will cost the company a lawsuit and a small fortune besides?" finnegan barked and took a friendly nip of rod's ankle. finnegan's young conscience was crystal-clear. "let's take the launch down to burford's and tell them our misfortunes," said rod. "i need sympathy." the burfords heard their mournful tale with shouts of unpitying joy. "yes, i know, it's hard luck. especially with marvin in the sulks and carlisle sick," said ned burford, wiping his eyes. "but the next time you start diplomatic negotiations, you had better leave that dog at home. i'm going over to the house-boat to tell mr. carlisle. poor sick fellow, this story will amuse him if anything can." he jumped into the launch. a minute later rod brought it alongside the house-boat and burford disappeared within. "mr. carlisle, sir!" they heard his laughing voice at the chief's state-room door. "may i come in? will i disturb you if i tell you a good joke on hallowell?" there was a pause. then came a rush of feet. burford dashed from the cabin and confronted rod and marian. his face was very white. "hallowell! come aboard, quick!" he said, in a shaking voice. "mr. carlisle is terribly ill. he's lying there looking like death; he couldn't even speak to me. hurry!" chapter v goose-grease and diplomacy roderick leaped aboard. marian followed, trembling with fear. mr. carlisle lay in his seaman's hammock beside the window. his gaunt hands were like ice. his lean face was ashen gray. but he nodded weakly and put out a shaking, courteous hand. "too bad to alarm you thus," he gasped. "i--i was afraid of this. malaria plays ugly tricks with a man's heart now and then. you'd better ship me to the hospital at saint louis. they can patch me up in a week probably. only, the sooner you can get me there, the better." "you call the foreman and tell him to get up steam on the big launch, hallowell." burford, very pale, took command of the situation. "miss hallowell, will you go and bring sally lou? i want her right away. she's all kinds of good in an emergency." marian fled, her own heart pounding in her throat. but sally lou, after the first scared questions, rose to the occasion, steady and serene. "light the stove and make our soapstones and sand-bags piping-hot, mammy. heat some bouillon and put it into the thermos bottle. ned, you and the foreman must take him down to grafton landing on the launch. the _lucy lee_ is due to reach grafton late this afternoon. i'll catch the _lucy's_ captain on the long-distance telephone at the landing above grafton, and tell him to wait at grafton landing till you get there with mr. carlisle. then you can put him aboard the _lucy_. she will make saint louis in half the time that you could make it with the launch. besides, the _lucy_ will mean far easier travelling for mr. carlisle." "i never thought of the _lucy_! i'd meant to wait with him at the landing and take the midnight train. but the steam-boat will be a far easier trip. sally lou, you certainly are a peach!" young burford looked at his wife with solemn admiration. "go and telephone, quick. we'll have carlisle ready to start in an hour." in less than an hour the launch was made ready, with cot and pillows and curtains, as like an ambulance as a launch could well be. with clumsy anxious pains roderick and burford lifted their chief aboard. marian hung behind, eager to help, yet too frightened and nervous to be of service. but sally lou, her yellow hair flying under her ruffly red bonnet, her baby laughing and crowing on her shoulder, popped her flushed face gayly under the awning to bid mr. carlisle good-by. "if it wasn't for these babies i'd go straight along and take care of you myself, mr. carlisle," she cried. "but the hospital will take better care of you than i could, i reckon. and the week's vacation will do you no end of good. besides it will set these two lazybones to work." she gave her husband a gentle shake. "ned and mr. hallowell will have to depend on themselves, instead of leaving all the responsibility to you. it will be the making of them. you'll see!" "perhaps that is true." carlisle's gray lips smiled. he was white with suffering, but he spoke with his unvarying kind formality. "i am leaving you gentlemen with a pretty heavy load. but--i am not apprehensive. i know that you boys will stand up to the contract, and that you will carry it on with success. good-by, and good luck to you!" the launch shot away down-stream. sally lou looked after it. marian saw her sparkling eyes grow very grave. "mr. carlisle is mighty brave, isn't he? but he will not come back to work in a week's time. no, nor in a month's time either if i know anything about it. but there's no use a-glooming, is there, thomas tucker! you two come up to my house and we'll have supper together and watch for ned; for if he meets the _lucy_ at grafton he can bring the launch back by ten to-night." sally lou was a good prophet. it was barely nine when ned's launch whistled at the landing. ned climbed the steps, looking tired and excited. "yes, we overhauled the _lucy_, all right. mr. carlisle seemed much more comfortable when we put him aboard. he joked me about being so frightened and said he'd come back in a day or so as good as new. but--i don't know how we'll manage here. with carlisle laid up, and marvin gone off in the sulks, for nobody knows how long--well, for the next few days this contract is up to us, hallowell. that is all there is to that. and we've got to make good. we've got to put it through." "you certainly must make good. and it is up to us girls to help things along," said sally lou, briskly. "isn't it, marian? yes, i'm going to call you marian right away. it's such a saving of time compared to 'miss hallowell.' and the very first thing to-morrow morning we will drive over to mrs. chrisenberry's, and coax her into letting you boys start that lateral through her land." three startled faces turned to her. three astounded voices rose. "coax her, indeed! on my word! when she drove rod and me off the place this very morning!" "think you dare ask her to take down her barb-wire barricade and lay away her shot-gun? 'not till doomsday!'" "sally lou, are you daft? you've never laid eyes on mrs. chrisenberry. you don't know what you're tackling. we'll not put that lateral through till we've dragged the whole question through the courts. don't waste your time in dreaming, child." "i'm not going to dream. i'm going to act. you'll go with me, won't you, marian? we'll take the babies and the buckboard. but, if you don't mind, we'll leave mr. finnegan at home. finnegan's diplomacy is all right, only that it's a trifle demonstrative. yes, you boys are welcome to shake your heads and look owlish. but wait and see!" "she'll never try to face that ferocious old lady," said rod, on the way home. "of course not. she's just making believe," rejoined marian. little did they know sally lou! marian had just finished her breakfast the next morning when the yellow buckboard, drawn by a solemn, scraggy horse, drove up to mrs. gates's door. on the front seat, rosy as her scarlet gown and cloak, sat sally lou. from the back seat beamed mammy easter, in her gayest bandanna, with edward burford, junior, dimpled and irresistible, beside her, and thomas tucker bouncing and crowing in her arms. "climb right in, miss northerner! good-by, poor finnegan! this time we're going to try the persuasive powers of two babies as compared to those of one collie. here we go!" "are we really going to mrs. chrisenberry's? are you actually planning to ask her for the right of way?" queried marian. sally lou chuckled. her round face was guileless and bland. "certainly not. i am going to mrs. chrisenberry's to buy some goose-grease." "to buy some _goose-grease_! horrors! what is goose-grease, pray?" "goose-grease is goose-grease. didn't you ever have the croup when you were young, miss northerner? and didn't they roll you in warm blankets, and then bandage your poor little throat with goose-grease and camphor and red pepper?" "an' a baked onion for your supper," added mammy easter. "an' a big saucer of butterscotch, sizzlin'-hot. dey ain't no croup what kin stand before dat!" "mercy, i should hope not. i never heard of anything so dreadful. you aren't going to give goose-grease to your own babies, i hope?" sally lou surveyed her uproarious sons, and allowed herself a brief giggle. "they've never had a sign of croup so far, i'm thankful to say. but one ought to be prepared. and mrs. chrisenberry has the finest poultry-yard in the country-side. we'll enjoy seeing that, too. don't look so dubersome. wait and see!" mrs. chrisenberry was working in her vegetable garden as they drove up. her queer little face was bound in a huge many-colored "nuby," her short skirts were kilted over high rubber boots. she leaned on her spade and gave the girls a nod that, as marian told rod later, was like a twelve-pound shot squarely across the enemy's bows. sally lou merely beamed upon her. "wet weather for putting in your garden, isn't it?" she cried, gayly. "i'm mrs. burford, mrs. chrisenberry. my husband is an engineer on the breckenridge contract." "h'm!" mrs. chrisenberry glared. sally lou chattered gayly on. "i'm staying down at the canal with these two youngsters, and i want to buy some of your fine goose-grease. they've never had croup in all their born days, but it's such a cold, wet spring that it is well to be prepared for anything." "goose-grease!" mrs. chrisenberry looked at her keenly. "for those babies? highty-tighty! goose-grease is well enough, but hot mutton taller is better yet. i've raised two just as fine boys as them, so i know. mutton taller an' camphire, that's sovereign." she put down her spade and picked her way to the buckboard. edward junior hailed her with a shriek of welcome. thomas tucker floundered wildly in mammy's grasp and clutched mrs. chrisenberry around the neck with a strangling squeeze. marian gasped. for mrs. chrisenberry, grim, stern little nut-cracker lady, had lifted thomas to her stooped little shoulder and was gathering edward junior into a lean strong little arm. both babies crowed with satisfaction. thomas jerked off the tasselled nuby and showered rose-leaf kisses from mrs. chrisenberry's tight knob of gray hair to the tip of her dour little chin. edward pounded her gleefully with fists and feet. "they'll strangle her," marian whispered, aghast. "pooh, she doesn't mind," sally lou whispered back. "you mustn't let them pull you to pieces, mrs. chrisenberry. they're as strong as little bear cubs." "guess i know that." mrs. chrisenberry shook edward's fat grip loose from her tatting collar. "they're the living images of my own boys, thirty years ago. i hope your children bring you as good luck as mine have brought me. they've grown up as fine men as you'd find in a day's journey. let me take 'em to see the hen yard. they'll like to play with the little chickens, i know." edward and thomas tucker were charmed with the hen yard. they fell upon a brood of tiny yellow balls with cries of ecstasy. only the irate pecks and squawks of the outraged hen mother prevented them from hugging the fuzzy peepers to a loving death. "they're a pretty lively team," remarked mrs. chrisenberry. "let's take 'em into the house, and i'll give them some cookies and milk. i don't know much about new-fangled ways of feeding children, but i do know that my cookies never hurt anybody yet." she led them through her shining kitchen into a big, bright sitting-room. again marian halted to stare. this was not the customary chill and dreary farm-house "parlor." instead, she saw a wide, fire-lit living-room, filled with flowering plants, home-like with its books and pictures; and at the arched bay-window a beautiful upright piano. mrs. chrisenberry followed her glance. "land, i don't ever touch it," she said, with a dry little nut-cracker chuckle. "my oldest boy he gave it to me, for he knows i'm that hungry for music, and whenever my daughter-in-law comes to visit she plays for me by the hour, and it's something grand. and now and then a neighbor will pick out a tune for me. my, don't i wish i could keep it goin' all the time! you girls don't play, i suppose?" sally lou's eyes met marian's with a quick question. marian's cheeks grew hot. "i--i play a little. but i'm sure that mrs. burford----" "mrs. burford will play some other time," interrupted sally lou, hastily. "go on, that's a good girl!" now, it bored marian dismally to play for strangers. she refused so habitually that few of her friends knew what a delightful pianist she really was. but dimly she realized that sally lou's eyes were flashing with anxious command. she opened the piano. she ran through the airs from the "tales from hoffmann," then played a romping folk-dance, and, at last, the lovely magic of the "spring song." mrs. chrisenberry hardly breathed. she sat rigidly in her chair, her knotted little hands shut tight, her beady eyes unwinking. "my, but that goes to the place," she sighed, as the last airy harmony died away. "now i'll bring your cookies and milk, you lambs, and then you'd better be starting home. it looks like rain." marian and sally lou fell behind in the procession to the carriage. edward junior toddled down the board walk, clinging to his hostess's skirt. thomas tucker laughed and gurgled in her arms. mrs. chrisenberry put thomas on mammy's lap, then picked up edward, who, loath to depart, squeezed her neck with warm, crumby little hands and snuggled his fat cheek to her own. mrs. chrisenberry looked down at him. her grim little nut-cracker face quivered oddly. a dim pink warmed her brown, withered cheek. "it's nice while they're little, isn't it?" she said, with a queer, wistful smile. "though i dassent complain. my boys are the best sons anybody ever had, and they treat me like a queen. here, son, stop pulling my ears so hard; it hurts. now, i'll send you a whole bowlful of mutton taller to-morrow; and a jar of goose-grease the very next rendering i make. didn't you say you're living on the drainage job? well"--the dim pink grew bright in her cheek--"well, you tell your man that he kin go right ahead and cut his ditch through my land. i'll not stand in the way no longer. though tell him that i'll expect him to see that his men don't tramp through my garden nor steal my watermelons. mind that." "i know i can promise that, always." sally lou's eyes were brown stars. "and thank you more than tongue can tell, mrs. chrisenberry. you don't know what this will mean to my husband, and i never can tell you how much we shall appreciate your kindness. packed in all right, mammy? come, edward, son. good-by!" they drove away in the silence of utter, astonished joy. "your goose-grease worked that miracle, sally lou!" "nonsense! it was your music that carried the day. but oh, i was so afraid you were going to say no!" again marian's cheeks flushed hot, with queer, vexed shame. "well, i did all but refuse. i do hate to play for anybody, especially for strangers." "why?" sally lou looked hopelessly puzzled. "but when it gives them so much pleasure! and besides, if you want a selfish reason, think how you have helped the boys. there they come now." with a joyful call sally lou waved her scarf to the two figures plodding up the canal road. then as the flimsy silk could not do justice to her feelings, she caught up little thomas tucker and flourished him, a somewhat ponderous banner. the boys hurried to meet them. they listened to the girls' excited tale, at first unbelieving, then with faces of amazement and relief. "well, you two girls deserve a diamond medal," declared burford, heartily. his flushed, perturbed face brightened. "you don't know what a load you have taken off our shoulders." he looked at roderick. "this is a real sterling-silver lining to our cloud, isn't it, hallowell? so big that it fairly bulges out around the edges." "a silver lining to what cloud, ned?" demanded sally lou, promptly curious. "has something gone wrong with the work? another break in the machinery? or trouble among the laborers, or what?" the two boys looked at each other. marian studied their faces. burford was flushed and excited. rod's stolid, dark face was frowning and intent. "own up!" commanded sally lou, sternly. "don't you dare try to keep your dark and dreadful secrets from us!" the boys laughed. but a quick warning glance flashed from one to the other. then burford spoke. "don't conjure up so many bogies, sally lou. we--we've had bad news from mr. carlisle. his doctor told me, over the long-distance, that he would not be able to leave the hospital for a fortnight. and he must not come back on the work for two months at the best." sally lou sobered. "that is bad news. poor mr. carlisle! but is that all that you have to tell me, ned?" burford jumped. he reddened a little. "y-yes, i reckon that's all. you girls will have to excuse us now. hallowell and i are going back to our boat-house to fix up our march reports." "anything we two can help about?" "you two have put in a mighty good day's work in securing that right of way. though if you're hunting for a job you might verify the yardage report i left on your desk. run along now, we're going to be busy." "such is gratitude," remarked sally lou, with ironic philosophy, as she drove away. "'run along, we're busy.' just like a boy!" roderick and ned looked after the buckboard, a little shame-faced at sally lou's parting shot. "just the same, it does no good to tell them all our ill-luck," said burford. "and marvin's threatening to quit is even worse luck than carlisle's illness. for his quarrel with the foreman has started half a dozen quarrels among the workmen. queer, isn't it? a grouch like that will spread like wild-fire through a whole camp." "marvin is waiting on the house-boat for us this minute." ned peered through a telescope of his hands. "now we'll listen to a tale of woe!" marvin did not wait till they could reach the boat. his angry voice rang out across the canal. "well, _mister_ hallowell! i just got the note that you so kindly sent me. so you and mr. burford here think that i ought to stand by the job, hey, 'and not let my private quarrels influence me into deserting the contract?' thank you, _mister_ hallowell, for your kind advice. but i rather guess i can get along without any orders from either of you two swells. no, nor criticisms, either." "we're not giving orders, and you know that, marvin." rod spoke sharply. "but you're never going to throw down your billet just because of a two-cent fuss with the foreman. think what a hole you'd leave the company in! carlisle sick, high water holding back our freight, coal shipments stalled, everything tied up----" "and you're directly responsible to the company for that berm construction," broke in burford hotly. "you know well enough that we can't watch that work and oversee the ditch-cutting at one and the same time. you're not going to sneak out and play quitter----" "i'm going to play quitter, as you call it, whenever i choose. that happens to be right now. you two silk-stockings can like it, or lump it. mulcahy!" he yelled to the camp commissary man, who was just starting down the canal in his launch on his way to grafton for supplies. "wait, i'm going with you. here, take this." he bolted into his cabin, then dashed back, carrying a heavy suit-case. he heaved it into the launch, then sprang in beside the open-mouthed steward. "now, i'm off!" he blazed the words at the two boys staring from the bank. "you can run this contract to suit yourselves, gentlemen. i'll send my resignation direct to the company. i don't have to take orders from you two swells another hour. good-morning, gentlemen!" the steward grinned sheepishly at sight of his superior officer behaving himself like a spunky small boy. with a rueful nod toward roderick he headed the launch down the canal. burford expressed himself with some vim. "well, he's gone. good riddance, i call it. the surly hound!" "i don't know about that," muttered rod. "it was my fault, maybe, writing him that letter. i was too high and mighty, i suppose." "you needn't blame yourself," returned burford bluntly. "we've put up with his insolence and his scamped work and his everlasting wrangling long enough. mr. carlisle won't blame us; neither will the company." "we ought to wire company head-quarters at chicago, and report just how things stand; then they'll send us a supervising engineer to take mr. carlisle's place. and a new scrub, too, instead of marvin." "you're right, hallowell. you wire them straight off, will you? i'm going up to the first lateral to watch the afternoon shift." early that evening roderick received the answering wire from head-quarters. he read it carefully. his sober young face settled into grim lines. an hour later burford turned up, tired, but in high spirits, for his dredge had made a flying start on the lateral. roderick handed him the despatch. the two boys stared at each other. a deep flush burned to burford's temples. rod's hard jaw set. the message was curt and to the point. "the breckenridge engineering company. office of the vice-president. roderick hallowell, esq. _c/o contract camp, grafton, illinois._ _sir:_ your report received. consider yourself and burford as jointly in command till further orders. i shall reach camp on route inspection by 26th inst. kindly report conditions daily by wire. breckenridge." "so we're made jointly responsible. put in charge by breckenridge. by breck the great, his very self. h'm-m." burford looked out at the crowded boats, the muddy, half-built levee, stretching far as eye could see; the night shift of laborers, eighty strong, shuffling aboard the quarter-boat for their hot supper; the massed, powerful machinery, stretching its black funnels and cranes against the red evening sky. "so we're the two grand panjandrums on this job. responsible for excavation that means prosperity or ruin for half the farmers in the district, according as we do or don't finish those laterals before the june rise; responsible for a pay-roll that runs over four hundred dollars a day; responsible for a time-lock contract that will cost our company five hundred dollars forfeit money a day for every day that we run over our time limit. well, hallowell?" "it strikes me," said rod, very briefly, "that it's up to us." "yes, it is up to us. but if we don't make good----" "don't let that worry you." rod's jaw set, steel. "don't give that a thought. we'll make good." chapter vi the contract's receiving day "hello, sis!" it was roderick's voice over the telephone. "how are you feeling this fine, muggy morning?" "pretty well, i suppose. how are you, rod? where are you telephoning from?" "from burford's shack. we're in a pinch down here, marian. we need you to help out. can't you ask mr. gates to hitch up and bring you down to camp right away? or if you'll walk down to gates's landing i'll send mulcahy with the launch, to bring you the rest of the way. and put on your very best toggery, sis. war paint and feathers and all that. that pretty lavender silk rig will do. but don't forget the gimcracks. put on all the jewelry you own." "why, roderick hallowell! what can you mean? dress up in my best, and come down to camp at nine in the morning, and on sunday morning at that?" "i mean just what i say." then roderick chuckled irresistibly. "poor sis, i don't wonder you're puzzled. but sunday is the contract's day at home, and we want you to stand in line and receive; or pour tea, whichever you prefer to do. do you see?" "no, i don't see. all i do see is that you're talking nonsense. and i don't intend to come down to the camp. it is such a hot, horrid morning, i don't propose to stir. i want you to come up and spend the day here instead. mrs. gates wants you, too, she says, for dinner and for supper as well. and yesterday the rural-delivery man brought a whole armful of new magazines. we'll sit on the porch, and you can read and i'll write letters, and we'll have a lovely, quiet day together." there was a pause. when roderick spoke again, his voice was rather quenched. "sorry, sis, but it isn't possible for me to come, even for dinner. i'll be hard at it here, every minute of the day." "you mean that you must work on the contract all day sunday? when you have worked fourteen hours a day, ever since you came west?" marian's voice was very tart. "can't you stop long enough to go to church with me, even? there's a beautiful little church four miles away. it's just a pleasant drive. surely you can give up two hours of the morning, if you can spare no more time!" "it isn't a question of what i'm willing to do. and i am not planning to work on sunday. as you know, sis, we bank our fires saturday night and give the laborers a day off. nearly all the men left for town last night to stay till monday. but listen. burford tells me that, on every clear sunday, we can expect a visit from most of the land-owners for miles around. and not just from the land-owners themselves: their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts; and the children, and the neighbors, and the family cat. they want to see for themselves just how the work is going on. when you stop to think, it's their own work. their money is paying for every shovelful of dirt we move, and every inch of levee-work. and they're paying every copper of our salaries, too. they have a right to see how their own investment is being used, sis." "so you have to treat these country people as honored guests! cart them up and down the canal, and show them the excavations, and let them pry into your reports, and ask you silly questions! of all the tiresome, preposterous things!" "that's pretty much what we'll do. but there is nothing preposterous about it; it's their right. and we fellows want to do the decent thing. now, more than ever, we want to do everything properly because carlisle is sick and away. burford says that carlisle was more exacting about these visits of inspection than about anything else on the plant. he said that when a man builds a house to protect his family he has the right to oversee every inch of the construction, if he likes. on the same principle, these farmers who are digging canals and putting up levees to protect their lands should have the right to watch the work, step by step. burford says, too, that carlisle, with his everlasting patience and courtesy, was steadily winning over the whole district; even the men who had fought the first assessments tooth and nail. it is the least we boys can do to keep up the good feeling that carlisle has established." "well, i think it is all very absurd. why should i come down to the work? these people do not even know that i exist. and if you really need somebody to talk to their wives and be gracious and all that, why can't mrs. burford do it better than i? she is right on the ground, anyway." "yes, she's right on the ground. and so is thomas tucker's newest tooth. the poor little skeezicks howled half the night, burford says. he has stopped yelling just now, but he won't let his mother out of his sight for one minute. mrs. burford is pretty much worn to a frazzle. but i don't want to pester you, marian." there was a worried note in rod's voice now. "i wouldn't have you come for any consideration, if it were to make you ill or tired. so perhaps we'd better not think of it." marian shrugged her shoulders. an odd, teasing question stirred in her mind. "i rather think i can stand the day if you can. finnegan and i will be at the landing in half an hour. i, and my best beads and wampum, and my new spring hat. there, now!" not waiting for rod's delighted reply, she hurried away to dress. a whimsical impulse led her to put on her freshest and daintiest gown, a charming lilac silk, with a wide, tilting picture hat, heaped with white and purple lilacs. she was standing at the little pier, tugging at her long gloves, when the duty-launch, with rod himself at the wheel, shot round the bend. rod waved his hand; then, at sight of her amazing finery, he burst into a whoop of satisfaction. "will you look at that! marian hallowell, you're the best ever. i might have known you'd play up. though i was scared stiff, for fear you'd think that just every-day clothes would do. my, but you're stunning! you're looking stronger, too, sis. you're not nearly so wan and spooky as you were a week ago." "i'm feeling better, too." marian's color rose. even her sulky humor must melt under rod's beaming approval. "now give me my sailing orders, rod. how many callers will we have? what sort of people will they be? tart and grim, like mrs. chrisenberry, i suppose, or else kindly and bashful and 'woodsy,' like the gateses? will they stop by on their way home from church, or will they come promptly after dinner and spend the afternoon?" rod laughed. "no telling, sister. we may have ten callers, we may have a hundred. you'll find all kinds of people among them; precisely as you'll find all kinds of people on mount vernon street, boston, massachusetts. there'll be nice, neighborly folks who'll drive up the canal road in bond street motoring clothes and sixty-horse-power cars. there'll be other nice, neighborly folks who'll ride in through the woods on their plough horses, wearing slat sunbonnets and hickory shirts. and they'll be friendly, and critical, and enthusiastic, and dubersome, all in a heap. you'll need all your social experience, and all your tact, and all the diplomacy you can muster. see?" "yes, i'm beginning to see." marian's eyes were thoughtful. then she sprang up to wave her lilac parasol in greeting to the martin-box and sally lou. "isn't this the most mournful luck that ever was!" sally lou sat with thomas tucker, a forlorn little figure, planted firmly on her knee. "to think that my son must spend his first afternoon of the season in cutting a wicked double tooth! maybe it'll come through by dinner-time, though. then he'll go to sleep, and i can slip over and help you entertain our people--why, marian hallowell! oh, what a lovely, lovely gown! you wise child, how did you know that to wear it to-day was precisely the wisest thing that you could possibly do!" "i didn't know that. i just put it on. partly for fun, and--well, partly to provoke rod, i suppose." marian felt rather foolish. but she had no time for further confidences. up the muddy canal road came a roomy family carriage, drawn by a superbly matched black team. that carriage was packed solid to the dashboard. father, two tall boys, and a rosy little daughter crammed the front seat; mother, grandmother, and aunty were fitted neatly into the back; and a fringe of small fry swung from every direction. "morning." the father reined in and gave everybody a friendly nod and smile. "how are you, mr. burford? glad to meet you, mr. hallowell. no, thank you, we're on our way to sunday-school and church, so we haven't a minute to stop. but i have been wanting to know how you think lateral four will work out; the one that turns down past my farm. will that sand cut give you much trouble?" "it will make slower dredging, mr. moore. but we'll put it through as fast as we can." "um. i'm in no hurry to see it go through. the high water isn't due for a month, anyway. now, i don't know much about sand-cutting. but i've been told that your worst trouble in a sand streak is with the slides. after your dredge-dipper has dumped the stuff ashore, it won't stay put. it keeps tobogganing back into the channel and blocking your cut. so sometimes you have to hoist it out two or three times over." "that's exactly the case, mr. moore. usually our levee gangs follow along and tamp the sand down, or else spread it back from the berm where it has no chance to slide. but it is getting so near the time set for the completion of our upper lateral cut that we are obliged to keep our levee shift at work on the upper laterals and take our chances on the sand staying where we pile it." "just what i'd supposed. now, i shall need a lot of that sand, in a week or so, for some cement work. s'pose i send you a couple of teams and half a dozen hands to-morrow, to cart off the sand under your direction. would that help things along?" "help things along? i should say it would!" rod beamed. "it would be the most timely help we could ask." "but won't it put you to a lot of trouble, sir," asked burford, "to take the hands off their regular farm-work in that way?" "w-well, no. anyway they can haul sand for a day or so without making much difference. and it will be a heap handier for you boys to have the stuff carted off as fast as you throw it ashore." "it surely will. that's the best news we've heard in one while!" the boys stood smiling at each other, completely radiant. mr. moore nodded and turned his horses. "glad if it will be any accommodation. well, good day to you all. my good wishes to mr. carlisle. tell him i said he left a couple of mighty competent substitutes, but that his neighbors will be glad to see him coming back, just the same." the big carriage with its gay load rolled away. "so moore will send men and teams to help us on that sand cut!" burford, fairly chortling with satisfaction, started toward the martin-box. "if all our land-owners treated us with half the consideration that he always gives, our work would be a summer's dream. i'm going up to tell sally lou." he had hardly reached the martin-box before he turned with a shout. "there come our next visitors, hallowell. the commodore and mrs. mccloskey, in that fat little white launch. see?" commodore mccloskey it was, indeed. finnegan's wild yelp of delighted greeting would have told as much. marian promptly joined the hilarious race to the pier. the commodore, crisp and blinding-white in his starchy duck, stood at his launch wheel, majestic as if he stood on the bridge of an ocean liner. but mrs. mccloskey, a dainty, soft-eyed, little old lady, with cheeks like scotch roses, and silky curls white as dandelion down blowing from under her decorous gray bonnet, won marian's heart at the first glance. she was as quaint and gentle and charming as an old-time miniature. while the boys took the commodore up and down the laterals that he might see their progress since his last visit, mrs. mccloskey trailed her soft old black silk skirts to the martin-box door and begged for a glimpse of the baby. "he's crosser than a prickly little porcupine," protested sally lou, handing him over reluctantly. "oh, but he'll come to me just the minute! won't you, lamb?" and like a lamb thomas tucker forgot his sorrows and snuggled happily into her tender arms, while his relieved mother bustled about and helped marian to make a generous supply of lemonade; for half a dozen carriage loads of visitors were now coming up the road. "'tis amazin'. where do they all come from?" observed mrs. mccloskey. "yet there's nigh three hundred land-owners in this district. and the commodore, he passed the word yesterday that there's close on two hundred thousand acres of land that will be protected by this one drainage contract. think of that, miss marian. is it not grand to know that your brother is giving the power of his hands and his brains to such a big, helping work as all that?" "why, i suppose so." marian spoke absently. "and ye will be a help to him, too, i can see that." mrs. mccloskey put out a hesitating little hand in a quaint old silken mitt and patted marian's fluffy gown. "'tis not everybody makes as bould as meself to tell you in so many words of your pretty finery. but sure 'tis everybody that will appreciate it, an' be pleased an' honored with the compliment of it." marian looked utterly puzzled. "you think that i can be a help to rod? why, i don't know the least thing about his work. i really don't understand----" "well, aren't you a magic-maker, auntie mccloskey!" sally lou put down the lemon-squeezer and stared. "look at that precious baby! sound asleep in your lap! while i haven't been able to pacify him for one minute, though i walked and sang all night!" "'tis the cruel tooth has come through, i'm thinkin'." mrs. mccloskey laid the peaceful little porcupine tenderly into his crib. "now, i'll stay and watch him while you two go and meet your guests. i'll call you the minute he chirps." the two girls hurried to greet their callers, to offer them chairs on the shady side of the quarter-boat, to serve them with iced tea and lemonade. much to marian's surprise, she found herself chattering away vigorously and actually enjoying it all. as rod had said, the slow stream that came and went all day included all sorts and conditions of folk. there were the gracious old clergyman and his sweet, motherly wife, who stopped for a pleasant half-hour, then jogged on across the country to his "afternoon meeting," twelve miles out in the lowlands. there were the two brisk young plutocrats from the great kensington stock farm up-river, who flashed up in a stunning satiny-gray french car, for a brief exchange of courtesies. there were two of the district commissioners, quiet, keen-eyed gentlemen. one of these men, rod told his sister later, was doing valuable service to the community by his experiments in improving the yield of corn throughout the district. the other commissioner was a lawyer of national reputation. mrs. chrisenberry stopped by, too: a brusque little visitor, sitting very stiff and fine in her cushioned phaeton, her beady eyes darting questions through her shrewd spectacles. marian, feeling very real gratitude, devoted herself to mrs. chrisenberry. that lady, however, hardly spoke till just as she was starting to go. then she leaned forward in her carriage. she fixed marian with a gimlet eye. "it's agreeable to see that you think we district folks _is_ folks," she said, very tartly indeed. "i'd some mistrusted the other day, but i guess now that you know what's what. good-afternoon, all." "well, sally lou! will you tell me what she meant?" sally lou nodded wisely. "your pretty dress, i suspect. didn't you hear mrs. mccloskey praise it, too?" "oh!" and now marian's face was very thoughtful indeed. late in the afternoon came the one disagreeable episode of the day. the drainage district, upon which roderick and burford were employed, had become part of a huge league known as the central mississippi drainage association. this league had recently been organized. its object was the cutting of protective ditches on a gigantic scale, and its annual expenditures for this work would run well past the million mark. naturally there was strong competition between all the great engineering firms to win a favorable standing in the eyes of this new and powerful corporation. the breckenridge company, because of its superior record, was easily in the lead. none the less, as rod had remarked a day or so before, it was up to every member of the breckenridge company, from breck the great down to the meekest cub engineer, to keep that lead. burford jeered mildly at rod for taking his own small importance to the company so seriously. "just you wait and see," retorted roderick. "oh, i'll wait, all right," laughed burford. to-day, however, he was destined to see; and to see almost too clearly for his own peace of mind. a sumptuous limousine car whirled up the muddy road. its lordly door swung open; down stepped a large, autocratic gentleman, in raiment of startling splendor, followed by a quiet, courteous elderly man. "i am mr. ellingworth locke, of new york. i am the acting president of the central mississippi drainage association," announced the magnificent one. "you gentlemen, i take it, are the--ah--the junior engineers left in charge by mr. carlisle?" roderick and burford admitted their identity. "this is mr. crosby, our consulting engineer. now that this district has joined the association, it comes under our direct surveillance. mr. crosby and i desire to go over your laterals and get an idea of your work thus far." "we are honored." burford bowed low and welcomed his guests with somewhat flamboyant courtesy. he led the way to the duty-launch. roderick followed, bringing the cushions and the tarpaulin which the quick-witted sally lou hastily commanded him to carry aboard for the potentate's comfort. of all their guests, that long day, the acting president was the sole critic. at every rod of the big ditch, at every turn of the laterals, he found some petty fault. the consulting engineer, mr. crosby, followed him about in embarrassed silence. he was obviously annoyed by his employer's rudeness. however, for all mr. locke's strictures, it was evident that he could find no serious fault with the work. yet both boys were tingling with vexation and chagrin when the regal limousine rolled away at last. "what does ail his highness? did ever you see such a beautiful grouch?" rod mopped his forehead and stared belligerently after the car. "nothing ails him but a badly swelled head." burford's jaw set hard. "the fact of it is, that the worshipful mr. ellingworth locke hasn't two pins' worth of practical knowledge of dredging. he is a new york banker, and he has no understanding of conditions west of the hudson. his bank is to make the loans for the association's drainage, and he has bought a big tract of land in this district. that is why he was elected acting president. do you see?" "yes, that helps to explain things." "so he struts around and tries to pick flaws with the most trifling points of our construction, to keep us from guessing how little he really knows about the big underlying principles. gentle innocent, he tries to think he's an expert!" burford waved a disrespectful muddy paw after the flying car. "all that an acting president is good for, anyway, is to wear white spats and to put on side." "well, that engineer knows his job." "crosby? yes, he's an engineer all right. and a gentleman, too. just the same, i'm glad we kowtowed to mr. locke. his opinion is so influential that his approval may mean a tremendous advantage to the breckenridge company some day." "i'm hoping that breckenridge himself will come before long and give us a looking over." "i'm hoping for that myself. half an hour of breck will swing everything into shape. you want to know breckenridge if ever you get the chance, hallowell. he's the grandest ever. just to watch him tramp up and down a ditch, great big silent figure that he is, and hear him fire off those cool, close-mouthed questions of his at you, brings you bristling up like a fighting-cock. he's a regular inspiration, i call him." "i'm banking on the chance that i shall know him some day." rod's eyes lighted. he remembered the words of his old professor, "to work under breckenridge is not only an advantage to any engineer. it is an education in itself." it was nearly six o'clock when their last callers arrived. they were not an interesting carriage load: a gaunt, silent, middle-aged man; a sallow-cheeked young woman, in cheap, showy clothes, her rough hands glittering with gaudy rings; and a six-year-old girl--a pitiful little ghost of a girl--who looked like a frail little shadow against sally lou's lusty, rosy two-year-old son. her warped, tiny body in its forlorn lace-trimmed pink silk dress was braced in pillows in her mother's arms. her dim black eyes stared listlessly with the indifference of long suffering. marian was always shaken and repelled by the sight of pain. but by this time thomas tucker was awake and loudly demanding his mother; so marian must do her shrinking best, to make the new-comers feel themselves welcomed. "no, mamie she don't drink lemonade. no, she don't want no milk, neither. we'll just set here in the cool and rest a while till pappy gets through lookin' around." the young, tired mother sat down on the little pier. she settled the wan little creature carefully into her arms again. "no, there's nothing you can get for her; nothing at all." "doesn't she like to look at pictures? i have some new magazines," ventured marian. "she does like pictures once in a while. want to see what the lady's got for you, mamie?" mamie roused herself and looked silently at the books that marian piled before her. bent on pleasing the little wraith, marian cut out several lovely ladies, and on a sudden inspiration added rosy cheeks from rod's tray of colored pencils. those red and blue and purple pencils caught mamie's listless eye. she even bestirred herself to try and draw a portrait or so with her own shaky little fingers. "beats all," sighed her mother. a little pleased color rose in her cheeks. "i haven't seen her take such an interest for months. not even in her dollies. we buy her all the playthings we can think of. her pappy, he don't ever go to town without he up and brings her a whole grist of candy and toys and clutter. but we never once thought of the pencils for her. nor of paper dolls, either. my, i'm glad we stopped by. and her pappy, he'll be more pleased than words can tell. he's always so heart-set for mamie to have a little fun." "she must take these pencils home with her. rod has a whole boxful." marian tied up not only the pencils, but a generous roll of rod's heavy drawing-paper, expressly adapted to making paper dolls that would stand alone. the child clutched the bundle in her little lean hands without a word of thanks. but her white little face was eloquent. so was her father's face when he came to carry her away, and heard her mother's story of the new pleasure. "well, this day has meant hard work all right, even though it was a day of rest from my regular work," said roderick. he was swinging the launch up the canal to the gates's landing. "it's a queer way to spend sunday, isn't it, sis? but it seems to be the only way for me just at present. and you can be sure that we're obliged to you, old lady, for the way that you've held up your end." "i didn't mind the day, nor did i mind meeting all those people nearly as much as i'd imagined that i would," pondered marian. "especially the mccloskeys, the dear things! and that poor little crippled child, too. i wish i could do something more for her. y-yes, as you say, it was pretty hard work. i'm rather tired to-night. but the day was well worth while." but just how worth while that day had been, neither rod nor marian could know. chapter vii the coal and the commodore "ready for breakfast, miss hallowell?" mrs. gates's pleasant voice summoned her. "just a minute." marian loitered at the window, looking out at the transformed woods and fields. she could hardly believe her eyes. two weeks ago only stark, leafless branches and muddy gray earth had stretched before her. but in these fourteen days, the magic of early april had wrought wonders. the trees stood clothed in shining new leaves, thick and luxuriant as a new england june. the fields were sheets of living green. "it doesn't seem real," she sighed happily. "it isn't the same country that it was when i first came." "no more are you the same girl." mrs. gates nodded approvingly behind the tall steaming coffee-pot. "my, you were that peaky and piney! but nowadays you're getting some real red in your cheeks, and you eat more like a human being and less like a canary-bird." marian twinkled. "your brother is gettin' to be the peaky one, nowadays," went on mrs. gates, with her placid frankness. "seems to me i never saw a boy look as beat out as he does, ever since that big cave-in on the canal last week. i'm thankful for this good weather for him. maybe he can make up for the time they lost digging out the cave-in if it stays clear and the creeks don't rise any higher. he's a real worker, isn't he? seems like he'd slave the flesh off his bones before he'd let his job fall behind. but i don't like to see him look so gaunt and tired. it isn't natural in a boy like him." marian looked puzzled. "why, rod is always strong and well." "he's strong, yes. but even strong folks can tire out. flesh and blood aren't steel and wire. you'd better watch him pretty sharp, now that hot weather is coming. he needs it." marian pushed back her plate with a frown. her dainty breakfast had suddenly lost its savor. "watch over rod! i should think it was rod's place to watch over me, instead. and when i have been so ill, too!" she said to herself. yet a queer little thorn of anxiety pricked her. she called mr. finnegan and raced with him down through the wet green woods to the canal. roderick stood on the dredge platform, talking to the head dredge-runner. he hailed marian with a shout. "you're just in time to see me off, sis. i'm going to saint louis to hurry up our coal shipment." "the coal shipment? i thought a barge-load of coal was due here yesterday." "due, yes. but it hasn't turned up, and we're on our last car-load this minute. that's serious. we'll have to shut down if i can't hurry a supply to camp within thirty-six hours." marian followed him aboard the engineers' house-boat and watched him pack his suit-case. "why are you taking all those time-books, rod? surely you will not have time to make up your week's reports during that three-hour trip on the train?" "these aren't my weekly reports. these are tabulated operating expenses. president sturdevant, the head of our company, has just announced that he wants us to furnish data for every working day. he's a bit of a martinet, you know. he wants everything figured up into shape for immediate reference. he says he proposes to follow the cost of this job, excavation, fill, everything, within thirty-six hours of the time when the actual work is done. he doesn't realize that that means hours of expert book-keeping, and that we haven't a book-keeper in the camp. so burford and i have had to tackle it, in addition to our regular work. and it's no trifle." roderick rolled up a formidable mass of notes. there was a worried tone in his steady voice. "why doesn't the company send you a book-keeper?" "burford and i are planning to ask for one when the president and breckenridge come to camp on their tour of inspection." "could i do some of the work for you, rod?" "thank you, sis, but i'm afraid you'd find it a chinese puzzle. i get tangled up in it myself half the time. we must set down every solitary item of cost, no matter how trifling; not only wages and supplies, but breakdowns, time losses, even those of a few minutes; then calculate our average, day by day; then plot a curve for each week's work, showing the cost of the contract for that week, and set it against our yardage record for that week. then verify it, item by item, and send it in." "all tied up in beautiful red-tape bow-knots, i suppose," added marian, with a sniff. she poked gingerly into the mass of papers. "the idea of adding book-keeping to your twelve-hour shift as superintendent! and in this stuffy, noisy little box!" she looked impatiently around the close narrow state-room. the ceiling was not two feet above her head; the hot morning sunlight beat on the flat tin roof of the house-boat and dazzled through the windows. "how can you work here?--or sleep, either?" rod rubbed his hand uncertainly across his eyes. "i don't sleep much, for a fact. too hot. sometimes i drop off early, but the men always wake me at midnight when the last shift goes off duty." "but the laborers are all across on their own quarter-boat. they don't come aboard your house-boat?" "no, but the quarter-boat is only fifty feet away. the cook has their hot supper ready at twelve, and they lark over it, and laugh and shout and cut up high-jinks, like a pack of school-boys. i wouldn't mind, only i can't get to sleep again. i lie there and mull over the contract, you see. i can't help it." "why don't you come up to the gates farm-house and sleep there?" "i couldn't think of that. it's too far away. i must stay right here and keep my eye on the work, every minute. you have no idea what a dangerously narrow margin of time we have left; 'specially for those north laterals, you know, sis." his voice grew sharp and anxious. marian looked at him keenly. for the first time she saw the dull circles under his eyes, the drawn, tired lines around his steady mouth. then she glanced up the ditch. high on its green stilts, sally lou's perky little martin-box caught her eye. "i have it, rod! tell some of your laborers to build a cabin for you, like the burfords'! then i'll come down and keep house for you." roderick shrugged his shoulders. "i can't spare a solitary laborer from the contract, marian; not for a day. we're short-handed as it is. no, i'll stay where i am. i'm doing well enough. steam up, mulcahy? good-by, sis. back to-morrow!" marian watched the launch till it disappeared in the green mist of the willows. then she sat down to her brother's desk and began to sort the clutter of papers. but sorting them was not an easy matter. to her eyes they were only a bewildering tangle. marian knew that she possessed an inborn knack at figures, and it piqued her to find that she could not master roderick's accounts at the first glance. she worked on and on doggedly. the little state-room grew hot and close; the dull throb of the dredge machinery and the noisy voices from without disturbed her more and more. at last she sprang up and swept the whole mass into her hand-bag. then she ran up the hill to the martin-box. sally lou, very fresh and cool in pink dimity, sat in her screened nest, with the babies playing on the scrubbed floor. she nodded in amused sympathy at marian's portentous armful. "aren't those records a dismal task! yes, i've found a way to sift them, though it took me a long time to learn. start by adding up the time-book accounts; verify each laborer's hours, and see whether his pay checks correspond to his actual working time. roderick has fifty men on his shift, so that is no small task. then add up his memoranda of time made by the big dredge; and also the daily record of the two little dredges up at the laterals. then run over the steward's accounts and see whether they check with his bills----" marian stared at sally lou, astonished. "well, but sally lou! think how much time that will mean! why, i would have to spend all afternoon on the time-books alone." sally lou raised her yellow head and looked at marian very steadily. a tiny spark glinted in her brown eyes. "well, what if it does take all afternoon? have you anything better to do?" there was a minute of silence. then marian's cheeks turned rather pink. "i suppose not. but it is horridly tedious work, sally lou. on such a warm day, too." "it certainly is." sally lou's voice was quite dry. she caught up thomas tucker, who was trying laboriously to feed mr. finnegan with a large ball of darning cotton. "you'd find it even more tedious if you were obliged to work at it evenings, as your brother does. can't you stay to lunch, marian? we'll love to have you; won't we, babies?" "thank you, no. mrs. gates will expect me at home." marian walked back through the woods, her head held high. the glint in sally lou's eyes had been a bit of a challenge. again she felt her cheeks flush hot, with a queer puzzled vexation. "i'll show her that i can straighten rod's papers, no matter how muddled they are!" she said to herself, tartly. and all that warm spring afternoon she toiled with might and main. * * * * * roderick, meanwhile, was spending a hard, discouraging day. arriving at saint louis, he found the secretary of the coal-mining company at his office. eager and insistent, he poured out his urgent need of the promised barge-load of coal. the consignment was now a week overdue. the dredges had only a few hundred bushels at hand; in less than forty-eight hours the engines must shut down, unless he could get the fuel to camp. "you can't be any more disturbed by this crisis than i am, mr. hallowell," the secretary assured him. "owing to a strike at the mines we have been forced to cancel all deliveries. i can't let you have a single ton." roderick gasped. "but our dredges! we don't dare shut down. our contract has a chilled-steel time-lock, sir, with a heavy forfeit. we must not run over our date limits. we've got to have that coal!" "you may be able to pick up a few tons from small dealers," said the secretary, turning back to his desk. "you'll be buying black diamonds in good earnest, for the retail price has gone up thirty per cent since the news came of the mines strike. wish you good luck, mr. hallowell. sorry that is all that i can do for you." roderick lost no time. he bought a business directory and hailed a taxicab. for six hours he drove from one coal-dealer's office to another. at eight o'clock that night he reached his hotel, tired in every bone, but in royal high spirits. driblet by driblet, and paying a price that fairly staggered him, he had managed to buy over four hundred tons. "that will keep us going till the strike is settled," he told burford over the long-distance. "bully for you!" returned burford, jubilant. "but how will you bring it up to camp?" "oh, the railroad people have promised empties on to-morrow morning's early freight to grafton. then we can carry it to camp on our own barges. i shall come up on that freight myself. i shall not risk losing sight of that coal. mind that." at five the next morning roderick went down to the freight yards. his coal wagons were already arriving. but not one of the promised "empties" could he find. "there is a mistake somewhere," said the yard-master. "can't promise you a solitary car for three days, anyway. traffic is all behindhand. you'd better make a try at head-quarters." "i have no time to waste at head-quarters," retorted rod. he was white with anger and chagrin. this ill luck was a bolt from a clear sky. "i'll go down to the river front and hire a barge and a tow-boat. i'll get that coal up to camp to-morrow if i have to carry it in my suit-case." his hunt for a barge proved a stern chase, but finally he secured a large flat-boat at a reasonable rental. but after searching the river front for miles, he found only one tow-boat that could be chartered. the tow's captain, noting roderick's anxiety, and learning that he represented the great breckenridge company, promptly declared that he would not think of doing the two-days' towing for less than five hundred dollars. "five hundred dollars for two days' towing! and i have already paid three times the mine price for my coal!" roderick groaned inwardly. suddenly his eye caught two trim red stacks and a broad familiar bow not fifty yards away. it was the little packet, the _lucy lee_. she was just lowering her gang-plank, making ready to take on freight for her trip up-stream. "i'll hail the _lucy_. maybe the captain can tell me where to find another tow-boat. ahoy, the _lucy_! is your captain aboard? ask him to come on deck and talk to hallowell, of the breckenridge company, will you?" "the captain has not come down yet, sir. but our pilot, commodore mccloskey, is here. will you talk with him?" "will i talk to the commodore? i should hope so!" rod's strained face broke into a joyful grin. he could have shouted with satisfaction when commodore mccloskey, trim as a gimlet in starchy white duck, strolled down the gang-plank and gave him a friendly hand. "sure, i don't wonder ye're red-hot mad," he said, with twinkling sympathy. "five hundred dollars for two days' tow! 'tis no better than a pirate that tow-boat captain is, sure. but come with me. i have a friend at court that can give ye a hand, maybe. hi, boy! is captain lathrop, of the _queen_, round about?" "the _queen_? why, her captain is the very man who demanded the five hundred dollars!" blurted rod. at that moment the captain's head popped from the cabin door. he stared at roderick. he stared at commodore mccloskey. then he had the grace to duck wildly back, with a face sheepish beyond words to describe. "well, captain lathrop!" commodore mccloskey's voice rang merciless and clear. "tell me the truth. is it yourself that's turned highway robber? five hundred dollars for twenty hours' tow! sure, ye must be one of thim high fin-an-ciers we read about in the papers. why not make it five hundred dollars per ton? then ye could sell the _queen_ and buy yourself a cunarder for a tow-boat instead." captain lathrop squirmed. "how should i know he was a friend of yours, commodore? i'll take his coal all the way to camp, and gladly, for three hundred, seein' as it's a favor to you." "for three hundred, is it?" the commodore began a further flow of eloquence. but rod caught his arm. "three hundred will be all right. and i'm more obliged to you, commodore, than i can say. now i'm off. if ever i can do you a good turn, mind you give me the chance!" it was late the next night when roderick reached the camp landing with his precious black diamonds. he was desperately tired, muddy, and begrimed with smoke and coal-dust, hungry as a wolf, and hilarious with relief at his hard-earned success. marian, sally lou, and burford were all waiting for him at the little pier. sally lou dragged him up to the martin-box for a late supper. afterward marian, who was to spend the night with sally lou, walked back with him to his house-boat. [illustration: "well, captain lathrop!" commodore mccloskey's voice rang merciless and clear.] "yes, yes, i'm all right, sis. don't fidget over me so." roderick stepped into his state-room and dropped down into his desk chair. "whew! i'm thankful to get back. i could go to sleep standing up, if it wasn't for making up the records for president sturdevant. run away now, that's a good girl, and let me straighten my accounts. then i can go to bed." even as he spoke rod's glance swept his desk. instead of the heaped disorder of the day before, he saw now rows of neatly docketed papers. he gave a whistle of surprise. "who has been overhauling my desk? burford? why--why, did _you_ do this for me, sister? well, on my word, you are just the very best ever." his big fingers gripped marian's arm and gave her a grateful little shake. "you've squared up every single account, haven't you! and your figuring is always accurate. this means two hours' extra sleep for me. maybe you think i won't enjoy 'em!" "i might have been keeping your accounts for you all these weeks," returned marian. she was a little mortified by roderick's astonished gratitude. "it is not hard work for me. i really enjoyed doing it." "maybe you think i don't enjoy having you do it!" rod chuckled contentedly. "i've dreaded those accounts all day. now i shall sleep the sleep of the loafer who has let his sister do his work for him. good-night, old lady!" marian tucked herself comfortably into her corner of the martin-box, but not to sleep. try her best, she could not banish rod's tired face from her mind. neither could she forget the look of his little state-room. true, she had made it daintily fresh and neat. but the tiny box was hot and stuffy at best. what could she do to make rod's quarters more comfortable? at last she sat up with a whispered exclamation. "good! i'll try that plan. perhaps it won't do after all. but it cannot hurt to try. and if my scheme can make rod the least bit more comfortable, then the trying will be well worth while!" chapter viii the burgoo very early the next morning, marian set to work upon her brilliant plan for roderick's comfort. the coast was clear for action. both roderick and ned burford had gone up the canal to oversee the excavation at the north laterals. sally lou had packed mammy and the babies into the buckboard and had driven away to the nearest farm-house for eggs and butter. so marian had a clear field. and she made eager use of every moment. perhaps two hundred yards from the canal bank, set well up on a little knoll where it could catch every passing breeze, stood a broad wooden platform. high posts, built to hold lanterns, were set at the four corners and half-way down each side. "the young folks of the district built that platform for their picnic dances," burford had told marian. "but this year our dredges have torn up this whole section and have made the creek banks so miry and disagreeable that no picnic parties will come this way till the contract is finished and the turf has had time to grow again." marian measured the platform with a calculating eye. "it is built of matched boards, as tight and sound as if they had put it up yesterday. it will make a splendid floor for rod's house. but when it comes to building the house itself--that's the question." the contract supplies, she knew, were kept in a store-room built astern of roderick's house-boat. for a hot, tiresome hour she poked and pried through high-piled hogsheads and tiers of boxes, hoping that she might find a tent. but there was no such good fortune for her. she dragged out bale after bale of heavy new canvas. but every one of the scores of tents provided by the company was already pitched, to form the summer village occupied by the levee laborers. at last, quite vexed and impatient, she gave up her search. "although, if i had any knack at all, i could sew up a tent from these yards on yards of canvas," she reflected. she carried one bolt of cloth on deck and unrolled it. "this is splendid heavy canvas. it is just the solid, water-proof sort that the fishermen at the lake last summer used for walls and roof of their 'open-faced camp,' as they called it. now, i wonder. why can't i lash long strips of canvas to the four posts of the platform for walls; then fasten heavy wires from one post to another and lash a slanting canvas roof to that! i can canopy it with mosquito-bar--a double layer--for there are dozens of yards of netting here. it would be a ridiculously funny little coop, i know that. but it would be far cooler and quieter than the boat. i believe rod would like it. anyway, we'll see!" jacobs, the commissary man, came aboard a few minutes later with a basket of clean linen. he looked at marian, already punching eyelet-holes in the heavy duck, with friendly concern. "best let me give you a lift at that job, miss," he urged, when marian had told him her plans. "i have an hour off, and i shall be pleased to help, if you will permit me. i'm an old sailor and i have my needle and palm in my kit. that kind of fancy work is just pastime to me. indeed, i'd enjoy doing anything, if it's for mr. hallowell. we've never had a better boss, that's certain. you lace those strips of duck, then i'll hang them for you. we'll curtain off just a half of the platform. that will leave the other half for a fine open porch. we'll have this house built in two jiffies. then i'll put mr. hallowell's canvas cot and his desk and his chair into place, all ready; so when he comes home to-night he will find himself moved and settled." it took longer than two jiffies to lash up the canvas shack, to hang mosquito bar, and to move roderick's simple furniture. returning from their drive, sally lou and mammy easter hurried to help; and, thanks to many willing hands, the tiny new abode was finished by afternoon; even to the brackets for rod's lamp, which jacobs screwed into a corner post, and the rack for his towels. at six o'clock, roderick, fagged out and spattered with mud, came down the canal. he would have gone directly aboard his house-boat if marian had not called him ashore. "march up here and see my out-door sitting-room," she commanded, with laughing eyes. "oh, you and sally lou have made a play-house of that platform? that's all very nice. but wait till i can scrub up and swallow a mouthful of supper, sis. my skiff tipped over with me up the canal, and i'm soaking wet, and dead tired besides." "oh, no, rod. please come up right away. i can't wait, slow-coach. you really must see!" roderick was well used to marian's imperious whims. reluctantly he climbed the slippery bank. obediently he poked his head past the flap which marian held back for him. there he saw his own cot spread white and fresh under its cool screen; his tidy desk; and even a "shower-bath," which clever jacobs had contrived from a tiny force-pump and a small galvanized tank, borrowed from the company's store-room. for a long minute he stared about him without one word. then his tired face brightened to a glow of incredulous delight. "marian hallowell! did you rig up this whole contrivance, all for me? well!" he sank down on the cot with a sigh of infinite satisfaction. "you certainly are the best sister i ever had, old lady. first you take my book-keeping off my hands. next you build me a brand-new house, where i can sleep----whew! won't i sleep like a log to-night, in all this quiet and coolness! on my word, i don't believe i could stand up to my work, sis, if you didn't help me out as you do." marian grew radiant at his pleasure. "building it was no end of fun, rod. i never enjoyed anything more." "only i hope you haven't tired yourself out," said her brother, suddenly anxious. "you haven't the strength to work like this." "nonsense! you don't realize how much stronger i am, rod." "you surely do look a hundred per cent better than you did a month ago." roderick looked at her with keen satisfaction. "but you must not overtire yourself." "don't be so fussy, brother. it was just a trifle, anyway." "it won't mean a trifle to me. quiet and sleep will give me a chance to get my head above water and breathe. hello, neighbors!" for sally lou and ned were poking their unabashed heads through the fly. "come in and see my new mansion. guess i'll have to give a house-warming to celebrate. what do you say?" "there's a celebration already on the way," laughed burford. "commodore mccloskey has just called me up on the long-distance. he says that he and mrs. mccloskey will stop at the camp bright and early to-morrow morning to escort your sister and sally lou to the barry county burgoo. i accepted the invitation for both you girls, for a 'burgoo,' whatever it means, sounds like a jolly lark; especially since the commodore is to be your host. but i'll admit that i'm puzzled. what do you suppose a burgoo may be?" the four looked at each other. "it sounds rather like a barbecue," ventured sally lou. "hoots! it is far too early in the spring for a barbecue." "burgoo? _barbecue?_" marian spoke the mystic words over, bewildered. "what is a barbecue, pray? two such grim, ferocious words i never heard." "a barbecue is a country-side picnic, where the company unite to buy a huge piece of beef; sometimes a whole ox. then they roast it in a trench floored with hot stones. the usual time for a barbecue is in august. then they add roasting ears and new potatoes to the beef, and have a dinner fit for a king." "or for an ogre," returned marian. "it sounds like a feast for giants. yet a burgoo sounds even fiercer and more barbaric. i shall ask the commodore what it means, the minute he comes. wasn't he a dear to think of taking us?" bright and early, even as he had promised, mr. mccloskey's trig little launch puffed up to the camp landing. the commodore, arrayed as solomon in snowy linen, a red tie, and a large panama, waved greeting. beside him sat mrs. mccloskey, her sweet little old face beaming under her crisp frilled sunbonnet. the two girls stepped aboard, with finnegan prancing joyfully after. for to-day the burford babies were to stay at home with mammy, while finnegan was to attend the burgoo, a specially bidden guest. "and now, mr. mccloskey! tell us quick! what may a burgoo be?" "a burgoo?" commodore mccloskey reflected. "well, then, so ye don't know a burgoo by experience. wherever was ye brought up? a burgoo is a burgoo, sure. 'tis the only word in the english language that describes it. 'tis sack-races, an' pole-climbin', an' merry-go-rounds, an' pink limonade, an' a brass band, an' kettles full of b'iled chicken an' gravy, an' more mortial things to eat than the tongue of man can name. ye must see it to understand the real po'try of it. for the half of it could not be told to you." the commodore was quite right. the burgoo was all that he had claimed, and more. at least two hundred people, gay in their sunday best, had already gathered at the county picnic grounds, a beautiful open woodland several miles up the illinois river. vendors of candy and popcorn, toy balloons and pink lemonade, shouted their wares. a vast merry-go-round wheezed and sputtered; the promised brass band awoke the river echoes. and, swung in a mighty rank above a row of camp-fires cleverly built in a broad shallow trench, the burgoo kettles sizzled and steamed. "burgoo," the girls soon learned, is the local name for a delicious stew of chicken and bacon and vegetables, cooked slowly for hours, then served in wooden bowls with huge dill pickles and corn pone. sally lou, housekeeper born, wheedled the head cook, a courteous, grizzled old negro, into giving her the recipe. marian, chuckling inwardly, heard his painstaking reply. "yes'um. i kin tell you jest how to go about makin' burgoo. first you want sixteen, maybe twenty, pounds of bacon, cut tolerable fine. then four dozen chickens won't be too many. start your meats a-b'ilin'. then peel your taters--i used three bushel for this batch. then put in tomatoes. i reckon two dozen cans might do, though three would be better. then cabbage, an' beans, an' onions, if you like. two dozen head of cabbage is about right. an' two bushels of beans----" just then sally lou dropped her pencil in despair. "i'll be no more than a head of cabbage myself, if i keep on trying to reduce this recipe to the needs of two people," she groaned in desperation. "come along, marian, let's climb on the merry-go-round a while and see if it won't clear my addled brain." the merry-go-round proved delightfully thrilling, especially to mr. finnegan, who rode round and round in a gilded sea-shell, barking himself hoarse in dizzy ecstasy. just before noon the crowd, now astonishingly large, gathered at the little running track to watch the sports. first came the sack-races; then the pole-climbing; then the potato-race. finnegan, by this time delirious with excitement, had to be held down by main force to discourage his wild ambition to take an active part in each event. last on the programme came the greased-pig race. now, the greased-pig race dates back a hundred years and more, to the days when the kentucky pioneers met for their rare frolics of house-raising or corn-husking. it is a quaint old sport, very rough, very grimy and breathless, very ridiculously funny. a lively little pig is chosen and greased with melted tallow from head to tail. then he is set free on the running-track. half a minute later, the starting-gun booms the signal for his hunters to dash in pursuit. the winner must capture piggy with his bare hands and carry the squirming, slippery armful back to the judges' stand. if piggy escapes en route, the race must be run over again from the very start. the competitors are boys and young men. only the fleet-footed can hope for a chance at success. but even as the starter stood calling the race through his big red megaphone, a tall, elderly man shouldered up to their group and hailed mr. mccloskey. "good-day, commodore! you're here to see the greased-pig race? my faith, do you remember the race that we two ran, down in pike county in '63?" the commodore beamed at his old neighbor. "'deed an' i do. and it was meself that captured that elegant pig, i remember." "you did that. but it was by accident entirely. for i had all but laid my hand on the pig when you snatched it from under my grasp. i've grudged ye that pig ever since." the little commodore's eyes snapped. he bristled from the crest of his white head to the toes of his polished boots. his voice took on an ominously silver tone. "by my word, i'm sorry to learn that that small pig has stood between us all these years, mister jennings. if it could give you satisfaction, i'd beg you to run that race over again with me. or, we might race each other in the contest that is just about to take place. what do ye say?" for a minute, the astounded mr. jennings found nothing whatever to say. "now, commodore!" protested gentle mrs. mccloskey, round-eyed with reproach. "you'd not think of runnin' a half mile this hot noon in the face of all your friends an' neighbors, an' all for one small pig! and you seventy last month, an' that suit of clothes bought new from saint louis not the fortnight ago!" "you don't understand, mary. i'd run the race if there was no pig at all under consideration, so it would give my friend mister jennings peace of mind," said the little commodore hotly. "what do ye say, sir? will you join me, an' prove once more which one of us is the rale winner?" very red and disconcerted, mr. jennings stood on one foot, then the other, in a torture of indecision. then he threw off his coat. "i've never taken a dare like that yet, mccloskey. and i don't begin now. come along." "commodore!" poor mrs. mccloskey's shocked voice pursued him. but the commodore would not hear. mr. jennings was already clambering the rail to the running-track. lightly as a boy, the commodore vaulted after him. shoulder to shoulder the two joined the group before the judges' stand. there ran a ripple of question through the crowd, then a storm of delighted cheers and laughter. mr. jennings wriggled in sheepish torment. the commodore, sparkling and debonair, bowed to the throng and hung his panama on a fence-post. then down the running-track fled a small, shiny black object, squealing in glad escape. instantly a shot crashed; then came a thundering shout: "ready--go!" with whoops and yells the group of runners raced away down the track. the commodore kept well in the lead. he ran as lightly and as easily as did the boys that forged alongside him. mr. jennings puffed and pounded farther in the rear at every turn. they made the first lap of the race. at the second turn the commodore, only third from the lead, waved his hand to mrs. mccloskey and the girls with a flourish of mischievous triumph. marian and sally lou, tearful and choking with delight, clasped hands and swayed together in helpless rapture. thus completely absorbed in the spectacle, they let go of mr. finnegan's leash. that was all that finnegan wanted. with one glad yelp he hurled himself through the fence and bounced like a ball, straight into the midst of the fray. far in advance fled a shiny black object. finnegan knew his duty. the commodore was hurrying to catch that object. it was finnegan's part to aid in that capture at all costs. yelping madly, he tore away down the track. "oh, it's finnegan! oh, the little villain! if i had only left him at home!" poor marian strove to call him back. but against the uproar of the crowd her voice could not make a sound. "oh, the naughty little sinner, he will catch that pig himself and spoil the race for everybody. look, sally lou! he has almost caught up with the pig this minute!" even as she spoke, finnegan, running at top speed, shot ahead of the fleeing pig. then, with a frenzied bark, he whirled and charged straight at the prize. this front attack was too much for any pig's self-control. not content with galloping murderously at his heels, his pursuers had set this ferocious brute to destroy him! with a squeal of mortal panic the little fellow turned right-about and bolted. shrieking, he dashed back, straight into the crowd of runners. "oh--oh! he's right under the commodore's hand! oh, if he wasn't so slippery--look, quick, marian!" "well, will you look at that now!" mrs. mccloskey's mild voice rose in a laugh of triumph. "sure, i never yet knew the commodore to fail if once he'd set his head to do a thing!" "if only he can keep fast hold of the pig till he reaches the judges' stand," whispered sally lou. all three gazed in pale suspense at the commodore, now striding gayly up the race-track, the pig squirming and squealing wildly in his arms. "i'm mistrustin' that myself," said mrs. mccloskey, nervously, "for the little animal is not so convenient to hold, bein' he's so glassy smooth. but trust the commodore. he'll not fail, now." the commodore did not fail. calm and majestic, as if he strode a quarter-deck, he paced down the track and halted before the judges' stand, his shrieking prize held high. as the umpire bent forward to give him the champion's blue ribbon, the crowd broke loose. no olympic victor ever received his laurel in the face of a more enthusiastic tumult. "i give up," puffed mr. jennings, fanning himself with his hat. "you caught that pig fair an' square, commodore. the honors are yours." "tut, tut, 'twas no great matter," declared the commodore modestly, as the girls heaped him with praises. "'twas just a moment's divarsion. and it took no skill whatever, though i will own that to carry the little felly back to the judges' stand demanded some effort on me part. you will observe that a pig furnishes but few handholds, particularly when he's that slippery and excited-like. yes, mary, perhaps we'd best be startin' home, as it's so near sundown." "well, but these girls must not go home empty-handed," urged mrs. mccloskey. "think of your poor boys, who could not take a day off for the burgoo! we must carry home a taste for them. go to yonder booth and buy a market-basket, commodore. then we'll pack in a few samples." marian and sally lou looked on in silent amaze while mrs. mccloskey packed the few samples, including a tall jar of the delicious burgoo, a dazzling array of cookies and preserves, and a fat black-currant pie. meanwhile the commodore was fitting his treasured pig neatly into a small crate, much to the dismay of the pig and the keen joy of a large group of on-lookers. at last basket and crate were made ready. tired out by their long, absurd, delightful day, the party settled themselves aboard the commodore's launch and started home. the trip downstream to camp was made in rapid time. it was just dusk when they reached their own landing. roderick and ned burford had heard the commodore's whistle and were waiting to help them ashore. "what sort of a day was it, sis?" "yes, tell us, quick, if you had any fun. we have put in a gruelling day of it here," added burford. "three break-downs on the little dredge and a threatened cave-in on the first lateral! go on and tell us something cheerful." marian and sally lou stole a glance backward. the commodore was just putting his boat into mid-stream. he was safely out of earshot. with almost tearful laughter the two girls poured out the story of the day. "you brought home the best of the day to us," said ned, as they spread the "samples" on a tiny deck table, picnic-fashion. "we fellows only laid off our levee shifts a few minutes ago. we're rushing that construction before the creeks rise any higher. so neither of us has eaten a mouthful since noon. this luncheon will taste like manna in the desert. s'pose mammy easter would make us a pot of coffee, sally lou? then we could ask no more." "i'll go to the cabin and coax her to do it. i want a peep at the babies, anyway." sally lou sprang up and started toward the gangway. at the cabin door she stopped short. her voice rang out, a frightened cry. "ned burford! come quick! what is that blazing light away up the ditch? is it--oh, it is one of the boats--it is the big dredge! and it is on fire!" ned burford leaped up. his startled voice echoed sally lou's cry. "hallowell! it's the big dredge, the giant garrison! wake up and pitch in. hurry!" days afterward marian would try to recall just what happened during those wild moments; but the whole scene would flicker before her memory, a dizzy blur. she remembered roderick's shout of alarm; the rush of the day-shift men from their tents; the clatter of the racing engine as rod pushed them into the launch, then sent the little boat flying away up the canal. then, directly ahead, she could see that dense black pillar of smoke rising straight up from the dredge deck, shot through with spurts of flame. burford's half-strangled voice came back to them as he groped his way across the deck. "it's a pile of burning waste, right here by the capstan. bring the chemical-extinguishers ... no time to wait for the hose.... wet your coats, boys, and let's pound her out.... whe-ew! i'm 'most strangled.... sally lou burford! _you clear out!_ you and marian, too. go away, i tell you. this is no place for you!" sally lou and marian stood doggedly in line passing the buckets of water which one of the laborers was dipping up from over the side. roderick, stolid as a rock, stood close by that choking column of smoke and flame and dashed on the water. burford rushed about, everywhere at once, half mad with excitement, yet giving orders with unswerving judgment. "can't you start the pumping engine, boys? swing out that emergency hose, quick. there you are! now turn that stream on those oil barrels yonder--and _keep_ it there. start the big force-pump and train a stream on the deck near the engines. the fire mustn't spread to the hoisting-gear. mind that. mulcahy, give me that chemical-tank. wet my handkerchief and tie it over my mouth, sally lou. no, give me your scarf. that's better. i'm going to wade right in. aha! see that?" the smoke column wavered, thinned. a shower of water, soot, and chemicals drenched everybody on deck. nobody noticed the downpour, for the smoke column was sinking with every moment. burford staggered back, half smothered. the extinguisher fell from his hand. but the force-pumps were working now at full blast. stream after stream of water poured on the fire, then flooded across the deck. two minutes more of frantic, gasping work and not a spark remained--nothing save the heap of quenched, still smoking waste. dazed, marian found herself once more on the house-boat deck. ashore the laborers were flocking back to their tents, laughing and shouting. for them it had been a frolic rather than a danger. but the four on the house-boat deck looked at each other without a word. they were too shaky with relief to move or to speak. sally lou, the steady-willed, dependable sally lou, clung trembling to marian, who in her turn leaned rather weakly against the rail. roderick, ashen white, confronted burford, who stood absently mopping his wet, smarting eyes with sally lou's singed and dripping crãªpe scarf. suddenly burford broke the tension with a strangled whoop. "our--our daily reports to the company!" he gurgled. "president sturdevant wants every day's detail. let's put it all in. 'i have the honor to report that while your engineers were stoking with burgoo and black-currant pie, garrison dredge number three was observed to be on fire. your engineers, assisted by their partners, said engineers' wife and sister, all of whom displayed conspicuous bravery, attacked the fire. thanks to their heroic efforts, the conflagration was extinguished. i beg further to report that damages are confined to one pile of waste, one smooched pink silk scarf, and'"--he passed his hand over his smutty forehead--"'and one pair of eyebrows.'" "i'm going straight home to bed," vowed marian, as the laughter died away in exhausted chuckles. "this day has brought so many thrilling events that it will take me at least a week to calm myself down. do let us hope that nothing whatever will happen for a while. i'm longing for monotony--days, months, ages of monotony, at that!" and, even as she spoke, there was a shout from the pier. mulcahy came running toward them at top speed. "will you look at mulcahy, sprinting up from the ditch! i'll wager he has some more bad news for us. come, hallowell. hurry!" chapter ix the magic lead-pencil "bad news, is it?" puffed mulcahy. "indeed, sir, i'm sorry to be the one to bring it to you. lateral four has caved in again." "lateral four! the cut where we've spent more time and work, filling in, than we've spent anywhere else on the whole ditch!" "yes, lateral four. the ungrateful piece of fill she is! and when you have shored up the margins with brush, twice over!" "how far up is the cave-in, mulcahy?" "half a mile from the mouth. right where mr. ellingworth locke's land begins, sir." "right on president locke's land! will you hear that, hallowell? and he's the biggest grumbler in the whole district! and the most powerful grumbler, too. of all the hard luck!" "i do hear. and i'm going to get busy." rod pulled himself together with a grim little chuckle. "it's an all-night job, burford. or else we can add one more calamity to our head-quarters report. 'one bad cave-in, on lateral draining land owned by h. r. h., the acting president of the central mississippi association.' do you see us putting in that cheery news?" "no, i don't. not just yet." burford wiped the last soot-streak from his chin and jumped into the launch. "here we go!" "wait a jiffy, burford. you'd better stay by the dredge an hour or so. keep the men at work flooding her deck. we can't be certain-sure that the fire is completely out. there's always a risk." "that's a fact. you go up to the cave-in and set the levee crews to work. i'll follow in an hour." rod started his engine, but marian stopped him. "wait, rod. take me up to the lateral, too." "take you up to the cave-in, you mean? why on earth should you go? at this time of night----" "because i want to see just what you have to do. i'm getting very much interested in the work, truly. please, brother." "of all the notions!" rod looked completely puzzled. yet a warm little gratified smile brightened his tired face. again he felt the heart-warming satisfaction that he had felt on the day he had come home, fagged and blue, to find that marian had sorted all his accounts and cleared up his reports for him. it was wonderfully pleasant to find that his sister could show such real comradeship in his work. "of course you shall go with me if you wish, dear. hop in. careful!" "let me steer, rod." "think you can see all right?" "with this big search-light? i should hope so. lie down on the cushions and rest for two minutes. i'll run very carefully." "good enough." rod stretched his weary bones on the seat. at the end of the six-mile run he sat up, with a shamed grin. "lazy sinner i am, i dropped off the minute i struck those cushions. my, that snooze makes one thirsty for more! put the launch inshore, sis. hello there, boys! is that dredge a crew? why, how did you swing the dredge downstream so quickly?" "we had steam up, so we dropped down the lateral the minute we got word of the cave-in," answered the dredge foreman. "it was mister jim conover who happened by and saw the landslip, sir. he came a-gallopin' over with his horse all lather, and brought us the news, not fifteen minutes after it happened. then he called his own hired men and a crowd of neighbors, and they all set to to shore up the bank, above and below the break, with sand-bags and brush. they're workin' at it now, sir, lickety-cut." he pointed up the lateral to a dim glow of torch-light. "shovellin' away like beavers they are, sir. there won't be another slump in that margin, you can depend on that. they've saved you and the company two days' work and five hundred dollars clear in damages alone, i'm thinkin'." "five hundred damages? it would have been nearer a thousand if they hadn't stopped that slide on the double-quick." roderick sat staring at the hurrying figures in the dull glow of smoky light. he could hardly grasp this amazing stroke of fortune. "but how--why--i never heard of such a royal piece of kindness!" "it's all conover's doing. he said you folks had done mighty neighborly by him, and that he wanted to show his appreciation." "_conover!_ why, i never even heard the man's name till now!" "conover?" marian screwed up her forehead. a vague recollection flickered in her mind. "yes, sir, conover. he has a good-sized farm back here a piece. likely you've forgotten. there's him and his wife and his little girl. crippled she is, the poor child. mamie, they call her." "mamie conover--oh! the poor little soul who was so delighted with your red pencils, rod! that visitors' sunday, don't you remember?" "oh, to be sure. you're better at remembering than i am, sis. well, i'm going up to thank him, this minute. then we'll ship the dredge into trim and begin digging out the channel again. think it will take us all night?" "now that conover's gang has stopped the slide so good and square for us, we ought to be able to cut out and tamp down, too, by daybreak, sir. maybe sooner. here comes conover this minute." coated with mud, squashing heavily into the sodden crest of the bank with every step, conover tramped down the ditch. in that shambling figure, marian instantly recognized little mamie's father. vividly she remembered his deep, weary look at her, the infinite tenderness with which he had lifted the little frail body from her arms. in the white glare of the search-light, his gaunt face was radiant with friendly concern. "we've done what little we could, mr. hallowell," he said, in reply to rod's eager thanks. "little enough at that. but now if you'll put in a few hours' dredging to get out that slide, your ditch will be all right again. mr. locke there, whose land borders on this lateral, is a little--well, a little fussy, you know. that's why we fellows kinder butted in and set to work without waitin' to hear from you. land, it wasn't nothing to thank us for. just a little troke between neighbors. you here, miss hallowell? my buckboard is right up-shore. can't i drive you to mr. gates's? it's right on my way home--only a mile or so off my road, that is." "run along, sis. please. it's late and damp, and chilly besides. scoot, now." "but i don't want to go, rod. i want to stay and see the dredge make the cut over again. this is the most interesting performance i ever dreamed of." "i'd much rather have you go home, old lady. you can't see much in this half-light. and you can't help me. worse, you'll catch cold sure and certain." yet that odd little glow warmed rod's heart once more. it was a wonderful satisfaction to hear marian speak with such keen interest of his beloved work. "well, then--" reluctantly marian scrambled ashore. mr. conover wiped his muddy hands on the lap-robe and helped her into the buckboard, with awkward care. they drove swiftly away, up the wide country road, between the dark, level fields. neither spoke for some minutes. at last marian began, rather clumsily, to tell him of their exciting day. the man made no comment. still more clumsily, she tried to thank him for his generous and timely aid to roderick. suddenly mr. conover turned to her. in the faint starlight she saw that his dull face was working painfully. "so you want to thank me for this job, eh? why, if i'd done ten times as much, i wouldn't have begun to do what i want to do for you and your brother. i've been aimin' to come over and tell you, long ago. but seems like i never get around to it. don't you mind about them red pencils?" "those red and blue pencils of rod's, you mean? what of them?" "what of them? my, if you could see mamie with them, you wouldn't ask!" the color burned in his thin face. his eyes were shining now. "they're the one pleasure that ain't never failed her. if i could ever tell you what they've meant! i've sent to the city and bought her three or four dozen assorteds, so's to be sure she never gets short of all the colors. no matter how bad her back hurts, she'll set there in her pillows and mark away, happy's a kitten. seems like long's she's workin' with those pencils, she forgets everything, even the pain. and that's the best we can ever do for our baby." his voice broke on a terrible and piteous note. "the only thing we can do--help her forget." there was a long silence. "an' then you talk as if what i did to-night could count for anything--alongside of _that_!" marian's own lips were quivering. she did not dare to reply. yet as she put out her bedroom candle and stood looking out on the dark starlit woods, the narrow black ribbon of the canal, a whimsical wonder stirred in her thought. "i'll tell rod to-morrow that his red pencils must have the credit of it all. it's the story of the little dutch hero who stuffed his thumb into the crack in the dike and saved the city, right over again. only this time it's something even tinier than a thumb that has saved the day. it's just a little red lead-pencil. and, oh, how glad i am for roderick's sake! the dear, stodgy old slow-coach, i'm proud of every inch of his success. though maybe slow-coach isn't just the fitting name for rod nowadays. sometimes the slow coaches are the very ones that win the race--in the long run." chapter x honored guests marian's wish for quiet and monotonous days was promptly granted. only too promptly and too thoroughly, she owned ruefully. the next morning dawned bleak and gray, with a chill east wind and a driving rain. held prisoner in the house by the storm, marian amused herself through the long dreary day as best she could. at supper-time, feeling very lonely indeed, she called roderick up on the telephone; but their long-distance visit gave her little satisfaction. roderick had spent a hard day, hurrying from one lateral to another, crowding the levee work to the highest possible speed; for in this wide-spread rain the creeks to the north were rising an inch an hour, and every inch meant danger to his half-built embankments. marian sympathized eagerly and declared that she would come down to the canal the next day and help him with his reports. "not if it rains you won't," croaked roderick hoarsely. "don't let me catch you outside the house. you'll catch cold just as i have done, wading through this swamp. mind, now. don't you dare leave the farm-house unless it clears." marian promised. when the morning came, dark and drizzly, she found it hard to keep her word. the hours went on leaden feet. the downpour never slackened. it was impossible for her to go out-doors even as far as the driveway. in that flat, low country a two-days' rain means an inundation. meadows and fields were like flooded marshes. sheets of water spread through the orchards; the yard paths were so many brooks, the barn-yard was an infant lake. "it won't last very long," mrs. gates consoled her. "a year ago we'd have been heart-broken at the sight of such a rain. it would have meant ruin for all the crops. the surplus water would not have drained off in a fortnight. but since they began digging the ditches, we know that our crops will be safe, even if it rains for a week." "i'm glad to learn that rod's hard work counts for something," said marian impatiently. she flattened her downcast face against the pane. "in the meantime, i feel like a marooned pirate. if i can't get out of doors for some fresh air before long, i'll develop a pirate's disposition, too." at dusk she tried again to call roderick on the telephone, to demand sympathy for her imprisonment. but to her astonishment she could get no reply from central. "the wires are all down, i dare say," said mrs. gates cheerfully. "it'll be three or four days before the line-men can get around to repair damages. the roads are hub deep. no telling when they can haul their repair wagons through. you'll see." marian did see. the district roads had been all but impassable ever since her coming. now, thanks to this downpour, they would be bottomless pits of mire. "well! it's worse this morning, if anything," mrs. gates announced cheerfully, as marian appeared on the third gray morning. "'pears to me that you won't get out-doors again before the fourth of july." "but i must have some air. i can't stay cooped up forever," cried marian. "if you'd only lend me your rubber boots, mrs. gates; the ones you wear when you're gardening. then i could put on my mackintosh and my rubber bathing-cap and splash about beautifully. besides, i must go down to the canal. i must see how rod is getting on. think, it has been two days since i have heard one word from him. yet he is barely two miles away!" mrs. gates yielded at last to her coaxing. soon marian started out, wearing the borrowed boots and mr. gates's oil-skin coat. she stumbled and splashed away through the dripping woods, with finnegan romping gayly behind. rainy weather held no melancholy for finnegan. shut in the house, he had made those three days memorable for the household, especially for poor irate empress, who had taken refuge at last on the top rafter of the corn-bin. on the way to camp he flushed three rabbits, chased a fat gray squirrel into chattering fury, and dragged marian knee-deep into a bog, in his wild eagerness to dig out an imaginary woodchuck. "i wish i had a little of your vim, finnegan." marian sat down, soaked and breathless, on the step of sally lou's martin-box. from that eminence she surveyed the canal and its swarms of laborers. her eyes clouded. in spite of her growing interest in roderick's work, to look upon that work always puzzled her and disheartened her. the slow black water; the ugly mud-piled banks; the massive engines throbbing night and day through a haze of steam; the gigantic dredge machines, swinging their great steel arms back and forth, up and down, lifting tons of earth from the bottom of the ditch and placing it on the waiting barge with weird, unerring skill. most of all, the heavy tide of hurry and anxiety that seemed to rise higher every day. all these things vexed her and harassed her. when rod talked over his work with her with all his eager enthusiasm, she could share his triumph or lament his disappointment, as the case might be. but the work itself was so huge, so complicated, that she could never quite grasp it. she could never understand her brother's passionate interest. "although i don't despise the very sight of camp, as i did at first," she reflected. "it is rather queer that i don't, too. perhaps one can get used to anything. and i do want to learn more about rod's work, for he loves it so dearly, and i know he wants me to enjoy it too. though how anybody can enjoy such a life! to spend day after day, month on month, toiling like a slave in a steaming marsh like this!" a brisk finger tapped on the window-pane above her. "come in, miss northerner! poor dear, you're all but drowned. stand on the oil-cloth and drip till mammy can help you to take off those boots and put on my slippers." marian entered the dry, warm little house with a sigh of pleasure. presently she sat at the window with thomas tucker bouncing on her knee. thomas tucker had charms that could cheer the most pensive spirit. yet marian stared soberly past his bobbing yellow head at the swarming camp below. "don't look so droopy, miss northerner. perk up, do!" sally lou gave her ear a gentle nip. "you and i will have to manufacture cheerfulness in car-load lots this week, to counterbalance our partners' gloom." "why? have the boys met with more ill-luck on the contract?" "more ill-luck!" sally lou checked off point by point on her slim fingers. "day before yesterday--the morning after the fire--the district inspector was due here to pass judgment on the two upper laterals. as you know, the contract provides that the inspector must look over every yard of excavation and approve it before it can be considered as actually done. lo and behold, no inspector appeared. the boys were wild with anxiety to start their levee-work before the rain should wash the soft new banks down into the canal; for the company is responsible for every cave-in, and every slide of land means double labor in digging all that soil out of the ditch again. by noon the inspector had not been heard from, but two small cave-ins had occurred, and the company was losing money at the rate of thirty dollars an hour, because of the enforced idleness of the laborers and the shutting down of the machinery. finally roderick took his launch and started out in search of the inspector. at grafton he managed to get telephone connections with his office, and he was cheerfully assured that the inspector would appear on the scene 'as soon as the rain stops.'" "'as soon as the rain stops?' why, sally lou! then he hasn't come at all!" "precisely. back came poor rod, very cross and doleful indeed. then he and ned gave up work on the laterals and set the men to hacking away at the regular excavation. the laborers are sulky accordingly. yesterday they threatened a strike. i don't blame them. the bank-cutting is all very well in dry weather, but in this rain it is a miserable task." "well, rod can keep the men pacified. he's a splendid manager." "yes; and the men like him. but the work is terribly wearing on both the boys. and the third calamity arrived last night. the dipper-handle broke." "the dipper-handle? on the big dredge? sally lou, how dreadful!" "yes, it is dreadful. it means, of course, that twenty of the laborers will stop work and enjoy a vacation at the company's expense while the new handle is being made and put in. luckily the boys have one set of duplicate chains and timbers, and the company blacksmith is wonderfully capable. but it will cost the company a lump loss of a thousand dollars. imagine, marian, how those poor boys will groan when they make out their week's reports for president sturdevant. 'one fire. one delay and two cave-ins, due to non-appearance of district inspector. one strike. one smashed dipper-handle.' think what a dismal task the writing of that report will be!" "don't let me hear any more croaking, sally lou," came a wrathful voice from the door. "for we're facing the worst smash yet. what do you suppose this telegram says?" sally lou shook a small fist at the yellow slip in his hand. "don't you dare tell me that it's some new misfortune!" "two of 'em. that lordly, gloomy grouch, mr. ellingworth locke, acting president of the central mississippi association, is headed for this luckless camp. he's on his way up-river this identical minute. with him comes crosby. crosby, consulting engineer for the whole valley association. coming on a tour of inspection, _if_ you please. just think of the lovely job that they have come a thousand miles to inspect!" there was a stricken pause. "president locke! that--that potentate! ned, you don't mean it! and mr. crosby, whose word is law on every question of engineering!" "and they're coming to-day! to 'inspect' this soaking, miry, half-baked camp!" "and just this minute i've had some more news, burford." roderick bolted up the steps and entered the room. he tried to wrench his face into a reassuring grin; but beneath the grin he was the picture of angry dismay. "a big white launch is just coming up the canal, with two passengers aboard. if i'm not mistaken, they are our honored guests. come along, burford, and help me welcome them." burford, pop-eyed with amazement, meekly obeyed. wordless, the two girls watched the boys pelt away toward the landing. "well!" sally lou and marian looked at each other eloquently. "well! i could find it in my heart to wish that the boys were not obliged to unfold quite so many tales of misery! then the broken machinery and the quarrelling laborers! but we mustn't let ourselves fidget over it, marian. it will come out all right, somehow." roderick and burford pounded down to the shore. the white launch was just putting into the landing. at the bow sat mr. ellingworth locke, wrapped in a huge storm coat. evidently he was scolding the launch pilot with some energy. behind him stood crosby, his gray, keen eyes searching every inch of the ditch construction. "his jove-like majesty looks even grumpier than usual," whispered burford the irreverent. "come along, hallowell. it is our professional duty to welcome them with heart and soul." "mr. burford?" mr. locke stepped upon the landing and put out a plump gloved hand. "ah, mr. hallowell? how goes it? we hope that you have no ill news of the contract to give us." he led the way up the shore, with ponderous dignity. "the three contracts in central illinois, which we have just inspected, have shown deplorable results from the high water. i trust that you have no such misfortunes to report." "we haven't anything but misfortunes to report," muttered burford. aloud he said, "we have not been able to bring the work to the desired point, sir. we have had several accidents and delays. if you can face the discomforts of a boat trip in this rain, perhaps you will make a tour of inspection and see how matters stand." the honorable mr. locke hesitated. the canal looked very muddy and uninviting. the sky was black with rain clouds. "perhaps it would be as well for us to confer with you. then we could go back to saint louis immediately." "beg pardon, mr. locke." mr. crosby spoke for the first time. his gray face had no particular expression; but his voice held an oddly pleasant note. "you go back right away, if you like. but i'll look over this excavation with my own eyes. i want to discuss it with the executive committee day after to-morrow." "oh, of course, if you insist!" mr. locke turned impatiently to burford. "where is your boat, sir? let us start at once." that tour of inspection! silent, humiliated, miserable, roderick and burford plodded after the two olympians, up and down the narrow laterals, back and forth through the maze of seeping, half-cut channels. every question that they must answer told of some unlucky happening. every report was apologetic, unsatisfactory. "this ruinous high water isn't our fault. neither is carlisle's illness, nor the broken dipper-handle, nor the district inspector's delay. just the same i feel like a penny-in-the-slot machine for grinding out explanations," whispered roderick to burford. burford merely scowled in reply. thus far, mr. crosby had had nothing to say. he strode on ahead, his keen eyes judging, his shrewd mouth shut hard. president locke made up for his silence. he hectored the boys with fretful questions and complaints. he criticised the laborers, the equipment, the weather. "your company's losses, indeed! the breckenridge company will be fortunate, mr. burford, if, under the present management, this contract does not bring forfeitures as well as loss. as for the land-owners in this district, their dissatisfaction can be only too readily imagined." just then the president caught mr. crosby's eye. "do you not agree with me, mr. crosby? is not this a most disheartening outlook? on my word, sir, the company has no chance to complete those laterals before the great june freshets. that calamity will mean ruin for the farmers and for the contract alike. to finish this work would be difficult with a full quota of experienced men. and with only cub engineers--" he threw out both fat hands, with a gesture of despairing scorn. burford bit his lip and turned fiery red with mortification. roderick's stolid face did not flinch. but his heart sank leaden to his miry boots. what an infuriating humiliation for the company! his company, the pride of his boy heart! and breckenridge, breck his hero, would have to hear it all! "you think it's as bad as all that?" mr. crosby spoke with slow, bland unconcern. then he looked at the two boys. for one moment his lean gray face lighted with a curious, kindly sparkle. "h'm! strikes me that their company is mighty lucky to have cub engineers employed on this job." "'lucky?' why, sir? why?" "well, because they're the only kind that any company can depend upon to have nerve enough and grit enough to swing such a forlorn hope of a contract through." he tramped on, up the landing. burford threw back his shoulders. the blood flamed to his ears. roderick's heart suddenly leaped up to its normal altitude and began to pound. his lagging feet swung into a jaunty stride. he met burford's red, delighted face with a shamefaced grin. that vote of confidence had fairly set them afire. "at what time had we best start back to saint louis?" asked mr. locke. "by leaving camp at nine-thirty you will meet the north-bound limited at grafton, sir." "then, crosby, we will stay here until that hour. but where shall we dine?" "it will be a pleasure to mrs. burford and myself if you and mr. crosby will dine with us at our cabin," interposed burford eagerly. the stout potentate graciously accepted, and burford fled to break the news to sally lou. "mercy, sally lou, how can you manage it!" cried marian, as burford popped his head through the window, shouted his news, then hastily departed. "how on earth can you entertain such high mightinesses?" "well, i should hope that i could give them one meal at least." "but you haven't enough dishes. that is, you haven't cups that match----" "cups that match, indeed! h'm. they can be thankful to get any cups at all in this wilderness. i've promised mammy easter my pink beads if she'll make us some beaten biscuit, and i have sent mulcahy to mrs. gates's for three chickens, and i'll open two jars of my white peach preserve. i don't care if they're the grand mogul and the czar of all the russias, they can surely condescend to eat mammy's fried chicken." "yes, they'll be sure to like chicken," conceded marian. "they'd better like it. it's all they're going to get. chicken and potatoes and biscuit, preserves and coffee, that's all. yes, and lashin's and lavin's of cream gravy. it'll be fit for a king. even his highness, the acting president, won't dare complain!" if any complaints as to sally lou's hospitality were spoken, they were not audible to the human ear. as roderick said afterward, it was fortunate that nobody kept the beaten biscuit score; while one grieves to relate that in spite of sally lou's generous preparation, poor mammy easter was obliged to piece out an exceedingly skimpy meal from the fragments of the supper, instead of the feast that she had anticipated. even the pink beads proved a barely adequate consolation. the hour that followed, spent before the burfords' tiny hearth-fire, was the best of all. for a while, the men worked over the mass of blueprints that recorded the excavation made during the month past. here president locke, the magnificent figure-head, gave way, promptly and meekly, before crosby's wider experience. roderick and burford listened, all ears, to the elder man's shrewd illuminating comment, his quiet suggestion, his amused friendly sympathy. both groaned inwardly when the launch whistled from below, a warning that their guests must be off to meet the north-bound train. president locke bowed over sally lou's hand with majestic courtesy. "a most delightful hour you have given us, mrs. burford. we shall remember it always and with deep pleasure. but one thing is lacking in your hospitality. you have not given us the special pleasure of meeting your young sons." then sally lou, the poised stately young hostess, colored pink to her curly fair hair. "it is high time that my sons were sound asleep," said she. "but if you really wish to see them, and can overlook their informal attire, mammy easter shall bring them in." in came two small podgy polar bears, wide-eyed at the marvel of company, and up-at-nine-o'clock, dimpling, crimson-cheeked. roderick and burford stood gaping, to behold their august superiors now stooping from their heights to beguile small edward and shy thomas tucker with clumsy blandishments. "_where_ did you learn to handle a baby like that?" gasped sally lou, so astonished at mr. crosby's dexterous ease that she forgot all convention. "six of my own," returned the eminent engineer, capably shifting small, slippery thomas tucker on his gaunt shoulder. "all grown up, i regret to say. my baby girl is a junior at smith this year. try him. isn't he a stunner for a year old?" he plumped the baby into the arms of the lordly president, who was already jouncing edward junior on his knee and showing him his watch. "a whale," approved president locke, with impressive emphasis. he stood up, gaining his footing with some difficulty; for both the babies were now clambering over him delightedly, while finnegan yapped and nipped his ankles with cordial zest. "i wish we might spend another hour with these most interesting members of your household, mr. burford." his stern, arrogant face was beaming; he was no longer the exacting official, but the gracious, kindly gentleman. "since we must go, we will leave behind us our good wishes, as well as our thanks for your most charming hospitality. and we will take with us"--his eye sought mr. crosby's; there passed between the two men a quick, satisfied glance--"we shall take with us our hearty certainty that these good wishes for your husband's work, as well as for his household, will be abundantly fulfilled." * * * * * in the flickering torchlight of the landing roderick and ned watched their launch start away. then they looked at each other. "well! do you feel like tackling your job again, burford?" "feel like tackling it!" ned chuckled, softly. "when i know they're going to give their executive committee a gilt-edged report of our company and its work! when crosby himself said that we were the right men on the right job! feel like tackling it? give me a shovel and i'll tackle the panama canal." chapter xi a long pull and a strong pull "what is the latest bulletin, sally lou?" ned burford, hot, muddy, breathless, ran up the martin-box steps and put his head inside the door. sally lou sat at ned's desk, her brown eyes intent, her cheeks a little pale. a broad map lay spread before her. one hand steadied small thomas tucker, who clung against her knee. the other hand grasped the telephone receiver. "what's the news, i say? doesn't central answer? wires down again, do you s'pose?" "yes, central answered, and we reached the operator at bates creek an hour ago. she says that the smaller streams below carter's ford have not risen since daybreak, but that bates creek itself has risen three inches in the last four hours." "whew! three inches since morning! that sounds serious. what about jackson river?" "below millville the jackson has flooded its banks. above millville the men are patrolling the levees and stacking in sand bags and brush to reinforce the earthwork." "that means, another crest of water will reach us to-morrow, early. well, we are ready to face it, i'm thankful to say." ned settled back in his big chair with a sigh of relief. "that is, unless it should prove to be more than a three-foot rise. and there is practically no danger that it will go beyond that stage. our upper laterals are excavated to final depth. our levee is growing like magic, and hallowell is putting in splendid time on the lower laterals with the big dredge. so we needn't worry. as soon as he finishes all the lateral excavation, he will bring the dredges down to the main ditch and start in to deepen the channel to its final depth. when that second excavation is done, the channel will allow for a six-foot rise. that channel depth, of course, will put us far out of any danger of overflow. then when the june floods come, the creeks can rise four inches or forty inches if they like. we won't care." sally lou looked sharply at his grimy, cheerful face. her own did not reflect his contentment. she put down the receiver and bent frowning over the map. her pencil wandered over the maze of fine red lines that marked the excavation. "hallowell and i had nothing but bad luck on this contract until two weeks ago, when locke and crosby came on their inspection tour," ned went on serenely. "but since their visit, we've had two solid weeks of the best fortune any engineer could ask. it has been almost too good; it's positively uncanny. not a break in the machinery; only one cave-in, and that a trifle; not a solitary quarrel among the laborers--the shifts have moved like clock-work. it was crosby's doing, i suppose. his coming heartened us all up; all of us; even to the dredges themselves. though, on my word, sally lou, i'm almost afraid of such unchanging good luck. it's no' canny." sally lou turned to him suddenly. her fingers tapped the desk with nervous little clicks. "listen, ned. have you finished the upper laterals? are they safe, no matter how high the water may rise?" "n-no. they are excavated, but the bank is nothing but heaped mud, you know. still, it would stand anything short of a flood." "what about the lower laterals?" "same state of affairs there. only that the two lowest ditches aren't cut at all. why?" sally lou swung round in the desk chair and faced her husband. her eyes were very dark and anxious now. "one more question, ned. could the work stand a three-foot rise?" ned stared. "a three-foot rise? no, it could not. a three-foot rise would stop our levee-building. a rise of four feet or more would put us out of the game. we'd be washed out, smashed, ruined. but why do you ask such questions? what makes you imagine----" "i'm not imagining, ned. i had a telephone call not five minutes ago from the district inspector. yes, i know you think he's always shouting 'wolf!' but this time he may be right. he says that he has just come down from chicago on the central, and that the whole mid-section of the state is fairly submerged by these endless rains. worse, the storm warnings are up for further rains. and he believes that there will be a rise of three feet within two days. that is, unless the rains stop." ned started to his feet. "a rise of three feet! what is the man talking about? don't you believe one word, sally lou. that inspector is a regular hoot-owl. he'd rather gloom and forebode than breathe. but maybe i'd better go and tell hallowell. perhaps we can ginger up our excavation. yet the men and the machines are working up to their limit." he shuffled into his wet oilskins once more. "where is roderick, ned?" "he just came in off his watch. he's sound asleep in the hammock over at his shack. marian is over there too. she made mr. gates bring her down at five this morning, and she has worked like a turk every minute. she spent the morning with hallowell, up the laterals. she has learned to run his launch better that he can, so he lets her manage the boat for him. then she takes all his notes, and does all his telephoning, and passes along his orders to the commissary men, and seconds him at every turn. did you ever in all your life see anybody change as she has done? when i remember the listless, useless, fretful specimen that she was, those first weeks, then look at her now, i can hardly believe my eyes." sally lou listened a little impatiently. "yes, i know. ned, please go and tell roderick about the inspector's message. he surely ought to know." "all right, i'm going." ned put down his frolicking small sons reluctantly. sally lou laughed at his unwilling face. yet she looked after him anxiously as he sauntered away. then her eyes turned to the brimming canal. tree branches and bits of lumber, washed down from the upper land by the heavy storm, rolled and tumbled past. the sky was thick and gray, the wind blew straight from the east. "i hate to fidget and forebode. but i--i almost wish that i could make ned forebode a little. i'm afraid he ought to worry. and roderick ought to be a little anxious, too." suddenly the telephone bell rang. sally lou sprang to answer it. "yes, this is the contract camp. a chicago call? is it--is it head-quarters? oh, is this _mr. breckenridge_ who is speaking? shall i call mr. burford?" strong and clear across two hundred miles of storm the voice reached her, a hurrying command. "do not call your husband. no time. operator says the wind raging here may break connections at any minute. tell him that we have positive word that a tremendous rise is on the way. a cloudburst north of huntsville started this new crest two hours ago. moreover, a storm belt extends across the state, covering a district thirty miles wide directly north of you. tell our engineers to spare neither money nor effort in making ready. tell them, whatever else they must neglect, to save----" click! the receiver dropped from sally lou's shaking hand. not another sound came over the wire. she signalled frantically. "oh, if he had only told me! 'to save'--to save _what_? the machinery, the levee, the laterals--oh, central, please, please!" still no sound. at last central's voice, a thin little whisper. "chicago connections broken ... terrible storm ... sorry can't reach----" the thin little whisper dropped to silence. "mammy, take these babies. i'm going away." sally lou rolled thomas tucker off her lap and dashed away to roderick's shack. trembling, she poured out her ill news. "this means business." roderick, heavy-eyed and stupid, struggled into hip boots and slicker. "breckenridge isn't frightening us for nothing. we daren't lose a minute. come along, burford." "come along--where?" burford stood stunned before this bewildering menace. "what more can we do? aren't we rushing the whole plant to the danger notch of speed as it is?" "there is one thing we must do. decide what part of the work we can abandon. then put our whole force, men, machinery, and all, to work at the one point where it will do the most good." "what can we abandon? it's all equally important." "that is for you and me to decide. come along." "if breck had only finished his sentence! 'to save--' surely he meant for us to save the dredges?" again the boys looked at each other. "to save the dredges, maybe. but that doesn't sound like breckenridge. 'to save the land-owners from loss,' that's more like what he'd say." "if we could only reach him, for even half a minute----" "that is precisely what we can't do." roderick's big shoulders lifted. his heavy face settled into lines of steel. "we'll bring all three of the machines down stream, and put up our fight on the main ditch. if we can cut through to the river, before the rise gets here, we will save the crops for most of the land-owners, anyway. that will check any danger of the water backing up into the narrow laterals and overflowing them." burford frowned. "do you realize that by making that move we shall risk wrecking the dredges? we will have to tow them down in this rough, high water against this heavy wind. we may smash and sink all three. and they cost the company a cool twenty thousand apiece, remember." roderick's jaw set. "i realize just that. but it is up to us to decide. if we stop our excavation and huddle the machines back into the laterals, we will save our equipment from any risk. but the overflow will sweep the whole lower district and ruin every acre of corn. on the other hand, if we bring the dredges down here and start in full tilt to deepen the channel, we may wreck our machines--and we may not. but, whatever happens, we will be giving the land-owners a chance." burford held back, but only for a moment. then he put out his hand to roderick, with a slow grin. "i'm with you, hallowell. i'll take your lead, straight through. it's up to us, all right. we've got to shoulder the whole responsibility, the whole big, hideous risk. but we'll put it through. that's all." together the boys hurried away. left behind, the girls set to work upon their share of the plan with eager spirit. "you go with the boys and run the launch for them, marian. i'll turn the babies over to mammy and stay right here to watch the telephone and keep the time-books, although time-books could wait, in such a pinch as this. we'll all pull together. and we will pull out safely, never fear." sally lou was right. they all pulled together. machines, laborers, foremen and all swung splendidly into line. as ned said, the contract had never shown such team-work. everybody worked overtime. everybody faced the rain, the mud, the merciless hurry with high good-humor. the thrill of danger, the daring risk, the loyal zeal and spirit for the company, all spurred them on. side by side with roderick, marian worked through the day. she had long since forgotten her frail health. she had forgotten her hatred of the dun western country, her dislike of roderick's work, her weariness, her impatience. with heart and soul she stood by her brother. only the one wish ruled every act: her eager desire to help roderick, to stand by him through to the end of this tremendous strain. "we'll make it!" roderick grinned at her, tired but content, as he came into the shack for his late supper. "sally lou finally reached springfield on the telephone. the rain has stopped; so while the rise will come, sure as fate, yet it may not be as high as breckenridge feared. at any rate, we have made splendid time with the big dredge to-day. there is barely an eighth of a mile more cutting to be done. then we'll reach the river, and we'll be safe, no matter what freshets may happen along. burford says i'm to take six hours' sleep; then i'll go on watch again. twelve more hours of working time will see our land-owners secure." "ned burford is running up the shore this minute." marian peered through the tent flap. "mulcahy is coming with him. they're in a hurry. i wonder what has happened." "they'd better not bring me any bad news till i have eaten my supper," said roderick grimly. burford and mulcahy galloped up the knoll. headlong they plunged into the tent. burford was gray-white. mulcahy stared at roderick without a word. "what has happened? burford, what ails you?" burford sat down and mopped his sweating forehead. "the worst break-down yet, hallowell. the dipper-bail on the big dredge has snapped clear through." the three stared at each other in helpless despair. marian broke the silence. "the dipper-bail broken _again_? why, it's not two weeks since you put on the new handle!" "true for you, miss. not two weeks since it broke," said mulcahy wrathfully. "and its smash means a tie-up all along the line. not one stroke of ditch-work can be done till it's replaced. who ever saw a dipper break her bail twice on the same job? 'tis lightnin' strikin' twice in the same place. but 'tis no use cryin' over spilt milk. one of you gentlemen will have to go to saint louis and have a new bail welded at the steam forge. it will cost twenty-four hours' time, but it is the only way. i'll keep the boys hot at work on the levee construction meanwhile." "go to saint louis to-night! and neither of you two have had a night's sleep this week!" marian looked at burford. his sodden clothes hung on him. his round face was pinched and sunken with fatigue. she looked at her brother. he had slumped back in his chair, limp and haggard. he was so utterly tired that even the shock of ill news could not rouse him to meet its challenge. then she looked out at the weltering muddy canal, the dark stormy sky. "never mind, rod. we'll manage. you and ned make out the exact figures and dimensions for the new bail. then mulcahy can take me to grafton in the launch. there i'll catch the saint louis train. i'll go straight to the steam forge and urge them to make your bail at once. then i'll bring it back on the train to-morrow night." promptly both boys burst into loud, astonished exclamations. "go to saint louis alone! i guess i see myself letting you do such a preposterous thing. i'll start, at once." "stop that, hallowell. you can't possibly go. you're so sleepy that you haven't half sense. i'll go myself." "oh, you will. then what about your watch to-night? shall i take it and my own, too?" burford stopped, quenched. he reddened with perplexity. "we can't either of us be spared, that's the fact of it. but miss marian must not think of going." "certainly not. i would never allow it." "yes, rod, you will allow it." marian spoke quietly, but with determination. "the trip to saint louis is perfectly safe. once in the city, i'll take a carriage to the college club and stay there every minute, except the time that i must spend in giving orders for the bail. no, you two need not look so forbidding. i'm going. and i'm going this identical minute." later marian laughed to remember how swiftly she had overruled every protest. the boys were too tired and dazed to stand against her. it was hardly an hour before she found herself flying down the river, in charge of the faithful mulcahy, on her way to catch the south-bound train. "the steam-forge people will do everything in their power to serve you," roderick had said, as he scrawled the last memoranda for her use. "they know our firm, and they will rush the bail through and have it loaded on the eight-o'clock train. i'll see to it that mulcahy and two men are at the grafton dock to meet your train. but if anything should go wrong, sis, just you hunt up commodore mccloskey and ask him to help you; for the commodore is our guardian angel, i am convinced of that." the trip to the city was uneventful. she awoke early, after a good rest, and hurried down to the forge works, a huge smoky foundry near the river. the shop foreman met her with the utmost courtesy and promised that the bail should be made and delivered aboard the afternoon train. feeling very capable and assured, marian went back to the club and had spent two pleasant hours in its reading-room when she was called to the telephone. "miss hallowell?" it was the voice of the forge works foreman. "i--er--most unluckily we have mislaid the slip of paper which gave the dimensions of the bail. we cannot go on until we have those dimensions. do you remember the figures?" poor marian racked her brain. not one measurement could she call to mind. "i'll ask my brother over the long-distance," she told the foreman. but even as she spoke, she knew that there was no hope of reaching roderick. all the long-distance wires were down. "and not one human being in all saint louis who can tell me the size of that bail!" she groaned. "oh, why didn't i measure it with my own tape-measure--and then learn the figures by heart! yet--i do wonder! would commodore mccloskey know? he has been at the camp so often, and he knows everything about our machinery. let's see." presently commodore mccloskey's friendly voice rang over the wire. "well, sure 'tis good luck that ye caught me at the dock, miss marian. the _lucy_ is just startin' up-river. two minutes more and i'd have gone aboard. so ye've lost the bail dimensions? well, well, don't talk so panicky-like. i'll be with ye in two minutes, an' we'll go to the forge together. 'tis no grand memory i have, but i can give them a workin' idea." "oh, if you only will, commodore! but the _lucy_! how can you be spared?" "hoot, toot. the _lucy_ can wait while i go shoppin' with you. yes, she has a time schedule, i know well. but, in high wather, whoever expects a mississippi packet to be on time? or in low wather, either, for that matter. i'll come to ye at once." the commodore was as good as his word. soon he and marian reached the forge works. there his shrewd observation and his wise old memory suggested dimensions which proved later to be correct in every detail. moreover, he insisted upon staying with marian till the bail should be welded. then, under his sharp eyes, it was loaded safely on the grafton train. as he escorted marian elegantly into the passenger coach, she ventured, between her exclamations of gratitude, to reprove him very gently. "you have been too good to me, commodore. but when i think of the poor deserted _lucy_! and the captain--what will he say?" "he'll say a-plenty." the little commodore smiled serenely. "'tis an unchivalrous set the steam-boat owners are, nowadays. if he were half as obligin' as the old captains used to be in the good days before the war, he'd be happy to wait over twenty-four hours, if need be, to serve a lady. but nowadays 'tis only time, time that counts. sure, he's grieved to the heart if we make a triflin' loss, like six hours, say, in our schedule." "and i'm not thanking you for myself alone," marian went on, flushing. "it is for rod, too. you don't know how much it means to me to be able to help him, even in this one small way." then the little commodore bent close to her. his shrewd little eyes gleamed. "don't i know, sure? an' by that token i'm proud of this day, and twice proud of the chance that's led me to share it. for, sure, i've always said it--the time would certain come when you--_when you'd wake up_. mind my word, miss marian. don't ye forget! don't ye let go--and go to sleep again." the train jarred into motion. his knotted little hand gripped hers. then he was off and away. "the dear little, queer little commodore!" marian looked after him, her eyes a bit shadowy. "though what could he mean! 'now you've waked up.' i do wonder!" yet her wonder was half pretended. a hot flush burned in her cheek as she sat thinking of his words. "well, i'm glad, too, that i've 'waked up,' although i wish that something had happened to stir me earlier." the train crept on through the flooded country. it was past eight o'clock when they reached grafton. marian hurried from the coach and watched anxiously while two baggagemen hoisted the heavy bail from the car. "well, my share is done," she said to herself. "that precious bail is here, safe and sound. but where is mulcahy? and the launch? rod said that he would not fail to be here by train time." the train pulled out. from the dim-lit station the ticket agent called to her. "you're expecting your launch, miss hallowell? there has been no boat down to-day." "but my brother promised to send the launch," stammered marian. "surely they knew i was coming to-night!" then, in a flash of recollection, she heard roderick's voice: "and mulcahy will meet you on the eight-o'clock train." "rod meant the train that leaves saint louis at eight in the morning! not this afternoon train. how could i make such a blunder! he does not look for me to reach grafton till to-morrow." she looked at the huge, heavy bail. "if that bail could reach camp to-night, they could ship it up and start to cutting immediately. it would mean seven or eight hours more of working time. but how to take it there!" "there's a man yonder who owns a gasolene-launch," ventured the agent. "it's a crazy, battered tub, but maybe----" marian looked out at the night: the black, sullen river; the ranks of willows swaying in the heavy wind; the thunder that told of approaching storm. "call that man over, please. yes, i shall risk the trip up-river. that bail shall reach camp to-night." chapter xii partners and victories "what time is it, miss?" marian put down the gallon tin with which she had bailed steadily, and looked at her watch. "almost midnight." "only midnight!" the steersman gave a weary yawn and turned back to his wheel. inwardly marian echoed his discouraged word. it seemed to her that she had crouched for years in the stern of the crazy little motor-boat. rain and spray had drenched her to the skin. she ached in every half-frozen bone. yet she sat, wide awake and alert, watching her pilot keenly. he was a poor helmsman, she thought. however, an expert would have found trouble in taking an overloaded launch up-stream against that swollen current and in pitch darkness. worse, the weight of the heavy dredge-bail weighed the launch down almost to water level. every tiny wave splashed over the gunwale. marian bailed on mechanically. she had had hard work to bribe the owner to risk the trip up-stream. the men at grafton had warned her, moreover, that she was running a narrow chance of swamping the launch, and thus of losing her precious piece of machinery, to say nothing of the danger to her own life. but all marian's old timidity had fled, forgotten. nothing else mattered if just she might serve her brother in his supreme need. through these four dreary hours the old commodore's quaint, frank words had echoed in her mind. and the commodore had been right, she owned, with a quiver of shame. always, since their mud-pie days, rod had done his part by her in full measure, generously, lovingly. never, until these last days, had she even realized what doing her own part by roderick might mean. "although i have been slower than my blessed old slow-coach himself in realizing what my life ought to count for. well, as the commodore said, i have waked up at last. and mind this, marian hallowell! _you stay awake!_ never, never let me catch you dozing off again!" "there's the camp light yonder," the steersman spoke at last, with a sigh of satisfaction. marian peered ahead through the cold, blinding mist. away up-stream shone a feeble glimmer, then a second light; a third. "good! and--there are the dredge search-lights! only a minute more and we'll be there." only a minute it seemed till the launch wheezed up to the landing and swung with a thud against the posts. marian stumbled ashore. "mulcahy!" she called to the dark figure standing on the dredge deck. "send two men to unload the bail for us." "marian hallowell! where under the shining sun did you come from?" roderick leaped from the deck to the shore and confronted his sister. then, in his horrified surprise at her daring risk, he pounced upon her and administered a scolding of such vigor that it fairly made her gasp. "of all the outrageous, reckless----" "there, there, rod! look!" still breathing threatenings and slaughter, roderick turned. then he saw the huge new bail which the men were hoisting ashore. "so that's what it all means! that's why you came up on the early train! you brought that bail yourself, all the way. you risked your life in that groggy little boat! all on purpose to help us out! marian hallowell, i'd like to shake you hard. and for two cents i'd kiss you right here and now. you--you _peach_!" burford, awakened by the launch whistle, was hurrying down the bank. reaching the landing his eye fell on the precious new bail. utterly silent, he stared at it for a long rapt minute. then, rubbing his sleepy eyes, he turned to marian and rod with a grin that fairly lighted up the dock. "now," he said, with slow exultation, "now--we've got our chance to win." and win they did. true, the water had already risen close to the dreaded three-foot danger-mark. true, neither of the boys had had half a dozen hours of sleep in three days. as for the laborers, they were fagged and overworked to the limit of their endurance. but not one of these things counted. not a grumbling word was spoken. this was their company's one chance. not a man held back from seizing that chance and making good. not a man but felt himself one with the company, a living vital element of that splendid struggling whole. marian and sally lou stood on the shore watching the dredge as the great dipper crunched its way through the last submerged barrier. the canal rolled bank full. little waves swashed over the platform on which they stood. pools of seep-water already gathered behind the mud embankment, which was crumbling into miry avalanches with every sweep of rising water against it. not by any chance could the levee stand another hour. but even as the dredge cut that narrow passage, the heavy overflow boiled outward into the river beyond. minute by minute the rough surface of the canal was sinking before their watching eyes. now it had fallen from six inches above to high-water mark; now to three inches below; now to mid-stage--and safety. as the freed stream rolled out into the river, a great cheer rose from the laborers crowded alongshore. roderick and burford stayed aboard the dredge until it was warped alongside the dock and safely moored. then they crossed to land and joined the girls. neither of the boys spoke one word. they did not seem to hear the shouts and cheers behind them. there was no glow of success on their sober faces. perhaps their relief was so great that they were a little stunned before its wonder. victory was theirs; but victory won in the face of so great a danger that they could not yield and feel assured of their escape. "we cannot reach head-quarters on the telephone, of course. but, by hook or crook, one of you boys must get a despatch through to mr. breckenridge. think of being able to tell him that you have deepened the canal straight through to the river, so that the whole lower half of the district is safe from overflow! and that you have moved all these costly, treacherous machines down-stream without one serious accident, without so much as a broken bolt! it is too good to be true." "i'll take a launch and sprint down to grafton and wire our report from there," said burford. his tense face relaxed; he broke into a delighted chuckle. "think of it: this once i can actually enjoy sending in my report to head-quarters! i'd like to write it out instead of wiring it. i'd put red-ink curlycues and scroll-work dewdabs all over the page. think, hallowell, you solemn wooden indian! the crest of this flood is only two hours away. by noon the highest level will reach our canal. but it can't flood our district for us, for--for we got there first!" his rosy face one glow of contentment, he started toward the pier. but as he was about to step aboard the duty-launch, roderick hailed him sharply. "wait, burford. somebody is coming up the big ditch. a large gray launch, with a little dark-blue flag." "what!" burford sprang back. he shaded his eyes and looked down the canal. then, to rod's amazement, he sat down on a pile of two-by-fours and rocked to and fro. "whatever ails you, burford?" "whatever ails me, indeed!" burford choked it out. his ears were scarlet. his eyes were fairly popping from his head with delight. "oh, i reckon i won't bother to send that report to head-quarters, after all. i'll just let the whole thing slide." rod gaped at him. "have you lost your last wit, ned?" "not quite. i'm going to give my report to my superior officer by word of mouth. that big gray power-boat is one of our own company's launches. that small blue flag is the company ensign. and that big gray man standing 'midships is--breckenridge! breck the great, his very self." "breckenridge!" "breckenridge. all there, too--every splendid inch of him. talk about luck! our levee is saved. our dredges are all anchored, right yonder, trim as a gimlet. our schedule is put through up to the minute. and here, precisely on the psychological moment, comes our chief on his tour of inspection. can you beat that?" roderick merely stared down the canal. close behind the launch pilot, scanning the bank intently as they steamed by, towered a broad-shouldered, heavily built man, gray-headed, yet powerful and alert in every movement. he was well splashed with mud; his broad, heavily featured face was colorless with fatigue. yet as he stood there, with his big tense body, his tired, eager face, he seemed like some magnificent natural force imprisoned in human flesh. "isn't he sumptuous, though?" said burford, under his breath. "look at those shoulders! what a half-back he would make!" "half-back? why, he could make the all-american," rod whispered back. his eyes were glued to that tall approaching figure. his heart was pounding in his breast. so this was breckenridge the great, his hero! and, marvel of marvels, he looked the hero of all rod's farthest dreams. breckenridge stepped from the launch and shook hands heartily with the radiant and stammering burford. he looked at roderick with steady dark eyes. he hardly spoke in reply to burford's introduction. but the grip of his big, muscular hand was warmly cordial. he asked a few brief questions. then he listened, his heavy head bent, his heavy-lidded eyes half closed, to burford's eager account of their struggles and their triumphs. almost without speaking he clambered into the launch again and motioned the boys to follow. for four consecutive hours the three went up and down the rough miry channels. roderick steered the launch. burford answered breckenridge's occasional questions. breckenridge stood, field-glass in hand, sweeping first one bank, then another with tireless eyes. he made almost no comment on burford's explanations; but the slow occasional nod of his massive head was eloquent. finally they retraced the last lateral and brought the launch up to the main landing. "no, i'll not stop to dine with you, much as i should enjoy it. i must be getting on to the next contract. they're seeing heavy weather too." breckenridge stood up, stretching his big, cramped body. as he stood there, brushing the clay from his coat, he seemed to loom. "i have nothing much to say to you fellows," he went on in his quiet, casual voice, "only to remark that you must have worked like trojans. you have made a far larger yardage record than we had dared to expect. you've put brains into your work, too. can't say i'm surprised at your success, by the way. i was pretty certain from what crosby said that you two would swing this contract, all right. crosby and i had a talk in chicago a week or so ago. we were in tech together. naturally he's quite a pal of mine, though nowadays we're opponents in a business way. but his opinion weighs heavily with me. and now that i have gone over the ground for myself, i am inclined to think that crosby rather--well, that he underestimated your services to the company." again his big head bent with that queer slow nod. for a moment breck himself, the real man, alert, just, keenly understanding, flashed a glance from behind that heavy mask of splendid, impassive flesh. "later you will probably receive a more detailed explanation of my opinion on your work. good luck to you both, and good-by." he stepped into the launch. the powerful boat dashed away down the rough yellow canal. the boys stood and looked after him. burford was wildly exultant. but roderick was silent. a curious, deep satisfaction lighted his stolid, boyish face. every word that breckenridge had spoken was tingling in his blood. at last he had met his hero face to face, man to man. and his hero had proven all that heart could ask. "i wish i knew what he meant by saying that you'd hear further as to his opinion on your work," pondered marian. just two days later her wish was gratified. * * * * * it was a rainy, dreary day. rod had spent the morning up the laterals and had come home dripping. marian was trying to dry his soaked clothes before the smoky little oil-stove, but without much success. just before noon she heard a welcome whistle. she ran down the bank to meet the rural delivery-man in his little spider-launch. the roads were long since impassable; the mail and all the camp supplies must come by water. "stacks of letters, rod. a fat official one for the burfords and a still fatter, more official one for you. do read it and tell me your news." "all right, sis." rod pushed aside his blueprints and set to opening his mail. marian looked over her own letters. they were all of a sort: pleasant, affectionate notes from her friends at home. all, with one accord, besought her to hurry back to college for commencement. all earnestly pitied her for the tedious weeks that she was spending "in that rough, dreadful western country." marian's eyes twinkled as she read. at the bottom of the pile lay a note from her good friend isabel, begging her for the twentieth time to spend august with her in her beautiful home at beverly farms. marian read that letter twice. her dark brows narrowed. before her eyes gleamed isabel's home, the great beautiful house, set on a terraced emerald-green hill. behind it, dark, cool, mysterious, lay the pine woods; before it flashed and gleamed the sea. she could see its wide, stately rooms, its soft-hued, luxurious furnishings. she could feel the atmosphere of quiet contentment, of assured ease, which was to isabel and her mother the very air they breathed. then she looked around her. here she sat in a tiny canvas shack with a rough board floor. she looked at its mended chairs, its rag-tag rug, and stringy curtains; rod's wet clothes, dripping before the little oil-stove; rod's battered desk, heaped with papers and blue-prints, a mass of accumulated work. then she looked through the tent-flap. neither blue ocean nor deep, still forest met her eyes. only a narrow, muddy ditch; a row of wind-torn willows; a dark, swollen river, hurrying on beneath a dark, sinister sky. an exclamation from rod startled her. he stooped to her, his tired face burning. with unsteady fingers he put a letter into her hand. "read that, sis. no, i'll not read it aloud to you. look at it with your own eyes." the breckenridge engineering company. office of the superintendent. roderick t. hallowell, c. e., _c/o contract camp, grafton, illinois._ sir: i beg to state that certain changes in the engineering force of the company have brought about a change in the position occupied by yourself with our firm. beginning upon the first day of june, 1912, you will be transferred to the post of assistant superintendent on a large drainage contract in northern iowa. while your position will be second to that of mr. mcpherson, our supervising engineer, yet you will be given entire charge of the assembling of the plant and its construction. your salary will be two thousand dollars. payment quarterly, as is our custom. some objections to this promotion have been raised by members of our company on the score of your limited experience. mr. breckenridge, however, considers from his observation of your methods that you will prove fully equal to this exacting and responsible position. i am, very respectfully, the breckenridge engineering company. _per_ r. w. austin, _sec'y_. silent, wide-eyed, marian read this amazing document. then, with a cry of surprise and delight, she turned to her brother. but before she could speak, a storm of eager feet dashed up the cabin steps. in burst sally lou and ned, headlong. ned, breathless with excitement, waved a long official envelope. but sally lou, close at his heels with thomas tucker crowing on her arm, poured out the wild tale. "oh, marian! oh, roderick! oh, it's too good and grand and glorious to be true! we're going home, home, straight back to virginia!" "yes, we're going home, we're fired," puffed ned, as sally lou paused for breath. he sank down on the bench with a sigh of ecstasy. "don't look so dazed, hallowell. there is more news coming. we're ordered off this contract. but we're not ordered out of the breckenridge engineering company. not quite yet. instead, i'm directed to report on the dismal swamp canal the first of the month. my position will be practically the same as the one that i'm now holding. but we can live at home. _at home_, i say! right in norfolk, right in the midst of all sally lou's own home-folks, right around the corner from my own father's house. won't we have a glorious year of it! and won't edward junior and thomas tucker be good and spoiled, though!" "we're so happy we can't even say it to each other!" sally lou sat down suddenly, hiding her april face in thomas tucker's small pinafore. "it took mammy easter to express our feelings for us. 'land, honey,' said she, 'i cert'n'y am thankful that we's goin' back to civilization. i want to climb on a real street-car again. i want to ride in an elevator. i don't care if i never sets foot in one of dem slippery little launches again, long's i live. but most of all i want to tote dese lambs out of this swamp and on to de dry land before dey grows up plumb web-footed.'" in the midst of the laugh that followed, a launch whistled from down the canal. "there's mulcahy now. hurry, ned. go down to grafton and send your telegram to head-quarters. good-by, folks! come over to the martin-box to-night and we'll hold one last celebration." sally lou tossed her baby to her shoulder. away she sped beside her husband. marian looked after the gay, hurrying figures. then, still bewildered, she turned to roderick. "well! what will happen next! ned and sally lou ordered to virginia; you promoted--it takes my breath away! but, rod!" her voice rose with a startled note. she looked up keenly at her brother's grave face. "you--you dear, cold-blooded old slow-coach! how can you look so pensive and perplexed? of all the splendid, splendid news! how could you keep still and not tell the burfords? how can you keep still now? if i wasn't so tired, i'd dance a jig right here on your desk!" "i ought to be dancing jigs myself," roderick answered. "i don't half deserve this magnificent chance, i know that. but i--i don't know what to say. i'm facing a dead wall." "rod, what do you mean? of course you will accept this promotion. you must. there can't be any question!" marian was on her knees by his chair now, clasping his cold hands in her own. her voice rang sharp with angry affection. "don't halt and fumble so, brother! don't you remember, three months ago, how you fretted and hesitated about taking the position that you are holding to-day? see how you have succeeded in it! yet look at you! to-day you are wavering and boggling and hanging back, just as you did then." "i'm hanging back, yes. but not for the same reason." roderick looked down at her with dark, troubled eyes. "that time, i hesitated to accept on your account. this time, i'm hesitating on my own." "why, roderick hallowell! you are not afraid of hard work, nor of taking chances, either. rod, tell me this minute. are you ill? what is it, dear?" "nonsense. i'm perfectly well. but i am tired out. i don't know how to tell you what i mean. so tired that i dread the mere thought of going on a new contract, and taking charge of a new crew, and breaking myself in to a new piece of work. yes, it does sound cowardly. but i cannot see my way clear. i don't believe i dare take it up." marian looked at him closely. "sleep on this, rod. a night's rest will give you a different light on the matter." "a night's rest won't make any difference in the facts, sis. the position is too complicated for a greenhorn like me. i believe i could assemble the plant, all right. and i think i could handle the laborers. but the endless outside detail is what i'm afraid of. that, and the responsibility, too. for instance, on a contract like this one in iowa, the engineers must act as paymasters, each for his division. that means, reckon the men's time daily; make out their checks; handle their wages for them; and so on. then there are my tabulated reports for the head office. then my supplies. you have seen with your own eyes how much time and work just the buying of coal and machinery can demand. then there would be a thousand smaller matters to look after. taking it all in all, i don't want to make a try at this offer, then fail. so the sensible thing to do is, meekly to ask the company for a less impressive post." "all that you would need for the extra work that you describe would be a competent book-keeper, rod." "exactly!" rod laughed shortly. "but a 'competent' book-keeper is the last employã© that one can find for such hard, isolated work as this. what i need is not just a man to add columns for me. i need another brain, an extra pair of hands. i need the sort of first-aid that you have been giving me all these weeks, sis. that's the sort of help that you can't buy for love nor money. that's all." [illustration: marian was on her knees by his chair, clasping his cold hands in her own.] marian studied her brother's face. when she spoke, her voice was very gentle and low. "all right, rod. telegraph head-quarters that you will accept." "why?" "because--i am going to take that position as book-keeper. there, now!" roderick sat up with some vehemence. "marian hallowell, i think i see myself letting you do any more of my work. you're going back to college next week, for commencement. then you may come west again, if you're determined to stay somewhere near me. i'm mighty glad to have you within reach, i must admit that. but you are not to live down in the woods any longer. and not another stroke of my work shall you do." "why not? am i such a poor stenographer?" roderick laughed at her injured tone. pride and affection mingled in that laugh. "you have been invaluable, sis. you know that perfectly well. i'd never have pulled through this month without you. you have been of more real use than any three ordinary stenographers rolled together. for you have used your own brains and will and courage. you have not stood gracefully by and waited for orders. you have marched right on, and you have done a man's work straight through. but our long pull is over now. and you are well and strong again, i'm thankful to say. so back to the east you go, old lady. no more contract jobs for you." marian's eyes narrowed ominously. deliberately she seated herself on the arm of her brother's chair. gently but firmly she seized him by both ears. "now, roderick hallowell, listen to me. three months ago the company offered you this position. i wanted you to accept it. but, of all things, i did _not_ want to go west with you. i teased and coaxed and whined. much good my whining did me. for you just set that rock-o'-gibraltar chin of yours, and took me firmly by the collar and marched me along. "now, roderick hallowell, look at me!" chuckling and shamefaced, roderick struggled to turn his face away; but marian's fingers gripped mercilessly tight. "look at me, i say. answer. didn't you bully me into giving up to your wishes, by threatening to refuse this position unless i'd come west with you? didn't you drag me out here willy-nilly? very well. you have had your way. you have brought me here, and--_you can't send me back_. there now." "marian, this is not fair." roderick freed one ear and looked sternly at his sister. "you must finish your education. i have no right to keep you trailing around the country with me, wasting your time and cutting you off from your friends and denying you any home comfort. you shall not sacrifice yourself----" "sacrifice myself, indeed!" marian took a fresh grip. "all i ask is to stay with you until next february. then i'll go back and take up my college work at the exact point where i laid it down. i cannot graduate with my class, no matter how hard i try. my illness last winter took too much time. so i may as well join the class following, at mid-years'. in the mean time, we will have eight splendid months together. no, i have waked up, rod. you can't hush me off to my selfish doze again." "but, marian, i can't possibly permit----" "yes, you can. and you will. as to home comforts--isn't it home, wherever we two are together? as to being cut off from my friends--aren't you the best chum i ever had? how do you suppose i like being cut off from you, brother?" rod did not answer. at last he looked up. the sober gratitude in his eyes brought an answering radiance to marian's own. "i give up, sis. you shall stay with me for the summer, anyway. then we'll see. now run away, you blessed old partner!" his big hands shut on her shoulders with an eloquent grip. "i'm going to write to head-quarters and accept that position before i have time to turn coward again and change my mind." marian gave him a vigorous hug of satisfaction, and ran away. letter in hand, roderick went to his desk. carefully he set down his formal, courteous acceptance. he read the finished letter with critical care. something was lacking. yet he had taken all possible pains. what more could his reply need? suddenly his face brightened. he took up his pen. slowly and carefully he added a final paragraph: "in accepting this promotion, i wish to do so with the understanding that my sister, miss hallowell, who has acted as my assistant during the past month, shall continue to hold that position under the new contract. as her work is to be counted as a part of my own, i will request that my quarterly checks shall be made out, not to r. t. hallowell, but to 'hallowell & hallowell,' as the salary is to be drawn by us on a basis of equal partnership." * * * * * he put down the finished sheet. his boyish face lighted with a slow, triumphant glow. he looked out across the gray wet country, the fog-banked river. to his eyes the dull scene was illumined. for his steady vision could see past that gray dreariness, far up the broad high-road of work and success that he had now set foot upon. these three months of heavy toil had proven him. he had seized his fighting chance, and he had made good. and now all the royal chances of his profession were waiting at his call. "though i never could have put it through without marian," he said under his breath. "my splendid, plucky little old sis! no wonder i made good, with such a partner. and from now on she shall be my real partner, bless her heart. 'hallowell & hallowell,' now and forever!" scanned images of public domain material from the internet archive. transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [illustration: book cover] the oriel window [illustration: title page the oriel window by mrs. molesworth illvstrated by l. leslie brooke macmillan co. new york 1896] copyright, 1896, by the macmillan company. to amy and arthur my much-esteemed opposite neighbours 19 sumner place, s.w., june, 1896. contents page chapter i a happy waking 1 chapter ii the peacock's cry 17 chapter iii a strange birthday 35 chapter iv what the swallows thought of it 53 chapter v jesse piggot 69 chapter vi a fairy tale--and thoughts 79 chapter vii an unexpected pig's head 100 chapter viii welcome visitors 119 chapter ix "my pupils" 137 chapter x taking refuge 159 chapter xi under the sofa 175 chapter xii another birthday 189 illustrations page off ferdy went again, a little bit faster this time 26 "what is it, dear? did you call me?" 46 took her back to court in her own chariot 84 "i've done 'em before from one of the old squeakers up at the farm" 103 watching the sweet summer sunset 116 "we works in a shed there, in a field by the smithy ... and we're as jolly as sand-boys" 155 "step downstairs, if you please, and then i'll hear what you've got to say" 178 chapter i a happy waking i do not think you could anywhere have found a happier little boy than ferdy ross when he woke on the morning of his ninth birthday. he was always--at least almost always--happy, and he had good reason for being so. he had everything that children need to make life bright and joyous: kind parents, a dear sister, a pretty home, and, best of all, a loving, trusting, sunshiny nature, which made it easy for him to be very happy and loving, and made it easy too for others to love him in return and to feel pleasure in being with him. but to-day, his birthday, the fourteenth of may, he was very particularly, delightfully happy. what a very long time it seemed that he and chrissie had been looking forward to it! ever since christmas, or new year at least. that was how he and chrissie had settled to do about their lookings-forwards. chrissie's birthday was in september. she was a year and four months older than ferdy, so it fitted in very well. as soon as her birthday was over they began the christmas counting, and this in one way was the biggest of all the year, for their father's and mother's birthdays both came in christmas week, and it had been found very convenient to "keep" them and christmas day together. so christmas day at evercombe watch house, which was ferdy's home, was a very important day for more reasons than the great christmas reasons which we all join in. and then when christmas time was over and ferdy and christine began to feel a little dull and unsettled, as children are pretty sure to do after a great deal of pleasure and fun, there was ferdy's birthday to think of and prepare for; for it was not only just looking forward and counting the days, or rather the months first, and then the weeks and then the days to their "treat" times, that they divided the seasons into; there were separate and different things to do, according to which of the three parts of the year it was. for christmas, of course, there was the most to do--all the little things to get ready for the christmas tree as well as the presents for papa and mamma and lots of other people. and for ferdy's birthday chrissie had always to make something which had to be done in secret, so that he should not know what it was; and for chrissie's birthday it was ferdy's turn to prepare some delightful surprise for her. he was very clever at making things, even though he was a boy! he was what is called "neat-handed," and as this little story goes on, you will see what a good thing it was that he had got into the way of amusing himself and using part of his playtime in carrying out some of his inventions and ideas. "i don't know how i should bear it, ferdy," christine used to say sometimes, "if you were one of those tiresome boys that do nothing but fidget and tease their sisters when they want to sit still and work quietly for their dolls. just think of marcia payne now. these two _horrible_ boys, ted and eustace, think there is nothing so nice as to snatch away her work and throw it into the fire or out of the window, or to nearly _kill_ her poor dolls with their cruel tricks. i really don't know how poor marcia ever gets their clothes made, for it takes _all_ my time to keep my children tidy, even though you never worry me," and chrissie sighed, for she was a very anxious-minded doll-mother. ferdy's presents to his sister were very often for her dolls, rather than for herself, though, like most mothers, it pleased her much more, she used to say, for her dear pets to be kindly treated than any attention to their little mamma could do. she was very amusing about her dolls. she used to talk about them in such an "old-fashioned" way that if any grown-up person had overheard her, i think they would have laughed heartily. but chrissie took care to keep all private conversation about her four girls and two sons for herself and ferdy only. besides these _big_ dolls, she had a large party of tiny ones who lived in the doll house, and i think ferdy's prettiest presents were for this miniature family. these small people really were almost as much his as chrissie's, for he took the greatest interest in them, especially in their house and their carriages and horses and in all kinds of wonderful things he had made for them. several of the doll-house rooms were entirely furnished by him, and he was builder and paper-hanger and cabinet-maker and upholsterer for doll hall, all in one. but now i think i must return to the history of his ninth birthday. the fourteenth of may--just about the middle of the month which is the best loved, i almost think, of all the twelve. and oh it was such a lovely day! ferdy woke early--though not quite as early as he had meant to do, for when he bade his sister good-night he told her he would be _sure_ to knock at her door not later than five. but the sun was a good way up in the sky when he did wake--so far up indeed that ferdy got quite a fright that he had overslept himself altogether, and it was a relief to see by the old clock which stood on the landing just outside his door that it was only half-past six. "and after all," he said to himself, "now i come to think of it, i don't believe mamma would have liked me to wake chris so very early. i remember last year, on _her_ birthday, she had a headache and was quite tired by the afternoon with having got up so soon." he rubbed his eyes,--to tell the truth he was still rather sleepy himself, though it _was_ his birthday,--and downstairs he heard the servants moving about and brushing the carpets. the schoolroom would certainly not be in order just yet; it never took him very long to have his bath and dress, and he knew by experience that housemaids are not the most amiable of human beings when little boys get in their way in the middle of their cleanings and dustings. so on the whole ferdy decided that the best thing to do was to go back to bed again and not get up till flowers--flowers was chrissie's maid, and she looked after ferdy too, since nurse had left to be married--came to wake him at his usual time, for he could hear no sound of any kind in his sister's room, though he listened well, outside the door. it was very comfortable in bed, for may mornings, however lovely, are often chilly. and as ferdy lay there he could see out of the window, and enjoy the sight of the clear bright sunshine and the trees moving softly in the wind, their leaves glittering green and gold, and even silver, as the gentle breeze fluttered them about. the birds too, they were up and about of course; now and then there came quite a flight of them, and then one solitary soarer would cross the blue sky up at the very top of the window--he would see it for half a moment, and then it disappeared again. on the whole, he had more view of sky than of anything else from his bed, though when standing by the window he could see a good long way down the road, and, by craning his neck a little, some way across the fields past the church. for the watch house stood at the very end of the village, near the church, so that strangers often thought it must be the vicarage, and envied the vicar for having such a charming home, whereas the real vicarage was a pretty but small cottage-like house, quite at the other side of the church, and not nearly as old as it was, or as the watch house was. _it_, ferdy's home, was very, very old. and the story went that long ago some part of it had really been a kind of watch tower, though there was nothing remaining to show this except the name and the fact that you could, from the upper windows especially, see a very long way. the nicest window of all was one in mrs. ross's own sitting-room, or "boudoir," as it was sometimes called. this was a corner room on the floor just below the children's, and the beauty of it was this window,--an oriel window,--projecting beyond the wall, as such windows do, and so exactly at the corner that you could see, so to say, three ways at once when you were standing in it: right down the village street to begin with, and down the short cross-road which led to the church, and then over the fields between the two, to where farmer meare's duckpond jutted out into the lane--"the primrose lane"--as not only ferdy and christine but all the children of the neighbourhood had long ago named it. for here the first primroses were _always_ to be found, year after year; they never forgot to smile up punctually with their little bright pale faces before you could see them anywhere else. chrissie sometimes suspected that the fairies had a hand in it. everybody knows that the good people "favour" certain spots more than others, and perhaps chrissie's idea was right. any way this oriel window was a charming watch tower. ferdy always said that when he grew to be a man he would build a house with an oriel window at each corner. but again i am wandering from the morning of ferdy's birthday, when he lay in bed wide awake and gazed at as much as he could see of the outside world, that lovely may morning. it _was_ lovely, and everything alive seemed to be thinking so, as well as the little hero of the day--birds, trees, blossoms--even the insects that were beginning to find out that the warm days were coming, for a great fat blue-bottle was humming away with the loud summery hum which is the only nice thing about blue-bottles, i think. and not always nice either perhaps, to tell the truth. if one is busy learning some difficult lesson, or adding up long columns of figures, a blue-bottle's buzz is rather distracting. but this morning it was all right, seeming to give just the touch of summer _sound_ which was wanting to the perfection of ferdy's happiness as he lay there, rather lazily, i am afraid we must confess--a little sleepy still perhaps. what a nice beautiful place the world is, he thought to himself! how can people grumble at anything when the sun shines and everything seems so happy! in winter perhaps--well, yes, in winter, when it is very cold and grey, there _might_ be something to be said on the other side, even though winter to such as ferdy brings its own delights too. but in summer even the poor people should be happy; their cottages do look so pretty, almost prettier than big houses, with the nice little gardens in front, and roses and honeysuckle and traveller's joy climbing all over the walls and peeping in at the windows. ferdy did not think he would at all mind living in a cottage, for evercombe was a remarkably pretty village, and to all outside appearance the cottages were very neat and often picturesque, and the children had never been _inside_ any, except a few of the clean and nicely kept ones where their mother knew that the people were good and respectable. so they had little idea as yet of the discomfort and misery that may be found in some cottage homes even in the prettiest villages, though their father and mother knew this well, and meant that ferdy and christine should take their part before long in trying to help those in need of comfort or advice. "i suppose," ferdy went on thinking to himself--for once he got an idea in his head he had rather a trick of working it out--"i _suppose_ there are some people who are really unhappy--poor people, who live in ugly dirty towns perhaps," and then his memory strayed to a day last year when he had driven with his father through the grim-looking streets of a mining village some distance from evercombe. "that must be horrid. i wonder any one lives there! or very old people who can't run about or scarcely walk, and who are quite deaf and nearly blind. yes, they can't feel very happy. and yet they do sometimes. there's papa's old, old aunt; she seems as happy as anything, and yet i should _think_ she's nearly a hundred, for she's grandpapa's aunt. she's not blind though; her eyes are quite bright and smily, and she's not so very deaf. and then she's not poor. perhaps if she was very poor--" but no, another aged friend came into his mind--old barley, who lived with his already old daughter in the smallest and poorest cottage ferdy had ever been in. "and he's quite happy too," thought the little boy, "and so's poor betsey, though she can't scarcely walk, 'cos of her rheumatism. it is rather funny that they are happy. the worst of all would be to be lame, _i_ think--'cept p'r'aps being blind. oh dear! i _am_ glad i'm not old, or lame, or blind, or things like that. but i say, i do believe the clock's striking seven, and--oh, there's flowers! i might have run in to see chrissie just for a minute or two first if i hadn't got thinking. i--" but then came an interruption. an eager tap at the door,--not flowers's tap he knew at once,--and in reply to his as eager "come in" a rush of little bare feet across the floor, and chrissie's arms round his neck in a real birthday hug. "flowers is just coming. i meant to wake _so_ early. i've brought your present--mine's always the first, isn't it, darling?" and chrissie settled herself at the foot of the bed, curling up her cold toes, and drawing her pink flannel dressing-gown more closely round her that she might sit there in comfort and regale her eyes on her brother's delight as he carefully undid the many papers in which her present to him was enfolded. it was a very pretty present, and ferdy's natural good taste knew how to admire it, as his affectionate heart knew how to feel grateful to chrissie for the real labour she had bestowed upon it. "it" was a writing-case, embroidered in silks of many lovely shades, and with a twisted monogram of ferdy's initials--"f. w. r."--"ferdinand walter ross"--worked in gold threads in the centre of the cover. it was a very good piece of work indeed for a little girl of chrissie's age, and promised well for her skill and perseverance in days to come. ferdy's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "oh, chrissie," he said, "you've never made me anything quite as pretty as this! how clever you are getting, and how did you manage to work it all without my seeing?" "it _was_ rather difficult," said chrissie, with satisfaction in her tone. "ever so many times i had to bundle it away just as i heard you coming. and do you know, ferdy, it's a very ancient pattern--no, pattern isn't the word i mean." "design?" said ferdy. he knew some words of this kind better than chrissie, as he was so often planning and copying carved wood and brasswork and such things. "yes, that's what i mean--it's a very ancient design. miss lilly drew it for me from an old book-cover somebody lent her, and she helped me to arrange the colours. i _am_ so pleased you like it, ferdy, darling. i liked doing it because it was such pretty work, but if it hadn't been a present for you, i think i would have got tired of it--it _was_ rather fiddly sometimes. and after working ever, ever so long, i didn't seem to have done hardly any." "i know," said ferdy thoughtfully. "i think that's always the way with any really nice work. you can't scurry it up. and it wouldn't be worth anything if you could." but just then there came a tap at the door, and flowers's voice sounding rather reproachful. "miss chrissie," she said, "i couldn't think where you'd gone to. i do hope you've got your dressing-gown and slippers on, or you will be sure to catch cold." "all right, flowers," said chrissie, "i'm _quite_ warm;" and as the maid caught sight of the little pink-flannelled figure her face cleared, for, fortunately for her peace of mind, the pink _toes_ were discreetly curled up out of sight. who could expect a little girl to remember to put on her slippers on her brother's birthday morning, when she had been dreaming all night of the lovely present she had got for him? "many happy returns of the day, master ferdy, my dear," flowers went on, growing rather red, "and will you please accept a very trifling present from me?" she held out a little parcel as she spoke. it contained a _boy's_ "housewife," if you ever saw such a thing. it was neatly made of leather, and held needles of different sizes, strong sewing cotton and thread, various kinds of useful buttons, a sturdy little pair of scissors, pins, black and white, small and large, and several other things such as a school-boy might be glad to find handy now and then. "mother always gives one to my brothers when they leave home," said the maid, "and i thought as no doubt master ferdy will be going to school some day--" "it's capital, flowers," ferdy interrupted; "thank you ever so much; it's first-rate. i needn't wait till i go to school to use it. it's just the very thing i'm sure to want when i go yachting with papa next summer--this summer--in uncle's yacht. it's _capital_!" and flowers, who had not been very long at the watch house, and had felt rather uncertain as to how her gift would suit the young gentleman's taste, smiled all over with pleasure. master ferdy had certainly a very nice way with him, she thought to herself. "miss christine," she said aloud, "you really must come and get dressed, or instead of being ready earlier than usual, you'll be ever so much later." and chrissie jumped down from the bed and went off to her own quarters. chapter ii the peacock's cry half an hour or so later the children met again, and together made their way downstairs to the dining-room, ferdy carefully carrying his presents, which had been increased by that of a nice big home-made cake from cook, and a smart little riding-whip from two or three of the other servants. papa and mamma had not yet made their appearance; it was barely half-past eight. ferdy's eyes and chrissie's too wandered inquiringly round the room. neither knew or had any sort of idea what _the_ present of the day--their parents'--was to be. many wonderings had there been about it, for mrs. ross had smiled in a very mysterious way once or twice lately, when something had been said about ferdy's birthday, and the children had half expected to see some veiled package on the sideboard or in a corner of the room, ready for the right moment. but everything looked much as usual, except that there was a lovely bouquet of flowers--hot-house flowers, the gardener's best--beside ferdy's plate. "oh, i say!" he exclaimed, as he took it up and sniffed it approvingly, "what a good humour ferguson must be in to have given me these very best flowers. why, he doesn't even like mamma herself to cut these big begonias. they _are_ splendiferous, aren't they, chris? i shall take one out for a button-hole, and wear it all day. but oh, chrissie, i _do_ wonder what papa's and mamma's present is going to be--don't you?" "i should just think i did," his sister replied. "i haven't the very least inch of an idea this time, and generally, before, i have had _some_. it isn't in this room, any way." "no, i expect it's some little thing, something mamma has kept safe in a drawer, a pair of gold sleeve-links, or, or--no, not a writing-case, for she'd know about yours. p'r'aps a pocket microscope or some book." "would you like any of those?" asked chrissie. "i'd like anything, i think. at least i mean papa and mamma'd be sure to give me something nice. of course, _the_ present of presents would be--" "we fixed not to speak about it, don't you remember?" said his sister quickly. "it's a bad habit to get into, that of fancying too much about impossible things you'd like to have." "but this wouldn't be quite an impossible thing," said ferdy. "i may get it some day, and one reason i want it so is that it would be just as nice for you as for me, you see, chris." "i know," said christine. "well no, it's not a couldn't-possibly-ever-be thing, like the magic carpet we planned so about once, or the table with lovely things to eat on it, that there's the fairy story about, though i always think that's rather a greedy sort of story--don't you?" "not if you were awfully hungry, and the boy in that story was, you know," said ferdy. "but i didn't mean quite impossible in a fairy magic way. i mean that papa and mamma _might_ do it some day, and it's rather been put into my head this morning by this," and he touched the riding-whip. "it's far too good for jerry, or for any donkey, isn't it? i shall put it away till i have a--" chrissie placed her hand on his mouth. "don't say it," she said. "it's much better not, after we fixed we wouldn't." "very well," said ferdy resignedly. "i won't if you'd rather i didn't. now let us think over what it really _will_ be, most likely. a--" but no other guess was to be put in words, for just then came the well-known voices. "ferdy, my boy"--"dear little man," as his father and mother came in. "many, many happy returns of your birthday," they both said together, stooping to kiss him. "and see what chrissie has given me, and flowers, and cook, and the others!" exclaimed the boy, holding out his gifts for admiration. mr. and mrs. ross looked at each other and smiled. neither of them had anything in the shape of a parcel big or little. ferdy and christine felt more and more puzzled. "they are charming presents, dear," said mrs. ross, "and ours--papa's and mine--is quite ready. how are you going to do about it, walter?" "we had better have prayers first," ferdy's father replied. "and--yes, breakfast too, i think, and then--" in their own minds both ferdy and christine thought they would not be able to eat much breakfast while on the tenter-hooks of curiosity. but kind as their father was, he had a way of meaning what he said, and they had learned not to make objections. and, after all, they did manage to get through a very respectable meal, partly perhaps because the breakfast was particularly tempting that morning, and mamma was particularly anxious that the children should do justice to it. nice as it was, however, it came to an end in due time, and then, though they said nothing, the children's faces showed what was in their minds, chrissie looking nearly as eager as her brother. "now," said mr. ross, taking out his watch, "i have just half an hour before i must start. leila,"--"leila" was mamma's "girl name" as chrissie called it,--"leila, you keep these two young people quietly in here for five minutes by the clock. then all three of you come round to the porch, but ferdy must shut his eyes--tight, do you hear, young man? mother and chrissie will lead you, and i will meet you at the front door." did ever five minutes pass so slowly? more than once the children thought that the clock must really have stopped, or that something extraordinary had happened to its hands, in spite of the ticking going on all right. but at last-"we may go now," said mamma. "shut your eyes, my boy. now, chris, you take one hand and i'll take the other. you won't open your eyes till papa tells you, will you, ferdy?" "no, no, i promise," said ferdy. but his mother looked at him a little anxiously. his little face was pale with excitement and his breath came fast. yet he was not at all a delicate child, and he had never been ill in his life. "dear ferdy," she said gently, "don't work yourself up so." ferdy smiled. "no, mamma," he replied, though his voice trembled a little. "it is only--something we've tried not to think about, haven't we, chrissie? oh," he went on, turning to his sister, and speaking almost in a whisper, "_do_ you think it can be--you know what?" christine squeezed the hand she held; that was all she could reply. though her face had got pink instead of pale like ferdy's, she was almost as "worked up" as he was. there was not long to wait, however. another moment and they were all three standing in the porch, and though ferdy's eyes were still most tightly and honourably shut, there scarcely needed papa's "now," or the "_oh!_" which in spite of herself escaped his sister, to reveal the delightful secret. for his ears had caught certain tell-tale sounds: a sort of "champing," and a rustle or scraping of the gravel on the drive which fitted in wonderfully with the idea which his brain was full of, though he had honestly tried to follow his sister's advice and not "think about it." what was the "it"? a pony--the most beautiful pony, or so he seemed to ferdy and christine at any rate--that ever was seen. there he stood, his bright brown coat gleaming in the may sunshine, his eager but kindly eyes looking as if they took it all in as he rubbed his nose on mr. ross's coat-sleeve and twisted about a little, as if impatient to be introduced to his new master. "papa, mamma!" gasped ferdy, with a sort of choke in his throat, and for a moment--what with the delight, and the sudden opening of his eyes in the strong clear sunshine--he felt half dazed. "papa, mamma, a pony of my very own! and chrissie can ride him too. he is a pony a girl can ride too, isn't he?" with a touch of anxiety. "he is very gentle, and he has no vices at all," said his father. "i am quite sure chrissie will be able to ride him too. but you must get to know him well in the first place." ferdy was out on the drive by this time, his face rosy with delight, as he stood by his father patting and petting the pretty creature. the pony was all saddled and bridled, ready for ferdy to mount and ride "over the hills and far away." the boy glanced up at mr. ross, an unspoken request trembling on his lips. "yes," said his father, seeing it there and smiling. "yes, you may mount him and ride up and down a little. he'll be all right," he added, turning to the coachman, who had been standing by and enjoying the whole as much as any of them. "oh yes, sir. he's a bit eager, but as gentle as a lamb," the man replied. "and this afternoon," ferdy's father continued, "if i can get home between four and five, i'll take you a good long ride--round by durnham and past by mellway sight, where you have so often wanted to go." "oh, papa," was all ferdy could get out. merton meanwhile had been examining the stirrup straps. "they're about the right length for you, i think, sir," he said, and then in a moment ferdy was mounted. pony pranced about a little, just a very little,--he would not have seemed a real live pony if he had not,--but nothing to mind. indeed, ferdy, to tell the truth, would have enjoyed a little more. the coachman led him a short way along the drive, but then let go, and ferdy trotted to the gates in grand style and back again. "isn't he _perfect_, chris?" he exclaimed as he came up to the group in front of the porch. "mayn't i gallop him, papa, this afternoon when we go out? round by mellway there's beautiful grass, you know." "all right," mr. ross replied. "we shall see how you get on outside on the road. i don't know that he has any tricks, but every pony has _some_ fad, so for a few days we must just be a little cautious. now trot back to the gates once more, and then i think you had better dismount for the present. you may go round to the stable with him. it's always a good thing for your horse to know you in the stable as well as outside." [illustration: off ferdy went again, a little bit faster this time.] off ferdy went again, a little bit faster this time, his spirits rising higher and higher. then he turned to come back to the house, and his mother was just stepping indoors, her face still lighted up with pleasure, when there came a sudden cry,--a curious hoarse cry,--but for a moment she was not startled. "it is the peacocks," she thought, for there were a couple of beautiful peacocks at the watch house. "i hope they won't frighten the pony." for the peacocks were allowed to stalk all about the grounds, and they were well-behaved on the whole; though, as is always the case with these birds, their harsh cry was not pleasant, and even startling to those not accustomed to it. was it the cry, or was it the sudden sight of them as they came all at once into view on a side-path which met the drive just where ferdy was passing? nobody ever knew,--probably pony himself could not have told which it was,--but as mrs. ross instinctively stopped a moment on her way into the house, another sound seemed to mingle with the peacock's scream, or rather to grow out from it--a sort of stifled shriek of terror and rushing alarm. then came voices, trampling feet, a kind of wail from chrissie, and in an instant--an instant that seemed a lifetime--ferdy's mother saw what it was. he had been thrown, and one foot had caught in the stirrup, and the startled pony was dragging him along. a moment or two of sickening horror, then a sort of silence. one of the men was holding the pony, mr. ross and the coachman were stooping over something that lay on the ground a little way up the drive--something--what was it? it did not move. was it only a heap of clothes that had dropped there somehow? it couldn't, oh no, it _couldn't_ be ferdy! _ferdy_ was alive and well. he had just been laughing and shouting in his exceeding happiness. where had he run to? "ferdy, ferdy!" his mother exclaimed, scarcely knowing that she spoke; "ferdy dear, come quick, come, ferdy." but chrissie caught her, and buried her own terror-stricken face in her mother's skirts. "mamma, mamma," she moaned, "don't look like that. mamma, don't you see? ferdy's _killed_. that's ferdy where papa is. don't go, oh don't go, mamma! mamma, i can't bear it. hide me, hide my eyes." and at this frantic appeal from the poor little half-maddened sister, mrs. ross's strength and sense came back to her as if by magic. she unclasped chrissie's clutching hands gently but firmly. "run upstairs and call flowers. tell her to lay a mattress on the floor of the oriel room at once; it is such a little way upstairs; and tell burt to bring some brandy at once--brandy and water. tell burt first." chrissie was gone in an instant. ferdy couldn't be dead, she thought, if mamma wanted brandy for him. but when the mother, nerved by love, flew along the drive to the spot where her husband and the coachman were still bending over what still was, or had been, her ferdy, she could scarcely keep back a scream of anguish. for a moment she was sure that chrissie's first words were true--he was killed. "walter, walter, tell me quick," she gasped. "is he--is he alive?" mr. ross looked up, his own face so deadly pale, his lips so drawn and quivering, that a rush of pity for _him_ came over her. "i--i don't know. i can't tell. what do you--think, merton?" he said, in a strange dazed voice. "he has not moved, but we thought he was breathing at first." the coachman lifted his usually ruddy face; it seemed all streaked, red and white in patches. "i can feel his heart, sir; i feel fairly sure i can feel his heart. if we could get a drop or two of brandy down his throat, and--yes, i think i can slip my arm under his head. there's burt coming with some water." "and brandy," said mrs. ross. "here, give it me--a spoon--yes, that's right. and, walter, have you sent for the doctor?" mr. ross passed his hand over his forehead, as if trying to collect himself. "i will send larkins now," he said, "on the pony--that will be the quickest," though a sort of shudder passed over him as he spoke of the innocent cause of this misery. "larkins, go at once for mr. stern; you know the shortest way," for there was no doctor within a mile or two of evercombe village, and mr. ross raised himself to give exact directions to the young groom. when he turned again they had succeeded in getting a spoonful of brandy and water between ferdy's closed lips--then another; then poor old merton looked up with a gleam of hope in his eyes. "he's coming to, sir--ma'am--i do believe," he said. he was right. a quiver ran through the little frame, then came the sound of a deep sigh, and ferdy's eyes opened slowly. they opened and--it was like ferdy--the first sign he gave of returning consciousness was a smile--a very sweet smile. "papa, mamma," he whispered, "is it time to get up? is it--my birthday?" that was too much for his mother. the tears she had been keeping back rushed to her eyes, but they were partly tears of joy. her boy was alive; at worst he was not killed, and perhaps, oh _perhaps_, he was not badly hurt. ferdy caught sight of her tears, though she had turned her face away in hopes of hiding them. a pained, puzzled look came over him. he tried to raise his head, which was resting on merton's arm, but it sank down again weakly; then he glanced at his left arm and hand, which were covered with blood from a cut on his forehead. "what is the--mamma, why are you crying?" he said. "have i hurt myself? oh dear, did i fall off my beautiful pony? i am so, _so_ sorry." "my darling," said his mother, "it was an accident. i hope you will soon be better. have you any pain anywhere?" "i don't think so," said he, "only i wish i was in bed, mamma. what is it that is bleeding?" "nothing very bad, sir," said merton cheerfully; "only a cut on your forehead. but that'll soon heal. your handkerchief, please, ma'am, dipped in cold water." "yes," said mr. ross, "that is the best thing for the moment," and he folded the handkerchief up into a little pad, which he soaked in the fresh cold water, and laid it on the place. "i think we must move him," he went on. "ferdy, my boy, will you let us try?" ferdy stretched out his right arm and put it round his father's neck. but the movement hurt somehow and somewhere, for he grew terribly white again. "my back," he whispered. a thrill of new anguish went through his parents at the words. "don't do anything yourself," said mr. ross; "lie quite still and trust to me." ferdy closed his eyes without speaking, and skilfully, though with infinite pains, his father raised him in his arms, ferdy making no sound--perhaps he half fainted again; there he lay quite helpless, like a little baby, as with slow, careful tread mr. ross made his way to the house, from which, not a quarter of an hour ago, the boy had flown out in perfect health and joy. at the door they met chrissie. she started violently, then covered her face with her hands. "oh, papa," she began, but her mother was close behind and caught her in her arms. "hush, dear," she said. "no, no," in answer to the little girl's unuttered question. "ferdy has opened his eyes and spoken to us; he knew us--papa and me." chrissie's terrors at once made place for hope. her white face flushed all over. "he's spoken to you, mamma? what did he say? oh, then he can't be so _very_ badly hurt. oh, _mamma_, how glad i am!" "be very, very quiet, dear. we can do nothing, and be sure of nothing, till the doctor comes, but--oh yes, thank god, we may hope." but by the time they had laid him on the mattress in the oriel room ferdy looked again so ghastly pale that the poor mother's heart went down. there was little they could do; they scarcely dared to undress him till the surgeon came. it was a terrible hour or two's waiting, for mr. stern was out, and larkins had to ride some considerable way before he caught him up on his morning rounds. chapter iii a strange birthday late on the afternoon of that sad day the doctor, coming out of the oriel room, was met by little christine. she had been watching for him on the stairs. it was his second visit since the morning, and his face was very grave; but its expression altered at once when he caught sight of chrissie. though stern by name, he was very far from stern by nature, and he was very fond of the ross children, whom he had known nearly all their lives. besides, it is a doctor's business to cheer up people as much as possible, and he was touched by poor chrissie's white face. never had the little girl spent such a miserable day, and thankful though she had been that her darling ferdy's life had been spared, she was beginning to doubt if after all he _was_ going to get better. her mother had scarcely left him for an instant; she had been busy arranging the room for him, or rather she had been sitting beside him holding his hand while she gave directions to the servants. by the doctor's advice ferdy's own little bed had been brought into the room, and he himself moved on to it, lifted upon the mattress as he lay; and it had, of course, been necessary to carry out some of the other furniture and rearrange things a little. this would not disturb ferdy, mr. stern said, but ferdy's head was now aching from the cut on his forehead, though it was not a very bad one, and he was tired and yet restless, and could not bear his mother to move away. so there she sat, and mr. ross had gone off to whittingham by a mid-day train, and no one had given much thought to poor christine. "my dear child," said the doctor, "how ill you look! have you been wandering about by yourself all day?" "yes," said chrissie simply, her lip quivering as she spoke. "there was nothing i could do to help, and they were all busy." "where is miss lilly?" asked mr. stern. "she wasn't coming to-day. we were to have a holiday. it--it is ferdy's birthday, you know, and we were going to be so happy. _oh_," she cried, as if she could keep back the misery no longer, "to think it is ferdy's birthday!" and she burst again into deep though not loud sobbing. mr. stern was very, very sorry for her. "dear chrissie," he said, "you must not make yourself ill. in a day or two you will be wanted very much indeed, and you must be ready for it. your brother will want you nearly all day long." chrissie's sobs stopped as if by magic, though they still caught her breath a little, and her face grew all pink and rosy. "will he, _will_ he?" she exclaimed. "do you mean that he is really going to get better? i thought--i thought--mamma kept shut up in the room, and nobody would tell me--do you really think he is going to get better soon?" mr. stern took her hand and led her downstairs, and then into the library. there was no one there, but he closed the door. "my dear child," he said, "i will tell you all i can," for he knew that christine was a sensible little girl, and he knew that anything was better than to have her working herself up more and more with miserable fears. "i think ferdy will be _better_ in a day or two, but we cannot say anything yet about his getting _well_. your father has gone to whittingham to see one of the best doctors, and ask him to come down here to-night or to-morrow to examine your brother, and after that we shall know more. but i am afraid it is very likely that he will have to stay in bed a long time, and if so, you know how much you can do to make the days pass pleasantly for him." chrissie's eyes sparkled through the tears still there. "i don't mind that," she began. "of course i know it will be very dull and tiresome for him, but _nothing_ seems very bad compared with if he was going to--" she stopped short, and again she grew very white. "oh, you are _sure_ he isn't going to get worse?" she exclaimed. "i do get so frightened every now and then when i think of how his face looked, and it was bleeding too." mr. stern patted her hand. "you have not seen him since this morning?" he said. chrissie shook her head. "not since papa carried him in," she replied. "would you like to see him very much?" "oh, _may_ i? i'll be very, very quiet and good. i'll bathe my eyes, so that he won't find out i've been crying, and i'll only stay a minute." "run upstairs then and make yourself look as much as usual as you can. i will go back for a moment and tell mrs. ross i have given you leave to come in." two minutes or so later chrissie was tapping very softly at the door of the oriel room. "come in," said mr. stern. he was not looking at all grave now, but very "smily" and cheerful, which chrissie was glad of, as it reminded her that she herself must not cry or seem unhappy. but how strange it all was! she would scarcely have known the pretty little sitting-room: ferdy's bed with a screen round it standing out at one side of the curiously shaped window, her mother's writing-table and other little things gone. chrissie could not help staring round in surprise, and perhaps because she had a nervous dread of looking at ferdy. he saw her, however, at once. "chrissie," said a weak, rather hoarse little voice, "chrissie, come here." chrissie choked down the lump in her throat that was beginning to make itself felt again. "kiss me," he said when she was close beside him. he did not look so unlike himself now, though there was a bandage round his forehead and he was very pale. "kiss me," he said again, and as she stooped down to do so, without speaking, "chrissie," he whispered, "i don't want mamma to hear--chrissie, just to think it's my birthday and that it's all through our great wish coming true. oh, chrissie!" the little girl felt, though she could not see him, that mr. stern was watching her, so she made a great effort. "i know," she whispered back again, and even into her whisper she managed to put a cheerful sound. "i know, ferdy darling. but you're going to get better. and you haven't any very bad pains, have you?" "not very bad," he replied. "my head's sore, but i daresay it'll be better to-morrow. but that won't make it right, you see, chrissie. it's it being my birthday i mind." christine did not know what to say. her eyes were filling with tears, and she was afraid of ferdy seeing them. she turned away a little, and as she did so her glance fell on the window, one side of which looked to the west. she and ferdy had often watched the sunset from there. it was too early yet for that, but signs of its coming near were beginning; already the lovely mingling of colours was gleaming faintly as if behind a gauzy curtain. "ferdy," said chrissie suddenly, "i think there's going to be a beautiful sunset, and you can see it lovelily the way you're lying. aren't you awfully glad you're in here? it wouldn't be half so nice in your own room for seeing out, would it?" "no, it wouldn't," said ferdy, more brightly than he had yet spoken. "i can't move my head, only the least bit, but i can see out. yes, chrissie, i can see the people on the road--i mean i could if the curtain was a little more pulled back." "of course you could," said mr. stern, coming forward. "but you must wait till to-morrow to try how much you can see." "shall i have to stay in bed all to-morrow?" said ferdy. "we must hear what the big doctor says," mr. stern replied, for he had already told ferdy that another surgeon was coming to see him, so that the sudden sight of a stranger should not startle the little fellow. "now, chrissie, my dear, i think you must say good-night; you shall see much more of ferdy to-morrow, i hope." they kissed each other again, and chrissie whispered, "don't mind about its being your birthday, darling. think how much worse you might have been hurt." "i know. i _might_ have been killed," said ferdy in a very solemn tone. "and do watch the sunset. i think it's going to be extra pretty," chrissie went on cheerfully. "if you _have_ to stay in bed, ferdy, it will be nice to have this lovely window." and ferdy's face grew decidedly brighter. "good little woman," said the doctor in a low voice as she passed him, and by the way mamma kissed her chrissie knew that she too was pleased with her. so the little sister was not altogether miserable as she fell asleep that night, and she was so tired out that she slept soundly--more heavily indeed than usual. she did not hear the sound of wheels driving up to the house soon after she had gone to bed, and this was a good thing, for she would have guessed they were those of the carriage bringing her father and the doctor he had gone to fetch, from the station, and her anxiety would very likely have sent away her sleepiness. nor did she hear the carriage drive away again an hour or two later. by that time she was very deeply engaged, for she was having a curious and very interesting dream. she had forgotten it when she woke in the morning, but it came back to her memory afterwards, as you will hear. ferdy did not much like the strange doctor, though he meant to be very kind, no doubt. he spoke to him too much as if he were a baby, and the boy was beginning at last to feel less restless and more comfortably sleepy when this new visitor came. and then the library lamp was brought up, and it blinked into his eyes, and he hated being turned round and having his backbone poked at, as he told chrissie, though he couldn't exactly say that it hurt him. and, worst of all, when he asked if he might get up "to-morrow" the strange doctor "put him off" in what ferdy thought a silly sort of way. he would much rather have been told right out, "no, certainly not to-morrow," and then he could have begun settling up things in his mind and planning what he would do, as chrissie and he always did if they knew a day in bed was before them; for they had never been very ill--never ill enough to make no plans and feel as if they cared for nothing in bed or out of it. no, ferdy was quite sure he liked mr. stern much better than dr. bigge, for, curiously enough, that was the great doctor's name, though by rights, as he was a very clever surgeon and not a physician, i suppose he should not be called "doctor" at all. when at last he had gone, mr. stern came back for a moment to tell ferdy's mother and flowers how it would be best to settle him for the night. they put the pillows in rather a funny way, he thought, but still he was pretty comfortable, and he began to feel a little sleepy again; and just as he was going to ask his mother what they were doing with the sofa, everything went out of his head, and he was off into the peaceful country of sleep, where his troubles were all forgotten, hushed into quiet by the soft waving wings of the white angel, whose presence is never so welcome as to the weary and suffering. when he woke next there was a faint light in the room. for a moment or two he thought that it was the daylight beginning to come, and he looked towards where the window was in his own little room; but even the tiny motion of his head on the pillow sent a sort of ache through him, and that made him remember. no, he was not in his own room, and the glimmer was not that of the dawn. it was from a shaded night-light in one corner, and as his eyes grew used to it he saw that there was some one lying on the sofa--some one with bright brown hair, bright even in the faint light, and dressed in a pale pink dressing-gown. it was mamma. poor mamma, how uncomfortable for her not to be properly in bed! why was she lying there? he hoped she was asleep, and yet--he almost hoped she wasn't, or at least that she would awake just for a minute, for he was thirsty and hot, and the fidgety feeling that he _couldn't_ keep still was beginning again. he did not know that he sighed or made any sound, but he must have done so, for in another moment the pink dressing-gown started up from the sofa, and then mamma's pretty face, her blue eyes still looking rather "dusty," as the children called it, with sleep, was anxiously bending over him. [illustration: "what is it, dear? did you call me?"] "what is it, dear? did you call me?" "no, mamma. but why aren't you in bed, and why is there a light in the room? aren't you going to bed?" "yes, in an hour or two flowers will come and take my place. you see we thought you might be thirsty in the night, and the doctor said you mustn't move." "i _am_ thirsty," said ferdy. "i'd like a drink of water." "better than lemonade? there is some nice fresh lemonade here." ferdy's eyes brightened. "oh, i _would_ like that best, but i didn't know there was any." mamma poured some out into such a funny cup--it had a pipe, so ferdy called it, at one side. he didn't need to sit up, or even to lift his head, to drink quite comfortably. "and i think," mrs. ross went on, "i think i will give you another spoonful of the medicine. it is not disagreeable to take, and it will help you to go to sleep again." yes, it did; very, very soon he was asleep again. this time he dreamt something, though when he awoke he could not clearly remember what. he only knew that it was something about birds. he lay with his eyes shut thinking about it for a few minutes, till a sound close to him made him open them and look round. it was morning, quite morning and daylight, and from the window came the gentle twittering of some swallows, who had evidently taken up their summer quarters in some corner hard by. "that must have been what made me dream about birds," said ferdy to himself, though he spoke aloud without knowing it. "i must have heard them in my sleep." "you have had a nice sleep," said a voice from the other side of his bed, and, looking towards her, ferdy saw flowers, already dressed and with a pleasant smile on her face. "are you feeling better, master ferdy, dear?" the little boy waited a moment or two before he replied. "my head isn't so sore, and i'm not so tired, but i don't think i want to get up even if i might. i want chrissie to come and sit beside me. what o'clock is it, flowers?" "just six o'clock, sir. you will have to wait a little before miss christine can come. i daresay she's tired, poor dear, and she may sleep late this morning; perhaps you will be able to sleep a little more yourself, master ferdy. would you like a drink of milk?" "yes," said ferdy, "i would like some milk, but i can't go to sleep again; i've too much on my mind," with a deep sigh. he spoke in such an "old-fashioned" way that, sorry as the maid was for him, she could scarcely help smiling a little. she gave him the milk and lifted him very, very gently a little farther on to the pillows. "does it hurt you, master ferdy?" she asked anxiously. "n--no, i don't think so," he replied; "but i feel all queer. i believe all my bones have got put wrong, and p'r'aps they'll never grow right again." "never's a long word, my dear," said flowers cheerfully. the truth was she scarcely knew what to say, and she was glad to turn away and busy herself with some little tidying up at the other side of the room. ferdy lay still, almost forgetting he was not alone in the room, for flowers was very quiet. his eyes strayed to the window, where another lovely sunshiny morning was gilding again the world of trees, and grass, and blossom with renewed beauty. it was all so very like yesterday morning, all "except me," thought ferdy, so terribly like his birthday morning, when he had been so happy, oh! so happy, that it had been difficult to believe in unhappiness anywhere. and yet even then he had thought of unhappiness. it was queer that he had. what had put it into his head? he remembered it all--wondering how very poor, or very old, or very suffering people, cripples, for instance, could be happy. and yet he had seen some that really seemed so. "cripples"--that word had never come into his mind in the same way before. he had never thought what it really meant. supposing _he_ were to be a cripple? was it for fear of that that the doctor would not let him get up? ferdy moved his legs about a very little; they did not hurt him, only they felt weak and heavy, and he had a kind of shrinking from the idea of standing, or even of sitting up in bed. was that how cripples felt? he wished somebody would tell him, but it was no use asking flowers--most likely she did not know. and he didn't think he would like to ask his mother; she looked so pale and tired, and it might make her cry if he spoke about being a cripple. he thought he might ask chrissie, perhaps. she was only a little girl, but she was very sensible, and he could speak to her without being so afraid of making her cry as if it was mamma--or rather, if she did cry, he wouldn't mind quite so much. he wished chrissie would come. only six o'clock flowers had said, not so very long ago. it couldn't be more than half-past six yet. what a pity it was that people, boys and girls any way, can't get up like the birds, just when it gets nice and light! what a chatter and twitter those birds outside were making--he had never noticed them so much before. but then, to be sure, he had never slept in the oriel room before. he wondered if they were the same swallows that were there last year, and every year. "if they are," thought ferdy, "i should think they must have got to know us. i wish they could talk to us and tell us stories of all the places they see when they are travelling. what fun it would be! i'll ask chrissie if she's ever thought about it. i wonder if we couldn't ever get to--under--stand--" but here the thread of his wonderings was suddenly snapped. ferdy had fallen asleep again. a minute or two after, flowers stepped softly across the room and stood beside the bed looking down at him. "poor dear," she said to herself, "he does look sweet lying there asleep. and to see him as he is now, no one would think there was anything the matter with him. oh dear, i do hope it won't turn out so bad as the doctors fear." chapter iv what the swallows thought of it thanks to the extra sleep which had come to ferdy after all, he had not long to wait for chrissie once he had wakened up "for good." she was not allowed to see him till he had had his breakfast, for it was very important to keep up his strength with nourishing food, and "if you begin talking together, you know," said mamma, "ferdy would get interested and excited, and very likely not feel inclined to eat anything. that is even the way sometimes when you are both quite well." she was speaking to chrissie about how careful she must be, if she were to be trusted to be with her brother, not to seem sad or dull, and yet to be very quiet--"quietly cheerful, dear," she went on, "and if ferdy is at all cross or peevish, you must just not mind." chrissie looked up in surprise. ferdy cross or peevish seemed impossible. "he never is, mamma dear," she said. "if ever we have little quarrels, it is almost always more my fault than his," which was quite true. "yes," her mother replied, "but you don't know, chrissie, how illness changes people. ferdy never has been seriously ill in his life, and--and this sad accident is sure to tell on his nerves." she had been doing her best to speak cheerfully, but now her voice broke, and the tears came into her eyes, already worn and tired-looking with the long hours of anxiety. chrissie stroked her hand gently. then she said, though hesitating a little, "mamma darling, won't you tell me more about ferdy--about what the doctors think, i mean. i promise you i will not let him find out anything you don't want him to know. i will be very brave and--and cheerful, but i would so like to know. it isn't that he's not going to get better--that he's going to get _worse_?" "no, dear, not that," said mrs. ross, drying her eyes as she spoke. "he is a strong child, and his general health is good, but his back is injured badly. that is the reason we are so anxious. he may get _better_. the doctors think that in a few weeks he will be able to be up and dressed and to lie on a couch, but they cannot say if he will ever be _quite_ right again. i am afraid they do not think he ever will." "oh, mamma," said chrissie. mrs. ross looked at her anxiously; she wondered if she had done wrong in telling her so much. and the little girl guessed what she was thinking. "i would much rather know, mamma," she said, "much rather. it will make me more careful when i am with dear ferdy, and if he ever is the least cross, i won't mind. i will try to amuse him nicely. are you going to tell miss lilly, mamma?" "oh yes, i am hoping that she will be a great help. i will see her this morning as soon as she comes." "are we to do any lessons to-day?" asked chrissie. "is ferdy to do lessons in bed?" "in a few days perhaps he may," said mrs. ross. "he will seem better in a few days, for he has had a great shock besides the hurt to his back, and he must have time to get over it; but i think you had better do _some_ lessons, chrissie--those that you have separately from ferdy. flowers or i will sit beside him a good part of the day, and i hope he will sleep a good deal. if he does not seem much better in a day or two we shall have to get a nurse." "oh, i hope not," said chrissie. "ferdy wouldn't like a stranger." "well, we shall see," said mrs. ross. "now you may go to ferdy, dear." and chrissie ran off. she was startled, but still not _very_ sad. she was so delighted to be with her brother again after a whole day's separation, and proud too of being trusted to take care of him. but it was going to be more difficult for her than she knew, for, as you will remember, ferdy had made up his mind to ask christine if she could tell him what the doctors really thought of him. he looked so much better than the day before that she could scarcely believe there was much the matter, and he looked still better when he caught sight of her--his whole face lighted up with smiles. "oh, chrissie," he called out, "how glad i am you've come! it seems such a long time since i saw you. you do look so nice this morning." so she did--she was a very pretty little girl, especially when her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright, as they were just now. "_you_ look much better too, ferdy," she said, "quite different from yesterday. have you had a good night?" "_pretty_ good," said ferdy in rather a melancholy tone. "i am getting tired of staying in bed." chrissie's heart sank--"tired of staying in bed," and this scarcely the second day of it! what would he do if it went on for weeks--perhaps months? she felt glad, however, that she knew the truth; it would make her be very careful in what she said. "i wouldn't mind so much," he went on, "if i knew how long it'd be. and i don't like to ask mamma for fear of making her sad, _in case_ it was to be for a long while. chrissie," and here he fixed his blue eyes--so like his mother's--on his sister's face, "_do_ you think it'll be a very long while? do you think," and his voice grew still more solemn, "that p'r'aps i'll never be able to stand or walk again?" chrissie's heart was beating fast. she was so glad to be able with truth to answer cheerfully. "oh no, ferdy dear. i really do think you'll be able to get up and be dressed before very long. but i should think the quieter you keep just now the quicker you'll get better. and it's so nice in this room, and you can see so nicely out of the window. you don't want to get up just yet, do you--not till you feel stronger? mamma says you'll feel much stronger in a few days." "does she?" said ferdy, brightening; "then the doctors must have told her. i'm so glad. no, i don't really want to get up--at least i don't feel as if i _could_--that's what bothers me. i am not sorry in my body to stay in bed, but in my mind i'm all in a fidget. i keep fancying things," and he hesitated. "what sort of things?" asked chrissie. she had a feeling that it was better for him to tell her all that was on his mind. he tried to do so. he told her how the day before, when he was quite well and so very happy, his thoughts had somehow wandered to people whose lives were very different from his, and how this morning these thoughts had come back again, the same yet different. "chrissie," he said, "i don't think i could bear it if i was never to get well again." it was very hard for the little sister to keep her self-control. if mrs. ross had known how ferdy was going to talk to chrissie, very probably she would not have told her all she had done. but chrissie seemed to have grown years older in a few hours. "and yet there must be lots of people who do bear it--just what you were saying yourself," said chrissie thoughtfully. "i suppose they get accustomed to it." "i think it must be more than getting accustomed to make them really seem happy," said ferdy. "p'r'aps it's something to do with not being selfish." "yes," said chrissie, "i'm sure it has. you see they'd know that if they always seemed unhappy it would make their friends unhappy too. and then--" "what?" said ferdy. "i was only thinking that mamma says people can always do _something_ for other people. and that makes you happier yourself than anything, you know, ferdy." ferdy lay still, thinking. "that was partly what was in my mind," he said at last. "such lots of thinkings have come since yesterday, chrissie--you'd hardly believe. i was thinking that _supposing_ i could never run about, or do things like other boys, what a trouble i'd be to everybody, and no good." "i don't think you need think of things that way," said his sister. "papa and mamma love you too much ever to think you a trouble, and i'm sure you _could_ be of good somehow. but i don't think you should begin puzzling about things when you're really not better yet; you'll make your head ache, and then they might think it was my fault. oh, ferdy," suddenly, "i had such a funny dream last night." "i dreamt something too," said ferdy, "but i couldn't remember what it was. it was something about--" "mine was about birds," interrupted christine, "about the swallows who have a nest just over the oriel window. i thought--" "how _very_ funny!" exclaimed ferdy, interrupting in his turn, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "i do believe mine was too. i knew it was about birds, but i couldn't get hold of the rest of it. and now i seem to remember more, and i know i was thinking about those swallows when i fell asleep. i was wishing i could understand what they mean when they twitter and chirp. tell me your dream, chris; perhaps it'll make me remember mine." christine was delighted to see that ferdy's thoughts were turned from melancholy things--only--there was something about him in her dream. she hoped it wouldn't make him sad again. "i dreamt i was walking in the garden," she said, "down there on the path just below this window. i was alone, and somehow even in my dream i knew there was something the matter. it seemed to be either late in the evening or very early in the morning, i'm not sure which, but it wasn't quite light, and there was a funny, dreamy sort of look in the sky--" "what colour?" asked ferdy. "all shaded," said chrissie, "something like mother-of-pearl. i've seen it in a picture, but never _quite_ like that in the real sky, though the real sky is so very beautiful." "that's just because it was a dream," said ferdy sagely. "you never see things _really_ the same as you do in dreams. that's what makes dreams so nice, i suppose,--nice dreams i mean,--but i've sometimes felt more unhappy in dreams than ever i did awake." "so have i," said chrissie. "well, go on," said ferdy, "it sounds rather nice. you were walking along and the sky was so wonderful?" "yes," continued chrissie, "i was looking up at it, and not thinking a bit about you being ill, and then all of a sudden i heard something rustling up over my head, and then a twittering and chirping, and i knew it was the swallows come back, and then i got the feeling still more that there was something the matter, and i began wondering if the swallows knew and were talking about it--their chirping got to sound so like talking. and at last, standing quite still and almost holding my breath to listen, i began to make out what they were saying. the first thing i heard was, 'it's rather sad to have come back to this,' and then another voice said, 'i don't like peacocks; vain, silly birds; they have no hearts; not like us; everybody knows how much we mind what happens to our friends.' and when i heard that, ferdy, it made me think of the poetry we were learning last week, about the swallows coming back, you know, and the changes they found." "i daresay it was that made you dream it," said ferdy. christine looked rather disappointed. "no, we won't think that, then," said he, correcting himself as he noticed his sister's face, "it's really very interesting--'specially as i know i dreamt something like it that i've forgotten. what more did the swallows say?" "the other voice said something i couldn't hear. it sounded as if one was inside the nest, and the other outside. and then the first one said, 'well, we'll do our best to cheer him up. he needn't be dull if he uses his eyes; it's a cheerful corner.' and by this time, ferdy, i had remembered all about you being hurt, and it came into my mind how nice it would be if the swallows would tell us stories of all the things they see at the other side of the world when they go away for the winter." "i don't think it's quite the other side of the world," said ferdy doubtfully, "not as far as that." "well, never mind," said chrissie, with a little impatience, "you know what i mean. if you keep interrupting me so, i can't tell it rightly." "i won't, then," said ferdy. "there isn't much more to tell," continued chrissie. "i looked up, thinking i might see the swallows or martins, whichever they are, and i called out, 'oh, won't you come down and speak to me? it would be so nice for you to tell ferdy stories about your adventures, now that i can understand what you say.' and i felt _so_ pleased. but i couldn't see them, and all i heard was twittering again,--twittering and chirping,--and then somehow i awoke, and there really _was_ twittering and chirping to be heard, for my window was a little open. it was a funny dream, ferdy, wasn't it?" "yes, very," said ferdy. "i wish you'd go on with it to-night and make them tell you stories." chrissie shook her head. "i don't think any one could dream regular stories like that," she said. "but it is rather nice to fancy that the swallows know about us, and that it's the same ones who come back every year. it makes them seem like friends." "yes," said ferdy, "it is nice. i wonder," he went on, "what sort of things they meant me to look at out of the window. it did rather sound, chrissie, as if they thought i'd have to stay a long time here in bed, didn't it?" chrissie laughed, though a little nervously. "how funny you are, ferdy," she said. "how could the _swallows_ know, even if it had been real and not a dream? still, we may a little fancy it is true. we could almost make a story of the window--of all the things to be seen, and all the people passing. when you are able to be on the sofa, ferdy, it might stand so that you would see all ways--it would really be like a watch tower." ferdy raised himself a _very_ little on one elbow. "yes," he said eagerly, "i see how you mean. i do hope i may soon be on the sofa. i think i would make a plan of looking out of one side part of the day, and then out of the other side. i don't think it would be so bad to be ill if you could make plans. it's the lying all day just the same that must get so dreadfully dull." "well, you need never do that," said his sister, "not even now. when miss lilly comes i'm to do a little lessons first, and then i daresay she'll come in here and read aloud to us, and when i go a walk mamma will sit with you. things will soon get into plans." "if i could do some of my work," said ferdy, "cutting out or painting things for my scrapbook." "i daresay you soon can," said chrissie hopefully. she was pleased that he had not questioned her more closely as to what the doctors had said, for fortunately her cheerful talking had made him partly forget that he had made up his mind the night before to find out exactly everything she could tell him. suddenly chrissie, who was standing in the window, gave a little cry. "there is miss lilly," she exclaimed. "i am so glad. now she has stopped to talk to somebody. who can it be? oh, i see, it's that naughty jesse piggot! i wonder why he isn't at school? she seems talking to him quite nicely. now she's coming on again and jesse is touching his cap. he _can_ be very polite when he likes. shall i run and meet miss lilly, and bring her straight up here? no, i can't, for there's mamma going down the drive towards her. she must have seen her coming from the drawing-room window." "go on," said ferdy. "tell me what they are doing. are they shaking hands and talking to each other? i daresay they're talking about _me_. does miss lilly look sorry? p'r'aps mamma is explaining that i can't have any lessons to-day." "n--no," said chrissie, "she's talking quite--like always, but--she's holding mamma's hand." "oh," said ferdy with satisfaction, "that does mean she's sorry, i'm sure. it would be nice, chrissie, if i was lying more in the window. i could see all those int'resting things myself. i could see a good deal now if i was sitting up more," and for a moment he startled his sister by moving as if he were going to try to raise himself in bed. "oh, ferdy, you mustn't," she cried, darting towards him. but poor ferdy was already quite flat on his pillow again. "i _can't_," he said with a sigh, "i can't sit up the least little bit," and tears came into his eyes. "well, don't look so unhappy," said chrissie, returning to her post at the window, "for they are coming in now, and mamma won't be pleased if she thinks i've let you get dull. there now, i hear them coming upstairs." "all right," said ferdy manfully, "i'm not going to look unhappy." and it was quite a cheerful little face which met his mother's anxious glance as she opened the door to usher in miss lilly. chapter v jesse piggot miss lilly's face was cheerful too. at least so it seemed to ferdy, for she was smiling, and immediately began speaking in a bright, quick way. but chrissie looked at her once or twice and "understood." she saw faint traces of tears having been very lately in her governess's kind eyes, and she heard a little tremble in the voice below the cheeriness. "my dear ferdy," miss lilly was saying, "see what comes of holidays! much better have lessons than accidents, but it's an ill wind that blows no good. we shall have famous time now for your _favourite_ lessons--sums and--" "now, miss lilly, you're joking--you know you are," said ferdy, looking up in her face with his sweet blue eyes--eyes that to the young girl's fancy looked very wistful that morning. he had stretched out his arms, and was clasping them round her neck. ferdy was very fond of miss lilly. "_aren't_ you joking?" he wasn't quite, quite sure if she was, for sums were one of the few crooks in ferdy's lot, and rather a sore subject. something in the tone of his voice made miss lilly kiss him again as she replied, "of course i'm joking, my dear little matter-of-fact. no, your mamma says you are only to do your _really_ favourite lessons for a week or two, and not those if they tire you. we are all going to spoil you, i'm afraid, my boy." "i don't want to be spoilt," said ferdy. "chrissie and i have been talking. i want to make plans and be--be useful or some good to somebody, even if i have to stay in bed a good bit. what i most want to get out of bed for is to lie on the sofa and have the end of it pulled into the window, so that i can see along the roads all ways. oh, chrissie, you must tell miss lilly about the swallows, and--and--what was it i wanted to ask you?" he looked round, as if he were rather puzzled. "are you not talking too much?" said miss lilly, for the little fellow's eyes were very bright--too bright, she feared. "chrissie dear, perhaps you can remember what ferdy wanted to ask me about." "oh, i know," said ferdy; "it was about jesse piggot. chrissie, you ask." "we saw you talking to him--at least i did--out of the window, and we wondered what it was about. they all say he's a very naughty boy, miss lilly." "i know," miss lilly replied. "he's a draymoor boy"--draymoor was the name of the mining village that ferdy had been thinking about on his birthday morning--"or rather he used to be, till his uncle there died." "and now he lives at farmer meare's, where he works, but he's still naughty," said chrissie, as if it was rather surprising that the having left off living at the black village had not made jesse good at once. miss lilly smiled. "i don't think everybody at draymoor is naughty," she said. "i think jesse would have been a difficult boy to manage anywhere, though draymoor isn't a place with much in the way of good example certainly. but i hope it's getting a little better. if one could get hold of the children." she sat silent for a moment or two, her eyes looking as if they saw scenes not there. "i know several of the miners' families who live nearer us than draymoor--at bollins, and there are some such nice children among them." bollins was a small hamlet on the draymoor road, and the little house where miss lilly lived with her grandfather, an elderly man who had once been a doctor, was just at the evercombe side of bollins. "but you haven't told us what you were saying to jesse," said chrissie. "oh no," said miss lilly. "poor boy, it was nice of him. he was asking how master ferdy was." ferdy looked pleased. "did you tell him i was better?" he asked. "i said i hoped so, but that i had not seen you yet. and then he asked if he might send you his 'respexs' and 'was there any birds' eggs you'd a fancy for?'" "poor jesse," said ferdy. "but birds' eggs are one of the things he's been so naughty about--taking them all and selling them to somebody at freston. papa's almost sure--at least ferguson is--that he took some thrushes' eggs out of our garden. fancy, miss lilly!" "and then for him to offer to get ferdy any," said chrissie. "he knows i c'lect them," said ferdy; "but papa told me long ago, when i was quite little, never to take all the eggs, and _i've_ never taken more than one. if you see jesse again will you tell him he must never take more than one, miss lilly?" "i think in this case," she replied, "it is better to tell him not to take any at all--the temptation would be too great if he knows he can always sell them. i told him i would give you his message, but that i did not think you wanted any eggs that he could get you, and i advised him to leave bird's-nesting alone, as it had already got him into trouble." "what did he say?" asked christine. "he looked rather foolish and said he 'had nought to do of an evening, that was what got him into mischief; it wasn't as if he had a home of his own,' though as far as that goes, i see plenty of boys who _have_ homes of their own idling about in the evenings. it doesn't matter in the summer, but in the winter grandfather and i often feel sorry for them, and wish we could do something to amuse them. but now, chrissie dear, we had better go to the schoolroom; your mamma is coming to sit with ferdy for an hour or so." "good-bye, darling," said chrissie, as she stooped to kiss ferdy's pale little face--it had grown very pale again since the excitement of seeing miss lilly had faded away. "we shall be back soon--won't we, miss lilly?" she went on, turning to her governess as they left the room together. "it depends on how he is," was the reply. "mrs. ross hopes that he will have a little sleep now, but if he is awake and not too tired when you have finished your lessons, i will read aloud to you both in his room." "miss lilly," began chrissie again, looking up very sadly when they were seated at the schoolroom table, "i don't want to be silly, but i really don't feel as if i could do any lessons. it is so--so dreadful to be without ferdy, when you think that only the day before yesterday we were both here together and so happy, looking forward to his birthday," and the child put her head down on her arms and broke into deep though quiet sobs. in an instant miss lilly had left her place and was kneeling on the floor beside her. "my poor little chrissie, my dear little chrissie," she said, "i am so sorry for you," and the tone of her voice showed that it was difficult for her to keep back her own tears,--"so very sorry; but remember, dear, that we can do much better for ferdy by controlling our grief than by giving way to it. a great deal depends on keeping him cheerful and happily employed and interested. when i got your mother's note yesterday afternoon--oh dear, what a shock it was to me!--i spoke to my grandfather about ferdy a great deal, and he said in such cases much depends on not letting the nervous system give way. do you understand at all what i mean?" "yes, i think so," said chrissie, drying her eyes and listening eagerly. "you mean if poor ferdy was to lie there all day alone, like some poor children have to do, i daresay, he'd get to feel as if he would never get well again." "just so," said miss lilly, pleased to see how sensible chrissie was. "of course, he must not be tired or allowed to excite himself, and for a few days he is sure to be restless and fidgety from weakness; but as he gradually gets stronger again in himself, we must do all we can not only to amuse him, but to keep up his interest in things and people outside himself." "i know," said chrissie, "if he can feel he's of any good to anybody, that would make him happier than anything. ferdy has never been selfish, has he, miss lilly?" "no, he certainly has never seemed so, and i do not think suffering and trial such as he may have to bear will make him so." chrissie's face fell again at the two sad words. miss lilly saw it, and went on speaking quietly. "i don't mean anything very dreadful, dear, but he may have to stay in bed or on a couch for a long time, and of course that cannot but be a great trial to an active boy. let us get on with your lessons now, chrissie, in case ferdy is awake when they are over." he was not awake. he slept a good part of the morning, which mrs. ross, sitting beside him, was very glad of; and when at last he opened his eyes and looked about him, it was not long before a smile came to his face, and he cheered his mother by saying he felt "so nicely rested." "may chris and miss lilly come back now?" he asked. "miss lilly said she would read aloud." yes, chris and miss lilly would be only too happy to come, but first ferdy must be "good" and drink some beef-tea, which was standing all ready. it was rather an effort to do so. ferdy did not like beef-tea, and he was not at all hungry, and he just wanted to lie still and not be bothered. but "to please me" from his mother was enough, and when she kissed him and said he _was_ "a good boy," he told her, laughing, that he felt as if he were a little baby again. chrissie's face brightened when she heard the sound of her brother's laugh. "are you feeling better, ferdy dear?" she said. "i _am_ so glad, and miss lilly has brought a story-book of her own that we have never read." "oh, how nice!" said ferdy. "do tell me the name of the book, miss lilly." "it is short stories," she replied. "i will read you the names of some of them, and you shall choose which you would like best." the titles were all very tempting, but ferdy made a good hit, and fixed upon one of the most interesting in the book, so said miss lilly. it was about a family of children in iceland, and though it was rather long, they wished there was more of it when it came to an end. then miss lilly looked at her watch. "there is still a quarter of an hour," she said, as she turned over the leaves. "yes, here is a short story, which will just about fill up the time." ferdy and chrissie looked very pleased, but they did not say anything. they were so afraid of losing any of the precious fifteen minutes. chapter vi a fairy tale--and thoughts "the name of the story," said miss lilly, "is 'a fairy house,'" and then she went on to read it. "once upon a time there was a fairy who had done something wrong, and for this reason had to be punished. i do not know exactly what it was that she had done, perhaps only something that we should scarcely think wrong at all, such as jumping on a mushroom before it was full grown, or drinking too much dew out of a lily-cup, and thereby leaving the poor flower thirsty through the hot noontide. most likely it was nothing worse than something of this kind, but still it was a fault that had to be corrected; so the little culprit was banished to a desert part of fairyland, a bleak and barren spot, which you would scarcely have thought could be found in the magic country which we always think of as so bright and beautiful. "there she stayed with nothing to do for some time, which is about the worst punishment a fairy can have to endure. so she felt very pleased when one morning there came a messenger direct from the queen, charged to tell the little exile that she should be forgiven and released from her banishment as soon as she should have fulfilled a task which was to be set her. this task was to build a house, which to us may sound almost impossible without masons and carpenters and all manner of workmen. but fairy houses are not like ours, as you will hear. "the messenger led the fairy to a spot on the moor where there was a heap of stones. "'these are what you are to build with,' he said. 'as soon as the house is completed you may send a butterfly to tell the queen, and she will then come to test it. if it is quite perfect, you shall return at once with her to the court,' and so saying he fled away. "the fairy set to work in good spirits. she had no need of mortar, or scaffolding, or tools, or anything, indeed, but her own little hands and the stones. nor were the stones cut evenly and regularly, as you might have expected. they were of all sizes and shapes, but each only required a touch from the fairy's fingers at once to fit itself into the place which she saw it was intended for. so for some time the work went on merrily. it was not till the house was very nearly completed that the fairy began to fear something was wrong. it lopped a little--a _very_ little--to one side. but there was nothing to be done that she could see. so she finished it in hopes that the queen would not notice the tiny imperfection, and despatched the butterfly to announce her readiness for her royal lady's visit. "the queen arrived promptly,--fairy queens are never unpunctual,--and at first sight she smiled amiably. "'you have worked hard,' she said to the poor fairy, who stood there half hopeful and half trembling. then her majesty stepped out of her chariot, patting her winged steeds as she passed them, and entered the new building, followed by the little architect. "all seemed right till they got to the second floor, when the queen stopped and looked round her sharply. "'something is wrong here,' she said. 'the left-hand wall is out of level. i suspected it downstairs, but waited to see.' "the fairy builder looked very distressed. "'did you know there was anything wrong?' said the queen, more coldly than she had yet spoken. "'i--i was afraid it was a little crooked,' the little fairy replied, 'but i hoped perhaps your majesty would not mind it.' "'my messenger told you that the building must be _perfect_,' replied the queen. 'you had all the stones, every one ready for its place. if you have left one out, even the smallest, the building cannot be perfect. ah, well, you must try again,' and so saying she left the house, followed by the builder. as soon as she stepped outside she waved her wand, and in an instant the walls had fallen apart, and there was nothing to be seen but the heap of stones as before. "the poor little fairy sat down and cried as she saw the queen's chariot disappear in the air. "'i don't know what to do,' she thought. 'it would be just the same thing if i set to work to build it up again. i am sure i used every stone, down to some quite tiny ones; but still it is no good crying about it,' and she started up, determined to try afresh. "as she did so, a very slight sound caught her ears. out of her pocket had rolled a very small stone, a tiny, insignificant pebble, probably smaller than any she had used in the building. "'that's the very pebble i found in my shoe the other day,' she exclaimed. 'i must have picked it up with my handkerchief,' and she was just about to fling it away when a new idea struck her. was it possible that this little atom of a stone--or rather its absence--was what had spoilt the whole piece of work? it might be so, for had not the queen said that the slightest little scrap of material wanting would spoil the perfection of the building. "and, full of fresh hope, she carefully placed the little stone on the top of the heap and began again. all went well. deep down in the foundations, unseen but far from unneeded, the tiny pebble found its own place, and before the sun set, the magic edifice stood perfect, gleaming white and fair in the radiance of the evening sky. [illustration: took her back to court in her own chariot.] "it was without fear or misgiving this time that the fairy sent off her butterfly messenger the next morning; and her joy was complete when the queen not only took her back to court in her own chariot, but as a proof of her perfect restoration to favour, transported the pretty white house by a wave of her wand to the centre of a lovely garden near her own palace, and gave it to the fairy as her home." miss lilly stopped reading. the children looked up, pleased but a little puzzled. "what a funny story," said ferdy; "it's nice, but isn't it more what you call a--i forget the word." "allegory, do you mean?" said miss lilly. "well yes, perhaps. many fairy stories have a kind of meaning behind them, but i don't think this one is difficult to guess." "it means, i suppose," said chrissie, "that everything is of use, if you can find the right place for it." "a little more than that," said miss lilly. "we might put it this way--that _everybody_, even the smallest and weakest, has his or her own place in the house of--" and she hesitated. "in the house of the world?" said ferdy. "in the house of life," said miss lilly after thinking a little. "that says it better." then, seeing that ferdy was looking rather tired, she told chrissie to run off and get dressed for going a walk. "i will send flowers to sit with you," she said, as she stooped to kiss the little invalid, "and in the afternoon chrissie and i will come back again for an hour or so if you are not asleep." "i won't be asleep," said ferdy; "i have slept quite enough to last me all day. miss lilly--" "what, dear?" for the boy's eyes looked as if he wanted to ask her something. "would you like us to bring you in some flowers?--not garden ones, but wild ones. there are still primroses--and violets, of course--in the woods." "yes," ferdy replied, "i should like them _very_ much. and could you get some moss, miss lilly? i would like to arrange them with moss, in that sort of birds'-nesty-looking way." "i know how you mean," the young lady said. "yes, we will bring you some moss. and, by the bye, ferdy, if i had some wire i could show you how to make moss baskets that last for ever so long to put flowers in. you put a little tin or cup to hold water in the middle of the basket--the moss quite hides it,--and then you can always freshen up the moss by sousing it in water." "what a nice word 'sousing' is," said ferdy, in his quaint old-fashioned way. "it makes you think of bathing in the sea. miss lilly, do you think i'll ever be able to bathe in the sea again? i do so love it. and then there's skating and cricket, and when i go to school there'll be football. papa was so good at football when he was at school. i wonder--" he stopped short. "i wonder," he went on again, "if i'll ever be able for any of those things. boys who are all right, _well_ boys, don't think of the difference being like me makes." "no, they don't," his governess agreed. "but there is still a good long while before you would be going to school, ferdy dear." "i know," he said, though he could not keep back a little sigh. "i've only been two days in bed, but i have thought such a lot. miss lilly, there was something i wanted to ask you. it's about that boy, jesse piggot. i was thinking about him when i was awake in the night. if you meet him, please thank him for asking if i was better, and do you think mamma would let him come in one day to see me? it's partly that story, too." miss lilly did not at first understand. "the 'nallegory," said ferdy, "about all the stones being some good." miss lilly's face cleared; she looked pleased and interested. "oh yes," she said. "i haven't got it straight in my head yet," said ferdy. "i want to think a lot more. it's partly about me myself, and partly about jesse and boys like him. oh, i do wish i could be on the sofa in the window," he added suddenly. "i'd like to see the children going to school and coming back." "i hope you will be on the sofa in a very few days, dear," said miss lilly. "but i must go--chrissie will be waiting for me. i hope we shall get some nice flowers and moss, and to-morrow i will bring some wire and green thread that i have at home on purpose for such things." when she had gone flowers made her appearance. she sat down with her work, and ferdy lay so still, that she thought he must have fallen asleep again. but no, ferdy was not asleep, only thinking; and to judge by the look on his face, his thoughts were interesting. the moss baskets proved a great success as well as a great amusement. ferdy's nimble fingers seemed to have grown even more nimble and delicate in touch now that he was forced to lie still. they twisted the wire into all sorts of new shapes, some quaint, some graceful, that miss lilly had never even thought of, and when some little old cups without handles or tiny jelly pots or tins were found to fit in, so that the flowers could have plenty of water to keep them fresh, you cannot think how pretty the moss baskets looked. the children's mother was quite delighted with one that was presented to her, and she smiled more cheerfully than she had yet done since ferdy's accident, to see him so busy and happy. and time went on. it is very curious how quickly we get accustomed to things--even to great overwhelming changes, which seem at first as if they must utterly upset and make an end of everything. it is a great blessing that we _do_ get used to what _is_. when i was a little girl i remember reading a story about the old proverb which in those days was to be found as one of the model lines in a copy-book. this one stood for the letter "c," and it was, "custom commonly makes things easy." somehow the words fixed themselves in my memory. you don't know how often and in what very far differing circumstances i have said them over to myself; sometimes in hopefulness, sometimes when i had to face sorrows that made me feel as if i _could_ not face them, "custom commonly" seemed to be whispered into my ear, as if by a gentle little fairy voice. and i found it came true, thank god! it is one of the ways in which he helps us to bear our sorrows and master our difficulties, above all, _real_ sorrows and _real_ difficulties. fanciful ones, or foolish ones that we make for ourselves, are often in the end the hardest to bear and to overcome. it was so with little ferdy and his friends. one month after that sad birthday that had begun so brightly, no stranger suddenly visiting the watch house would have guessed from the faces and voices of its inmates how lately and how terribly the blow had fallen upon them. all seemed bright and cheerful, and even the boy's own countenance, though pale and thin, had a happy and peaceful expression. more than that indeed. he was often so merry that you could hear his laugh ringing through the house if you were only passing up or down stairs, or standing in the hall below. by this time things had settled themselves down into a regular plan. the oriel room was now ferdy's "drawing-room"--or drawing-room and dining-room in one, as he said himself. it was his day room, and every night and morning his father or thomas, the footman, carried him most carefully and gently from and to the invalid couch in his favourite window to bed, or _from_ bed in his own little room. this was a delightful change. ferdy declared he felt "almost quite well again" when the day came on which he was allowed "to go to bed properly," and be attired nicely the next morning in a little dressing-gown made to look as like a sailor suit as possible. his general health was good, thanks to the excellent care that was taken of him, and thanks too to his own cheerful character. there were times, of course, when he _did_ find it difficult to be bright--lovely summer afternoons when a sharp pang pierced his little heart at the sight of the school children racing home in their careless healthfulness, or fresh sweet mornings when he longed with a sort of thirstiness to be able to go for a walk in the woods with christine and miss lilly. but these sad feelings did not last long, though the days went on, and still the doctor shook his head at the idea even of his being carried down to the lawn and laid there, as ferdy had begun to hope might be allowed. the oriel window was his greatest comfort. it really was a delightful window. on one side or other there was sure to be _something_ to look at, and ferdy was quick to find interest in everything. he loved to see the school children, some of whom were already known to him, some whom he learnt to know by sight from watching them pass. but one boyish figure he missed. all this time jesse piggot had never been seen. miss lilly had looked out for him, as ferdy had asked her to do, but in vain. and it was not till within a day or two of a month since the accident that she heard from some of the draymoor people that the boy had been taken off "on a job" by one of his rough cousins at the colliery village. "and no good will it do him neither," added the woman. "that's a lad as needs putting up to no manner o' mischief, as my master says." "wasn't it a pity to take him away from farmer meare's?" miss lilly added. "they hadn't really room for him there," said the woman. "but farmer meare is a good man. he says he'll take the poor lad back again after a bit when there'll be more work that he can do." miss lilly told this over to the children the next day. ferdy looked up with interest in his eyes. "i hope he will come back again soon," he said. "you know, miss lilly, i never finished talking about him to you. i was thinking of him again a lot yesterday; it was the birds, they _were_ chattering so when i was alone in the afternoon. i was half asleep, i think, and hearing them reminded me in a dreamy way of birds' nests and eggs, and then, through that, of jesse piggot and what the fairy story put in my head about him." "what was it?" asked miss lilly. "it's rather difficult to explain," ferdy replied. "i was thinking, you see, that if i never get well and strong again i wouldn't seem any use to anybody. it _does_ seem as if some people were no use. and jesse piggot seems always in everybody's way, as if there was no place for him, though quite different from me, of course, for everybody's so kind to me. and then i thought of the stones, and how they all fitted in, and i wondered what i could get to do, and i thought perhaps i might help jesse some way." miss lilly looked at ferdy. there was a very kind light in her eyes. "yes, ferdy dear," she said. "i think i understand. when jesse comes back we must talk more about it, and perhaps we shall find out some way of fitting him into his place. stop dear, i think i had better look at your knitting; you are getting it a little too tight on the needles." ferdy handed it to her with a little sigh. he did not care very much for knitting, and he had also a feeling that it was girls' work. but it had been very difficult to find any occupation for him, as he could not go on making moss baskets always, and knitting seemed the best thing for the moment. he was now making a sofa blanket for his mother, in stripes of different colours, and miss lilly and christine were helping him with it, as it would otherwise have been too long a piece of work. "i'm rather tired of knitting," he said, "now that i know how to do it. i liked it better at first, but there's no planning about it now." "we must think of a change of work for you before long," said miss lilly, as she quickly finished a row so as to get the stitches rather looser again. "don't do any more this morning, ferdy. lie still and talk. tell me about the birds chattering." "they are so sweet and funny," said ferdy. "sometimes i fancy i'm getting to know their different voices. and there's one that stands just at the corner of the window-sill outside, that i really think i could draw. i know the look of him so well. or i'll tell you what," he went on. "i could _figure_ him, i'm sure i could, better than draw him." "_figure_ him! what do you mean?" said chrissie. "what funny words you say, ferdy." "do you mean modelling it?" asked miss lilly. "have you ever seen any modelling?" "no," said ferdy, "i don't understand." "i mean using some soft stuff, like clay or wax, and shaping it, partly with your fingers and partly with tools," replied miss lilly. "i don't know much about it, but i remember one of my brothers doing something of the kind." ferdy reflected. "it does sound rather fun," he said, "but i didn't mean that. i meant cutting--with a nice sharp knife and soft wood. i am sure i could figure things that way. i know what made me think of it. it was a story about the village boys in switzerland, who cut out things in the winter evenings." "you mean carving," said christine; "you shouldn't call it cutting. yes, i've always thought it must be lovely work, but you would need to be awfully clever to do it." "i'd like to try," said the boy. "when my sofa's put up a little higher at the back, the way mr. stern lets it be now, i can use my hands quite well. you needn't be afraid i'd cut myself. oh, it _would_ be jolly to cut out birds, and stags' heads, and things like that!" "stags' heads would be awfully difficult," said christine, "because of the sticking-out horns--they're just like branches with lots of twigs on them. what is it you call them, miss lilly?" "antlers, isn't that what you mean?" miss lilly replied. "yes, they would be very difficult. you would have to begin with something much simpler, ferdy." "i suppose i thought of stags because the swiss boys in the story cut out stags' heads," said ferdy. "i think i'd try a swallow's head. when i shut my eyes i can see one quite plain. miss lilly, don't you think i might try to _draw_ one? if i had a piece of paper and a nice pencil--" just then the door opened and his mother came in. her face brightened up as soon as she caught sight of ferdy's cheerful expression and heard his eager tone--it was always so now. since the accident mrs. ross seemed a kind of mirror of her boy; if he was happy and comfortable her anxious face grew smooth and peaceful; if he had had a bad night, or was tired, or in pain, she looked ten years older. and miss lilly, who, though still quite young herself, was very thoughtful and sensible, saw this with anxiety. "it will never do for things to go on like this," she said to herself, "the strain will break down poor mrs. ross. and if ferdy is never to be quite well again, or even if it takes a long time for him to recover, it will get worse and worse. we must try to find something for him to do that will take him out of himself, as people say,--something that will make him feel himself of use, poor dear, as he would like to be. i wonder if my grandfather could speak to mrs. ross and make her see that she should try not to be always so terribly anxious." for old dr. lilly was a very wise man. in his long life he had acquired a great deal of knowledge besides "book-learning"; he had learnt to read human beings too. but just now miss lilly's thoughtful face brightened up also as ferdy's mother came in. "we are talking about wood-carving," she said. "i am going to ask my grandfather about it. and ferdy would like to prepare for it by drawing a little again--he was getting on nicely just before he was ill." "i'd like a slate," said ferdy, "because i could rub out so easily; only drawings on a slate never look pretty--white on black isn't right." "_i_ know what," exclaimed christine. "mamma, do let us get ferdy one of those beautiful white china slates--a big one, the same as your little one that lies on the hall table for messages." ferdy's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "that would do lovelily," he said. so it was arranged that christine should drive with her mother that afternoon to the nearest town--not whittingham, but a smaller town in another direction, called freston, in quest of a good-sized white china slate. chapter vii an unexpected pig's head miss lilly and ferdy spent a quiet hour or two together after christine and her mother had set off. then, as it was really a half-holiday, and miss lilly usually went home immediately after luncheon on half-holidays, she said good-bye to ferdy, after seeing him comfortably settled and flowers within hail, and started on her own way home. she was anxious to have a talk with her grandfather and ask his advice as to the best way of helping the little boy and his mother, and keeping off the dangers to both which she saw in the future. it was a lovely day--quite a summer day now--for it was some way on in june, and this year the weather had been remarkably beautiful--never before quite so beautiful since she had come to live in the neighbourhood, thought the young girl to herself, and she sighed a little as she pictured in her own mind what happy days she and her two little pupils might have had in the woods and fields round about evercombe. "poor ferdy," she thought, "i wonder if he really ever will get well again. that is, in a way, the hardest part of it all--the not knowing. it makes it so difficult to judge how to treat him in so many little ways." she was not very far from her own home by this time, and looking up along the sunny road, she saw coming towards her a familiar figure. "i do believe it is jesse piggot," she said to herself. "how curious, just when i'd been thinking about him the last day or two!" jesse stopped as he came up to her, and it seemed to miss lilly that his face grew a little red, though bashfulness was certainly not one of jesse's weak points. "why, jesse!" she exclaimed, "so you've got back again. how did you get on while you were away?" jesse's answer to this question was rather indistinct. he murmured something that sounded like "all right, thank you, miss," but added almost immediately in a brighter tone, "how is master ferdy, please?" "pretty well," miss lilly replied; "that is to say, he doesn't suffer now, and we do all we can to cheer him up." jesse's face grew concerned and half puzzled. "ain't he all right again by this time?" he asked. "i thought he'd have been running about same as before, and a-riding on his new pony." miss lilly shook her head rather sadly. "oh no," she said, "there's no chance of anything like that for a long time"--"if ever," she added to herself. "the kind of accident that happened to master ferdy," she went on, "is almost the worst of any to cure--worse than a broken leg, or a broken head even." jesse said nothing for a moment or two, but something in his manner showed the young lady that his silence did not come from indifference. he had something in his hand, a stick of some kind, and as miss lilly's eyes fell on it, she saw that he had been whittling it with a rough pocket-knife. "what is that, jesse?" she said. "are you making something?" the boy's face grew distinctly redder now. [illustration: "i've done 'em before from one of the old squeakers up at the farm."] "'tis nothing, miss," he said, looking very ashamed, "only a bit o' nonsense as i thought'd make master ferdy laugh. i've done 'em before from one of the old squeakers up at the farm." and he half-reluctantly allowed miss lilly to take out of his hand a small stick, the top of which he had chipped into a rough, but unmistakable likeness to a pig's head. miss lilly almost started. it seemed such a curious coincidence that just as she was going to consult her grandfather about some new interest and occupation for ferdy, and just, too, as the idea of her little pupil's being of use to this poor waif and stray of a boy had been put into her mind by ferdy himself, jesse should turn up again, and in the new character of a possible art! for though not an artist of any kind herself, she had quick perceptions and a good eye, and in the queer, grotesque carving that the boy held in his hand she felt almost sure that she detected signs of something--well, of _talent_, however uncultivated, to say the least. jesse did not understand her start of surprise and the moment's silence that followed it. he thought she was shocked, and he grew still redder as he hastily tried to hide the poor piggy in his hand. "i didn't think as any one 'ud see it till i met master ferdy hisself some time; he's partial to pigs, is master ferdy, though no one can say as they're pretty. but i thought it'd make him laugh." "my dear boy," exclaimed the young girl eagerly, "don't hide away the stick. you don't understand. i am very pleased with your pig--very pleased indeed. have you done other things like it? i should like to--" but then she stopped for a moment. she must not say anything to put it into jesse's scatter-brained head that he was a genius, and might make his fortune by wood-carving. of all things, as she knew by what she had heard of him, it was important that he should learn to stick to his work and work hard. so she went on quietly, "i am sure master ferdy will like the pig very much, and he will think it very kind of you to have thought of pleasing him. let me look at it again," and she took it out of jesse's rather unwilling hands. "it is not quite finished yet, i see," she said, "but i think it is going to be a very nice, comical pig." and, indeed, the grotesque expression of the ears and snout--of the whole, indeed--was excellent. you could scarcely help smiling when you looked at it. jesse's red face grew brighter. "oh no, miss," he said, "it bain't finished. i'm going to black the eyes a bit--just a touch, you know, with a pencil. and there's a lot more to do to the jowl. i'm going to have a good look at old jerry--that's the oldest porker at the farm--when he's havin' his supper to-night; you can see his side face beautiful then," and jesse's eyes twinkled with fun. "oh, then you are back at the farm--at mr. meare's?" said miss lilly. "i am glad of that." "i'm not to say reg'lar there," said jesse, "only half on--for odd jobs so to say. i've been a message to the smithy at bollins just now," and certainly, to judge by the leisurely way in which he had been sauntering along when ferdy's governess first caught sight of him, his "odd jobs" did not seem to be of a very pressing description. "that's a pity," said the lady. "farmer says as he'll take me on reg'lar after a bit," added jesse. "and where are you living, then?" inquired miss lilly. "they let me sleep in the barn," said jesse. "and sundays i goes to my folk at draymoor, though i'd just as lief stop away. cousin tom and i don't hit it off, and it's worser when he's sober. lord, miss, he did hide me when he was away on that navvy job!" and jesse gave a queer sort of grin. miss lilly shuddered. "and what do you do in the evenings?" she asked. jesse looked uncomfortable. "loaf about a bit," he said vaguely. "that isn't a very good way of spending time," she said. jesse screwed up his lips as if he were going to whistle, but a sudden remembrance of the respect due to the young lady stopped him. "what's i to do else, miss?" he said. "well, you've something to do to-night, any way," she replied. "if you can finish the pig's head, i am sure master ferdy will be delighted to have it. i won't tell him about it," as she detected a slight look of disappointment on jesse's face, "oh no, it must be a surprise. but if you call at the watch house the first time you are passing after it is ready, i will see if i can get leave for you to see him yourself for a few minutes. the afternoon would be the best time, i think." the boy's face beamed. "thank you, miss; thank you kindly," he said. "i'll see if i can't get it done to-night." and then the two parted with a friendly farewell on each side. miss lilly had a good deal to think of as she finished her walk home. she felt quite excited at the discovery she had made, and eager to tell her grandfather about it. and she was all the more pleased to see him standing at the gate watching for her as she came within sight, for dr. lilly had something to tell her on his part, too. "you are late, my dear," he said, "late, that is to say, for a wednesday." "yes, gran," she replied, "i had to stay an hour or so with poor ferdy, as mrs. ross and christine were going out early." "then there is nothing wrong with him," said the old doctor. "i get quite nervous about the poor little chap myself. but that was not why i was coming to meet you, eva; it was to tell you of an invitation i have from my old friend, mr. linham, to spend two or three weeks with him travelling in cornwall. i should much like to go, i don't deny, except for leaving you alone, and i must decide at once, as he wants to know." "_of course_ you must go, dear gran," replied the girl. "i don't mind being alone in the least. i daresay mrs. ross would be glad to have me more with them, especially if--oh grandfather, i have a lot to talk to you about!" and then she told him all she had been thinking about ferdy, and the curious coincidence of meeting jesse piggot, and the discovery of his unsuspected talent for wood-carving. dr. lilly listened with great interest. he was pleased with eva's good sense in not praising the old porker's head too much, and he quite agreed with her that it would be well worth while to encourage little ferdy's wish to try his own skill in the same direction. "i believe i know the very man to give him a little help to start with," he said. "he is a young fellow who carves for ball and guild at whittingham. i attended him once in a bad illness. now he is getting on well, though he is not a genius. but he would be able to help with the technical part of the work--the right wood to use, the proper tools, and so on. if mr. ross approves, i will write to this man--brock is his name--and ask him to come over to talk about it. the only difficulty is that i fear he is never free except in the evenings." "i don't think that would matter," said miss lilly,--"not in summer time. ferdy does not go to bed till half-past eight or nine. and if he gets on well with his carving, grandfather,--and i do believe he will; you know i have always thought there was something uncommon about ferdy,--_he_ will be able to help jesse. who knows what may come of it? it may be the saving of jesse." her pleasant face grew quite rosy with excitement. it might be such a good thing in so many ways--something to take the little invalid's thoughts off himself and to convince his too anxious mother that feeling himself able to be of use to others would be by far the surest way of securing ferdy's own happiness in the uncertain and perhaps very trying life before him. and her grandfather quite sympathised in all she felt. so that evening two letters were sent off from the pretty cottage at bollins, one to mr. linham, accepting his invitation to cornwall, and one to mr. ross, asking him to stop a moment on his drive past the old doctor's house the next morning to have a little talk about ferdy. "he is sure to do so, and sure too to be pleased with anything _you_ think would be good for ferdy," said eva to her grandfather. and this was quite true, for though dr. lilly no longer looked after ill people, his opinion was most highly thought of, and by no one more than by mr. ross, who had known him as long as he could remember knowing any one. after miss lilly left him that afternoon, ferdy, contrary to his custom, fell asleep and had a good long nap, only awaking when the carriage bringing his mother and chrissie back from their expedition drove up to the door. mrs. ross's anxious face grew brighter when she saw how fresh and well the boy was looking. she had been afraid lest the increasing heat of the weather would try ferdy's strength too much, especially as the doctors would not yet allow him to be carried out of doors. but here again the oriel window proved of the greatest use: it could always be open at one side or the other, according to the time of day, so that it was easy to catch whatever breeze was going for ferdy's benefit, and yet to shade him from the sun. he certainly did not look at all fagged or exhausted this afternoon, though it had been rather a hot day for june. christine followed her mother into the room, her arms filled with parcels, her eyes bright with pleasure. "we've got such a beautiful slate for you, ferdy," she said, "and a book of animal pictures--outlines--that will be quite easy to copy on a slate, and the man at the shop said it was a very good thing to study them for any one who wanted to try wood-carving." "oh, how nice!" said ferdy eagerly. "do let me see, chrissie! and what are those other parcels you've got?" "two are from the german confectioner's at freston--cakes for tea--that nice kind, you know--the fancy curly shape, like the ones in the 'struwelpeter' pictures." ferdy's face expressed great satisfaction. "we must have a regular good tea," he said; "those cakes are meant to be eaten while they're quite fresh. and what's the other parcel, chrissie?" "oh, it's two little ducky cushions," his sister replied, "quite little tiny ones of eider-down. they are to put under your elbows when you're sitting up, or at the back of your neck, or into any little odd corner where the big ones don't fit in. you know you've often wished for a little cushion, and when you go out into the garden or for a drive you'll need them still more, mamma says." all the time she had been talking, christine had been undoing her parcels, mrs. ross helping her to lay out their contents. "thank you so very much, mamma," said ferdy, "everything's beautiful. which way did you drive to freston?" "we went one way and came back the other," said mrs. ross,--"by the road that passes near draymoor, you know. dear me, even on a fine summer's day that place looks grim and wretched! and there seems always to be idle boys about, even early in the afternoon." "miss lilly says there's often a lot that can't get work to do," said ferdy. "it's this way--sometimes they're very, _very_ busy, and sometimes there's not enough to do, and that's how they get into mischief, i suppose," he added, with the air of a small solomon. "it seems a pity that no one can take a real interest in the place," said his mother; "but here comes tea, ferdy. i am sure we shall all be glad of it. chrissie, you can arrange the cakes while i pour out tea." they seemed a happy little party that afternoon--happier than ferdy's mother, at least, would have believed it possible they could be, had she, three months or so before, foreseen the sad trouble that was to befall her darling. "i wonder how soon i shall be able to go for a drive," said ferdy. "will you ask the big doctor the next time he comes, mamma? i should like to see draymoor again. i've never forgotten that day i went there with papa. and now i understand about it so much better. miss lilly says it isn't that the people are very poor--they earn a lot of money when they are at work, but then they spend it all instead of spreading it over the times they haven't work. isn't it a pity they can't be taught something else to do for the idle times, to keep them from quarrelling with each other and being unkind to their wives and children?" mrs. ross looked at ferdy with surprise and some misgiving. it was doubtless miss lilly who had talked to him about the draymoor people. was it quite wise of her to do so? ferdy was so sensitive already, and his illness seemed to have made him even more "old-fashioned." to hear him talk as he was doing just now, one could easily have believed him twice his real age. but a second glance at his face made her feel easy again. he was speaking in a tone of quiet interest, but not in any nervous or excited way. "yes," she replied, "there is plenty to be done to improve draymoor, and at present no one seems to take any special charge of it. if your father was less busy and richer, i know he would like to try to do something for the people there." "miss lilly says if there was any one to look after the boys it would be such a good thing," said ferdy. "i hope jesse piggot won't go back there to live." then they went on to talk of other things. ferdy greatly approved of the german cakes, and his mother's spirits rose higher as she saw him eating them with a good appetite and making little jokes with his sister. the rest of the evening passed happily. ferdy amused himself for some time by "trying" his new slate. he drew two or three animals without any model, and was delighted to find that chrissie recognised them all, and that they did not compare very badly with the outlines she had brought him. "i am tired now," he said as he put down his pencil with a little sigh, but a sigh of contentment as much as of weariness, "but i know what i'll do to-morrow, chrissie. i'll _study_ one animal's head, or perhaps a bird. if those old swallows would but settle for a bit on the window-sill, or even on one of the branches close by, i'm sure i could do them. what a pity it is they can't understand what we want, for i always feel as if they knew all about us." "that's because of my dream," said christine importantly. "but i must go now, ferdy dear; flowers has called me two or three times to change my frock." [illustration: watching the sweet summer sunset.] so ferdy lay on his couch, one end of which was drawn into the window, watching the sweet summer sunset and the gentle "good-night" stealing over the world. there were not many passers-by at that hour. the school children had long ago gone home; the little toddlers among them must already be in bed and asleep. now and then a late labourer came slowly along with lagging steps, or one of the village dogs, in search of a stray cat perhaps, pricked up his ears when ferdy tapped on the window-pane. but gradually all grew very still, even the birds ceasing to twitter and cheep as they settled themselves for the night. and ferdy himself felt ready to follow the general example, when suddenly his attention was caught by a figure that came down the lane from the farm and stood for a moment or two at the end of the drive where the gate had been left open. ferdy almost jumped as he saw it. "flowers," he exclaimed, as at that moment the maid came into the room followed by thomas to carry him up to bed. "flowers--thomas, do look! isn't that jesse piggot standing at the gate? he must have come back again." "i don't know, i'm sure, master ferdy," said flowers, who did not feel any particular interest in jesse piggot. but thomas was more good-natured. he peered out into the dusk. "it looks like him, master ferdy," he said, "but i don't know that he'll get much of a welcome even if he _has_ come back. such a lad for mischief never was," for thomas had had some experience of jesse once or twice when the boy had been called into the watch house for an odd job. "never mind about that," said ferdy, "_i_ shall be glad to see him again. be sure you find out in the morning, thomas, if it is him." chapter viii welcome visitors but ferdy did not need to wait till thomas had made his inquiries, which most likely would have taken some time, as he was not a young man who cared to be hurried. miss lilly in her quiet way was quite excited when she came the next morning. "whom do you think i met yesterday afternoon on my way home, ferdy?" she said as soon as she and chrissie came into the oriel room for the part of the morning they now regularly passed there with the little invalid. "i can guess," said ferdy eagerly. "i believe it was jesse piggot," and then he told miss lilly about having seen a boy's figure standing at the end of the drive looking in. "poor fellow," said miss lilly, "i daresay he was watching in the hopes of seeing some one who could--" but then she stopped short. ferdy looked up with curiosity. "'who could' what, miss lilly?" he asked. his governess smiled. "i think i mustn't tell you," she said. "it might disappoint the boy, if he is wanting to give you a little surprise. and i scarcely think he would have sent in a message by any one but me," she went on, speaking more to herself than to ferdy, "after what i promised him last night." "what did you promise him, miss lilly?" the little boy asked. his curiosity was greatly excited. "only that if possible i would get leave for him to come in and see you for a few minutes," the young lady replied. "i must ask mrs. ross." "oh, i'm sure mamma wouldn't mind," said ferdy. "i do so wonder what the surprise is." "you'd better not think about it," said chrissie sagely. "that's what _i_ do. i put things quite out of my mind if i know i can't find out about them. don't you, miss lilly?" miss lilly smiled. "i try to," she said, "but i own i find it very far from easy sometimes. i think the best way to put something out of your mind is to put something else in. so supposing we go on with our lessons, ferdy." "oh, but first," said ferdy eagerly, "first i must show you the beautiful things mamma and chris brought me yesterday. see here, miss lilly." and eva examined his new possessions with great interest, even greater interest than ferdy knew, for her head was full of her new ideas about jesse, and the talent she believed he had shown in his carving. she turned over the leaves of the little book of animal outlines till she came to one of a pig, and she sat looking at it in silence for so long that christine peeped over her shoulder to see what it could be that had so taken her fancy. "it's a pig, ferdy," she called out, laughing. "miss lilly, i didn't know you were so fond of pigs. i'm sure there are much prettier animals in the book than pigs." "i daresay there are," said her governess good-naturedly. "but i _am_ very interested in pigs, especially their heads. i wish you would draw me one, ferdy, after lessons. i would like to see how you can do it." ferdy was quite pleased at the idea. but in the meantime miss lilly reminded both children that they must give their attention to the english history which was that morning's principal lesson. jesse piggot did not make his appearance. it was a busy day at the farm, and for once there was plenty for him to do. he had finished carving the stick, and if he had dared he would have run off with it to the watch house. but what he had gone through lately had been of use to the boy. he was becoming really anxious to get a good regular place at farmer meare's, for he had no wish to go off again on "odd jobs" under the tender mercies of his rough draymoor cousins. and, on the whole, miss lilly settled in her own mind that she was not sorry he had not come that day, for she hoped that mr. ross had seen her grandfather that morning and heard from him about the lessons in wood-carving which the old doctor thought might be so good for ferdy; and more than that, she hoped that perhaps mr. ross's interest in poor jesse might be increased by what dr. lilly would tell about him. it all turned out very nicely, as you will hear. late that afternoon, just as lessons were over and chrissie had got her mother's leave to walk a little bit of her way home with miss lilly, thomas appeared in the oriel room with a message from mrs. ross. "would miss lilly stay to have tea with miss christine and master ferdy? mrs. ross would come up presently, but there was a gentleman in the drawing-room with her just now." "what a bother!" exclaimed chrissie. "now it will be too late for me to go with you, miss lilly. i wish horrid, stupid gentlemen wouldn't come to call and interrupt mamma when it's her time for coming up to see ferdy. and it's not really tea-time yet." but tea appeared all the same. there was plainly some reason for miss lilly's staying later than usual. and when the reason was explained in the shape of dr. lilly, who put his kind old face in at the door half an hour or so later, no one welcomed him more heartily than chrissie, though she got very red when ferdy mischievously whispered to her to ask if she counted _him_ "a horrid, stupid gentleman." dr. lilly was a great favourite with the children. and never had ferdy been more pleased to see him than to-day. "i am so glad you've come," he said, stretching out his little hand, thinner and whiter than his old friend would have liked to see it. "miss lilly says you know a lot about wood-carving, and i do so want to learn to do it." dr. lilly smiled. "i am afraid my granddaughter has made you think me much cleverer than i am, my dear boy," he replied. "i can't say i know much about it myself, but i have a young friend who does, and if you really want to learn, i daresay he might be of use to you." ferdy's eyes sparkled, and so did miss lilly's, for she knew her grandfather too well to think that he would have spoken in this way to ferdy unless he had good reason for it. "grandfather must have seen mr. ross and got his consent for the lessons," she thought. and she looked as pleased as ferdy himself, who was chattering away like a little magpie to dr. lilly about all the lovely things he would make if he really learnt to carve--or "cut out," as he kept calling it--very nicely. "what i'd like best of all to do is swallows," he said. "you see i've got to know the swallows over this window so well. i do believe i know each one of them sep'rately. and sometimes in the morning early--i can hear them out of my bedroom window too--i really can almost tell what they're talking about." "swallows are charming," said dr. lilly, "but to see them at their best they should be on the wing. they are rather awkward-looking birds when not flying." "they've got _very_ nice faces," said ferdy, who did not like to allow that his friends were short of beauty in any way. "their foreheads and necks are such a pretty browny colour, and then their top feathers are a soft sort of blue, greyey blue, which looks so nice over the white underneath. i think they're awfully pretty altogether." "you have watched them pretty closely, i see," said dr. lilly, pleased at ferdy's careful noticing of his feathered neighbours. "i love swallows as much as you do, but it takes a master hand to carve _movement_. you may begin with something easier, and who knows what you may come to do in time." ferdy did not answer. he lay still, his blue eyes gazing up into the sky, from which at that moment they almost seemed to have borrowed their colour. visions passed before his fancy of lovely things which he would have found it difficult to describe, carvings such as none but a fairy hand could fashion, of birds and flowers of beauty only to be seen in dreams--it was a delight just to think of them. and one stood out from the rest, a window like his own oriel window, but entwined with wonderful foliage, and in one corner a nest, with a bird still almost on the wing, poised on a branch hard by. "oh," and he all but spoke his fancy aloud, "i feel as if i could make it _so_ lovely." but just then, glancing downwards, though still out of doors, he gave a little start. "it _is_ him," he exclaimed. "miss lilly, dear, do look. isn't that jesse, standing at the gate?" yes, jesse it was. not peeping in shyly, as some boys would have done. that was not mr. jesse's way. no, there he stood, in the middle of the open gateway, quite at his ease, one hand in his pocket, in the fellow of which the other would have been, no doubt, if it had not been holding an inconvenient shape of parcel--a long narrow parcel done up in a bit of newspaper, which had seen better days; not the sort of parcel you could possibly hide in a pocket. it was tea-time at the farm, and jesse had slipped down to the watch house in hopes of catching sight of miss lilly, for she had spoken of the afternoon as the best time for seeing ferdy. "of course it is jesse," said the young lady. "look, grandfather, don't you think i may run down and ask mrs. ross to let me bring him in for a few minutes?" and off she went. a minute or two later ferdy and chrissie, still looking out of the window in great anxiety lest jesse should get tired of waiting and go away before miss lilly could stop him, saw their governess hurry up the drive. and jesse, as he caught sight of her, came forward, a little shy and bashful now, as he tugged at his cap by way of a polite greeting. ferdy's face grew rosy with pleasure. "they're coming in," he said to dr. lilly. "yes," said the old gentleman. "i will go over to the other side of the room with the newspaper, so that the poor lad won't feel confused by seeing so many people." but all the same from behind the shelter of his newspaper the old gentleman kept a look-out on the little scene passing before him. miss lilly came in quickly, but jesse hung back for a moment or two at the door. he was almost dazzled at first by the bright prettiness before him. for he had never seen such a charming room before, and though he would not have understood it if it had been said to him, underneath his rough outside jesse had one of those natures that are much and quickly alive to beauty of all kinds. and everything that love and good taste could do to make the oriel room a pleasant prison for the little invalid boy, had been done. it was a very prettily shaped room to begin with, and the creeping plants trained round the window outside were now almost in their full summer richness. roses peeped in with their soft blushing faces; honeysuckle seemed climbing up by the help of its pink and scarlet fingers; clematis, the dear old "traveller's joy," was there too, though kept in proper restraint. the oriel window looked a perfect bower, for inside, on the little table by ferdy's couch, were flowers too--one of his own moss-baskets, filled with wild hyacinth, and a beautiful large petalled begonia, one of old ferguson's special pets, which he had been proud to send in to adorn master ferdy's room, and two lovely fairy-like maiden-hair ferns. and the little group in the window seemed in keeping with the flowers and plants. there was the delicate face of the little invalid, and pretty christine with her fluffy golden hair, and miss lilly, slight and dark-eyed, stooping over them, as she explained to ferdy that jesse was longing to see him. altogether the poor boy, rude and rough as he was, felt as if he were gazing at some beautiful picture; he would have liked to stand there longer--the feelings that came over him were so new and so fascinating. he did not see old dr. lilly behind his newspaper in the farther corner of the room--he felt as if in a dream, and he quite started when miss lilly, glancing round, spoke to him by name. "come in, jesse," she said, "i do want master ferdy to see--you know what." jesse was clutching the little walking-stick tightly. he had almost forgotten about it. but he moved it from his right arm to his left, as he caught sight of the small white hand stretched out to clasp his own big brown one--though, after all, as hands go, the boy's were neither thick nor clumsy. "i'm so glad you've come back, jesse," said ferdy in his clear, rather weak tones. "you didn't care for being away, did you? at least, not much?" "no, master ferdy, 'twas terrible rough," said the boy. "i'm glad to be back again, though i'd be still gladder if mr. meare'd take me on reg'lar like." "i hope he will soon," said ferdy. "i daresay papa wouldn't mind saying something to him about it, if it would be any good. i'll ask him. but what's that you've got wrapped up so tight, jesse?" jesse reddened. "then the young lady didn't tell you?" he said, half turning to miss lilly. "of course not," she replied. "don't you remember, jesse, i said you should give it to master ferdy yourself?" jesse fumbled away at the strips of newspaper he had wound round his stick, till ferdy's eyes, watching with keen interest, caught sight of the ears and the eyes and then the snout of the grotesque but unmistakable pig's head--"old jerry--the biggest porker at the farm." "oh, jesse," cried ferdy, his face radiant with delight, "_how_ lovely!" and though the word was not quite exactly what one would have chosen, it sounded quite perfect to jesse--it showed him that master ferdy "were right down pleased." "'tis only a bit o' nonsense," he murmured as he stuffed the stick into the little invalid's hands. "i thought it'd make you laugh, master ferdy. i took it off old jerry--you know old jerry--the fat old fellow as grunts so loud for his dinner." "of course i remember him," said ferdy. "don't you, christine? we've often laughed at him when we've run in to look at the pigs. isn't it _capital_? do you really mean that you cut it out yourself, jesse? why, i'd _never_ be able to cut out like that! he really looks as if he was just going to open his mouth to gobble up his dinner, doesn't he, miss lilly?" "he's very good--very good indeed," she replied. and then raising her voice a little, "grandfather," she said, "would you mind coming over here to look at jesse's carving?" dr. lilly crossed the room willingly. truth to tell, the newspaper had not been getting very much of his attention during the last few minutes. in his own mind he had been prepared for some little kindly exaggeration on eva's part of jesse's skill, so that he was really surprised when he took the stick in his own hands and examined it critically, to see the undoubted talent--to say the least--the work showed. rough and unfinished and entirely "untaught" work of course it was. but that is exactly the sort of thing to judge by. it was the _spirit_ of it that was so good, though i daresay you will think that a curious word to apply to the rude carving of so very "unspiritual" a subject as an old pig's head, by a peasant boy! all the same i think i am right in using the expression. "life-like and certainly original," murmured dr. lilly. "grotesque, of course--that is all right, that is always how they begin. but we must be careful--very careful," he went on to himself in a still lower tone of voice. and aloud he only said, as he looked up with a smile, "very good, my boy, very good. you could not have a better amusement for your idle hours than trying to copy what you see in the world about you. it is the _seeing_ that matters. you must have watched this old fellow pretty closely to understand his look, have you not?" jesse, half pleased, half shy, answered rather gruffly. "he do be a queer chap, to be sure. master ferdy, and missie too, has often laughed at him when they've been up at the farm. and that's how i come to think of doing him on a stick. and many a time," he went on, as if half ashamed of the childishness of the occupation, "there's naught else i can do to make the time pass, so to say." "you could not have done better," said the old doctor kindly. "don't think it is waste of time to try your hand at this sort of thing after your other work is done. i hope you may learn to carve much better. a little teaching would help you on a good deal, and proper tools and knowledge of the different kinds of wood." jesse's face expressed great interest, but then it clouded over a little. "yes, sir," he agreed, "but i dunnot see how i could get the teaching. there's nothing like that about here--not like in big towns, where they say there's teaching for nothing, or next to nothing--evenings at the institutes." "ah well, help comes to those who help themselves. master ferdy may be able to give you some hints if he learns carving himself. and he can tell you some stories of the poor country boys in switzerland and some parts of germany--how they work away all by themselves till they learn to make all sorts of beautiful things. have you any other bits of carving by you that you could show me?" again jesse's brown face lighted up, and ferdy listened eagerly. "oh lor, yes, sir, all manner of nonsense--whistles, sir, though there's some sense in whistles, to be sure," with a twinkle of fun. "then bring me a pocketful of nonsense this evening--no, to-morrow evening will be better--to my house at bollins. you know it, of course? and we'll have a look over them together. perhaps i may have a friend with me, who knows more about carving than i do." "and after dr. lilly has seen them, please bring some of them for me to see too, jesse," said ferdy. "when can he come again, do you think, miss lilly?" miss lilly considered. "on friday afternoon. can you get off for half an hour on friday about this time, jesse?" "oh yes, miss, no fear but i can," the boy replied. "and thank you ever so many times--a great, great many times, for old jerry," said ferdy as he stretched out his little hand in farewell. jesse beamed with pleasure. "i'll see if i can't do something better for you, master ferdy," he said. and to himself he added, "it's a deal sensibler, after all, than knocking up after mischief all the evening--a-shamming to smoke and a-settin' trees on fire." for this had been one of his worst misdeeds in the village not many months before, when he and some other boys had hidden their so-called "cigars" of rolled-up leaves, still smouldering, in the hollow of an old oak, and frightened everybody out of their wits in the night by the conflagration which ended the days of the poor tree and threatened to spread farther. still more pleased would he have been could he have overheard ferdy's words after he had gone. "isn't it really capital, dr. lilly? i don't believe i could _ever_ do anything so like _real_ as this old jerry." chapter ix "my pupils" that summer was a very, very lovely one. it scarcely rained, and when it did, it was generally in the night. if it is "an ill wind that brings nobody any good," on the other hand i suppose that few winds are so good that they bring nobody any harm, so possibly in some parts of the country people _may_ have suffered that year for want of water; but this was not the case at evercombe, where there were plenty of most well-behaved springs, which--or some of which at least--had never been known to run dry. so the little brooks danced along their way as happily as ever, enjoying the sunshine, and with no murmurs from the little fishes to sadden their pretty songs, no fears for themselves of their full bright life running short. every living thing seemed bubbling over with content; the flowers and blossoms were as fresh in july as in may; never had the birds been quite so busy and merry; and as for the butterflies, there was no counting their number or variety. some new kinds _must_ have come this year from butterflyland, ferdy said to christine one afternoon when he was lying out on his new couch on the lawn. christine laughed, and so did miss lilly, and asked him to tell them where that country was, and ferdy looked very wise and said it lay on the edge of fairyland, the fairies looked after it, that much he _did_ know, and some day perhaps he would find out more. and then he went on to tell them, in his half-joking, half-serious way, that he really thought the swallows were considering whether it was worth while to go away over the sea again next autumn. he had heard them having _such_ a talk early that morning, and as far as he could make out, that was what they were saying. "the spring came so early this year, and the summer looks as if it were going to last for always," he said. "i don't wonder at the swallows. do you, miss lilly?" eva smiled, but shook her head. "it is very nice of them to be considering about it," she replied, "for, no doubt, they will be sorry to leave you and the oriel window, ferdy--sorrier than ever before." for she understood the little boy so well, that she knew it did him no harm to join him in his harmless fancies sometimes. "but they are wiser than we are in certain ways. they can feel the first faint whiff of jack frost's breath long before we have begun to think of cold at all." "like the fairy fine-ear," said ferdy, "who could hear the grass growing. i always like to think of that--there's something so--so _neat_ about it." "what a funny word to use about a fairy thing," said christine, laughing. "ah, well, any way we needn't think about jack frost or cold or winter just yet, and a day like this makes one feel, as ferdy says, as if the summer must last for always." it had been a great, an unspeakable comfort to the family at the watch house, all thinking so constantly about their dear little man, to have this lovely weather for him. it had made it possible for him to enjoy much that would otherwise have been out of the question--above all, the being several hours of the day out of doors. the big doctor had come again, not long after the day i told you of--the day of miss lilly's grandfather's visit, and of the presentation of the "old jerry stick," as it came to be called. and he gave leave at last for ferdy to be carried out of doors and to spend some hours on the lawn, provided they waited till a special kind of couch, or "garden-bed" in ferdy's words, was ordered and sent from london. it was a very clever sort of couch, as it could be lifted off its stand, so to say, and used for carrying the little fellow up and down stairs without the slightest jar or jerk. and ferdy did not feel as if he were deserting his dear oriel window, for the nicest spot in the whole garden for the daily camping-out was on the lawn just below the swallows' home. and watching their quaint doings, their flyings out and in, their "conversations," and now and then even a tiny-bird quarrel among the youngsters, came to be a favourite amusement at the times, which must come in every such life as ferdy had to lead, when he felt too tired to read or to be read to, too tired for his dearly loved "cutting-out" even, clever as he was getting to be at it. miss lilly's hopes were fulfilled. ferdy was having real lessons in carving two or three times a week. dr. lilly had arranged all about it, with the young man he had thought of, before he went away. his going away had turned into a much longer absence than was at first expected, but out of this came one very pleasant thing--miss lilly was living altogether at the watch house. this was a most happy plan for ferdy, and for everybody, especially so far as the carving lessons were concerned, for mr. brock could only come in the evening, and but for miss lilly's presence there might have been difficulties in the way, mrs. ross was so terribly afraid of overtiring ferdy, and nervous about his straining himself or doing too much in any way. but she knew she could trust eva, who really seemed to have, as her grandfather said, "an old head on young shoulders." she was the first to see if ferdy was getting too eager over his work, or tiring himself, and then too, though she had not actual artist talent herself, she had a very quick and correct eye. she understood mr. brock's directions sometimes even better than ferdy himself, and was often able to help him out of a difficulty or give him a hint to set him in a right way when he was working by himself in the day-time. and another person was much the gainer by miss lilly's stay at the watch house. i feel sure, dear children, you will quickly guess who that was. jesse piggot? yes, poor jesse. but for eva i doubt if he would have been allowed to share ferdy's lessons. mrs. ross had grown nervous since that sad birthday morning, though at the time she seemed so calm and strong. but she was now too anxious, and i am afraid flowers was a little to blame for her mistress's fears that jesse would in some way or other harm little ferdy. flowers did not like jesse. indeed, a good many people besides the watch house servants had no love for the boy. it was partly jesse's own fault, partly a case of giving a dog a bad name. "he came of such a rough lot," they would say. "those draymoor folk were all a bad lot, and piggot's set about the worst. jesse was idle, and 'mischeevious,' and impudent," and besides all these opinions of him, which flowers repeated to ferdy's mother, there was always "some illness about at draymoor--at least there was bound to be--scarlet fever or measles or something, in a place where there were such swarms of rough, ill-kept children." this was really not the case, for draymoor was an extraordinarily healthy place, and when mrs. ross spoke to dr. lilly before he left of her fears of infection being brought to her boy, he was able to set her mind more at rest on this point, and eva took care to remind her from time to time of what "grandfather had said." and jesse's luck seemed to have turned. to begin with, he was now regularly employed at the farm, and a week or two after mrs. ross had consented to his sharing ferdy's lessons, the draymoor difficulty came to an end, for farmer meare gave him a little room over the cow-houses, and told him he might spend his sundays there too if he liked, so that there was really no need for him to go backwards and forwards to the neighbourhood ferdy's mother dreaded so, at all. he was not overworked, for he was a very strong boy, but he had plenty to do, and there might have been some excuse for him if he had said he felt too tired "of an evening" to do anything but loiter about or go to bed before the sun did. no fear of anything of the kind, however. jesse was a good example of the saying that it is the busiest people who have the most time. the busier he was in the day, the more eager he seemed that nothing should keep him from making his appearance at the door of the oriel room a few minutes before the time at which the wood-carver from whittingham was due. and he was sure to be heartily welcomed by ferdy and his governess, and christine too, if she happened to be there. the first time or two miss lilly had found it necessary to give him a little hint. "have you washed your hands, jesse?" she said, and as jesse looked at his long brown fingers rather doubtfully, she opened the door again and called to good-natured thomas, who had just brought the boy upstairs. "jesse must wash his hands, please," she said. and from that evening the brown hands were always quite clean. then another hint or two got his curly black hair cropped and his boots brushed, so that it was quite a tidy-looking jesse who sat at the table on mr. brock's other side, listening with all his ears and watching with all his eyes. and he learnt with wonderful quickness. the teacher had been interested in him from the first. old jerry's head had shown him almost at once that the boy had unusual talent, and the next few weeks made him more and more sure of this. "we must not let it drop," he said to eva one day when he was able to speak to her out of hearing of the boys. "when dr. lilly returns i must tell him about jesse. he must not go on working as a farm-labourer much longer. his touch is improving every day, and he will soon be able to group things better than i can do myself--much better than i could do at his age," with a little sigh, for poor mr. brock was not at all conceited. he was clever enough to know pretty exactly what he could do and what he could not, and he felt that he could never rise very much higher in his art. miss lilly listened with great pleasure to his opinion of jesse, but, of course, she said any change in the boy's life was a serious matter, and must wait to be talked over by her grandfather and mr. ross when dr. lilly came home. and in her own heart she did not feel sure that they would wish him to give up his regular work, not at any rate for a good while to come, and till it was more certain that he could make his livelihood in a different way; for what dr. lilly cared most about was to give pleasant and interesting employment for leisure hours--to bring some idea of beauty and gracefulness into dull home lives. she said something of this kind one evening after jesse had gone, and she saw by the bright look in ferdy's face that he understood what she meant, better even than mr. brock himself did perhaps. "it sounds all very nice, miss," said the wood-carver, "but i doubt if there's any good to be done in that sort of way unless when there's real talent such as i feel sure this piggot lad has. the run of those rough folk have no idea beyond loafing about in their idle hours; and, after all, if they're pretty sober--and some few are that--what can one expect? the taste isn't in them, and if it's not there, you can't put it." eva hesitated. "are you so sure of that?" she said doubtfully. "well, miss, it looks like it. with jesse now, there was no encouragement--it came out because it was there." "yes, but i think jesse is an exception. he _has_ unusual talent, and in a case like his i daresay it will come to his choosing a line of his own altogether. but even for those who have no talent, and to begin with, even no taste, i do think _something_ might be done," she said. "thomas has taken to making whistles," said ferdy, "ever since he saw jesse's. he can't carve a bit--not prettily, i mean--but he cuts out letters rather nicely, and he's been giving everybody presents of whistles with their--'relitions' on." "_initials_ you mean, dear," said miss lilly. "_initials_," repeated ferdy, getting rather pink. "ah," said the wood-carver with a smile, "you can't quite take thomas as an example, my boy. why, compared to many of the even well-to-do people about, his whole life is 'a thing of beauty.' look at the rooms he lives in, the gardens, the ladies he sees. and as for those draymoor folk, they'd rather have the bar of an inn than the finest picture gallery in the world. no, miss, with all respect, you 'can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.'" ferdy laughed. he had never heard the quaint old saying before, and as it was time for mr. brock to go, no more was said. but both miss lilly and ferdy had their own thoughts and kept their own opinion. ferdy's own work made him very happy, and of its kind it was very nice. his little mind was full of sweet and pretty fancies, but these, of course, for such a mere child as he was, and especially as he could not sit up to do his carving, it was very difficult to put into actual shape. but his happy cheeriness kept him from being discouraged. "i shall never be as clever as jesse," he told miss lilly and christine, "but i don't mind. p'r'aps when we're big i'll _think_ of things for jesse to _do_." "you can't tell yet what you may be able to do when you're big," said his governess. "i think it is wonderful to see all you can do already. those animals for the poor little children at the hospital are beautiful, ferdy." "they're _toys_," said ferdy with some contempt, "only," more cheerfully, "i'm very glad if they'll please the poor little children. but oh, miss lilly dear, if i could make you see the beautiful things i _think_! the prettiest of all always comes something like the oriel window--like an oriel window in fairyland." "was there a window like that in the house the little fairy had to build, do you think, miss lilly?" asked christine. "no, of course not," said ferdy, before his governess had time to answer. "my thinked window isn't built, it's cut out; it's all beautiful flowers and leaves, like the real window in summer, only far, far prettier. and there are birds' nests, with them _almost_ flying, they are so light and feathery looking, and--" he stopped, and lay back with his eyes closed and a dreamy smile on his face. "when you are older," said miss lilly, "i hope you will travel a good deal and go to see some of the wonderful carvings there are in italy and germany, and indeed in england too. not only wood-carving, but sculpture. fancy, _stone_ worked so as to look as if a breath of air would make it quiver!" she spoke perhaps a little thoughtlessly, and in an instant she felt that she had done so, for ferdy opened his big blue eyes and gazed up at her with a strange wistful expression. "miss lilly dear," he said, "you mustn't count on my doing anything like that--travelling, i mean, or things well people can do. p'r'aps, you know, i'll be all my life like this." eva turned her head aside. she did not want either ferdy or his sister to see that his quaint words made her feel very sad--that, indeed, they brought the tears very near her eyes. and in a minute or two ferdy seemed to have forgotten his own sad warning. he was laughing with christine at the comical expression of a pigling which he had mounted on the back of a rather eccentric-looking donkey--it was his first donkey, and he had found it more difficult than old jerrys. that evening a pleasant and very unexpected thing happened. it was a lesson evening, but a few minutes before the time a message was brought to the oriel room by good-natured thomas. it was from jesse to ask if he might come up, though he knew it was too early, as he wanted "pertickler" to see master ferdy before "the gentleman came." "he may, mayn't he, miss lilly?" asked the little invalid. "oh yes," eva replied. she was careful to please mrs. ross by not letting jesse ever forget to be quite polite and respectful, and never, as he would have called it himself, "to take freedoms," and there was a sort of natural quickness about the boy which made it easy to do this. and somehow, even the few hours he spent at the watch house--perhaps too the refining effect of his pretty work--had already made a great change in him. the old half-defiant, half-good-natured, reckless look had left him; he was quite as bright and merry as before, but no one now, not even flowers, could accuse him of being "impudent." he came in now with an eager light in his eyes, his brown face ruddier than usual; but he did not forget to stop an instant at the door while he made his usual bow or scrape--or a mixture of both. "good evening, jesse," said ferdy, holding out his hand. "why, what have you got there?" as he caught sight of some odd-shaped packages of various sizes, done up in newspaper, which jesse was carrying. "please, master ferdy, i've brought 'em to show you. it's my pupils as has done them. they're nothing much, i know, but still i'm a bit proud of 'em, and i wanted to show them to you and miss here, first of all." he hastened, with fingers almost trembling with eagerness, to unpack the queer-looking parcels, miss lilly, at a glance from ferdy, coming forward to help him. ferdy's own cheeks flushed as the first contents came to light. "oh," he exclaimed, "i _wish_ i could sit up!" but in another moment he had forgotten his little cry of complaint, so interested was he in the curious sight before him. all sorts and shapes of wooden objects came to view. there were pigs' heads, evidently modelled on old jerry, dogs, and horses, and cows, some not to be mistaken, some which would, it must be confessed, have been the better for a label with "this is a--," whatever animal it was meant to be, written upon it; there were round plates with scalloped edges, some with a very simple wreath of leaves; boxes with neat little stiff designs on the lids--in fact, the funniest mixture of things you ever saw, but all with _attempt_ in them--attempt, and good-will, and patience, and here and there a touch of something more--of real talent, however untrained--in them all, or almost all, signs of love of the work. there came a moment or two of absolute silence--silence more pleasing to jesse than any words, for as his quick eyes glanced from one to another of his three friends, he saw that it was the silence of delight and surprise. at last said ferdy, his words tumbling over each other in his eagerness, "miss lilly, chrissie, isn't it wonderful? do you hear what jesse says? it's his _pupils_. he's been teaching what he's been learning. tell us all about it, jesse." "do, do," added eva. "yes, ferdy, you're quite right--it's wonderful. who are they all, jesse?" [illustration: "we works in a shed there, in a field by the smithy ... and we're as jolly as sand-boys."] "there's about a dozen, altogether," began jesse, with, for the first time, a sort of shyness. "it began with one or two at the farm; seein' me so busy of an evening, they thought it'd be better fun nor throwin' sticks into the water for the dogs to catch, or smokin' them rubbishin' sham cigars. we sat in the barn, and then one day i met barney--barney coles, cousin's son to uncle bill at draymoor. barney's not a bad chap, and he's been ill and can't go in the mines. and we talked a bit, and he axed how it was i never come their way, and i said how busy i was, and he might see for hisself. so he comed, and he's got on one of the fastest--with plain work like," and jesse picked out one or two neat little boxes and plates, with stiff unfanciful patterns, carefully done. "he's lots of time just now, you see, and he's got a good eye for measuring. and then he brought one or two more, but i was afraid master wouldn't be best pleased at such a lot of us, so now i go two evenings a week to bollins, close by your place, miss," with a nod, not in the least intended to be disrespectful, in miss lilly's direction, "and we works in a shed there, in a field by the smithy. we got leave first, that's all right, and we fixed up a plank table and some benches, and we're as jolly as sand-boys. i've often had it in my mind to tell you, but i thought i'd better wait a bit till i had somethin' to show." "you will tell mr. brock about it?" said miss lilly. "he will be _nearly_ as pleased as we are--he can't be _quite_. i don't think i have ever been more pleased in my life, jesse." it was "wonderful," as ferdy had said. jesse piggot, the ringleader in every sort of mischief, the "cheeky young rascal" out of one scrape into another, to have started a class for "art work" among the rough colliery boys of draymoor! "oh, i do wish grandfather were back again," eva went on. "_he_ will help you, jesse, in every way he possibly can, i know." "we should be proud if the old doctor'd look at what we're doing," said jesse. "and there's several things i'd like to ask about. some of the boys don't take to the carving, but they're that quick at drawin' things to do, or fancy-like patterns that couldn't be done in wood, but'd make beautiful soft things--couldn't they be taught better? and barney says he's heard tell of brass work. i've never seen it, but he says it's done at some of the institutes, whittingham way, and he'd like that better than wood work." he stopped, half out of breath with the rush of ideas that were taking shape in his mind. "i know what you mean," said miss lilly. "i have seen it. i think it is an ancient art revived again. yes, i don't see why it would not be possible to get teaching in it. and then there's basket work, that is another thing that can be quite done at home, and very pretty things can be made in it. it might suit some of the lads who are not much good at carving." "them moss baskets of master ferdy's are right-down pretty," said jesse. "and you can twist withies about, beautiful." his eyes sparkled--his ideas came much quicker than his power of putting them into words. "there's no want of pretty things to copy," he said after a little silence. "no indeed," said miss lilly. but at that moment the door opened to admit mr. brock. a start of surprise came over the wood-carver as he caught sight of the table covered with jesse's exhibition. and then it had all to be explained to him, in his turn. he was interested and pleased, but scarcely in the same way as eva and ferdy. "we must look them all over," he said, "and carefully separate any work that gives signs of taste or talent. it is no use encouraging lads who have neither." jesse's face fell. he had somehow known that mr. brock would not feel quite as his other friends did about his "pupils." "yes," said miss lilly, "it will no doubt be a good thing to classify the work to some extent. but i would not discourage _any_, mr. brock. taste may grow, if not talent; and if there are only one or two boys with skill enough to do real work, surely the pleasure and interest of making _something_ in their idle hours must be good for all?" the wood-carver smiled indulgently. he thought the young lady rather fanciful, but still he could go along with her to a certain extent. "well, yes," he agreed. "at worst it is harmless. when the doctor returns, miss lilly, we must talk it all over with him; i am anxious to consult him about--" he glanced in jesse's direction meaningly, without the boy's noticing it. for jesse and ferdy were eagerly picking out for their teacher's approval some of the bits of carving which their own instinct had already told them showed promise of better things. chapter x taking refuge it was a saturday afternoon. ferdy, as he lay on his couch in the oriel window, looked out half sadly. the lawn and garden-paths below were thickly strewn with fallen leaves, for the summer was gone--the long beautiful summer which had seemed as if it were going to stay "for always." and the autumn was already old enough to make one feel that winter had started on its journey southwards from the icy lands which are its real home. there were no swallow voices to be heard. oh no; the last of the little tenants of the nests overhead had said good-bye several weeks ago now. ferdy's fancy had often followed them in their strange mysterious journey across the sea. "i wonder," he thought, "if they really _were_ rather sorry to go this year--sorrier than usual, because of me." he took up a bit of carving that he had been working at; it was meant to be a small frame for a photograph of chrissie, and he hoped to get it finished in time for his mother's birthday. it was very pretty, for he had made great progress in the last few months. in and out round the frame twined the foliage he had copied from the real leaves surrounding his dear window, and up in one corner was his pet idea--a swallow's head, "face," ferdy called it, peeping out from an imaginary nest behind. this head was as yet far from completed, and he almost dreaded to work at it, so afraid was he of spoiling it. to-day he had given it a few touches which pleased him, and he took it up, half meaning to do a little more to it, but he was feeling tired, and laid it down again and went back to his own thoughts, as his blue eyes gazed up dreamily into the grey, somewhat stormy-looking autumn sky. some changes had come in the last few months. dr. lilly was at home again, so ferdy and christine no longer had entire possession of their dear governess, though they still saw her every day except sunday, and sometimes even then too. ferdy was, on the whole, a little stronger, though less well than when able to be out for several hours together in the open air. what the doctors now thought as to the chances of his ever getting quite well, he did not know; he had left off asking. children live much in the present, or if not quite that, in a future which is made by their own thoughts and feelings in the present. and he had grown accustomed to his life, and to putting far before him, mistily, the picture of the day when he _would_ be "all right again." he had not really given up the hope of it, though his mother sometimes thought he had. the truth was that as yet the doctors did not know and could not say. but the present had many interests and much happiness in it for ferdy, little as he would have been able to believe this, had he foreseen all he was to be deprived of in a moment that sad may morning. his friendship for jesse was one of the things he got a great deal from. nothing as yet was settled about the boy's future, eager though mr. brock was to see him launched in another kind of life. for both mr. ross and dr. lilly felt that any great step of the sort must first be well thought over, especially as jesse was now working steadily at farmer meare's and earning regular wages, and seemingly quite contented. though he had had his troubles too. some of his old wild companions were very jealous of him and very spiteful; and bit by bit a sort of league had been started against him among the worst and roughest of the draymoor lads, several of whom were angry at not being allowed to join the class in the shed at bollins, some still more angry at having been sent away from the class, for jesse and his friend barney who acted as a sort of second in command were very particular as to whom they took as pupils. or rather as to whom they _kept_; they did not mind letting a boy come two or three times to see "what it was like," but if he turned out idle or disturbing to the others, and with no real interest in the work, he was told in very plain terms that he need not come back. they were patient with some rather dull and stupid lads, however. barney especially so. for he was very "quick" himself. and some of these dull ones really were the most satisfactory. they were so _very_ proud of finding that they could, with patience and perseverance, "make" something, useful at any rate, if not highly ornamental. no one who has not been tried in this way knows the immense pleasure of the first feeling of the power to "make." these things ferdy was thinking of, among others, as he lay there quietly this afternoon. he was alone, except for an occasional "look in" from thomas or flowers, as mr. ross had taken his wife and christine for a drive. ferdy had grown much older in the last few months in some ways. he had had so much time for thinking. and though he did not, as i have said, trouble himself much about his own future, he thought a good deal about jesse's. there was no doubt that jesse was _very_ clever at carving. ferdy knew it, and saw it for himself, and miss lilly thought so, and the old doctor thought so; and most of them all, mr. brock thought so. but for some weeks past mr. brock's lessons had stopped. he had been sent away by the firm at whittingham who employed him, to see to the restoration of an old house in the country, where the wood carving, though much out of repair, was very fine, and required a careful and skilful workman to superintend its repair. so there seemed to be no one at hand quite as eager about jesse as ferdy himself. "the winter is coming fast," thought the little invalid, "and they can't go on working in the shed. and jesse may get into idle ways again--he's not learning anything new now. it fidgets me so. i'd like him to be sent to some place where he'd get on fast. i don't believe he cares about it himself half as much as i care about it for him. and he's so taken up with his 'pupils.' i wonder what could be done about getting some one to teach them. barney isn't clever enough. oh, if only mamma wouldn't be so afraid of my tiring myself, and would let me have a class for them up here in the winter evenings! or i might have two classes,--there are only ten or twelve of them altogether,--and once a week or so mr. brock might come to help me, or not even as often as that. if he came once a fortnight or even once a month he could see how they were getting on,--_extra_ coming, i mean, besides his teaching me, for of course the more i learn the better i can teach them. and another evening we might have a class for something else--baskets or something not so hard as carving. miss lilly's learning baskets, i know. and then jesse wouldn't mind leaving his pupils. oh, i do wish it could be settled. i wish i could talk about it again to dr. lilly. i don't think jesse's quite am--i can't remember the word--caring enough about getting on to be something great." poor jesse, it was not exactly want of ambition with him. it was simply that the idea of becoming anything more than a farm-labourer had never yet entered his brain. he thought himself very lucky indeed to be where he now was, and to have the chance of improving in his dearly loved "carving" without being mocked at or interfered with, neither of which so far had actually been the case, though there had been some unpleasant threatenings in the air of late. his efforts to interest and improve the boys of the neighbourhood had been looked upon with suspicion--with more suspicion than he had known till quite lately, when he and barney had been trying to get some one to lend them a barn or an empty room of any kind for the winter. "what was he after now? some mischief, you might be sure, or he wouldn't be jesse piggot." so much easier is it to gain "a bad name," than to live one down. "oh," thought little ferdy, "i do _wish_ something could be settled about jesse." he was growing restless--restless and nervous, which did not often happen. was it the gloomy afternoon, or the being so long alone, or what? the clouds overhead were growing steely-blue, rather than grey. could it be going to thunder? surely it was too cold for that. perhaps there was a storm of some other kind coming on--heavy rain or wind, perhaps. and mamma and chrissie would get _so_ wet! if only they would come in! ferdy began to feel what he very rarely did--rather sorry for himself. it was nervousness, one of the troubles which are the hardest to bear in a life such as ferdy's had become and might continue. but this he was too young to understand; he thought he was cross and discontented, and this self-reproach only made him the more uncomfortable. these feelings, however, were not allowed to go very far that afternoon. a sound reached ferdy's quick ears which made him look up sharply and glance out of the window. some one was running rapidly along the drive towards the house. it was jesse. but fast as he came, his way of moving told of fatigue. he had run far, and seemed nearly spent. ferdy's heart began to beat quickly, something must be the matter. could it be an accident? oh! if anything had happened to his father and mother and chrissie, and jesse had been sent for help! but in that case he would have gone straight to the stable-yard, and as this thought struck him, ferdy breathed more freely again. perhaps, after all, it was only some message and nothing wrong, and jesse had been running fast just for his own amusement. the little boy lay still and listened. in a minute or two he heard footsteps coming upstairs. then a slight tap at the door--thomas's tap--and almost without waiting for an answer, the footman came in. "it's jesse, master ferdy," he began. "jesse piggot. he's run all the way from bollins, and he's pretty well done. he's begging to see you. he's in some trouble, but he won't tell me what. i'm afraid your mamma won't be best pleased if i let him up, but i don't know what to do, he seems in such a state." ferdy raised himself a little on his couch. there must be something very much the matter for jesse, merry, light-hearted jesse, to be in a "state" at all. "let him come up at once, thomas, i'll put it all right with mamma," he began, but before thomas had time for any more hesitation the matter was taken out of his hands by jesse's short-cropped, dark head appearing in the doorway. "oh, master ferdy!" he exclaimed, in a choking voice, "mayn't i come in?" "of course," said ferdy quickly. "it's all right, thomas," with a touch of impatience, "i'll call you if i want you," and thomas discreetly withdrew, closing the door behind him. "they're after me, master ferdy," were jesse's first words, "at least i'm afraid they are, though i tried my best to dodge them." "who?" exclaimed ferdy. "the p'lice and bill turner's father, and a lot of them, and oh, master ferdy, some one called out he was killed!" "who?" said ferdy again, though his own cheeks grew white at jesse's words. "and what is it that's happened, and what do you want me to do. you must tell me properly, jesse." it said a good deal for ferdy's self-control that he was able to speak so quietly and sensibly, for he was feeling terribly startled. jesse choked down his gasping breath, which was very nearly turning into sobs. "i didn't want to frighten you, master ferdy. i didn't ought to, i know, but i couldn't think what else to do. it's that bill turner, master ferdy," and at the name he gave a little shudder. "he was in the class once, but it was only out of mischief. he did no good and tried to upset the others. so barney and i wouldn't keep him at no price, and he's gone on getting nastier and nastier, and the other day he 'called' me--he did--so that i couldn't stand it, and i went for him. it didn't hurt him, but it made him madder than ever, and he said he'd pay me out. and this afternoon when barney and me were sorting the carvings at the shed--we've a box we keep them all in, there--bill comes down upon us, him and some others. they got hold of 'em all and smashed 'em up and kicked them to pieces--all to pieces, master ferdy"--with a sort of wail, almost of despair, in his voice. "all the things we've been at for so long! we were going to make a show of them at christmas; and i couldn't stand it, i went at him like a wild beast--it was for the other lads i minded so--though he's much bigger nor me, and i got him down, and he lay there without moving, and some one called out he was dead, and then the p'lice came, and one of 'em caught hold of me, but i got loose and i started running--i scarce knew what i was doing. i just thought i'd get here, and you'd tell me what to do. he can't be dead, master ferdy," he went on, dropping his voice--"you don't think he can be? i didn't seem to know what it meant till i got here and began to think." "i don't know," said ferdy, again growing very pale, while poor jesse's face was all blotched in great patches of red and white, and smeared with the tears he had tried to rub off. "oh, i do wish papa and mamma would come in! i don't know what to do. do you think they saw you running this way, jesse?" "i--i don't know, master ferdy. i hope not, but there was a lot of the boys about--draymoor boys, i mean--bill's lot, and they may have tracked me. of course none of _my_ boys," he added, lifting his head proudly, "would peach on me, whatever the p'lice did." but even as he spoke, there came, faintly and confusedly, the sound of approaching steps along the road just beyond the hedge, and a murmur of several voices all talking together. it might not have caught ferdy's attention at any other time, but just now both his ears and jesse's were sharpened by anxiety. "they're a coming, master ferdy," exclaimed the poor boy, growing still whiter. "never mind," said ferdy, trying hard to be brave, "thomas is all right, he won't let them come up here." "oh, but maybe he can't stop them," said jesse. "the p'lice can force their way anywheres. i wouldn't mind so much if it _had_ to be--like if your papa was here and said i must go to prison. but if they take me off now with no one to speak up for me, seems to me as if i'd never get out again." poor ferdy was even more ignorant than jesse of everything to do with law and prisons and the like; he looked about him almost wildly. "jesse," he said in a whisper. "i know what to do. creep under my couch and lie there quite still. thomas is all right, and nobody else saw you come up, did they?" "no one else saw me at all," jesse replied, dropping his voice, and going down on his hands and knees, "better luck. i'll keep still, no fear, master ferdy," his boyish spirits already rising again at the idea of "doing the p'lice," "and they'd never dare look under your sofa." he scrambled in, but put his head out again for a moment to whisper in an awestruck tone, "but oh, master ferdy, if they do come up here, please try to find out if bill turner's so badly hurt as they said. i know it _can't_ be true that i did as bad as _that_." all the same he was terribly frightened and remorseful. ferdy scarcely dared to reply, for by this time a group of men and boys was coming up the drive, and a constable in front marched along as if he meant business, for as ferdy watched them, he turned round and waved back the eight or ten stragglers who were following him, though he still held by the arm a thin, pale-faced little fellow whom he had brought with him all the way. this was barney, poor jesse's first lieutenant. another minute or two passed. then hurrying steps on the stairs again, and thomas reappeared, looking very excited. "master ferdy," he exclaimed, but stopped short on seeing that his little master was alone. "bless me!" he ejaculated under his breath, "he's gone! and i never saw him leave the house." "what is it, thomas?" said ferdy, trying to speak and look as usual. "i saw the constable come in--you must tell him papa's out." "i have told him so, sir, and i'm very sorry, but he will have it he must see you. some one's been and told that jesse ran this way." "let him come up then," said ferdy, with dignity, "though i'm sure papa will be very angry, and i don't believe he's any right to force his way in! but i'm not afraid of him!" proudly. "master _will_ be angry for certain," said thomas, "very angry, and i've told the constable so. but he's in a temper, and a very nasty one, and won't listen to reason. he says them draymoor boys are getting past bearing. i only hope," he went on, speaking more to himself, as he turned to leave the room again, "i only hope he won't get me into a scrape too for letting him up to frighten master ferdy--not that he _is_ frightened all the same!" chapter xi under the sofa two minutes later the burly form of constable brownrigg appeared at the door. he was already, to tell the truth, cooling down a little and beginning to feel rather ashamed of himself; and when his eyes lighted on the tiny figure in the window--looking even smaller and more fragile than ferdy really was--the clumsy but far from bad-hearted man could at first find nothing to say for himself. then-"i beg pardon, sir, i hope i haven't upset you, but dooty's dooty!" ferdy raised his head a little, and looked the constable straight in the face, without condescending to notice the half apology. "what is it you want of me?" he said coldly. "it's all along of that there jesse piggot," replied brownrigg, "as bad a lot as ever were!" "what's he been doing?" said ferdy again in the same tone, rather turning the tables upon the constable, as if he--brownrigg--and not ferdy himself, was the one to be cross-questioned. the man glanced round him half suspiciously. "he was seen coming here, sir." "well, suppose he _had_ come here, you can't take him up for that?" said the boy. "i'm asking you what harm he'd done." "he got up a row at bollins this afternoon, and half killed a poor lad--bill turner by name--threw him down and half stunned him." "half stunned him," repeated ferdy, "that's not quite the same as half killing him. have you sent him to the hospital?" "well no, sir," said the constable, "he come to again--them boys has nine lives more than cats. i don't suppose he's really much the worse. but these draymoor fights must be put a stop to, they're getting worse and worse; i've had orders to that effect," drawing himself up. "and has jesse piggot been mixed up with them lately?" said ferdy severely. again the constable looked rather small. "well no, sir," he repeated, "but what does that matter, if he's been the offender to-day." this was true enough. "but what do you want _me_ to do?" asked ferdy. "to detain the lad if he comes here and give him up to the lawful authorities," said brownrigg more fluently. "everybody knows you've been very kind to him, but it's no true kindness to screen him from the punishment he deserves." a new idea struck ferdy. "did he begin the fight then?" he said. "there's such a thing as--as defending oneself, quite rightly. supposing the other boy started it?" "that will be all gone into in the proper time and place," said brownrigg pompously. "an example must be made, and--" before he had time to finish his sentence ferdy interrupted him joyfully. he had just caught sight of the pony-carriage driving in rapidly. for some garbled account of what had happened had been given to mr. ross by the group of men and boys still hanging about the gates, and he hurried in, afraid of finding his boy startled and upset. nor did the sight of the stout constable reassure him. on the contrary it made mr. ross very indignant. he scarcely noticed brownrigg's half-apologetic greeting. "what's all this?" he said sharply. "who gave you leave to come up here and disturb an invalid?" brownrigg grew very red, and murmured something about his "dooty." [illustration: "step downstairs, if you please, and then i'll hear what you've got to say."] "you've exceeded it in this case, i think you'll find," the master of the house replied severely. "step downstairs if you please, and then i'll hear what you've got to say," and to ferdy's inexpressible relief, for the consciousness of jesse's near presence was beginning to make him terribly nervous. mr. ross held the door wide open and the constable shamefacedly left the room. scarcely had he done so when there came a subterranean whisper, "master ferdy," it said, "shall i come out?" "no, no," ferdy replied quickly. "stay where you are, jesse, unless you're choking. mamma will be coming in most likely. wait till papa comes back again, and i can tell him all about it." rather to ferdy's surprise, the answer was a sort of giggle. "i'm all right, thank you, master ferdy--as jolly as a sand-boy. and you did speak up to the old bobby, master ferdy; you did set him down. but i'm right down glad bill turner's none the worse, i am. it give me a turn when they called out i'd done for him." and ferdy understood then that the giggle came in part from relief of mind. "hush now, jesse," he said. "i want to watch for brownrigg's going. and till he's clear away, you'd best not come out, nor speak." there was not very long to wait. for though mr. ross spoke out his mind very plainly to the constable, he made short work of it, and within ten minutes of the man leaving the oriel room, ferdy had the pleasure, as he announced to jesse in a sort of stage whisper, of seeing the worthy mr. brownrigg walking down the drive, some degrees less pompously than on his arrival. nor was he now accompanied by poor little barney, whom mr. ross had kept back, struck by pity for the lad's white, frightened face, as the constable could not say that there was any "charge" against _him_, except that he had been an eye-witness of the "row." "it's all right now, jesse," ferdy added in a minute or two. "he's quite gone--old brownrigg, i mean--so you'd better come out." jesse emerged from his hiding-place, a good deal redder in the face than when he went in, though he was still trembling inwardly at the idea of meeting ferdy's father. "you don't think, master ferdy--" he was beginning, when the door opened and both mr. and mrs. ross came in. "ferdy, darling," exclaimed his mother, "you've not been really frightened, i hope--" but she stopped short, startled by an exclamation from her husband. "jesse!" he said. "you here after all! upon my word!" and for a moment he looked as if he were really angry. then the absurd side of the matter struck him, and it was with some difficulty that he suppressed a smile. "my dear boy," he went on, glancing at the tiny, but determined-looking figure on the couch, "you'll be having your poor old father pulled up for conniving at felony." "i don't know what that is, papa," said ferdy. "but if it means hiding jesse under the sofa--yes, i _did_ do it, and i'd do it again. it wasn't jesse thought of it, only he was afraid that if brownrigg took him away he'd be put in prison and have nobody to speak up for him, and perhaps have been kept there for ever and ever so long." "your opinion of the law of the land is not a very high one apparently, jesse," said mr. ross, eying the boy gravely. jesse shuffled and grew very red. "i'll do whatever you think right, sir," he said stoutly. "if i must give myself up to brownrigg, i'll run after him now. i don't want to get master ferdy nor you into any bother about me, after--after all you've done for me," and for the first time the boy broke down, turning his face away to hide the tears which he tried to rub off with the cuff of his sleeve. "oh, papa," said ferdy pleadingly, his own eyes growing suspiciously dewy, "mamma, mamma, look at him." up to that moment, to tell the truth, mrs. ross's feelings towards jesse had not been very cordial. the sight of him had startled her and made her almost as indignant with him as with the constable. but now her kind heart was touched. she glanced at her husband, but what she saw already in his face set her mind at rest. "come, come," said mr. ross, "don't put yourself out about it, ferdy. tell me the whole story quietly, or let jesse do so," and after swallowing one or two sobs, jesse found voice to do as he was desired. he told his tale simply and without exaggeration, though his voice shook and quivered when he came to the sad part of the destruction of the many weeks' labour of himself and his "pupils," and mrs. ross could not keep back a little cry of indignation. "it is certainly not _jesse_ who deserves punishment," she said eagerly, turning to her husband. "if he could have controlled himself," said mr. ross, "to the point of _not_ knocking down that bully, turner, his case would have been a still stronger one. do you see that, my boy?" he went on, turning to jesse, who murmured something indistinctly in reply. "i'm glad he did knock him down all the same, papa," said ferdy. "you don't now think jesse need give himself up to the p'lice?" he added anxiously. "certainly not," said mr. ross, "but it will be best for me to see brownrigg and tell him all i now know--except--no i don't think i will tell him of the hiding-place under your sofa, ferdy." then turning again to jesse, "to-morrow is sunday," he said; "do you generally go to see your friends at draymoor on a sunday?" "sometimes," said jesse; "not always, sir." "then they won't think anything of it if they don't see you to-morrow?" "oh lor, no," jesse replied. "they'd think nothing of it if they never saw me again. it's only barney that cares for me or me for him of all that lot." "oh yes, by the bye--barney!" said mr. ross, starting up. "i left him downstairs, poor little fellow. he is in my study--you know where that is, jesse, run and fetch him," and jesse, delighted at this proof of confidence, started off quite cheerfully on his errand. when he was out of hearing, mr. ross said thoughtfully, "it won't do for that lad to remain in this neighbourhood, i see. i must have a talk about him again with dr. lilly, and probably with brock. something must be decided as to his future, and if he really has talent above the average he must be put in the right way towards making it of use." ferdy's eyes sparkled; sorry as he would be to be parted from jesse, this was what he, as well as miss lilly, had long been hoping for. before he had time to say anything, a tap at the door told that the two boys were outside. "come in," said mr. ross, and then jesse reappeared, half leading, half pushing his small cousin before him. mrs. ross was touched by barney's white face and general air of delicacy. "don't look so scared," she heard jesse whisper to him. "you must be tired, barney," she said kindly. "jesse and you must have some tea before you go back to draymoor." "jesse's not to go back to draymoor, mamma," said ferdy, looking up quickly. "no," said mr. ross, "that is what i wish to speak to barney about. will you tell your father, barney--is it to your father's house that jesse goes on sundays generally?" "no, sir, please, sir, i haven't a father--mother and me's alone. it's my uncle's." "well, then, tell your uncle from me," continued mr. ross, "that i think it best to keep jesse here at present, and that he was not to blame for the affair this afternoon. i shall see the constable again about it myself." barney's face expressed mingled relief and disappointment. "yes, sir," he said obediently. "there'll be no more classes then, i suppose?" he added sadly. "is jesse not even to come as far as bollins?" "not at present," replied mr. ross, and then, feeling sorry for the little fellow, he added: "if your mother can spare you, you may come over here to-morrow and have your sunday dinner with your cousin in the servants' hall." both boys' faces shone with pleasure. "and will you tell the lads, barney," said jesse, "how it's all been. and what i minded most was their things being spoilt." barney's face grew melancholy again. "don't look so downhearted," said mr. ross. "we won't forget you and the other boys. your work has already done you great credit." ferdy's lips opened as if he were about to speak, but the little fellow had learnt great thoughtfulness of late, and he wisely decided that what he had to say had better be kept till he was alone with his parents. just then christine made her appearance, very eager to know more about the constable's visit and the exciting events of the afternoon. so mrs. ross left her with her brother while she herself took the two boys downstairs to put them into the housekeeper's charge for tea, of which both struck her as decidedly in need. "papa," said ferdy, when he had finished going over the whole story again for his sister's benefit, "don't you think if jesse has to go away that _i_ might take on the class, one or two evenings a week any way? mr. brock might come sometimes--extra, you know--just to see how they were getting on. and they would be quite safe here, and nobody would dare to spoil their things." "and miss lilly and i would help," said christine eagerly. "there are some of them, jesse has told us, that want to learn other things--not only wood-carving--that _we_ could help them with. miss lilly's been having lessons herself in basket-making." "dr. lilly has reason to be proud of his granddaughter," said mr. ross warmly. "we must talk it all over. it would certainly seem a terrible pity for the poor fellows to lose what they have gained, not merely in skill, but the good habit of putting to use some of their leisure hours--miners have so much idle time." "there's the big empty room downstairs near the servants' hall," said ferdy. "could not i be carried down there, papa?" mr. ross hesitated. he felt doubtful, but anxious not to disappoint the boy, for as his eyes rested on the fragile little figure and he realised what ferdy's future life might be, he could not but think to himself how happy and healthy a thing it was that his child should be so ready to interest himself in others, instead of becoming self-engrossed and discontented. "we must see what mr. stern says," he replied, "and--yes, it will soon be time for the other doctor's visit. it would be a long walk from draymoor for the lads." "_they_ wouldn't mind," said ferdy decisively. "and now and then," said christine, "we might give them tea for a treat--once a month or so. oh! it would be lovely!" chapter xii another birthday again a spring morning, only two or three years ago. evercombe and the watch house look much as they did when we first saw them; one could fancy that but a few months instead of ten years had passed since then. the swallows are there, established in their summer quarters above the oriel window, the same and yet not the same, though their chirping voices may, for all we know, be telling of the little boy who for so long lay on his couch below, and loved them so well. he is not there now, nor is his couch in its old place. instead of the small white face and eager blue eyes, there stands at the post of observation a tall young girl, a very pretty girl, with a bright flush of happy expectancy on her fair face. "mamma, mamma," she exclaims to some one farther in the shade of the room. "i think i hear wheels. surely it will be they this time! if it isn't i really shan't have patience to stand here any longer." but "this time" her hopes were fulfilled. another moment and a carriage, which christine, for christine of course it was, quickly recognised as their own, turned in at the lodge gates. and before those inside had time to look up at the window, chrissie had flown downstairs followed by her mother. "ferdy, ferdy," she exclaimed, as the carriage-door opened, and her brother, his face flushed with pleasure equal to her own, got out, slowly, and with a little help from his father, for the young man was slightly lame, though his face told of health and fair strength. he was sunburnt and manly looking, full of life and happy eagerness. "isn't he looking well, mamma?" said chrissie, when the first loving greetings had sobered down a little. "and haven't i grown?" added ferdy, drawing himself up for approval. "and isn't it delightful that i managed to get back on my birthday after all?" "yes, indeed, my darling," said mrs. ross; while his father gently placed his hand on the young fellow's shoulder, repeated her words--"yes, indeed! when we think of this day--how many years ago! ten?--yes, it must be ten--you were nine then, ferdy, how very, unutterably thankful we should be to have you as you are." "and to judge by my looks you don't know the best of me," said ferdy. "i can walk ever so far without knocking up. but oh! what heaps of things we have to talk about!" "come in to breakfast first," said his mother. "it is ten o'clock, and after travelling all night you must be a little tired." "i am really not, only very hungry," said ferdy, as he followed her into the dining-room, where the happy party seated themselves round the table. ferdy had been away, abroad, for nearly two years, both for study and for health's sake, and the result was more than satisfactory. school-life had been impossible for him, for the effect of his accident had been but very slowly outgrown. slowly but surely, however, for now at nineteen, except for his slight lameness, he was perfectly well, and able to look forward to a busy and useful life, though the exact profession he was now to prepare himself for, was not yet quite decided upon. a busy and useful and happy life it promised to be, with abundance of interests for his leisure hours. he was no genius, but the tastes which he had had special opportunity for cultivating through his boyhood, were not likely to fail him as he grew up. and in many a dull and sunless home would they help him to bring something to cheer the dreary sameness of hard-working lives. they had done so already, more than he as yet knew. breakfast over and his old haunts revisited, mrs. ross at last persuaded him and his sister to join her on the lawn, where she had established herself with her work for the rest of the morning. "this is to be a real holiday, ferdy," she said. "chrissie and i have been looking forward to it for so long. we have nothing to do but to talk and listen." "i have heaps to tell," said ferdy, "but even more to ask. my life in switzerland was really awfully jolly in every way, but i'll tell you all about it by degrees; besides, i did write long letters, didn't i?" "yes, you did," said his mother and chrissie together; "you have been very good about letters all the time." "of course," began ferdy, after a moment or two's silence, "the thing i want to hear most about is how the classes have all been getting on. you kept me pretty well posted up about them, but in your last letters there was some allusion i didn't quite understand--something that the mayhews have been trying to arrange." christine glanced at her mother. "i may tell him, mayn't i, mamma? now that it is all settled? it is not only the mayhews' doing, but jesse piggot's too." and as ferdy's face lightened up at the mention of his friend's name--"he hasn't told you about it himself, surely?" in a tone of some disappointment. "i know that he wrote you long letters regularly, but i thought he understood that we wanted to keep this new thing as a surprise for you when you came back." ferdy looked puzzled. "he hasn't told me anything special except about himself. the last big piece of news, since of course it was all settled about his getting that capital berth at whittingham, that brock was so delighted about--the last big piece of news was his getting the order for the carved reredos at cowlingsbury abbey. but that was some time ago!" "oh yes," said christine, "we have got over the excitement about that. though when you think of it," she went on thoughtfully, "it is wonderful to realise how jesse has got on." "and is going to get on," added mrs. ross. "and without flattery, ferdy dear, we may say that it is greatly, very greatly owing to you." ferdy's face grew red with pleasure. "i can't quite see that," he said. "genius must make its own way. but do tell me the _new_ news, chrissie." "it is that mr. mayhew has got ground and money and everything for a sort of,--we don't know what to call it yet--'institute' is such an ugly word, we must think of something prettier,--a sort of art college at draymoor for the afternoon and evening classes. it won't be on a large scale. it would spoil it if it were, and a great part of their work can still be done at home, which is of course the real idea of it all. but this little college will really be for teaching what, up to now, has had to be done in odd rooms here and there." "oh!" ferdy exclaimed, "that is splendid!" "for you see," chrissie continued, counting up on her pretty fingers as she spoke, "what a lot of different kinds of work we've got to now. wood-carving to begin with--we must always count it first!" "no," said ferdy, laughing, "strictly speaking, moss baskets came first." "wood-carving," repeated chrissie, not condescending to notice the interruption. "then the modelling, and pottery classes, basket work, brass hammering, and the iron work, not to speak of the girls' embroidery and lace work. yes," with a deep sigh of satisfaction, "it _is_ time for a little college of our own." "a great, great deal of it," said ferdy, "is owing to miss lilly--i always forget to call her mrs. mayhew. if only she hadn't gone and got married we might have called it the 'lily college,' after her." "if she hadn't gone and got married, as you elegantly express it, mr. mayhew would never, probably, have been the vicar of draymoor," said chrissie. "for it was through his being such a great friend of dr. lilly's that he got to know the old squire, who gave him the living. and just think of all he has done--mr. mayhew i mean--for draymoor." ferdy did not at once reply. he gazed up into the blue sky and listened to the sweet bird-chatter overhead, with a look of great content on his face. "yes," he said, "things do turn out so--quite rightly sometimes. just when you'd have thought they'd go wrong! there was that row of jesse's to begin with, when he thought all he had tried to do was spoilt, and then there were all the difficulties about the evening classes, while i was still ill, and it almost seemed as if we would have to give them up. and then--and then--why! when it was fixed for me to go away two years ago, i could scarcely believe they'd go on, even though mr. mayhew had come by that time. yes, it's rather wonderful! i say, chrissie," with a sudden change of tone, "doesn't it really sound as if the swallows were rather excited about my coming home!" christine looked up at the oriel window with a smile. "i wonder," she said, "if _possibly_ any of them can be the same ones, or if they are telling over the story that has been handed down from their great-grandparents--the story of the little white boy that used to lie on the couch in the window?" * * * * * this is not a completed story, dear children, as you will have seen. it is only the story of the beginning of a life, and of the beginning of a work, which in many and many a place, besides gloomy draymoor, started in the humblest and smallest way. if ever, or wherever any of you come across this endeavour to brighten and refine dull, ungraceful, and ungracious homes, you will do your best to help it on, i feel sure, will you not? the end a new uniform edition of mrs. molesworth's stories for children with illustrations by walter crane and leslie brooke. * * * * * in ten volumes. 12mo. cloth. one dollar a volume. * * * * * tell me a story, and herr baby. "carrots," and a christmas child. grandmother dear, and two little waifs. the cuckoo clock, and the tapestry room. christmas-tree land, and a christmas posy. the children of the castle, and four winds farm. little miss peggy, and nurse heatherdale's story. "us," and the rectory children. rosy, and the girls and i. mary. sheila's mystery. carved lions. * * * * * the set, twelve volumes, in box, $12.00. * * * * * "it seems to me not at all easier to draw a lifelike child than to draw a lifelike man or woman: shakespeare and webster were the only two men of their age who could do it with perfect delicacy and success; at least, if there was another who could, i must crave pardon of his happy memory for my forgetfulness or ignorance of his name. our own age is more fortunate, on this single score at least, having a larger and far nobler proportion of female writers; among whom, since the death of george eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful, or so delightful as mrs. molesworth's. any chapter of _the cuckoo clock_ or the enchanting _adventures of herr baby_ is worth a shoal of the very best novels dealing with the characters and fortunes of mere adults."--mrs. a. c. swinburne, in _the nineteenth century_. mrs. molesworth's stories for children. * * * * * "there is hardly a better author to put into the hands of children than mrs. molesworth. i cannot easily speak too highly of her work. it is a curious art she has, not wholly english in its spirit, but a cross of the old english with the italian. indeed, i should say mrs. molesworth had also been a close student of the german and russian, and had some way, catching and holding the spirit of all, created a method and tone quite her own.... her characters are admirable and real."--_st. louis globe democrat._ "mrs. molesworth has a rare gift for composing stories for children. with a light, yet forcible touch, she paints sweet and artless, yet natural and strong, characters."--_congregationalist._ "mrs. molesworth always has in her books those charming touches of nature that are sure to charm small people. her stories are so likely to have been true that men 'grown up' do not disdain them."--_home journal._ "no english writer of childish stories has a better reputation than mrs. molesworth, and none with whose stories we are familiar deserves it better. she has a motherly knowledge of the child nature, a clear sense of character, the power of inventing simple incidents that interest, and the ease which comes of continuous practice."--_mail and express._ "christmas would hardly be christmas without one of mrs. molesworth's stories. no one has quite the same power of throwing a charm and an interest about the most commonplace every-day doings as she has, and no one has ever blended fairyland and reality with the same skill."--_educational times._ "mrs. molesworth is justly a great favorite with children; her stories for them are always charmingly interesting and healthful in tone."--_boston home journal._ "mrs. molesworth's books are cheery, wholesome, and particularly well adapted to refined life. it is safe to add that mrs. molesworth is the best english prose writer for children.... a new volume from mrs. molesworth is always a treat."--_the beacon._ "no holiday season would be complete for a host of young readers without a volume from the hand of mrs. molesworth.... it is one of the peculiarities of mrs. molesworth's stories that older readers can no more escape their charm than younger ones."--_christian union._ "mrs. molesworth ranks with george macdonald and mrs. ewing as a writer of children's stories that possess real literary merit."--_milwaukee sentinel._ * * * * * the set, eleven volumes, in box, $11.00. * * * * * tell me a story, and herr baby. "so delightful that we are inclined to join in the petition, and we hope she may soon tell us more stories."--_athenã¦um._ * * * * * "carrots"; just a little boy. "one of the cleverest and most pleasing stories it has been our good fortune to meet with for some time. carrots and his sister are delightful little beings, whom to read about is at once to become very fond of."--_examiner._ * * * * * a christmas child; a sketch of a boy's life. "a very sweet and tenderly drawn sketch, with life and reality manifest throughout."--_pall mall gazette._ "this is a capital story, well illustrated. mrs. molesworth is one of those sunny, genial writers who has genius for writing acceptably for the young. she has the happy faculty of blending enough real with romance to make her stories very practical for good without robbing them of any of their exciting interest."--_chicago inter-ocean._ "mrs. molesworth's _a christmas child_ is a story of a boy-life. the book is a small one, but none the less attractive. it is one of the best of this year's juveniles."--_chicago tribune._ "mrs. molesworth is one of the few writers of tales for children whose sentiment though of the sweetest kind is never sickly; whose religious feeling is never concealed yet never obtruded; whose books are always good but never 'goody.' little ted with his soft heart, clever head, and brave spirit is no morbid presentment of the angelic child 'too good to live,' and who is certainly a nuisance on earth, but a charming creature, if not a portrait, whom it is a privilege to meet even in fiction."--_the academy._ * * * * * the cuckoo clock. "a beautiful little story.... it will be read with delight by every child into whose hands it is placed."--_pall mall gazette._ * * * * * grandmother dear. "the author's concern is with the development of character, and seldom does one meet with the wisdom, tact, and good breeding which pervades this little book."--_nation._ * * * * * two little waifs. "mrs. molesworth's delightful story of _two little waifs_ will charm all the small people who find it in their stockings. it relates the adventures of two lovable english children lost in paris, and is just wonderful enough to pleasantly wring the youthful heart."--_new york tribune._ "it is, in its way, indeed, a little classic, of which the real beauty and pathos can hardly be appreciated by young people.... it is not too much to say of the story that it is perfect of its kind."--_critic and good literature._ "mrs. molesworth is such a bright, cheery writer, that her stories are always acceptable to all who are not confirmed cynics, and her record of the adventures of the little waifs is as entertaining and enjoyable as we might expect."--_boston courier._ "_two little waifs_ by mrs. molesworth is a pretty little fancy, relating the adventures of a pair of lost children, in a style full of simple charm. it is among the very daintiest of juvenile books that the season has yet called forth; and its pathos and humor are equally delightful. the refined tone and the tender sympathy with the feelings and sentiments of childhood, lend it a special and an abiding charm."--_boston saturday evening gazette._ "this is a charming little juvenile story from the pen of mrs. molesworth, detailing the various adventures of a couple of motherless children in searching for their father, whom they had missed in paris where they had gone to meet him."--_montreal star._ "mrs. molesworth is a popular name, not only with a host of english, but with a considerable army of young american readers, who have been charmed by her delicate fancy and won by the interest of her style. _two little waifs_, illustrated by walter crane, is a delightful story, which comes, as all children's stories ought to do, to a delightful end."--_christian union._ * * * * * the tapestry room. "mrs. molesworth is the queen of children's fairyland. she knows how to make use of the vague, fresh, wondering instincts of childhood, and to invest familiar things with fairy glamour."--_athenã¦um._ "the story told is a charming one of what may be called the neo-fairy sort.... there has been nothing better of its kind done anywhere for children, whether we consider its capacity to awake interest or its wholesomeness."--_evening post._ "among the books for young people we have seen nothing more unique than _the tapestry room_. like all of mrs. molesworth's stories it will please young readers by the very attractive and charming style in which it is written."--_presbyterian journal._ "mrs. molesworth will be remembered as a writer of very pleasing stories for children. a new book from her pen will be sure of a welcome from all the young people. the new story bears the name of _the tapestry room_ and is a child's romance.... the child who comes into possession of the story will count himself fortunate. it is a bright, wholesome story, in which the interest is maintained to the end. the author has the faculty of adapting herself to the tastes and ideas of her readers in an unusual way."--_new haven paladium._ * * * * * christmas-tree land. "it is conceived after a happy fancy, as it relates the supposititious journey of a party of little ones through that part of fairyland where christmas-trees are supposed to most abound. there is just enough of the old-fashioned fancy about fairies mingled with the 'modern improvements' to incite and stimulate the youthful imagination to healthful action. the pictures by walter crane are, of course, not only well executed in themselves, but in charming consonance with the spirit of the tale."--_troy times._ "_christmas-tree land_, by mrs. molesworth, is a book to make younger readers open their eyes wide with delight. a little boy and a little girl domiciled in a great white castle, wander on their holidays through the surrounding fir-forests, and meet with the most delightful pleasures. there is a fascinating, mysterious character in their adventures and enough of the fairy-like and wonderful to puzzle and enchant all the little ones."--_boston home journal._ * * * * * a christmas posy. "this is a collection of eight of those inimitable stories for children which none could write better than mrs. molesworth. her books are prime favorites with children of all ages and they are as good and wholesome as they are interesting and popular. this makes a very handsome book, and its illustrations are excellent."--_christian at work._ "_a christmas posy_ is one of those charming stories for girls which mrs molesworth excels in writing."--_philadelphia press._ "here is a group of bright, wholesome stories, such as are dear to children, and nicely tuned to the harmonies of christmas-tide. mr. crane has found good situations for his spirited sketches."--_churchman._ "_a christmas posy_, by mrs. molesworth, is lovely and fragrant. mrs. molesworth succeeds by right to the place occupied with so much honor by the late mrs. ewing, as a writer of charming stories for children. the present volume is a cluster of delightful short stories. mr. crane's illustrations are in harmony with the text."--_christian intelligencer._ * * * * * the children of the castle. "_the children of the castle_, by mrs. molesworth, is another of those delightful juvenile stories of which this author has written so many. it is a fascinating little book, with a charming plot, a sweet, pure atmosphere, and teaches a wholesome moral in the most winning manner."--_b. s. e. gazette._ "mrs. molesworth has given a charming story for children.... it is a wholesome book, one which the little ones will read with interest."--_living church._ "_the children of the castle_ are delightful creations, actual little girls, living in an actual castle, but often led by their fancies into a shadowy fairyland. there is a charming refinement of style and spirit about the story from beginning to end; an imaginative child will find endless pleasure in it, and the lesson of gentleness and unselfishness so artistically managed that it does not seem like a lesson, but only a part of the story."--_milwaukee sentinel._ "mrs. molesworth's stories for children are always ingenious, entertaining, and thoroughly wholesome. her resources are apparently inexhaustible, and each new book from her pen seems to surpass its predecessors in attractiveness. in _the children of the castle_ the best elements of a good story for children are very happily combined."--_the week._ * * * * * four winds farm. "mrs. molesworth's books are always delightful, but of all none is more charming than the volume with which she greets the holidays this season. _four winds farm_ is one of the most delicate and pleasing books for a child that has seen the light this many a day. it is full of fancy and of that instinctive sympathy with childhood which makes this author's books so attractive and so individual."--_boston courier._ "like all the books she has written this one is very charming, and is worth more in the hands of a child than a score of other stories of a more sensational character."--_christian at work._ "still more delicately fanciful is mrs. molesworth's lovely little tale of the _four winds farm_. it is neither a dream nor a fairy story, but concerns the fortune of a real little boy, named gratian; yet the dream and the fairy tale seem to enter into his life, and make part of it. the farm-house in which the child lives is set exactly at the meeting-place of the four winds, and they, from the moment of his birth, have acted as his self-elected godmothers.... all the winds love the boy, and, held in the balance of their influence, he grows up as a boy should, simply and truly, with a tender heart and firm mind. the idea of this little book is essentially poetical."--_literary world._ "this book is for the children. we grudge it to them. there are few children in this generation good enough for such a gift. mrs. molesworth is the only woman now who can write such a book.... the delicate welding of the farm life about the child and the spiritual life within him, and the realization of the four immortals into a delightful sort of half-femininity shows a finer literary quality than anything we have seen for a long time. the light that never was on sea or land is in this little red and gold volume."--_philadelphia press._ * * * * * nurse heatherdale's story. "_nurse heatherdale's story_ is all about a small boy, who was good enough, yet was always getting into some trouble through complications in which he was not to blame. the same sort of things happens to men and women. he is an orphan, though he is cared for in a way by relations, who are not so very rich, yet are looked on as well fixed. after many youthful trials and disappointments he falls into a big stroke of good luck, which lifts him and goes to make others happy. those who want a child's book will find nothing to harm and something to interest in this simple story."--_commercial advertiser._ * * * * * "us." "mrs. molesworth's _us, an old-fashioned story_, is very charming. a dear little six-year-old 'bruvver' and sister constitute the 'us,' whose adventures with gypsies form the theme of the story. mrs. molesworth's style is graceful, and she pictures the little ones with brightness and tenderness."--_evening post._ "a pretty and wholesome story."--_literary world._ "_us, an old-fashioned story_, is a sweet and quaint story of two little children who lived long ago, in an old-fashioned way, with their grandparents. the story is delightfully told."--_philadelphia news._ "_us_ is one of mrs. molesworth's charming little stories for young children. the narrative ... is full of interest for its real grace and delicacy, and the exquisiteness and purity of the english in which it is written."--_boston advertiser._ "mrs. molesworth's last story, _us_, will please the readers of that lady's works by its pleasant domestic atmosphere and healthful moral tone. the narrative moves forward with sufficient interest to hold the reader's attention; and there are useful lessons for young people to be drawn from it."--_independent._ "... mrs. molesworth's story ... is very simple, refined, bright, and full of the real flavor of childhood."--_literary world._ * * * * * the rectory children. "it is a book written for children in just the way that is best adapted to please them."--_morning post._ "in _the rectory children_ mrs. molesworth has written one of those delightful volumes which we always look for at christmas time."--_athenã¦um._ "a delightful christmas book for children; a racy, charming home story, full of good impulses and bright suggestions."--_boston traveller._ "quiet, sunny, interesting, and thoroughly winning and wholesome."--_boston journal._ "there is no writer of children's books more worthy of their admiration and love than mrs. molesworth. her bright and sweet invention is so truthful, her characters so faithfully drawn, and the teaching of her stories so tender and noble, that while they please and charm they insensibly distil into the youthful mind the most valuable lessons. in _the rectory children_ we have a fresh, bright story, that will be sure to please all her young admirers."--_christian at work._ "_the rectory children_, by mrs. molesworth, is a very pretty story of english life. mrs. molesworth is one of the most popular and charming of english story-writers for children. her child characters are true to life, always natural and attractive, and her stories are wholesome and interesting."--_indianapolis journal._ * * * * * rosy. "_rosy_, like all the rest of her stories, is bright and pure and utterly free from cant,--a book that children will read with pleasure and lasting profit."--_boston traveller._ "there is no one who has a genius better adapted for entertaining children than mrs. molesworth, and her latest story, _rosy_, is one of her best. it is illustrated with eight woodcuts from designs by walter crane."--_philadelphia press._ "an english story for children of the every-day life of a bright little girl, which will please those who like 'natural' books."--_new york world._ "... mrs. molesworth's clever _rosy_, a story showing in a charming way how one little girl's jealousy and bad temper were conquered; one of the best, most suggestive and improving of the christmas juveniles."--_new york tribune._ "_rosy_ is an exceedingly graceful and interesting story by mrs. molesworth, one of the best and most popular writers of juvenile fiction. this little story is full of tenderness, is fragrant in sentiment, and points with great delicacy and genuine feeling a charming moral."--_boston gazette._ * * * * * the girls and i. "perhaps the most striking feature of this pleasant story is the natural manner in which it is written. it is just like the conversation of a bright boy--consistently like it from beginning to end. it is a boy who is the hero of the tale, and he tells the adventures of himself and those nearest him. he is, by the way, in many respects an example for most young persons. it is a story characterized by sweetness and purity--a desirable one to put into the hands of youthful readers."--_gettysburg monthly._ "jack himself tells the story of _the girls and i_, assisted of course by mrs. molesworth, whose name will recall to the juveniles pleasant memories of interesting reading, full of just the things that children want to know, and of that which will excite their ready sympathies. jack, while telling the story of the girls, takes the readers into his own confidence, and we like the little fellow rather better than the girls. the interest is maintained by the story of a lost jewel, the ultimate finding of which, in the most unexpected place, closes the story in a very pleasant manner. jack, otherwise mrs. molesworth, tells the tale in a lively style, and the book will attract attention."--_the globe._ "... a delightful and purposeful story which no one can read without being benefited."--_new york observer._ * * * * * mary. "mrs. molesworth's reputation as a writer of story-books is so well established that any new book of hers scarce needs a word of introduction."--_home journal._ * * * * * the macmillan company, 66 fifth avenue, new york. the macmillan company's _catalogue_ of books for the young. * * * * * _messrs. macmillan & co. are the agents in the united states for the publications of the oxford and cambridge university presses, and for messrs. george bell & sons, london. complete catalogues of all books sold by them will be sent, free by mail, to any address on application._ * * * * * =adventure series, the.= large 12mo. fully illustrated. $1.50 each volume. =adventures of a younger son.= by john edward trelawny. with an introduction by edward garnett. =madagascar; or, robert drury's journal= during fifteen years' captivity on that island, and a further description of madagascar by the abbã© alexis rochon. edited, with an introduction and notes, by captain s. pasfield oliver, f.s.a., author of "madagascar." =memoirs of the extraordinary military career of john shipp,= late lieutenant in his majesty's 87th regiment. written by himself. with an introduction by major h. m. chichester. =the adventures of thomas pellow,= of penryn, mariner, twenty-three years in captivity among the moors. written by himself; and edited, with an introduction and notes, by dr. robert brown. illustrated from contemporaneous prints. =the buccaneers and marooners of america.= being an account of the famous adventures and daring deeds of certain notorious freebooters of the spanish main. edited and illustrated by howard pyle. =the log of a jack tar; or, the life of james choyce, master mariner.= now first published, with o'brien's captivity in france. edited by commander v. lovett cameron, r.n., c.b., d.c.l. with introduction and notes. =the story of the filibusters.= by james jeffrey roche. to which is added "the life of colonel david crockett." with illustrations. "mr. roche has faithfully compared and sifted the statements of those who took part in the various expeditions, and he has also made effectual use of periodicals and official documents. the result is what may safely be regarded as the first complete and authentic account of the deeds of the modern vikings, who continue to be wonderfully romantic figures even after the gaudy trappings of myth, prejudice, and fiction have been stripped away."--_boston beacon._ =the voyages and adventures of ferdinand mendez pinto, the portuguese.= done into english by henry cogan, with an introduction by arminius vambã�ry. "it is decidedly reading of the most attractive kind, brimful of adventure piquantly related, and of rare interest in its recital of the experiences of the author, who 'five times suffered shipwreck, was sixteen times sold, and thirteen times made a slave.'"--_boston saturday evening gazette._ =a master mariner.= being the life and adventures of captain robert william eastwick. edited by herbert compton. with illustrations. =hard life in the colonies, and other adventures by sea and land.= now first printed. compiled from private letters by c. caslyon jenkyns. with illustrations. large 12mo. $1.50. =ã�sop's fables.= illustrated. 50 cents. =andersen= (hans christian). =fairy tales and sketches.= translated by c. c. peachy, h. ward, a. plesner, etc. with numerous illustrations by otto speckter and others. seventh thousand. handsomely bound. 12mo. $1.50. "the translation most happily hits the delicate quaintness of andersen--most happily transposes into simple english words the tender precision of the famous story-teller; in a keen examination of the book we scarcely recall a single phrase or turn that obviously could have been bettered."--_daily telegraph._ =tales for children.= with 48 full-page illustrations by wehnert, and 57 small engravings on wood by w. thomas. thirteenth thousand. handsomely bound. 12mo. $1.50. this volume contains several tales that are in no other edition published in this country, and with the preceding volume it forms the most complete english edition. =ariosto. paladin and saracen.= stories from ariosto. by w. c. hollway-calthrop. with illustrations. $1.50. =atkinson. the last of the giant killers.= by the rev. j. c. atkinson, author of "a moorland parish." _shortly._ =awdry= (f.). =the story of a fellow soldier.= a life of bishop patteson for the young. 16mo. $1.00. =baker. wild beasts and their ways.= reminiscences in asia, africa, and america. by sir samuel w. baker, f.r.s., etc., author of "albert nyanza," etc. with numerous illustrations. large 12mo. cloth extra. gilt. $3.50. "a book which is destined not only to serve as a chart and compass for every hunter of big game, but which is likewise a valuable study of natural history, placed before the public in a practical and interesting form."--_new york tribune._ =beesly= (mrs.). =stories from the history of rome.= 16mo. 60 cents. "of all the stories we remember from history none have struck us as so genuinely good--with the right ring--as those of mrs. beesly."--_educational times._ =bertz= (e.). =the french prisoners:= a story for boys. $1.25. "written throughout in a wise and gentle spirit, and omits no opportunity to deprecate war as a barbaric survival, wholly unnecessary in a civilized age."--_independent._ "the story is an extremely interesting one, full of incident, told in a quiet, healthful way, and with a great deal of pleasantly interfused information about german and french boys."--_christian union._ =bunce= (j. t.). =fairy tales: their origin and meaning.= 16mo. 75 cents. =carpenter. truth in tale.= addresses chiefly to children. by w. boyd carpenter, d.d., bishop of ripon. $1.00. "these ingenious and interesting tales by bishop carpenter are full of poetic beauty and of religious truth.... we would like to see a copy in every sunday-school library."--_sunday school banner._ =carroll.= works by lewis carroll. =alice's adventures in wonderland.= with 42 illustrations by tenniel. 12mo. $1.00. a german translation. 12mo. $2.00. a french translation. 12mo. $2.00. an italian translation. 12mo. $2.00. "an excellent piece of nonsense."--_times._ "that most delightful of children's stories."--_saturday review._ "elegant and delicious nonsense."--_guardian._ =through the looking-glass and what alice found there.= 50 illustrations by tenniel. 12mo. $1.00. "will fairly rank with the tale of her previous experience."--_daily telegraph._ "many of mr. tenniel's designs are masterpieces of wise absurdity."--_athenã¦um._ "whether as regarding author or illustrator, this book is a jewel rarely to be found nowadays."--_echo._ =alice's adventures in wonderland and through the looking glass.= in 1 vol. with tenniel's illustrations. 12mo. $1.25. =rhyme? and reason?= with 65 illustrations by arthur b. frost, and nine by henry holiday. 12mo. $1.50. this book is a reprint, with additions, of the comic portions of "phantasmagoria, and other poems," and of the "hunting of the snark." =a tangled tale.= reprinted from the "monthly packet." with illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. =alice's adventures under ground.= being a fac-simile of the original ms. book afterward developed into "alice's adventures in wonderland." with 37 illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. =the hunting of the snark: an agony in eight fits.= by lewis carroll. with nine illustrations by henry holiday. new edition. 12mo. $1.00. =sylvie and bruno.= with 46 illustrations by harry furniss. 12mo. $1.50. "alice was a delightful little girl, but hardly more pleasing than are the hero and heroine of this latest book from a writer in whose nonsense there is far more sense than in the serious works of many contemporary authors."--_morning post._ "mr. furniss's illustrations, which are numerous, are at once graceful and full of humor. we pay him a high compliment when we say he proves himself a worthy successor to mr. tenniel in illustrating mr. lewis carroll's books."--_st. james' gazette._ =the nursery "alice."= containing 20 coloured enlargements from tenniel's illustrations to "alice's adventures in wonderland," with text adapted to nursery readers, by lewis carroll. 4to. $1.50. "let the little people rejoice! the most charming book in the world has appeared for them. 'the nursery alice,' with its wealth of colored illustrations from tenniel's pictures, is certainly the most artistic juvenile that has been seen for many and many a day."--_boston budget._ =church.= works by the rev. a. j. church. =the story of the iliad.= with coloured illustrations. 12mo. $1.00. =the story of the odyssey.= with coloured illustrations. 12mo. $1.00. =stories from the bible.= with illustrations after julius schnorr. 12mo. $1.50. "of all the books of this kind, this is the best we have seen."--_examiner._ "the book will be of infinite value to the student or teacher of the scriptures, and the stories are well arranged for interesting reading for children."--_boston traveller._ =stories from bible.= illustrated. second series. _shortly._ =the greek gulliver.= stories from lucian. with illustrations by c. o. murray. new edition. 16mo. paper. 40 cents. "a curious example of ancient humor."--_chicago standard._ =the burning of rome.= a story of the times of nero. with illustrations. 12mo. $1.00. =clifford= (mrs. w. k.). =anyhow stories, moral and otherwise.= with illustrations. $1.00. =craik.= works by mrs. craik, author of "john halifax, gentleman." =sermons out of church.= new edition. 12mo. $1.75. =children's poetry.= globe 8vo. $1.25. =the little lame prince and his travelling cloak.= a parable for young and old. with illustrations. 12mo. $1.25. =little sunshine's holiday.= globe 8vo. $1.00. =adventures of a brownie.= with illustrations. 16mo. $1.00. =alice learmont.= a fairy tale. with illustrations. 16mo. $1.00. =our year: a child's book.= illustrated. 16mo. $1.00. =the fairy book.= the best popular fairy stories. selected and rendered anew. _golden treasury series._ 18mo. $1.25. =defoe. the adventures of robinson crusoe.= edited from the original edition by henry kingsley. _globe edition._ $1.25. _golden treasury series._ 18mo. $1.00. =de morgan. the necklace of princess florimonde, and other stories.= by mary de morgan. illustrated by walter crane. new and cheaper edition, cloth extra. $1.25. "the stories display considerable originality, and mr. walter crane's characteristic illustrations combine with miss de morgan's pretty fancies in forming a charming gift-book."--_graphic._ "a real gem."--_punch._ =english men of action series.= 12mo. cloth, limp, 60 cents; cloth, uncut edges, 75 cents. "an admirable set of brief biographies.... the volumes are small, attractive, and inexpensive."--_dial._ "the 'english men of action' promises to be a notable series of short biographies. the subjects are well chosen, and the authors almost as well."--_epoch._ =gordon.= by col. sir w. butler. =henry the fifth.= by the rev. a. j. church. =livingstone.= by thomas hughes. =lord lawrence.= by sir r. temple. =wellington.= by george hooper. =dampier.= by w. clark russell. =monk.= by julian corbett. =strafford.= by h. d. traill. =warren hastings.= by sir alfred lyall, k.c.b. =peterborough.= by william stebbing. =captain cook.= by walter besant. =havelock.= by archibald forbes. =clive.= by col. sir charles wilson. =drake.= by julian corbett. =warwick, the king maker.= by c. w. oman. =napier.= by col. sir william butler. =rodney.= by d. g. hannay. =montrose.= by mowbray morris. _shortly._ =ewing= (j. h.). =we and the world.= a story for boys. by the late juliana horatio ewing. with seven illustrations by w. l. jones, and a pictorial design on the cover. 4th edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper boards, 35 cents. "a very good book it is, full of adventure graphically told. the style is just what it should be; simple but not bold, full of pleasant humor, and with some pretty touches of feeling. like all mrs. ewing's tales, it is sound, sensible, and wholesome."--_times._ =a flat iron for a farthing;= or, some passages in the life of an only son. with 12 illustrations by h. allingham, and pictorial design on the cover. 16th edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper boards, 35 cents. "let every parent and guardian who wishes to be amused, and at the same time to please a child, purchase 'a flat iron for a farthing; or, some passages in the life of an only son,' by j. h. ewing. we will answer for the delight with which they will read it themselves, and we do not doubt that the young and fortunate recipients will also like it. the story is quaint, original, and altogether delightful."--_athenã¦um._ =mrs. overtheway's remembrances.= illustrated with nine fine full-page engravings by pasquier, and frontispiece by wolf, and pictorial design on the cover. 4th edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper boards, 35 cents. "it is not often nowadays the privilege of a critic to grow enthusiastic over a new work; and the rarity of the occasion that calls forth the delight is apt to lead one into the sin of hyperbole. and yet we think we shall not be accused of extravagance when we say that, without exception, 'mrs. overtheway's remembrances' is the most delightful work avowedly written for children that we have ever read."--_leader._ =six to sixteen.= a story for girls. with 10 illustrations by mrs. allingham. 7th edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper boards, 35 cents. "it is scarcely necessary to say that mrs. ewing's book is one of the best of the year."--_saturday review._ =a great emergency.= (a very ill-tempered family; our field; madame liberality.) with four illustrations. 3d edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper boards, 35 cents. "never has mrs. ewing published a more charming volume of stories, and that is saying a very great deal. from the first to the last the book overflows with the strange knowledge of child-nature which so rarely survives childhood; and, moreover, with inexhaustible quiet humor, which is never anything but innocent and well-bred, never priggish, and never clumsy."--_academy._ =jan of the windmill.= a story of the plains. with 11 illustrations by mrs. allingham and design on the cover. 5th edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper boards, 35 cents. "the life and its surroundings, the incidents of jan's childhood, are described with mrs. ewing's accustomed skill; the village schoolmaster, the miller's wife, and the other children, are extremely well done." =melchior's dream.= (the blackbird's nest; friedrich's ballad; a bit of green; monsieur the viscount's friend; the yew lane ghosts; a bad habit; a happy family.) with eight illustrations by gordon browne. 6th edition. 12mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. 4to. in paper wrapper, 35 cents. "'melchior's dream' is an exquisite little story, charming by original humor, buoyant spirits, and tender pathos."--_athenã¦um._ =lob-lie-by-the-fire; or, the luck of lingborough, and other tales.= with three illustrations by george cruikshank. 4th edition. 16mo. $1.00. "mrs. ewing has written as good a story as her 'brownies,' and that is saying a great deal. 'lob-lie-by-the-fire' has humor and pathos, and teaches what is right without making children think they are reading a sermon."--_saturday review._ =the brownies.= (the land of lost toys; three christmas trees; an idyl of the wood; christmas crackers; amelia and the dwarfs; timothy's shoes; benjy in beastland.) illustrated by george cruikshank. 7th edition. 16mo. $1.00. cheap illustrated edition. fcap. 4to. in paper wrapper, 35 cents. "if a child once begins 'the brownies,' it will get so deeply interested in it that when bedtime comes it will altogether forget the moral, and will weary its parents with importunities for just a few minutes more to see how everything ends."--_saturday review._ =freiligrath-kroeker.= =alice,= and other fairy plays for children, including a dramatised version (under sanction) of lewis carroll's "alice in wonderland," and three other plays. by mrs. freiligrath-kroeker, with eight original full-page plates. cloth, extra gilt. gilt edges. 2d edition. 12mo. $1.25. "they have stood a practical ordeal, and stood it triumphantly."--_times._ =gaskoin= (mrs. h.). =children's treasury of bible stories.= edited by the rev. g. f. maclear, d.d. 18mo. each, 30 cents. part i. old testament. ii. new testament. iii. three apostles: st. james, st. paul, st. john. =gatty= (mrs.). =parables from nature.= with illustrations by burne-jones, holman hunt, tenniel, wolf, and others. two series. each, 35 cents. =golden treasury series.= uniformly printed in 18mo, with vignette titles by j. e. millais, sir noel paton, t. woolner, w. holman hunt, arthur hughes, etc. engraved on steel. 18mo. cloth. each, $1.00. also bound in half morocco, $2.50. half calf, $2.50. padded calf, $3.00. or beautifully bound in full morocco, padded, solid gilt edges, in boxes, $2.50. =the children's garland from the best poets.= selected and arranged by coventry patmore, with a vignette by t. woolner. "mr. patmore deserves our gratitude for having searched through the wide field of english poetry for these flowers which youth and age can equally enjoy, and woven them into 'the children's garland.'"--_london review._ =the pilgrim's progress, from this world to that which is to come.= by john bunyan, with a vignette by w. holman hunt. "a beautiful and scholarly reprint."--_spectator._ =the fairy book.= the best popular fairy tales. selected and rendered anew by the author of "john halifax, gentleman," with a vignette by sir noel paton. "miss mulock has the true instinct into the secret of a perfect fairy tale ... delightful selection in a delightful external form."--_spectator._ =the adventures of robinson crusoe.= edited by j. w. clark, m.a., with a vignette by sir j. e. millais. "this cheap and pretty copy, rigidly exact to the original, will be a prize to many book buyers."--_examiner._ =the sunday book of poetry for the young.= selected and arranged by c. f. alexander. =a book of golden deeds= of all times and all countries. gathered and narrated anew. by the author of "the heir of redclyffe." =children's treasury of english song.= edited by f. t palgrave. =tom brown's school days.= by an old boy. =lamb's tales from shakespeare.= edited by the rev. a. ainger. =goldsmith. the vicar of wakefield.= by oliver goldsmith. with 182 illustrations by hugh thomson, and a preface by austin dobson. uniform with the randolph caldecott edition of washington irving's "bracebridge hall" and "old christmas." 12mo. cloth extra $2.00. "mr. thomson hits the exact line of humor which lies in goldsmith's creations. his work is refined, much of it graceful and dignified, but the humor of the situation never escapes him. the work is english line work, very beautiful, delicate, and effective, with a very perceptible touch of old-time quality, life, and costume in it. the volume itself is such as lovers of good books delight to hold in their hands."--_independent._ "a more bewitching bit of book work has not reached us for many a day."--_new york tribune._ =greenwood. the moon maiden, and other stories.= by jessy e. greenwood. 12mo. $1.25. "a collection of brightly written and distinctly original stories in which fairy lore and moral allegory are deftly and pleasantly mingled."--_christian union._ =grimm's fairy tales.= the household stories. translated by lucy crane, and done into pictures by walter crane. 12mo. $1.25. =hallward= (r. f.). =flowers of paradise.= music--verse--design--illustration. printed in colors by edmund evans. royal 4to. $2.00. "to our mind one of the prettiest--if not the prettiest--of this year's picture books. the pages are very blake-like in effect, the drawings harmoniously blending with the music and words, and some of the larger pictures are quite beautiful in thought and feeling as well as in coloring. we ought soon to hear of mr. hallward again; he shows much promise."--_pall mall gazette._ =hughes.= works by thomas hughes. =tom brown's school days.= new illustrated edition. 12mo. cloth. gilt. $1.00 pocket edition, 50 cents. english edition, $1.25. "the most famous boy's book in the language."--_daily news._ _golden treasury edition._ 18mo. $1.00. cheap edition. with 58 illustrations by arthur hughes and s. p. hall. 8vo. paper. 25 cents. =tom brown at oxford.= new illustrated edition. 12mo. cloth. gilt. $1.50. english edition. 12mo. $1.25. "in no other work that we can call to mind are the finer qualities of the english gentleman more happily portrayed."--_daily news._ "a book of great power and truth."--_national review._ =hullah= (m. a.). =hannah tarne.= a story for girls. with illustrations. 16mo. $1.25. =keary.= works by a. and e. keary. =the heroes of asgard.= tales from scandinavian mythology. illustrated. 16mo. $1.00. =the magic valley; or, patient antoine.= with illustrations. 16mo. $1.25. =kingsley.= works by charles kingsley. =madam how and lady why: first lessons in earth lore for children.= $1.00. english edition, $1.25. =the heroes; or, greek fairy tales for my children.= with illustrations. $1.00. english edition. 12mo. $1.25. "this lovely version of three of the most famous folk stories of the old greeks."--_mail and express._ "ought to be in the hands of every child in the country."--_christian union._ =the water-babies: a fairy tale for a land baby.= illustrated. 12mo. $1.00. english edition. 12mo. $1.25. "they have included the admirable series of 100 illustrations by mr. linley sambourne, which have hitherto only been procurable in the somewhat expensive christmas edition of 1885. it is pleasing to think that sir richard owen and mr. huxley both survive to occupy the same position in the world of science, which the author assigned to them more than a quarter of a century ago. the artist's portrait of the two professors on page 69 is a masterpiece."--_academy._ "they are simply inimitable, and will delight boys and girls of mature age, as well as their juniors. no happier combination of author and artist than this volume presents could be found to furnish healthy amusement to the young folks. the book is an artistic one in every sense."--_toronto mail._ =glaucus; or, the wonders of the seashore.= with coloured illustrations. $2.00. =lamb. tales from shakespeare.= edited, with preface, by the rev. a. ainger, m.a. _golden treasury series._ 18mo. $1.00. =macmillan. the gate beautiful.= bible teachings for the young. by the rev. hugh macmillan, author of "bible teachings from nature." _shortly._ =madame tabby's establishment.= by kari. illustrated. $1.25. =marryat's= (captain) =books for boys.= uniformly bound in blue cloth. 8 vols. large. 16mo. $1.00 each. =masterman ready; or, the wreck of the pacific.= with 93 engravings on wood. $1.00. =poor jack.= with 16 illustrations. 22d edition. $1.00. =the mission; or, scenes in africa.= with illustrations by john gilbert. $1.00. =the settlers in canada.= with illustrations by gilbert and dalziel. $1.00. =the privateersman.= adventures by sea and land in civil and savage life, one hundred years ago. with eight engravings. $1.00. =the pirate, and the three cutters.= illustrated with eight engravings. with a memoir of the author. $1.00. =peter simple.= with eight full-page illustrations. $1.00. =midshipman easy.= with eight illustrations. $1.00. =marshall. winifrede's journal.= by mrs. emma marshall, author of "life's aftermath," "mrs. willoughby's octave," etc. with illustrations. 12mo. _shortly._ =molesworth.= works by mrs. molesworth (ennis graham). with illustrations by walter crane. 16mo. uniformly bound. $1.00 each volume. =herr baby.= =grandmother dear.= =tell me a story.= =the cuckoo clock.= =the tapestry room. a child's romance.= =a christmas child: a sketch of a boy-life.= =rosy.= =two little waifs.= =christmas-tree land.= ="carrots," just a little boy.= ="us:" an old-fashioned story.= =four winds farm.= =little miss peggy. only a nursery story.= =a christmas posy.= =the rectory children.= =the children of the castle.= =nurse heatherdale's story.= with illustrations by l. leslie brooke. $1.25. "there is no more acceptable writer for children than mrs. molesworth."--_literary world._ "no english writer of stories for children has a better reputation than mrs. molesworth, and none whose stories we are familiar with deserves it better."--_new york mail and express._ "mistress of the art of writing for children."--_spectator._ =noel. wandering willie.= by lady augusta noel. globe 8vo. $1.00. =oliphant. agnes hopetown's school and holidays.= by mrs. oliphant. with illustrations. 16mo. $1.00. =patmore= (c.). =the children's garland from the best poets.= selected. _golden treasury series._ 18mo. $1.00. =procter= (a. a.). =legends and lyrics.= by adelaide anne procter. original edition. first series. with introduction by charles dickens. 67th thousand. second series. 59th thousand. 2 vols. 75 cents each. also an edition. 4to. 2 series. 35 cents each. =legends and lyrics.= new edition in one vol. with new portrait etched by c. o. murray, from a painting by e. gaggiotti richards. 16th thousand. large 12mo. cloth, gilt edges, $1.00. =runaway (the).= by the author of "mrs. jerningham's journal." $1.00. =ruth and her friends.= a story for girls. with illustrations. $1.00. =st. johnson. charlie asgarde.= a tale of adventure. by alfred st. johnson. with illustrations. $1.50. "will not prevent boys from reading it with keen interest. the incidents of savage life are described from the author's personal experience, and the book is so well written that we may reasonably hope for something of much higher quality from mr. johnson's pen."--_academy._ "whoever likes robinson crusoe--and who does not like it?--is pretty sure to like 'charlie asgarde.'"--_n. y. mail and express._ "the story is spirited and interesting, full of exciting incidents and situations."--_boston saturday evening gazette._ =spenser. tales chosen from the fairie queene.= by sophia h. maclehose. $1.25. =stephenson.= works by mrs. j. stephenson. =nine years old.= with illustrations. 16mo. $1.00. =pansie's flour bin.= illustrated. $1.00. =when i was a little girl.= illustrated. 16mo. $1.00. =when papa comes home.= the story of tip, tap, toe. illustrated. $1.25. =stewart. the tale of troy.= done into english by aubrey stewart. 16mo. $1.00. "we are much pleased with 'the tale of troy,' by aubrey stewart.... the homeric legend is given in strong, simple, melodious english, which sometimes leaves one in doubt as to the distinction between poetry and prose.... while the story delights them, it will ennoble and strengthen their minds, and the form in which it is rendered will teach them that love, which, for an american, should lie deep in his heart,--the love of good english."--_independent._ =tim. a story of school life.= 12mo. cloth. $1.00. =ward. a pair of originals.= by e. ward, author of "fresh from the fens." with illustrations. 12mo. $1.25. =ward. milly and olly; or, a holiday among the mountains.= by mrs. humphry ward. illustrated by mrs. alma-tadema. 16mo. $1.00. =white= (gilbert). =natural history and antiquities of selborne.= new edition, with a poem and letters never before published. edited by frank buckland. with illustrations. $1.75. =willoughby. fairy guardians.= by f. willoughby. illustrated. $1.25. =wilson. the five gateways of knowledge.= by george wilson, m.d., f.r.s.e. 16mo. cloth. 50 cents. =yonge.= works of charlotte m. yonge. uniform edition of the tales. 12mo. cloth. $1.00 each. =the heir of redclyffe.= illustrated. =heartsease; or, the brother's wife.= illustrated. =hopes and fears.= illustrated. =dynevor terrace.= illustrated. =the daisy chain.= illustrated. =the trial: more links of the daisy chain.= illustrated. =pillars of the house; or, under wode under rode.= 2 vols. illustrated. =the young stepmother.= illustrated. =the clever woman of the family.= illustrated. =the three brides.= illustrated. =my young alcides.= illustrated. =the caged lion.= illustrated. =the dove in the eagle's nest.= illustrated. =the chaplet of pearls.= illustrated. =lady hester, and the danvers papers.= illustrated. =magnum bonum.= illustrated. =love and life.= illustrated. =unknown to history. a story of the captivity of mary of scotland.= =stray pearls. memoirs of margaret de ribaumont, viscountess of belaise.= =the armourer's 'prentices.= =the two sides of the shield.= =nuttie's father.= =scenes and characters; or, eighteen months at beechcroft.= =chantry house.= =a modern telemachus.= =beechcroft at rockstone.= =womankind. a book for mothers and daughters.= =a reputed changeling; or, three seventh years, two centuries ago.= =the two penniless princesses. a story of the time of james i. of scotland.= =that stick.= _shortly._ =the population of an old pear tree; or, stories of insect life.= from the french of e. van bruysel. with illustrations. new edition. 16mo. $1.00. =a book of worthies: gathered from the old histories and written anew.= _golden treasury series._ 18mo. $1.00. =the story of the christians and moors in spain.= with vignette. _golden treasury series._ 18mo. $1.00. =the prince and the page: a tale of the last crusade.= illustrated. new edition. globe 8vo. $1.00. =p's and q's; or, the question of putting upon.= with illustrations. globe 8vo. $1.00. =the lances of lynwood.= with illustrations. globe 8vo. $1.00. =little lucy's wonderful globe.= with illustrations. globe 8vo. $1.00. =the little duke.= with illustrations. globe 8vo. $1.00. =a storehouse of stories.= edited by c. m. yonge. series 1 and 2. 16mo. each, $1.00. * * * * * the macmillan company, 66 fifth avenue, new york. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 15971-h.htm or 15971-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/9/7/15971/15971-h/15971-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/9/7/15971/15971-h.zip) polly of the hospital staff by emma c. dowd boston and new york houghton mifflin company the riverside press cambridge 1912 to 'the mother of polly' contents i. the cherry-pudding story ii. the election of polly iii. popover iv. david v. with the assistance of lone star vi. elsie's birthday vii. the little sad lady viii. a warning from aunt jane ix. a night of song x. the ward's anniversary xi. polly plays the part of eva xii. the kidnapping of polly xiii. the return xiv. polly's "anne sisters" xv. a bid for polly xvi. a secret xvii. the wedding illustrations the story of the wonderful white flower "once upon a time," she began forgetting all but the music she loved this document makes you legally our own daughter from drawings by irma deremeaux polly of the hospital staff chapter i the cherry-pudding story the june breeze hurried up from the harbor to the big house on the hill, and fluttered playfully past the window vines into the children's convalescent ward. it was a common saying at the hospital that the tidal breeze always reached the children's ward first. sometimes the little people were waiting for it, ready with their welcome; but to-day there were none to laugh a greeting. the room was very quiet. the occupants of the little white cots had slept unusually long, and the few that had awakened from their afternoon naps were still too drowsy to be astir. besides, polly was not there, and the ward was never the same without polly. as the young nurse in charge passed noiselessly between the rows of beds, a small hand pulled at her apron. "ain't it 'most time for polly to come?" "yes, i think she will be back pretty soon now." miss lucy smiled down into the wistful little face. "i want polly to tell me a story," elsie went on, with a bit of a whine: "my hip aches so bad." "does it feel worse to-day?" asked the nurse sympathetically. "no; i guess not," answered the little girl, glad of a listener. "it aches all the time, 'cept when i'm asleep or polly's tellin' stories." "i know," and miss lucy's face grew grave. "we shall miss polly." "when's she goin' home?" the blue eyes went suddenly anxious. "oh, not until next week!" was the cheerful response. "there'll be time for plenty of stories before then." "a-h-h!" wailed little french aimee, from the opposite cot. "pollee go?" "why, yes," smiled miss lucy, with a quick turn. "polly is almost well, and well little girls don't stay at the hospital, you know. pretty soon you will go home, too." the nurse passed on, but aimee's face remained clouded. next week--no pollee! other ears besides aimee's had overheard the news about polly. maggie o'donnell and otto kriloff stared at each other in dismay. why, polly had been there long before they came! it had never occurred to them that polly could leave. when miss lucy reached maggie's bed, the little girl was softly crying. "i--don't--want--polly to go!" she sobbed. "dear me! dear me!" exclaimed the nurse, "this will never do!" then, listening, she whispered, "hark! who is that skipping along the hall?" at the instant, the door opened, and a little girl, her brown eyes shining with pleasure, her cheeks pink as the poppies on the front lawn, and her yellow curls all tossed and tumbled by the wind, whirled into the ward. "oh, polly!" passed, a breath of joy, from lip to lip. "i've had a lovelicious time!" she began. "we went 'way down to rockmoor!--did you ever ride in an auto, miss lucy?" the nurse nodded happily. it was good to have polly back. "seems's if you'd never come!" broke out elsie meyer. "i've been waitin' an' waitin' for a story." "i'll have my things off in a minute," responded polly, "and you'll say my story is worth waiting for." "a new one?" "brand-new!" "where'd you get it?" "a lady told me--a lady dr. dudley took me to see. it's a 'cherry-pudding story.'--oh, you just wait till i put my coat and hat away, and change my dress!" polly danced off, the young nurse following with a soft sigh. what should she do without this little sunshine-maker! the ward was wide awake when polly returned. the few that were far enough along to be up and dressed had left their cots, and were grouped around elsie meyer's bed, each solicitous for the closest seat to the story-teller. "everybody ready?" questioned polly, settling herself comfortable in the little rocker. then she popped up. "you need this chair, leonora, more than i do;" and before the lame girl had time to protest the exchange had been made. "polly, talk loud, so i can hear!" piped up a shrill voice in the corner of the ward. "sure i will, linus," was the cherry response. "you must n't miss a word of the 'cherry-pudding story.'" "once upon a time," she began, in the beautiful old way that all fanciful stories should begin; and not the breath of a rustle broke the sound of her gentle voice, while she narrated the fortunes of the young king who loved stories so much that he decided to wed only the girl that would write him a fresh one every day. as the little people followed the outcome of the royal edict, their interest grew intense, for polly was a real story-teller, sweeping her listeners along with the narrative until all else was forgotten. when after long despairing days, young king cerise found his future queen in the very last girl, one who lived her stories instead of writing them, and was as charming and good as she was clever, the small folks became radiantly glad, and the tale drew to a happy end with the king and queen living beautiful stories and cherry puddings in every home all over the land. nobody spoke as polly stopped. then little linus, away over in the corner, piped up:-"i wasn't some cherry pudding!" than made them laugh, and set the tongues going. "aw, ye'll have ter wait till ye git home!" returned cornelius o'shaughnessy. "why will he? why can't we all have some, miss lucy?" the rest fairly held their breath at elsie meyer's boldness. the nurse laughed. "perhaps," she began slowly,--"mind, i don't say for sure, but only perhaps,--if you'll all live a brave, patient, cheerful story, with never a bit of a whine in it, from now until to-morrow noon,--well, who knows what may happen!" "a cherry pudding may!" cried the irrepressible elsie. "oh, miss lucy, i won't whine or cry, no matter how bad you hurt my hip when you dress it--not the teentiest bit! see if i do!" "will polly make up our stories for us?" queried leonora hewitt. "why, miss lucy has made one for all of us," laughed polly. "we are to be brave and patient and not make a fuss about anything, and help everybody else to be happy--is n't that what you meant, miss lucy?" "oh," replied the little lame girl, "guess that'll be a hard kind!" "beautiful stories are not often easy to live," smiled the young nurse; "but let's see which of us can live the best one." "polly will!" cried maggie o'donnell and otto kriloff together. chapter ii the election of polly the convalescent ward was finishing its noonday feast when miss hortensia price appeared. miss hortensia price was straight and tall, with somber black eyes and thin, serious lips. many of the children were greatly in awe of the dignified nurse; but elsie meyer was bold enough to announce:-"we're livin' a cherry-pudding story!" and she beamed up from her ruby-colored plate. "what?" scowled the visitor. the tone was puzzled rather tan harsh, yet elsie shrank back in sudden abashment. "polly told us a story yesterday," explained miss lucy, the pink deepening on her delicate cheeks, "and it made the children want some cherry pudding for dinner. it is not rich," she added apologetically. the elder nurse responded only with a courteous "oh!" and then remarked, "what i came down to say is this: i shall send you three cases from my ward at half-past two o'clock this afternoon." "all right," was the cordial answer. "we shall be glad to welcome them to our little family." "high price is awful solemn to-day," whispered maggie o'donnell to ethel jones, as the door shut. "high price?" repeated ethel, in a perplexed voice. "sh!" breathed the other. "she's 'high price,' and miss lucy's 'low price,' 'cause she's so high and mighty and tall and everything, and miss lucy's kind o' short and little and so darling, and they ain't any relation either. i'm glad they ain't," she added decidedly. "i would n't have miss lucy related to her for anything!" "oh, no!" returned ethel, comprehendingly, as she scraped her plate for a last morsel of pudding. the three "cases," which appeared in the convalescent ward promptly at the hour named, proved to be two girls and a boy,-brida maccarthy, isabel smith, and moses cohn. polly did her share in routing the evident fears of the small strangers, their wide, anxious eye showing that they dreaded what might lie ahead of them in these unknown quarters. the wonderful giant story, which ended merrily,--as all of polly's stories did end,--made moses her valiant follower as long as he remained in the ward; the tender little slumber song, which polly's mother had taught her, put the tiny isabel to sleep; and the verses about the "kit-cat luncheon" completely won the heart of irish brida. "i got a kitty, too!" she confided. "her name's popover, 'cause when the kitties was all little, an' runnin' round, an' playin', she'd pop right over on her back, jus' as funny! she's all black concept[sic] a little spot o' white--oh, me kitty is the prettiest kitty in town!" "how shall i ever get along without her!" sighed the young nurse, as she watched polly flitting about like a sprite, comforting restless little patients, hushing, with her ready tact, quarrelsome tongues, and winning every heart by her gentle, loving ways. oh, the ward would be lonely indeed without polly may! none realized this more than miss lucy, unless it were dr. dudley, the cherry house physician, whom all the children adored. as the day set for polly's going came near and nearer, the mourning of the small convalescents increased, until the ward would have been in danger of continual tears if it had not been for polly herself. she was gayer than ever, telling the funniest stories and singing the merriest songs, and making her little friends half forget that the good times were not going to last. the children never guessed that this was almost as much to help herself over the hard place as to cheer them. in fact, they believed that her unusual high spirits came of her being glad to leave the hospital. even miss lucy could n't quite understand it all. but dr. dudley knew; he had seen her face when she had been told that she was soon to go. it was not strange that polly should dread parting from the people with whom she had been so happy, for no mother or father or pleasant home was waiting for her,--only aunt jane, in the cramped, dingy little tenement,--aunt jane and her six unruly girls and boys. poly did not permit herself to think much about going away, however, and the last evening found her cheerful still. then elsie meyer began her doleful suggestions. "i wonder how often your aunt jane 'll let you come and see us. p'r'aps she won't let you come at all--oh, my! if she don't, maybe we'll never see you again!" "nonsense, elsie! don't go to conjuring up any such thing!" broke in miss lucy's laughing voice. "of course--why, polly!" for the little girl had been brought suddenly face to face with an awful possibility, and her courage had given way. she was sobbing on the foot of elsie's bed. a low rap on the half-open door sent miss lucy thither, and polly heard dr. dudley speak her name. a new terror took instant possession of her heart. the doctor had come to take her home! she did not stop to reason. dropping to the floor, she crept softly under the cot, from there to the next and the next. her course was straight to the door through which the physician had entered, and by the time he was halfway across the room she had wriggled herself clear of the last cot, and was over the sill and in the corridor, the twilight aiding her escape. regaining her feet, she darted noiselessly down the long hall. at the head of the stairs she paused. on the floor below was a small alcove where she might hide. making sure that no one was in sight, she sped down, but as she reached the lower step one of the nurses opened the door opposite. "what are you doing down here, polly may?" the question was pleasant, but the answer was miserably halting. "i--i--thought--i'd just--come--" "did miss price send you for anything?" this time the child detected a ring of suspicion. "oh, no! i--i--" "well, you'd better go right back. it is too late to be running around for play. the halls must be kept quiet." "yes, miss bemont," responded polly meekly, and turned to see dr. dudley at the head of the flight. there was nothing to do but to go forward, which she did, with downcast eyes and a throbbing heart. "oh, here you are!" exclaimed the physician. "i've been looking for you. i thought you would like to take a ride up to warringford. i shall be back before your bedtime, and miss lucy says--why, thistledown! what is the matter?" the revulsion had been to great, and, leaning against the doctor's arm, polly was softly sobbing. the physician sat down on the stairs, and drew the fair little head to his shoulder. in a minute he knew it all,--the sudden fear that had assailed her, the creeping flight across the ward, and the baffled attempt at hiding. as he listened, his eyes grew grave and tender, for in the broken little confession he comprehended the child's unspoken abhorrence of the life she had left behind when she had come to the hospital five months before. "i would n't worry about going back to aunt jane's," he said brightly. "you may be sure i shan't let her monopolize my little polly. now, run along and get on your hat and coat, for the air is growing cool. we'll have a nice spin up to warringford, and you'll sleep all the better for it." polly skipped away smiling, but presently was down in the office, --without her wraps. "the children feel so bad to have me go," she said soberly, "i guess i'd better stay with them--seeing it's the last night." her lip quivered. "selfish little pigs!" returned the doctor. "they are n't willing anybody else shall have a taste of you." polly laughed. "well, they want me to tell them a story, so i'd better, don't you think?" "i suppose it's kinder to them than to go for a joy ride; but it's hard on me." dr. dudley assumed a scowl of disapproval. the child hesitated. "you know i'd rather go with you," she said sweetly; "but they--" "i understand all about it, brave little woman," throwing an arm around the slender shoulders, "and i won't make it any harder for you. go and tell your story, and let it be a merry one. remember, that's the doctor's order! good-night." polly threw him a kiss from the doorway, and then he heard her light footfalls on the stairs. it was one of his few leisure hours, and he sat for a long time looking out on the quiet street, where his small motor car stood waiting. he had no inclination for a spin to warringford now; he was thinking too deeply about the little girl who had held so large a share of his big heart since the day when he had first seen her, lying so white and still, with the life all but crushed out of her. it had not seemed possible then that she would ever again dance around like the other children; yet her she was, without even the bit of a limp--and going home to-morrow! home! he could imagine the kind of place it was, and he shook his head gravely over the picture. twice in the first months of polly's stay at the hospital her aunt had been to visit her; recently she had not appeared. he recollected her well,--a tall, lean woman, with unshapely garments, and a strident voice. at eight o'clock dr. dudley cranked up his machine, and started away; but he did not go in the direction of warringford. he turned down one of the narrow streets that led to aunt jane's home. meantime, up in the ward, polly had been following the doctor's directions until the children had laughed themselves happy. "i did n't let on that i saw you scoot under the bed when the doctor came," elsie meyer whispered to polly, at the first chance. "aimee saw you, an' brida saw you, an' francesca saw you; but we did n't say nothin' when miss lucy an' the doctor was wonderin' where you could be. what made you go that way?" "come, polly, say good-night," called the nurse. and with a soft, "i'll tell you sometime, elsie," she obeyed. the next morning polly went about the little helpful tasks that she had, one after another, taken upon herself, performing each with even more than her usual care, feeling a strange ache in her heart at the thought of its being the last time. it was shortly after ten o'clock that dr. dudley appeared at the door. "polly!" he called. she ran to him, but her answering smile was pathetic, for her lip quivered, as she said, "i'll be ready in a minute." "you are ready now," he returned, and taking her hand in his led her out into the hall. "i want you for a little while," was all he said, as they went downstairs together. poly was a bit surprised when she found that their destination was the great room where the "board" was in session, but she could not be afraid with dr. dudley; so she smiled to all the gentlemen, and answered their questions in her soft, sweet voice, and behaved quite like the little lady that the physician had pictured to them. presently dr. dudley left her, while he talked in low tones with the white-haired man at the head of the long table. when he came back, he asked:-"polly, how should you like to stay here at the hospital all summer, and help miss lucy and me to take care of your little friends?" the light that flashed into polly's brown eyes gave them the gleam of a sunny brook. she clasped her small hands ecstatically, crying, "o--o--h! it would be--super-bon-donjical!" the gentlemen laughed, the tall, white-haired one until his shoulders shook. then he rapped on the table, and said something about "miss polly may," to which the little girl did n't pay much attention, and there was a big chorus of ayes. after that polly bade them all good-bye, and went upstairs with dr. dudley. "children, i have something to tell you," the physician announced. everybody was at once alert. a solemn hush fell on the ward. "what do you think?" he went on;--"polly may is a full-fledged member of the hospital staff!" nobody spoke. nobody even smiled but miss lucy. black eyes and brown eyes, blue eyes and gray eyes stared uncomprehendingly at the doctor. "you don't quite understand that, do you?" he laughed. "well, it means that polly is n't going home to her aunt. polly is going to stay with you!" then what squeals and shouts and shrieks of joy from all over the ward! chapter iii popover for a week the convalescent ward laughed and sang and almost forgot that it was part of the big house of suffering. polly herself beamed on everybody, and all the hospital people seemed to agree that very good fortune had come to her, and to be glad in it. then there came a hot day which tried the patience of the small invalids. polly flitted from cot to cot with her little fluttering fan and her cooling drinks. the afternoon breeze had not yet arrived when brida maccarthy begged for a story. "it will have to be and old one," was the smiling response, for polly's supply of cat tales--the kind which the little irish girl invariably wanted--was limited. "i don't care what 't is," whined brida,--"anything 'bout a kitty. oh, don't i wisht i had me own darlin' popover right here in me arms!--why don't yer begin?" urged the fretful voice, for polly sat gazing at the polished floor. a kindly, fascinating scheme was taking shape in the story-teller's brain. "oh, brida," she cried, in suppressed eagerness, lowering her voice to a whisper that should not reach miss lucy at the other end of the ward, "i've thought of the loveliest thing! your home is n't very far from here, is it?" "a good ways--why?" and brida's little pale, freckled face showed only mild interest. "but where do you live--when you're home?" polly insisted. "'t 739 liberty street is right down by union! i can find that easy enough! say, don't you s'pose your mother 'd let me take popover and bring her up here? you know miss lucy wants me to go out to walk every day now." "oh, polly!" the pale face grew pink with joy. "sure, me mother 'd let her come! oh, polly, if you would!" "i will! and i won't say a word to miss lucy about it till popover is here! it's her birthday to-day, and it'll be such a beautiful surprise! i've been wishing and wishing we had something to give her." "oh, not me darlin' kitty!" returned brida, in sudden dismay. "no, no!" laughed polly reassuringly. "i only meant the surprise. popover can amuse the whole ward, and won't miss lucy be pleased!" "it'll be splendid!" beamed brida. "how'd yer ever think of it?" "i don't know; but i'm glad i did," polly went on happily. "and perhaps we can keep her a week or so, if we'll let her have a little of our milk--just you and i. you would n't mind, would you?" "sure, i'll let her have all she can drink!" declared brida. "i guess i'd better go now," said polly. "what is the number 7----" "it's 739 liberty street," repeated brida; "an old brown house next to the corner." miss lucy thought it was rather too warm for a walk, especially as polly was not very strong yet; but the little girl urged it with such sparkling eyes that she finally let her go, bidding her keep on the shady side of the street and not to stay out too long. polly reached liberty street where it was crossed by union, but was taken somewhat aback when she looked at a number on the west side and found it to be only 452. "never mind!" was her second thought; "there are not quite three hundred numbers more, and half of those are on the other side; besides, they skip lots of them." so she walked on contentedly, keeping track of the numbers as she passed along. they counted up fast, the houses were so thickly set. polly thought the occupants must all be out of doors, for lounging men and women filled the doorways, and the sidewalks were scattered with children. the air grew hot and stifling and full of disagreeable odors. the little girl half wished that she had not come. then she remembered how pleased brida would be to see her kitten again, and that gave her new strength and courage. she was very tired when she came to the little shop numbered 703; but with the glad thought that the "brown house" could not be far off she began to look for it. directly across her way was stretched a jumping rope, which, as she was about to step over, the girls at either end whirled up in front of her. to the astonishment of the mischievous tricksters, polly skipped into time as adroitly as the most expert rope-jumper could have wished, and the giggling pair almost forgot their part. but they recovered themselves to give polly a half-dozen skips. then, clearing the rope with a graceful bound, she turned to one of the girls. "can you tell me, please, where mrs. maccarthy lives?--brida maccarthy's mother?" with a second surprise on her freckled face, the child pointed to a fat, red-cheeked woman, who was cooling herself with a big palm-leaf fan, in a basement doorway just beyond. "thank you," was the polite response, and polly descended the short flight of steps into the bricked area. the woman looked up expectantly. "i'm polly may, of the hospital staff," the little girl announced modestly, "and brida would like her kitten, please." the smile on mrs. maccarthy's face expanded into a big, joyous laugh. "does she now? moira! katie! d'ye here that? brida's sint f'r her cat! sure an' she moost be gittin' 'long rale well! an' ye're from th' hospital! moira! where's yer manners? fetch th' little lady a chair! katie, git a mug o' wather an' wan o' thim big crackers. don't ye know how to trate comp'ny?" in a minute polly was seated, a china mug of water in one hand, and a crisp soda biscuit in the other, while the maccarthy family circled around her, eager for news from the beloved brida. there were only encouraging accounts to give of the little girl with the broken ankle; but they led to so many questions that polly began to wonder how she should ever escape from these friendly people, when popover herself solved the question. the pretty black kitten suddenly appeared at the visitor's side, and at the first caressing word from polly jumped into her lap. "d' ye see that?" cried the delighted mother, and in the momentary excitement polly arose and said that she must go. brida's sisters and small brother accompanied her for two blocks up the street, and then, with numerous good-byes, they left her to her long, wearisome walk. she had not gone far before she realized that the warm little animal was more of a burden than she had counted on, exhausted as she was already with her unusual exercise; but she kept up courageously, even making little spurts of speed as she would wonder if miss lucy were becoming anxious about her. after awhile, however, instead of hurrying, she was obliged to stop now and then on a corner, to catch the breeze coming up from the sea, for she felt strangely faint. when she finally trudged up hospital hill, the air grew cool all at once, and she quite forgot herself for thinking of brida and miss lucy. at the door of the ward she paused for a peep. the nurse was not in sight. a few of the children were gathered at the windows with books and pictures; several were on the floor playing quiet games. so softly did she step that nobody knew she was there until she was well in the room. the, spying both her and the kitten, there was a shout and a rush. "no, you can't have her yet!" cried polly, as small hands were outstretched to lift the now uneasy burden from her arms. "brida has first right, because it's her kitten." "oh, popover!" squealed the little owner delightedly, snuggling the furry creature to her cheek. "where's miss lucy?" demanded polly, waiving the children's eager questions. "oh, they sent to have her come somewhere!" answered ethel jones. "she went in an awful hurry, and said prob'ly she'd be back pretty soon; but she has n't come yet." "she let leonora be monitor," put in elsie meyer. "i guess she'd 'a' let me, if i'd been up." "i wish she would come," said polly anxiously, "for i want to surprise her with popover--it's miss lucy's birthday, you know." "somebody's coming now," and cornelius o'shaughnessy bent his head to listen. "'t ain't her step," he decided disappointedly, and the next moment the tall form of miss hortensia price was seen in the doorway. "quick! keep her out o' sight!" whispered polly, pushing popover's little black head down under the sheet. the stately young woman walked the length of the room without a word, and calmly sat down at the small table where miss lucy was accustomed to prepare her medicines and to make such notes as were needful. as miss price took up the little memorandum book and began to look it over, polly's heart almost stood still with consternation. she had come to stay! polly knew the signs. such sudden shifts were common enough in the hospital, but only twice, during polly's stay, had the occurred in the convalescent ward, and miss lucy had been in charge for so long now that she had ceased giving herself any worry over a possible change. for a moment the little girl stood hesitant; then the sight of brida, white and scared on her pillow, roused her to quick thought. if she could only smuggle popover down into dr dudley's office before she was discovered! instinct told her that "high price" would never tolerate a kitten in the ward. she took one step forward. "me-ew!" sounded faintly from brida's cot. the nurse raised her head, listened inquiringly, and then resumed her work of examining the patients' records. polly stole nearer the bed. "me-ew!" came again, louder than before. this time there was no mistaking its locality. miss price sprang from her chair, and strode straight to where brida lay trembling. popover's insistence for more air and a free outlook was causing the coverlet to rise and fall in a startling way. "how came that cat here?" demanded the nurse, pulling aside the bedclothing. "i brought her," answered polly. "she's brida's kitty, and we were going to give miss lucy a birthday surprise." a faint smile flickered on the young woman's face. the she made a grab at the now frightened kitten; but the little creature slipped from her hand, and jumping to the floor dared towards the hall. "oh, me dirlin' kitty!" wailed brida. "she'll be losted! oh, polly, ketch her!" polly, however, was already flying in pursuit of the terrified cat. "shut that door!" called the mistress of the ward, as the eager children rushed after. "and stay inside, all of you!" cornelius o'shaughnessy reluctantly obeyed the first order, and the rest trailed back in disappointment. so exciting a race was not an everyday occurrence. polly, too far away to heed either command, was alarmed lest popover might manage to escape from the building, in which case there would be small chance of catching her. on and on the little cat led her, giving no ear to the coaxing, "kitty, kitty, kitty!" which she was constantly calling. around and around the big halls, up this flight of stairs and down that, into room after room whose doors stood enticingly open, raced popover and poly, while nurses and physicians that chanced their way stared and laughed at the astonishing sight. just as the kitten reached the foot of the first-floor staircase, with her pursuer close behind, the front door opened, and popover darted towards the passage of escape. "oh, shut the door quick! catch her! catch her! don't let her get out!" this most unexpected command, in polly's voice, dr. dudley endeavored to obey. he did succeed in slamming the door in front of pussy, though at the risk of nipping her little black nose; but when he stooped to snatch her she slipped between his feet, and dashed into his office. polly flew after, and the door went together just as the doctor reached it. "rather an unusual reception this is," he twinkled, as polly let him in, a minute later. "frighten me out of my wits by screaming at me to catch a wild animal, and then, when i've done my best, shut the door of my office right in my face! what do you mean by such extraordinary conduct, miss polly may?" the physician shook a threatening finger and the flushed and laughing little girl. "you don't look very scared," she giggled; and then as he dropped into his lounging-chair she slipped into her favorite position, atilt on its arm, and leaned confidingly against him. "oh, i've had such a time with that kitten!" she sighed, smiling across at the little creature, now curled up contentedly on the doctor's fur rug. "i take it, by the way you are breathing, that you and the cat have been having a race." "all over everywhere," answered polly, "till i thought i'd never catch her. you see she was going to be a birthday surprise to miss lucy, and high price went and spoiled it all." the story of the afternoon was narrated in polly's most vivid style. "is n't it queer that high price should come just then?" she sighed. "i don't like her; do you?" "she is an excellent young woman and a good nurse," dr. dudley returned. "well, i don't want her for my nurse," polly maintained soberly. "still, if you were very sick," smiled the doctor, "i could not hope for better care than she would give you." "oh, if i were awfully sick, and out of my head, maybe high price would do; but if i knew anything i should want miss lucy." and polly's curls waved in emphasis. dr. dudley chuckled responsively. "i don't think you appreciate miss lucy," polly continued. the doctor's eyebrows went up. "don't i?" he returned meekly. "you don't act as if you did," polly sighed; "and i want you to, for she's so sweet and little and--cuddly, you know. you could n't call high price cuddly; could you?" "it is n't a term i should apply to her," agreed the doctor, with the hint of a smile. "miss lucy would have liked popover going to get along without miss lucy, 'specially at bedtime." "what does she do then?" "oh, we tell stories!--at least, i do, and sometimes she does, and generally we sing--real soft, you know, so it won't disturb anybody. then she says a little prayer, and we go to bed. dear me, how we shall miss her! why, the other night, when aimee's arm ached, miss lucy took her right in her lap, and rocked her to sleep! and when little isabel cries for her mamma, miss lucy's just as nice to her, and cuddles her p so sweet! this is the way high price will do: she'll say, 'is-a-bel'" (and polly's tone was in almost exact imitation of the nurse's measured accent), "'lie still and go to sleep! the ward must be kept quiet.'" dr. dudley laughed. then the said gravely:-"do you think that is really fair--to accuse miss price of what she may never do? besides, polly, it is n't quite respectful." "no, i suppose it is n't," the little girl admitted. "excuse me, please. but i wish you could know the difference between high price and low price." the doctor's eyes twinkled; but polly, all unseeing, went on:-"how soon do you think miss lucy'll come back? where is she now?" "she has been assigned to one of the women's wards. it is uncertain when she will be changed again." "well, i s'pose we'll have to stand it," sighed polly philosophically. "why, popover!" for the kitten had come up unnoticed, and now jumped to the doctor's knee. "is n't she cute? brida thinks lots of her--there!" she broke out compunctiously, "i forgot all about brida, and she does n't know what's become of her! i must run up and tell her. will it be very much trouble to keep her here till to-morrow? thin i'll carry her home." "suppose we taker her home in the auto, after tea?" "oh, lovely!" dr. dudley was looking at his watch. "is it 'most tea-time?" polly inquired. "they are probably all through up in the convalescent ward," he laughed. "you'd better come into the dining-room and have supper with me." "oh, thank you; that will be nice! i'll run up and tell brida, and then i'll come." chapter iv david dr. dudley had been the rounds of the convalescent ward, to see how his patients were progressing. now he had paused at the small table by the window, where polly was waiting to carry some medicine to linus hardy. as she took the glass form miss price's hand, and started away, she heard the physician say, "can i have polly for a few minutes?" "certainly, dr. dudley," was the reply; and polly returned wondering what was wanted of her. "there is a boy upstairs who is getting discouraged," the doctor began, as they went through the hall, and in hand, "and i think, perhaps, you can cheer him up a little." "is he a big boy or a little boy?" asked polly anxiously. "i should say, about six months bigger than you," the doctor laughed. "he is n't anybody you will be afraid of, thistledown; but he is a very nice boy. his mother is just recovering from a sever illness, so she has n't been able to come to see him yet, and he feels pretty lonely." "i wish he were down in our ward," returned polly,--"that is," she amended, "if miss lucy were only there." "i shall have him transferred as soon as he is well enough," the doctor assured her. and then they were at the entrance of the children's ward. away to the farther end of the room dr. dudley went, and polly followed. some of the patients looked curiously at her as she passed, for the news of her recent accession to the staff had spread through the hospital, and nearly everybody was eager for a sight of her. polly was thinking only of the boy whom she had come to see; and when, at last, the doctor stopped and turned towards her, she glanced shyly at the lad on the pillow. "david," began dr. dudley, "this is miss polly may, the chief story-tell of the convalescent ward. and, polly, allow me to present master david collins, who had a race a week or two ago, with a runaway horse, and who was foolish enough to let the horse beat." the doctor's eyes were twinkling, and polly let go a giggle; so the boy ventured to laugh. a week little laugh it was; but it helped to start the acquaintance pleasantly, which was just what dr. dudley wanted. "you can have exactly ten minutes to do all your talking in," was the physician's parting sally; "so you'd better hurry." polly's eyes and david's met in smiling appreciation. "he says such funny things." praised polly. polly did n't quite know how to begin to cheer the lad up. her tender heart was stirred to unusual sympathy, as she gazed into the pitifully drawn little face, with its big doll-blue eyes. she must surely say something to make david happier--and the minutes were going fast. after all, it was david that was first to speak again. "do you like stories?" he asked. "oh, i just love them!" "so do i. you must know a great many. the doctor said you told them to the children. i wish there was time for you to tell me one." "i'm afraid there is n't to-day," responded polly; "but maybe i can stay longer when i come again." "i hope so," returned david politely. "my mother read me a story the evening before i was hurt. it was about a king and queen that lived beautiful stories, and i was going to live such a brave, splendid one every day--and then the horse knocked me down! such a lot of miserable stories as i've lived since i came here, not much like the ones i'd planned! but to-day's will be better, because you'll be in it," he ended brightly. polly's eyes had been growing rounder and rounder with surprise and delight. "oh! was it a cherry-pudding story?" she asked eagerly. "why, have you read it?" and the little white face actually grew pink. "my aunt wrote it, and sent us a paper that had it in!" "why--ee!" cried polly. "is n't that funny! and we've been trying to live nice stories, too--all of us, up in the ward! miss lucy said we'd see which could live the best one. a lady told me the story. and your aunt really made it all up?" "yes; she writes lots of stories," smiled david. "then she sends them to mamma and me and wen they're printed." "how splendid!" beamed polly. "when you get well enough to come down in our ward, you can tell us some, can't you?" the boy's face saddened. "i guess i can't ever come," he said. "why not?" "because i was hurt so badly. i don't think i'm going to get well." "oh, yes, you will!" asserted polly. "of course dr. dudley will cure you! goodness! you ought to have seen how i was all smashed up! but dr. dudley cured me--he can cure anybody!" "he can?" echoed david, a little doubtfully. "how 'd you get hurt? were you run over?" "yes, by a building," polly laughed. "only it did n't run; it fell. i was 'way up on the third floor, and all of a sudden it went--just like that!" polly's little hands dropped flat in her lap. "i heard a great noise, and felt myself going, and i remember i clutched hold of uncle gregory. then i did n't know another thing till i woke up over in that corner. see that bed with the dark-haired little girl in it, the third from the end? that was my cot." "was your leg broken?" asked david, in a most interested tone. "yes, my leg was broken, and my hip was _discolated_ (polly sometimes twisted her long words a little), and my ankle was hurt, and two ribs, and, oh, lots of things! doctor says now that he really did n't think i'd ever walk again--i mean, without crutches." "and you're not lame a bit?" david returned incredulously. "not a mite, not the least mite!" polly assured him. "then perhaps i shall get well," the boy began brightly. "of course you will!" broke in dr. dudley's happy voice. he put his hand on the lad's wrist, and stood for a moment, noting his pulse. "it does n't seem to hurt you to have visitors," he smiled; "but they must n't stay too long. say good-bye, polly." "will you bring her again tomorrow?" invited david timidly. "and let her stay long enough to tell me a story?" "i should n't wonder," the doctor promised. and they left the boy smiling as he had not smiled since he had been in the hospital. after that, polly went every day to see david, until, one morning, dr. dudley told her that he was not quite well enough to have a visitor. she had come to look forward to her quiet talks with the blue-eyed lad as the happiest portion of the whole day, for miss hortensia price still stayed in the convalescent ward, and the doctor had been too busy to take her out in his automobile. elsie and brida and aimee and the rest were all good comrades, yet none of them possessed david's powers of quick comprehension. often polly had to explain things to them; david always kept up with her thought--there was the difference. and david, notwithstanding his present proneness to discouragement, was a most winsome boy. so the first day that she was not allowed to maker her customary visit seemed a long day indeed, and eagerly she awaited the next morning. but several days passed before she again saw david. then it was but for a very few minutes, and he was so wan and weak that she went away feeling sorrowful and anxious. yet dr. dudley told her that she had done his patient good. that was a slight comfort. the next day, and the next, the lad was again too ill for company, and a few sentences which polly overheard filled her with foreboding. she was putting fresh sheets on one of the cots--a task which she had learned to do well--when she caught david's name. "his heart is very weak," one of the stairs nurses was saying to miss price. "he can't stand many more such sinking spells. dr. dudley has given orders to be called at once, day or night, if he should have another." here the voice dropped, and polly could not catch the words; but she had heard enough. the sheet went on crookedly. polly did not know it, her eyes were so blurred with tears. she kept the sorry news to herself, and all day long the children wondered what made polly so sober. if she could have seen dr. dudley she would have asked him about david; but for several days she caught only passing glimpses of him, when he was too busy to be questioned. the little girl grew more and more anxious, but kept hoping that because she heard nothing david must be better. it was during the short absence of miss price, one afternoon, that elsie meyer complained of the disagreeable liniment on her hip. "it's just horrid! i can't stand it a minute longer!" she fretted. "say, polly, i wish you'd spray some of that nice-smellin' stuff around--what do you call it?" "the resodarizer, i guess you mean," responded polly, with more glibness than accuracy. "yes, that's it," elsie returned. "hurry up and use it, before high price gets back!" "perhaps i'd better wait and ask her," she hesitated. "no, don't! miss lucy always lets you take it," elsie urged. "yes, i know," doubtfully. then she went to the shelf in the dressing-room, where the atomizer box stood. "there is n't a drop in it," she said, holding the bottle to the light. "miss lucy must have forgotten to fill it after i used it last time." then, spying a small phial on the shelf, close to where the box had been, "oh i guess she left it for me to fill!" and, unscrewing the chunky little bottle from the spraying apparatus, she soon had it half full. elsie smiled in blissful anticipation of the refreshing perfume, but as the spray fell near her she greeted it with a torrent of cries. "ugh, ugh! o-o-h! take it away!" then polly, too, puckered her face in disgust. "why, i must have put--" "what are you doing with that atomizer?" interrupted miss price's voice. "how came kerosene oil in here? have you been spraying it around?" "i did n't know it was kerosene," answered polly meekly. "i s'posed it was the resodarizer--" "deoderizer, child!" "oh, yes, i get it twisted! it's that kind that smells so nice." miss price gave a little laugh. "well, this does n't smell nice." "i'm sorry," mourned polly. "i don't see how a kerosene bottle came up there--oh, i know! miss lucy was putting some on her watch, the other day, and she was called off--i remember! she must have left it there." "but the bottle is labeled," miss price replied, fetching it from the table where polly had set it down. "can't you read?" "if course i can!" she answered, a little indignant at the question. "i guess i was thinking of--something else," she ended. "david" had been on her tongue, but she kept the name back. "don't you know that you should always have your mind on what you do? it is a mercy that you did not get hold of anything worse." "i could n't," polly protested. "the poisons and all such things are up in the medicine closet, and that's always locked." "you have been allowed too much liberty," miss price went on. "hereafter remember that you are not to touch a bottle of any description. but, then," she added, half to herself, but which came plainly to polly's ear, "there is no need of such an order while i am in charge. i shall see that none are left within reach." the child's eyes flashed. this clear implication of the one she adored set loose her temper, and she burst out passionately:-"miss lucy always does everything just right, and i think it's mean of you to hint that she does n't!" miss \price looked steadily at polly, the color wavering on her cheeks; then she said, with more than her usual gentleness:-"polly, i am sorry, but i think i shall have to punish you. you may go and sit in that wooden chair over there, with your back to the window. do not stir or speak until i give you permission." polly walked straight to the seat designated, but there was no meekness in her obedience. she carried her head defiantly, and her face was hot with anger. to think that "high price" should dare to find fault with miss lucy! that rankled in her loyal little heart. chapter v with the assistance of lone star a strain of music floated up from the street, and the children that were able to be on their feet rushed for the windows. "it's a band wagon!" cried ethel. "two!" amended moses. "say, miss price, can't polly just come and look at 'em?" "no," was the quiet answer, while cornelius o'shaughnessy made faces at the young woman's back. but polly was not missing as much as the children feared. at first her mind was in too great a tumult for her to care for band wagons. then, as the music soothed her excited nerves and drew her thoughts into pleasanter paths, she pictured the great wagons, and ther performers in scarlet and gold, as she had seen them scores of times, and she seemed to watch their progress under the arch of elms as perfectly as if she were not in the idle of the room with her eyes shut. them music grew faint and fainter, and was finally lost in the noise of the street. the children returned to their various occupations, giving polly furtive tokens of sympathy on their way back. leonora squeezed her hand; cornelius patted her shoulder; moses gently pulled a curl--one of his friendly amusements; and brida, who was now about on crutches, stooped to kiss her cheek. "brida, do not talk to polly!" the sudden command startled the child almost into tripping. "i was n't talkin'!" she protested. "i was only kissin' her." "well, come away from her--clear away," for the little girl was not making very quick time. "i'm comin' s' fas' 's i can!" she pouted. "i can't _run_ on these old crutches--so there!" polly almost giggled aloud at brida's daring, but promptly subsided into a safe look of gravity. it was pleasant to feel sure of her friends. she was still thinking in this vein when a rap on the half-closed door was at once followed by the frightened face of one of the upstairs young nurses. "oh, polly!" she cried, at sight of her, "run quick, and catch dr. dudley for david! he's out there cranking up, and i can't--" but polly had shot past her, and was already on the stairs. the physician was starting his car, as she gained the front entrance. "doctor! doctor! oh, doctor!" she screamed, dashing down steps and walk at a reckless speed; but he did not look round and her voice was lost in the noise of the machine. her feet never slackened. straight on she flew, like a real thistledown, her fair curls streaming on the wind, her eyes big with a vague terror. as the doctor sped farther and farther away from her, she ceased calling realizing that she must reach him in some other way. the second house below the hospital was colonel gresham's. the colonel himself was stepping into his light buggy, to give lone star, his favorite trotter, a little exercise, when polly rushed up. "oh, please, sir!" she panted, "will you catch dr. dudley?-they want him at the hospital--and i could n't make him hear! he's right ahead--in his auto--the dark green one! david will die if he don't come!" for answer, polly was whirled into the carriage, and before she could recover her breath lone star was making as good time as he had ever made in his short but famous life. "whew! the colonel is going some!"--"who's that pretty little kid with him?"--"don't he leg it, though!" these and kindred observations were elicited all the way down the street, men stopping to see the well-known horse go by, and children scurrying across his track. but the doctor seemed bent on leading his pursuers a lengthy chase, for no sooner had they gained on him sufficiently to set polly's heart dancing with hope than he suddenly increased his speed, at once putting a greater distance between them. then, slowing for an instant, he vanished round a distant corner. "zounds!" muttered the colonel. "he turned right opposite that white birch!" cried polly. "sure?" "yes; i was keeping watch." so was the colonel; but he had not noticed the tree. polly's assurance held enough decision to satisfy the driver, and he took the turn she had indicated, where the glint of the weeping white birch on the opposite side of the street had caught her observant eye. but on the cross-road no dark green auto was in sight. as they came to the first street on the right, however, a solitary car met their eager eyes. polly looked her delight, as the swept round the corner and along the hard, clear stretch. the flicker of a smile was on the colonel's rugged face. "doc-tor! doctor dud-ley!" called polly. the physician turned his head. "oh, don't stop!" she entreated, for he was slowing up, as they came alongside. "please go right back--quick! david's worse!" one astonished glance, and he comprehended, and obeyed. colonel gresham gave him room for the turn. then, with a graceful gesture of farewell, and, "i thank you!" he whizzed past them and out of sight. "oh, i hope he'll get there in time!" sighed polly. "i think he will," the colonel nodded. "he looks it." "i don't want david to die; he's such a nice boy." lone star was taking the road easily, after his spurt of speed. the lines lay loosely on the colonel's knee. "is this david some relative of yours?" he asked. "oh, no, sir! i've only known him a few weeks, since he was knocked down by a runaway horse, and hurt so badly. he's david collins, and i'm polly may. dr. dudley took me up to see him, because he needed cheering up; but now he has bad turns with his heart, and i can't go. he's a lovely boy. it was so good of you to take me to catch the doctor--i don't know what i should have done if you had n't! and did n't your horse go fast! i never saw a horse go so fast before. i think he's beautiful; don't you?" "i like him." the colonel smiled down into polly's eyes quite as if they were old friends. "suppose i take you for a little longer drive--would your friends mind?" "oh, thank you!" polly began, "i'd love it!" then she stopped, with sudden recollection. "i guess i can't, though--i'd forgotten all about it!--i must go back, and finish being punished." colonel gresham laughed outright, so polly laughed too. "i made an awful mistake," she explained; "i sprayed some kerosene all around, instead of de-sodarizer." the colonel was grave for a polite moment. then, "and you did n't smell it?" he laughed. "not till elsie yelled at me to stop. i don't see shy i did n't." "but it seems hardly fair to punish one for a mistake." "well," confessed polly, "that was n't all. i got mad, and i guess i was pretty saucy to high price. she said something about miss lucy that i did n't like, and i told her what i thought--i just had to! so she sent me to sit in a chair till she said to get up. then when the nurse came for me to catch dr. dudley, i was so scared about david that i ran right off, without even asking permission--i don't know what she will do to me now! but you can't stop for anything when folks are 'most dying, can you?" "i should say not," the colonel replied. "i reckon she won't treat you very badly." "i don't care what she does, if david only gets well. but, oh, how can david's mother stand it, if he does n't! she's sick, you know, so she could n't come to see him--he's all she's got, and such a dear boy! he works to earn money for her when he's well, sells papers, and everything. i guess they're rather poor; but perhaps i ought n't to talk about that. please don't tell anybody i said it, 'cause i don't really know." "i shall not speak of it," promised colonel gresham gravely. "but how happens it that you're at the hospital? you're not sick, are you?" "not a bit now. i was hurt, but dr. dudley cured me. i'm on the staff--that's why i stay," polly explained soberly. "oh! you're that little girl, are you?" she nodded. "i heard something about it at the time. well, lone star and i will be glad to take you for a drive some other day, when you have n't any punishment on hand." he drew up the horse at the hospital entrance. "oh! is that his name?" exclaimed polly. "what a loveluscious one! would he mind if i stroked his nose?" she asked, as the colonel lifted her down. "he would like it very much." and they went round to the horse's head together. "now i must go in," polly sighed, giving the affectionate animal a last, loving pat. "i thank you ever and ever so much, colonel gresham, and i should be happy to go to ride with you again some day. i hope i have n't hindered you. good-bye." she skipped up the long walk to the house, the colonel watching her until she disappeared at a side door. polly could not resist peeping into the doctor's office before going upstairs. the room was empty, and she went slowly on, thinking of david. miss price was standing near the door of the convalescent ward. she turned as polly entered. "where have you been staying?" she asked. "dr dudley came long ago." "yes, i know; but i was with colonel gresham, and i could n't get here till he did." "colonel gresham! pray, how came you with him?" miss price was plainly astonished. "why, he took me to catch the doctor. and lone star got there! oh, did n't he go! is n't it a love--luscious name?" polly's eyes shone. "child!" sighed the nurse, "what have i told you about using that word?" "i forgot," polly answered meekly. "you should n't forget. i hope you did n't talk that way to colonel gresham." "he would n't care," replied polly comfortably. "he would think you had not had proper training. now, remember, there is no such word as loveluscious. in this case you should have said that it was a good name or a pleasing name--though it is rather too fanciful," she added. "i love it!" cried polly; "but it would n't sound as if i did, just to say it was good." then polly's thoughts suddenly went back to lone star's errand. "oh, miss price!" she asked, "how is david?" "i have not heard," was the quiet reply. "well, i'll go and finish up being punished now," polly said, with a tiny sigh, and she walked over to the chair which stood where she had left it. miss price did not appear to notice; but the children exchanged surprised glances. voluntarily to continue a punishment was something with which they were unacquainted. they tried to attract polly's attention, but her eyes were feverishly watching the half-open hall door. dr. dudley might stop when he came down --unless--! her heart grew sick with the possibility. at last she caught his step. yes, he was coming there! smilingly he pushed the door wide. polly smiled in response--at least, david had not died! "want to come downstairs?" he invited, crossing over to her. still smiling, she shook her head, putting her finger to her lips. with a puzzled look, the doctor turned to miss price. "what's happened?" he queried. "has polly suddenly become dumb? or is it a game?" "she is being punished," was the grave answer. "oh!" he replied. "well, when she has been punished enough, please send her down to me." he strode away, without one word of david, to polly's overwhelming disappointment. in half an hour miss price said, "polly, you may go now." she bounded off, with not even a backward glance, and the children felt lonelier than before. but polly's mind was too full of david for her to think of the rest. to her surprise the doctor was not in his office; but upon a book of bright color she spied a tiny note with her name on it. catching it up eagerly, she read:- dear thistledown,- sorry to be called away, when i have invited company; but wait and take tea with me. i shall be back soon. i've been looking over this book, and i think you will like it. sincerely, robert dudley. david is better. "oh, i'm so glad, glad, glad!" breathed polly, clasping the note in her small hands. then she read it once more, and afterwards established herself in the doctor's easiest chair, to begin the book he had suggested. if she like the story she would tell it to david. polly was so far away in thought that she did not notice dr. dudley's entrance, until he was inside the office. then she flew to him. he caught her in his arms, surveying her with a whimsical smile. "all punished, are you?" he asked. she laughed, responding with a gay affirmative. "it does n't seem to have weighed you down much," he observed, drawing her to a seat beside him. "it was only sitting still and not talking," she explained, "and i took two turns at it, so 't was n't bad. i told colonel gresham about the kerosene, and it made him laugh. is n't lone star beautiful?" "decidedly; but how came you with the colonel?" queried the doctor. "why, he was right out there, if front of his house, and i asked him to catch you--there was n't any other way. i could n't make you hear. oh, i do wish you could have seen lone star go!" "i'll venture he never did a more valuable service," said the doctor fervently. "perhaps i might add, or you either. if it had not been for your ready wits things might have gone worse. i tried some new medicine for david, and it worked well, exceedingly well." "is he a good deal better?" "very comfortable. he was sleeping when i left him. don't worry, thistledown!" for tears stood in polly's eyes. "i think he is going to pull through all right, and we'll have him down in the other ward before you know it." tea was served directly, and there were big, juicy blackberries, with which dr. dudley piled polly's dish high. when they returned to the office the story of the afternoon was finished, polly holding back nothing, even repeating her saucy speech to the nurse. the doctor received it with a queer little smile. "it was dreadfully impolite things when i get mad." "most people do," he responded. "one of the worst features of anger is that it robs us of self-control, and that is a terrible loss, if only for a moment." polly did not speak and after a bit of a pause the doctor went on. "miss price is going through a pretty hard place just now. word came yesterday that her only sister, who is a missionary in turkey, is very sick and not expected to live." "oh, i wish i had n't said that!" polly broke out penitently. "i might go up and tell her i'm sorry," she hesitated. "it would n't be a bad plan," dr. dudley replied. so polly said good-night rather soberly, although carrying away with her the gay-colored book and the happy belief that david was going to get well. her feet lagged, as they drew near the ward. what would miss price say? would she make it easy or hard for her to apologize? then the thought of the sick sister far away in turkey, and half forgot herself. the nurse was writing at her little table, when she looked up to see polly by her side. "i'm sorry i was so saucy this afternoon," came in a soft voice. "i did n't know about your sister then. i hope she'll get well." for a moment miss price did not speak, and polly fancied she saw tears in the black eyes. "thank you, my dear," she replied then. "perhaps i was too severe. but we will be friends now, won't we?" polly gave a serious assent, in doubt whether she should proffer a kiss or not; but finally went away without giving the token. she had a vague feeling that miss hortensia price would not care for kisses. chapter vi elsie's birthday for a week elsie meyers had been talking about her coming birthday, and half wishing that she could be discharged early enough to allow its celebration at home. "mamma always makes a cake for our birthdays," she told the children, plaintively. "last year mine was choc'late, and year before that, jelly. mamma said next time she'd have it orange, same's she did ida's. now i can't have no cake or nothin', 'count o' this old hip!" and she pouted discontentedly. "but your arm is 'most well," suggested polly. "that's one good thing!" "yes," admitted elsie. "and it's nice that you can be all around, instead of having to lie abed," polly went on, hunting for happy birthday accompaniments. "bet you 't is!" smiled elsie. "ying' a-bed ain't much fun, 'specially when you ache anywhere." "if miss lucy was here, maybe she'd have a cake for you," put in leonora. "but she ain't," responded cornelius unnecessarily. "she ain't," echoed otto kriloff, his face reflecting his thought. "when do you s'pose she'll come back?" queried maggie o'donnell. noby could answer. "maybe she never will," said elsie gloomily,--"anyway till we all get gone." "oh, elsie!" protested polly. "well," was the outing retort, "if high price stays here much longer--" "she!" hushed cornelius, "she's comin'!" for light steps sounded along the corridor. the children cast furtive, half-frightened glances towards the hall door; but it was not miss hortensia price that smilingly opened it. "miss lucy! miss lucy!" they shouted; and with a rush they were upon her, embracing, pulling, squeezing, until she dropped into a chair, laughing and breathless. "have yer come to stay?" queried maggie anxiously. "for the present," she nodded. a big, squealing, "o-o-h!" of joy rang through the ward, while polly silently clung to one hand, as if she would never let it go. "what's all this rumpus about?" came growlingly from the entrance; and the children turned to see dr. dudley surveying them, his eyes a-twinkle with fun. polly giggled. the rest looked a bit disconcerted. "accept my congratulations," he said, extending his hand to the nurse. polly reluctantly relinquished her hold of muss lucy, that the physician's greeting might be properly responded to, while the young lady blushed with pleasure. "i'm jealous," the doctor went on, looking around on the little group. "you never make such a fuss over me when i come." "do you want us to?" ventured cornelius. the doctor laughed. "well," he responded, "i'll excuse you from giving me such an ovation every day. how is that back of yours, cornelius?" and he proceeded on his accustomed rounds. one by one the children sidled back to miss lucy. "it's my birthday to-day," announced elsie, proceeding with her usual information regarding the home birthday cakes. the nurse received the news with all the interest that any little girl could desire, even going so far as to "wonder" if a tea party would n't make a pleasant ending for the afternoon. that set elsie into a flutter of blissful anticipations, so that when she overheard the doctor telling polly the auto got to wish she, to, could have a drive. "did you ever go to ride with dr. dudley?" queried polly, as miss lucy buttoned her into a fresh frock. "oh, no!" "did n't he ever invite you?" she persisted. "of course not! now, turn round, and let me see if you are all right." "well, he ought to! it is n't fair for me to have all the rides. he's lovely to go with!" miss lucy did not answer, but her cheeks were almost as pink as polly's dress, while she pulled out the neck ruffle and retied the ribbon that caught up the bright curls. polly was starting off without a word. "good-bye, dear! i hope you will have just as good a time as you always do." and miss lucy detained her long enough to leave a kiss on the red lips. a gay little laugh was the only reply. then polly ran out of the dressing-room and across the ward. the children heard her tripping down the stairs, and hurried over to the windows to see her go. but nobody appeared outside, and presently polly returned. "put on your hat quick, miss lucy!" she cried gleefully. "you're going, 'stead o' me! dr. dudley says he shall feel very much honored to have your company! may i get your hat?" "polly may!" the young woman exclaimed, in a flutter of astonishment, "what have you been telling him?" "oh, nothing much!" laughed polly. "he wants you--so go right along!" "yes, do!" the children chimed in. "do!" echoed elsie. "'cause it's my birthday!" of course miss lucy insisted that she could not, would not, go. she pleaded lack of time and unsuitable dress. she summoned to her aid every excuse at command. but in the end she did exactly as the children wished, and they had the delight of seeing her drive away with the doctor, while they chorused merry good-byes to the frantic waving of handkerchiefs. when the automobile was out of sight, polly thoughtfully began to paint the picture for those who had been shut off from a peep of it. "they looked just lovely together, miss lucy in her pretty gray suit, with the pink rose on her hat! she waved her hand, and dr. dudley waved his!" "wonder how long they'll be gone," put in elsie. "i don't know--oh, say, let's clean up the dressing-room, and dust everywhere, so miss lucy won't have it to do when she gets back!" and poly, assured of followers, skipped away for the dust-cloths. of course polly did most of the little tasks; that was to be expected, since she had no lame back or twisted leg or crutches in the way. but everybody that was on his feet had some share in the general service, and was therefore free to appropriate a part of the praise with which miss lucy showered them. yes, she had had a charming ride, she told them, and they felt it must be so, since they had never seen her in a gayer mood. "run up to my room if you can slip away," she whispered to polly. "i shall be there changing my gown." after miss lucy had gone, the attention of the rest was attracted by a horseback party on the street, and polly darted away as she had been bidden. "dear child!" said miss lucy, taking the little face in both her hands. "you have given me a great pleasure." "it was n't i," laughed polly. "it was dr. dudley. are n't you glad now that you went?" "yes," she smiled. "because if i had n't, elsie might not have had this birthday present. come, see what doctor and i bought for her." she opened a small package, disclosing a tiny box. in the box was a little gold signet ring with and old english "e" engraved upon it. "oh," admired polly, "is n't that lovelicious! i'm so glad for elsie!" "yes," miss lucy went on, "i think she will like it. we wanted to give her something that she would keep to remember the day by, and we could n't think of anything better. she has a poor little home, though her mother works hard and does all she can to make the children happy. but elsie can't have had many bright things in her life, so we're going to try to make her birthday as pleasant as possible." "i should think this would please anybody, it is so beautiful!" and polly laid it gently back in its little case. presently she was downstairs again, happy in the knowledge of sharing a secret with miss lucy and dr. dudley. after dinner she read to the children from her new book of fairy tales, and the miss lucy taught them some new games that they could all play--even those who were still in bed. they were just finishing one of these, when the strains of an old song suddenly sounded near by. "oh, a hand-organ!" somebody shouted, and they flocked to the windows. "and he's got a monkey!" squealed brida. "oh, that's 'count o' my birthday!" cried the happy elsie. "i do wish he'd come up here!" her words floated down to the organ grinder, and at once he allowed the monkey more length of cord. the little animal began to climb the wisteria vine, and presently was doffing his tiny red cap to the children, who shrieked with delight. "here's a penny for him, elsie," said dr. dudley, who had come up behind them unnoticed. the little birthday girl joyfully took the bright coin, and dropped it into the monkey's outstretched paw, receiving from him a characteristic "thank you," which caused more glee. again and again the little gay-coated messenger made trips up and down the wisteria, transferring the pennies from the children's hands to his master's pocket, until the yellow coins finally gave out, and the doctor was obliged to say, "no more!" even then the man smilingly played on, and when at last he and the monkey bade their patrons good-bye, elsie thought that no little girl ever had so "splendid" a birthday as she was having. the party tea was served precisely at half-past five o'clock, and such a tea! little biscuits scarcely bigger than silver dollars, small tarts filled with fig marmalade, great berries that the children agreed were super-bondonjical, tiny nut cookies, a frosted cake decorated with nine pink candles, chocolate in pretty cups, and--to top off the feast--ice cream in the shape of chickens! miss lucy and polly and dr. dudley served those little people who could not be at the table, and nobody--not even the birthday girl herself--enjoyed it all better than did polly may. polly was eagerly anticipating the time when elsie should be presented with the signet ring, and followed miss lucy's movements with watchful eyes. at last the nurse left the ward, and disappeared in the direction of her own room. the moment must be close at hand! dr. dudley told funny stories, and polly laughed with the rest; but her eyes were on the doorway, and her heart in a flutter of excitement. the moments piled up, and miss lucy did not come back. polly grew anxious. even dr. dudley looked at his watch, and glanced towards the door. when, after a good quarter of an hour, the nurse returned, polly knew that something was wrong. dr. dudley knew it, too; and soon he and miss lucy were talking together in low tones beyond the reach of polly's ears. had something befallen the ring? what could be the matter? the children gleefully discussing the doctor's last story; but polly's thoughts were at the other end of the room. when miss lucy and dr. dudley came back to them, however, both faces were so bright, polly decided that she must have been mistaken, and looked for the ring to appear. but it was not so much as mentioned. the doctor bade elsie and the others good-bye, and miss lucy accompanied him into the hall. after a while the suspense became unbearable, and polly started for miss lucy's room. it was around the corner, on another corridor, and as polly reached the turn she heard voices. involuntarily she halted. "it's the strangest thing," miss lucy was saying. "i remember laying it on the dresser after showing it to you, and then i was called away, and i can't recollect putting it in the box. i know i locked the door when i went out--i don't understand it!" "and you say nobody but polly has been in the room since?" the voice belonged to miss curtis, one of miss lucy's closest friends. "unless it was entered with a skeleton key." "well, there's only one solution to the musterd, it seems to me," miss curtis replied. "i won't, i won't believe it!" miss lucy burst out. "polly is honesty itself. she would n't do such a thing any more than-you or i would. if it were some children--but polly!" "you might question her anyway; ask her if she noticed the ring when she came in after those napkins." "i--can't! she'd see through it at once. polly is bright. it would break her heart to know we had such a thought. i believe it got knocked off the dresser some way and will be found sooner or later; but i wanted to give it to elsie to-day. i'm all upset about it!" "well, i can't help thinking--" polly, weak and wretched, shrank away, and went softly back through the long corridor. at the door of the ward she met dr. dudley. "i was looking for you," he said. "don't you want to take that ride you missed this morning? i have a call to go down to linwood, and it is just cool enough now to be pleasant. better put on your coat; your dress is thin." "could n't you--take elsie?" faltered polly faintly. "elsie? well, thistledown, i feel hurt! twice in one day! have you sworn off from auto riding?" usually this would have brought out a happy laugh, but now polly merely answered, "no," very soberly. "i should n't dare to risk a ride for elsie until her hip is better," the doctor resumed. "i'll try to taker her some day, when she is a little further along. now, run and get you hat. i'll wait for you." polly never quite forgot that ride. the fresh, twilight air, fragrant with dewy blossoms; the exhilarating motion; the doctor's merry speeches;--these would have been sufficient at any other time to fill her with joy. now she was but half conscious of them all; the dreadful ache in her heart over-powered everything else. she wondered if dr. dudley felt as miss lucy did. or did he, with miss curtis, suspect her to be--a thief! she longed to cry out, "oh, i did n't! i did n't! i did n'!" but, instead, she silently stared out on the dusky road, and wished herself at home, in her own little bed where she could let the tears come, and not have to push them back. she was glad, in a vague kind of way, when the auto slowed up at the hospital entrance, and the doctor lifted her out. they walked up the flagging, hand in hand, the physician as silent as she. she would have gone directly upstairs, but he drew her into his office. "now, what is it, thistledown?" he asked gently, taking her in his arms. she hid her face on his shoulder, and began to sob. he let the tears have their way for a time, resting his cheek lightly on her curls. finally he spoke again. "is it about the ring, dear?" she nodded. "what have they been saying to you?" he questioned savagely. "n-nothing to me," she replied. "i--heard--miss curtis-and miss lucy--talking. miss curtis--she thinks i--oh, dear!--she thinks i--took it! you don't think--i--took--" "_no!_" thundered the doctor in so tremendous a voice that it polly had n't been in such depths of misery she would have laughed outright. as it was, she caught his hand to her lips, and kissed it, saying, "you scared me!" "well, i'm sorry," he smiled; "but you must n't ask me such questions about my thistledown, if you don't want to hear me roar." a wee giggle delighted his ears. "now that's something like it!" he said. "don't let's bother any more about that ring. probably we'll find it to-morrow. if we don't, i'll buy elsie another." a faint, uncertain rapping made the physician set polly gently on her feet, while he opened the door. nobody was in sight, and he kept on to the main entrance. a man stood outside, who deferentially removed his hat. "you b'long-a?" he asked. "yes, i belong here. i am dr. dudley. whom do you wish to see?" "i play out-a here--af'-a-noon-a," with a sweep of his hand towards the left. "monkee--him ba-ad-a monkee! him take-a-yours?" and he held out the missing ring. "oh, yes, that is ours!" the doctor exclaimed. "we have been trying to find it.--polly! polly! come here!" polly obeyed, though slowly, because of her tears; but when she recognized the organ grinder curiosity hastened her steps. dr. dudley put the ring in her hand. "why--ee!" she cried joyously. "elsie's ring! oh, i'm so glad!" "him ba'ad-a monkee!" grinned the man. "him go up-a, up-a-window op'n--him go in-a. i see nobodee--i pull-a so! him no come. i pull-a _so!_" and the man tugged hard on the imaginary cord. "him come. him got-a ring-a in leetle han'--i no see! i take-a pennees--so," and he went over a handful of invisible coins,--"i see!" pointing to the ring. "where get-a?" he stared wildly around, to show how great had been his amazement. "ah-h!--him ba-ad-a monkee!--him get-a up-a beeg house-beeg seeck-house--yours!" he ended with a delighted grin, which signified his pleasure in having his surmises come true. "we thank you very much indeed," responded dr. dudley earnestly, putting his hand in his pocket. "accept this for your trouble." and he held out a quarter. "ah-h, no! him ba-ad-a monkee!" he waved his hands gracefully. he went away, however, carrying the coin, and grinning his "good-bye." "was n't he funny?" laughed polly, when the door was shut. "he called this a sick-house!" "why not a sick-house as well as a sick-bed?" the doctor smiled. but polly only laughed, gazing down happily on the little ring. "i'm so glad," she breathed. "now miss curtis will know!" "miss lucy and i knew before," was the instant reply. "better run upstairs and let elsie have it while it is still her birthday." "will you come, too?" "no; i'll let you and miss lucy do the honors. there are some people i must see, and it is getting along towards sleep time. good-night, thistledown!" he stooped for a kiss, and she clung to him for a moment. "it is so nice that you did n't think i did!" she whispered. she tripled lightly upstairs, and across the ward to miss lucy's side. she slipped the ring into her hand. the nurse stared her amazement. "the monkey went in at your window, and took it!" beamed polly. "the man's just brought it back! he never knew it till he counted his money! oh, he told it so funny!" "well!" ejaculated the nurse. then the echoed polly's own words, "i'm so glad!" the children were pressing near, eager to know what was exciting miss lucy and polly. "let's see if it fits your finger, elsie!" taking the hand of the astonished child. "perfectly! it is a birthday present from dr. dudley and me. we were going to give it to you directly after tea; but when i looked for it, it was gone. polly will tell you the rest." and polly did, imitating the organ grinder's words and gestures, till her listeners were shaking with laughter. elsie was too overpowered with joy to want to go to bed at all. "when the lights are out i can't see my ring!" she cried in sudden dismay. "but you can feel it," returned polly. "oh! may i keep it on my finger all night long?" she asked incredulously. "certainly, dear," the nurse replied. that was enough. without another word she allowed herself to be undressed. the ward had been dark and quiet for at least two minutes when a voice piped out, "miss lucy! oh, miss lucy!" "what is it, elsie?" came the quick answer. "i just happened to think--you and dr. dudley and polly and the organ man and the monkey and everybody have been living such a splendid story for my birthday! i did n't thank you half enough!" "you have done just right, dear. all the thanks we wanted were in your happy face. now pleasant dreams!" with a glad good-night, elsie settled back contentedly on her pillow, the ring finger pressed against her cheek. and, at last, the hush of sleep brooded over the convalescent ward. chapter vii the little sad lady david grew strong steadily, but not so fast that polly was allowed to see him as soon as they both wished. when, at last, she went up for a brief ten minutes, she was brimful of pleasure. "i want to know about the day you ran after dr. dudley for me," began david, almost at once; "the time i was so sick. the doctor said you had a race, and enjoyed it. i don't see how you could enjoy running your legs off for me; but it was awfully good of you." "why," cried polly, "it was n't i that ran--at least, not much; it was lone star." "lone star?" gasped david. "polly! do tell me quick!" "i am telling you," she laughed. "lone star, colonel gresham's beautiful horse, did the running--the trotting, i mean--why, david! what's the matter?" the boy's eyes had grown big with excitement, and his cheeks were bright. "go on!" he breathed. "that's about all. i saw i was n't going to make the doctor hear, and colonel gresham was right out there, and i told him how --sick you were, and asked him to catch the doctor. i never thought of his taking me; but before i knew it i was in the buggy, and we were flying down the street like mad! oh, i do wish you could have seen lone star go!" "did he know it was i?" whispered david excitedly. "lone star--know?" and polly's forehead puckered. "oh," she brightened, "you mean the colonel! why, yes, of course, he did! that is, i told him--no, i did n't tell him much, though, till we were coming home. but what difference does it make?" "lots!" murmured david disappointedly. "i hoped he knew--oh, i hoped he knew! polly!"--and the doll-blue eyes grew mournful --"he's my uncle david!" "colonel gresham--your uncle?" now polly's eyes widened, too. "my mother's uncle." "oh, is n't that splendid!" beamed polly. "i should think he'd have told me!" david lay quite still for a moment. when he spoke again it was on an entirely different matter, and soon the ten minutes were up. "did you know that david is related to colonel gresham?" polly asked, as she went downstairs with dr. dudley. "no; how?" polly told, adding what she had learned of the family history. the doctor shook his head sadly. "i would n't say anything about it to the children," he cautioned her. "such things are better left untalked of. david is an unusual boy." "when can he come down in our ward?" she questioned. "very soon, if he keeps on improving as fast as he has lately." as they halted at the foot of the stairs, the doctor looked at his watch. "tired?" he queried. "not a bit," she laughed. "then we'll keep on," he smiled, taking her hand again. "there is a lady i'd like you to see, one of my private patients." "a young lady?" "she has white hair." "oh, an old lady!" "she is older than you and i." "we are not old at all." "and we never will grow old, will we?" twinkled the doctor. "we shall have to, if we live long enough." "no, we won't; we'll always keep young." polly was laughing, as they entered a corridor in an "l" of the main building, a part of the hospital with which she was not familiar; but she grew grave instantly, for the doctor paused at a door, and she realized that here was the lady they had come to see. the introduction over, polly found herself facing a worn little woman, with weary gray eyes, who looked more small and frail in contrast with the great oaken chair in which she was pillowed. mrs. jocelyn, the doctor had called her, and polly like the sound of the name; but she was not yet sure that she should like the owner of it. the lady did not smile when she said, almost as if having a visitor bored her:-"so you are staying here at the hospital, dr. dudley tells me. what do you find to do with yourself all day long?" polly had the feeling that the little sad lady would never know whether she returned an answer or not, for her eyes seemed to be looking at something for away. yet the reply was without hesitation, and primly courteous. "i help miss lucy make the beds and dress the babies, and i dust and i carry medicine and drinks of water. then, when there is n't anything to do to help, i read stories out loud, or tell them, and we play quiet games." she paused, hunting for facts. "oh and i go auto riding with dr. dudley!" she broke out brightly. "that's very nice. a and i've been to ride with colonel gresham!" she smiled. "i like that, lone star was so splendid. only david was awfully sick, and i was afraid he'd die, and i kept thinking of him. he said he would take me again some day." "my dear, i don't quite understand. david gresham sick? what david do you mean?" the little lady was waking up. "oh, david collins! he's upstairs in the ward. colonel gresham took me to catch the doctor." and polly related the story of the chase. "collins! why, it was jack collins that eva gresham married-the colonel's niece." "yes; david has told me that colonel gresham is his mother's uncle," polly said simply. "well, well! so he went after the doctor for his grand-nephew-and did n't know it till it was all over with! what strange things happen in this world! a pretty good joke on david gresham!" and the little sad lady actually smiled. then she sighed. "it is too bad! if they'd only make up! but they never will. david is n't built on the make-up plan--or eva either, i fancy. eva gresham was a beautiful girl," she rambled on, talking more to herself than to her interested listener. "she lived with her uncle from the time her parents died, when she was a tiny child. the colonel idolized her." a bit of a break in the soft voice make a momentary pause in the musing. then it went on again. "he had nothing in the world against jack collins, except that he was an artist, and poor. he would n't have been poor, they say, if he had lived. his pictures were beginning to sell at good prices." suddenly she came back to polly. "so the colonel is going to take you driving again! well, my dear, you need n't be afraid he'll forget it; if he said he would, he will. i declare, you look a good deal as eva used to when she was your age. she had just such golden hair and brown eyes." "david has blue eyes--the bluest i ever saw," observed polly. "he probably favors his father," replied mrs. jocelyn. the doctor's entrance put a stop to the talk, and presently polly said good-bye, and went upstairs. not many days afterwards she was sent with a message to mrs. jocelyn's nurse, and the little lady caught sight of her at the door. "can't you come in and stay a while?" she called. "i don't know," polly hesitated, and she looked questioningly at the nurse. "yes, i wish you would," the young woman nodded. "i shall have to be away for a quarter of an hour or so, and if you will stay with mrs. jocelyn while i'm gone it will be an accommodation to me." polly seated herself smilingly. "i wonder if you are as happy as you look," the little white-haired lady began. "oh, i'm always happy!" responded polly; "that is, here," she added. "i could n't help being, it's so pleasant, and everybody is so good to me." the dull gray eyes rested sadly on her. "well, be happy while you can be," their owner said. "when you get to be old you'll forget what happiness feels like." "oh, but i shan't ever grow old!" laughed polly. "dr. dudley and i are going to stay young!" the little lady shook her head, and then changed the subject. "how is david collins getting on?" "he is ever so much better," answered polly; "and is n't it too bad? he's almost strong enough to come down into our ward, and there is n't any room for him! i've had to go and sleep in miss lucy's bed, so they could use my cot." "is the hospital so full as that?" scowled mrs. jocelyn. "dear me, how many sick people there are!" "there are three or four waiting now to come down, ahead of david," poly went on. "i don't know what we shall do if he can't come at all! we've planned so many things. he said he'd tell part of the bedtime stories--oh, it was going to be lovely!" "perhaps there'll be a place for him pretty soon," the little lady responded. "dr. dudley says that you are a story-teller, too." "oh, yes! some days the children keep me telling them all day long." "suppose you tell me one," invited the little lady. "well," returned polly, a bit doubtfully, and then stopped to think over her list. "the cherry-pudding story," which usually insisted on being uppermost, would scarcely do this time, she thought. it seemed to rollicking for this big, hushed room, with only one sober-eyed listener. she hastily decided that none of the cat stories were suitable, or fairy tales--"oh!" she suddenly dimpled, "i wonder if you would n't like the story that david lent me. his aunt wrote it, and sent it to him. i read it to miss lucy and the children. it is about little prince benito and a wonderful flower." "i shall be pleased to hear it," was the polite reply. this seemed somewhat doubtful to polly, used as she was to enthusiastic responses. "won't it tire you?" she hesitated. "i am always tired, little one. perhaps the story will rest me." "this i'll run right upstairs and get it," beamed polly. "i guess i can read it better than i can tell it. you don't mind staying alone while i'm gone?" "no, indeed!" was the reply, yet she sighed after polly had disappeared. all the brightness of the room seemed to have vanished. the little sad woman soon found herself watching for the light returning footfalls, and she greeted the child with a faint smile. polly read as she talked, naturally and with ease, and before she had finished the first page of the story her listener had settled herself comfortably among her pillows, a look of interest on her usually spiritless face. it was a fanciful tale of a beautiful little prince who, by sowing seeds of the wonderful white flower of love, transformed his father's kingdom, a country desolate from war and threatened by famine and insurrection, into a land of prosperity and peace and joy. at the last word, polly, flushed with the spirit of the story, looked up expectantly; but her listener's weary eyes seemed to be studying the pattern of the dainty comfort across her lap. sadly polly gathered together the scattered manuscript sheets, and waited. "thank you, dear," the little lady finally said; but the words were spoken as with an effort. "i am afraid i have tired you," mourned polly. "no, little one; you have only given me something to think of. you read unusually well. perhaps we'll have another story some day. you don't need to stay, of you have anything else to do. i shall want nothing until miss parkin comes." polly felt that she was dismissed, yet she had promised the nurse to remain. she hesitated a moment, and then said, "good-bye," and went out. she met miss parkin in the hall, and explained. up in the ward, miss lucy was quick to see that polly was troubled. "how did the story go?" she asked. "i don't know," polly sighed. "i guess she did n't like it, 'cause she seemed to be thinking about something else, and she said i need n't stay any longer. i thought it would make her happier," she lamented, "and all it did was to tire her!" polly's eyes were brimming over with tears. "never mind, dear," said miss lucy comfortingly. "you did your part, and as well as you could; that's all any of us can do. so don't worry about it. there's brida looking this way, as if she were just longing to talk with you." "she shan't wait another minute," smiled, and off she skipped, to make brida and her followers merry. chapter viii a warning from aunt jane towards noon came a telephone call for polly to go down to dr. dudley's office. usually she sped gladly to obey such a summons; now she was assailed by a sudden fear. "have i made her very much worse?" was her instant inquiry, as the doctor opened his door? "made whom worse?" he questioned. "why, mrs. jocelyn!" "i have heard nothing from her. what is it?" polly told of her visit and of the reading. "is that all!" the doctor laughed. "don't worry about it any more, little girl! your stories are not the kind that harm people. what did you read? one that i know?" "i don't think so," polly replied. "i did n't tell you about prince benito, did i?" the physician shook his head. "suppose you tell it to me now," he suggested. so, perched comfortably upon the arm of his chair, polly related the story of "the wonderful white flower." "i see," he mused, as polly stopped speaking. he was silent a moment. then he went on. "mrs. jocelyn lost her only child, a beautiful little boy, when he was eight years old. it is not unlikely that this story awakened tender memories." "i'm sorry i made her feel bad," grieved polly. "i would n't be if i were you." a "why!" of wonder was rounding polly's lips, as the physician continued:-"perhaps you have done mrs. jocelyn more good than you will ever know. since her husband and little boy died she has shut people out of her life, seldom leaving her home, and rarely entertaining a guest. from what she has said to me i judge that she has allowed herself to brood over her sorrows till she has become bitter and melancholy. let's hope that your little story will open her eyes." "does she live all alone when she is home?" queried polly. "alone with her servants." "oh, then she is n't poor! i thought she must be." dr. dudley smilingly shook his head. "she has more money than probably you or i will ever handle, little girl; but we'll have better riches than gold, won't we?" "yes; you'll make people well, and i'll try to make them happy," returned polly, a sweet seriousness on her usually merry face. "i wish i could make everybody in the world happy," she added. "that is too big a job for one little thistledown," laughed dr. dudley. "there!" he exclaimed, "i nearly forgot what i called you down for! colonel gresham hailed me out here, and asked if you could go to forest park, this afternoon, with him and lone star. i said yes. was that all right? "of course!" beamed polly. "is n't it lovely of him to ask me? had i better tell him that david is better?" "not unless he inquires," the doctor answered. "he said he would be here at three o'clock. you can come down a little before that, and keep a lookout for him, so as not to make him wait." polly was on hand, in the doctor's office, while it still lacked fifteen minutes of the hour; but the colonel was early, and the waiting time was short. very sweet she looked, as she ran down the stone walk to the street, in her dainty new white dress with simple ruffles edging neck and sleeves. in the delight of the moment polly did not forget the children up an the ward windows, but waved them a gay good-bye, while colonel gresham greeted the bobbing heads with a graceful swing of his straw hat. there was not much talk at first, for the way to the park lay through the heart of the city; but polly was content silently to watch the changing throngs around them. suddenly the colonel drew up his horse in response to call from the sidewalk, and presently was in a business talk with the man who arrested him. "i shall have to leave you for a moment," he said, at length, turning to polly. "i'll be back shortly." and, having fastened lone star, he disappeared up a stairway. polly was enjoying this little break, when she caught sight of a well-known face. "it's aunt jane!" she murmured, and was promptly seized with a desire to hide. breathlessly she watched the woman in the black dress, hoping for escape from those ferret eyes; but the horse and carriage were conspicuous, and aunt jane's glance fell first on lone star and then passed to the little girl upon the seat. "polly may!" she exclaimed, and polly smiled a somewhat uncertain greeting. "how in the world did you come here?" twanged the remembered voice. "colonel gresham is taking me to ride," was the explanation, "and he's gone upstairs a minute." "colonel gresham! goodness gracious me! well, you are coming up in the world! why hain't you been round to see me?" "i'm--pretty busy," answered polly, "i--" "busy! huh, you must be! well, so'm i busy, or i should 'a' been up after you before this. guess you've stayed at that hospital 'bout long enough. you might 's well be helpin' me as gallivantin' round with tom, dick, and harry." "i--thought i was going to stay all summer," faltered polly. "i did n't make no special agreement, and now there's cannin' and picklin' and what-not to do, i could keep you out o' mischief easy. where'd you get that dress?" "miss lucy bought it for me." "she did, hey? well, 't ain't hurt with trimmin', is it?" the colonel appearing at the moment, aunt jane made a rather hurried departure, while she assured polly that she would "be round before long." "who is that woman?" inquired colonel gresham. "my aunt jane," was the soft answer. "what's her other name?" "mrs. simpson. uncle gregory--that was her husband--was killed when the building fell, and i was hurt." "oh, yes! i recollect. well, is aunt jane good to you? do you love her very much?" polly waived the first question, and proceeded to the second. "i'm afraid i don't love her at all," she replied honestly. "of course, i ought to; but i don't." "it is mighty hard to love some folks," meditated the colonel. "i think i should rather do a season's ploughing than to attempt to love that aunt jane." polly smiled, and then returned to the question she had left behind. "i guess she's pretty good to me," she said. "she never whipped me." "whipped you!" the colonel exclaimed. "i should hope not!" "aunts do whip sometimes," polly nodded soberly. "bessie jackson's aunt whipped her--awful! i'd run away!" "yes," the colonel agreed, "that would be the best thing in such a case--though perhaps this bessie deserved the whipping." "no, she did n't!" polly assured him. "well, now, i'll tell you," he went on confidentially, "if anybody ever lays a finger on you, just you come to my house, and i'll see that you are treated all right. remember that now!" polly chuckled a "thank you," and colonel gresham began talking about the park, the entrance of which they were nearing. polly tried to put aunt jane from her mind; but the threatened possibilities kept thrusting themselves into the colonel's merry speeches, until she scarcely comprehended what he was saying. little by little, however, the beauties of her surroundings overpowered all else, and aunt jane was for the time almost forgotten. the wise men who had planned forest park had known better than to try to improve on nature's handiwork, and rocks and ravines, brooks and pools, wooded slopes and ferny tangles, were left practically unchanged. polly loved birds and flowers and all the scents and sounds of summer fields and woods, and now, as the air came laden with faint perfume, and a carol burst into the stillness, she clasped her little hands together with a soft breath of delight. colonel gresham watcher her in furtive silence. finally she turned towards him. "i should think it would make sick people well to come out, here should n't you?" "some of them," he nodded. "i'm going to tell mrs. jocelyn all about it. perhaps it would make her happier if she's come." "what mrs. jocelyn is that?" asked the colonel. "i don't know her other name. the one that's at the hospital-she's small, and has white hair. her husband and little boy died." "oh, yes! juliet jocelyn, probably; but i did n't know that she was sick." "she's had an operation, i think; but she's getting well now. i've been to see her twice. yesterday i read her a story." "i hope she appreciated it," observed the colonel dryly. "i'm not sure," polly replied; "she did n't say. do you know mrs. jocelyn?" "i knew her a long time ago," was the grave answer, as he turned his horse into the road that wound up the eastern side of the mountain. "oh, you're going to take the cliff drive!" cried polly delightedly. "dr. dudley could n't go, because they won't let autos up there." "no, for one might meet a skittish horse. i like to come up here once in a while for the view." "i'm not going to look till we get clear up," polly declared. and resolutely she kept her eyes the other way. "now!" announced colonel gresham. polly turned her head--and held her breath. then she let it out in one long sigh of rapture. before them lay the city, glittering in the afternoon sunshine, while beyond, to the north and east and south, green hills formed a living frame for the picture. "it is worth coming for," said the colonel, at last. "there is your home--see?" "oh, yes! it looks like a castle in a forest." and then--when joy was uppermost--aunt jane's threat crowded in. polly's eyes wandered from the "castle" in the direction of the home she dreaded. colonel gresham noted the sudden shadow on the bright face, and took up the reins. on the way back they stopped at a confectioner's, and the colonel brought out a package and laid it on polly's lap. "there is something to remember the drive by," he said. "oh, thank you!" she beamed. "but i don't need anything more to make me remember it," she added. "it has been beautiful--right straight through!--except aunt jane!" she put in honestly, under her breath, and again her face was shadowed. "it is the best way," observed the colonel, "to let disagreeable things slip off our shoulders at once. if we should carry them all, we should have a sorry load." "i guess i'll do that way," smiled polly; "but aunt jane don't slip easy!" "shake her off," laughed the colonel, "and she'll go!" it was a happy moment up in the ward when polly opened her box of candy. such chocolates, such candied cherries and strawberries, with tiny tongs to lift them with, the children had never seen. they chose one apiece all round, which miss lucy said was enough for that day, and polly carried the box down to the doctor's office, that he might taste her sweets. it never occurred to her that she was entitled to more than the others. dr. dudley heard all about the drive, but nothing of aunt jane. polly had decided to take the colonel's advice--if she could, and she recollected with relief that aunt jane was always more ready to threaten than to perform. a few days afterwards dr. dudley early for polly. "anyway it is n't aunt jane at this time," she assured herself, as she ran downstairs. "mrs. jocelyn wants to see you right away," the doctor told her. "she does?" wondered polly. "do you know for what?" "i don't _know_ anything," he smiled; "but i _guess_ a good deal." "oh! what do you guess it is?" she entreated. he shook his head laughingly. "i should hate to have you discover that i was n't a good guesser," he said. "run along, and find out for sure!" polly was astonished to see how greatly the little lady had changed. her cheeks reflected the delicate pink of the robe she was wearing, and her eyes were glad. her voice was full of eagerness. "here comes the little sunbeam!" she smiled. "did i interrupt any tasks or play?" she drew polly within the circle of her arm. "i could n't wait another moment to thank you for reading me that story of the little price. it brought back my own little lloyd, who was always planting those seeds of love wherever he went. but since he left me i have been like that forgetful queen mother, too wrapped up in myself to think of others. now i am going to begin to grow those 'wonderful white flowers.'" her eyes shone through tears. polly did not know what to say; she only looked her sympathy and appreciation. "tell me about david," the little lady went on. "is he well enough to come downstairs?" "yes, he's all ready," was the reply; "but he's go to wait for somebody to go. elsie was to leave to-day to to-morrow; but she needs a little more treatment, dr. dudley says. so i don't know when david can come." "i know!" responded mrs. jocelyn confidently. "he is coming down to the convalescent ward--let me see, i think it may be this afternoon, but to-morrow morning sure!" "wh-y! how can he?" gasped polly. "there are three ahead of him, and there are n't any more beds!" "there will be before long," chuckled the little lady gaily. "i have been having a bit of a talk with dr. dudley, and he tells me that there is plenty of room in your ward for six or more cots-and polly may is going to buy them! that is, she can if she chooses." polly's face was one big interrogation point. "why! i don't--" she began, but was interrupted by a kiss right on her lips. "oh, you dear, precious little innocent!" cried mrs. jocelyn. "read that, and see if it will tell you anything!" she took a strip of paper from the table, and put it into polly's hand. across the top, in large letters, was the name of a back. the rest was partly printed and partly written. polly read wonderingly:- pay to the order of polly may three hundred dollars. juliet p. jocelyn. "o-o-h!" and polly's face was beautiful in its joy; "does this mean that you're going to give me three hundred dollars to buy some new cots with?" "it means that the money is your own to use exactly as you please." the little lady was scarcely less excited than the child. giving was to her almost an untried pleasure. "oh, i can't, i can't, i can't thank you enough! it is so lovelicious!" then polly threw her arms around the happy donor in a way that would have made her cry out with actual pain if she had not been too delighted to realize it. "i think that will cover the cost of six or seven cots, equipped for use," said mrs. jocelyn,--"that is, if you wish to spend the money for them." the gray eyes actually twinkled. "why, of course i do!" cried polly. "what else could i do with it?" "_you_ could n't, you blessed child! so we'll have david downstairs just as soon as his bed is ready, won't we?" "yes, and how glad he'll be! oh, how glad he'll be! and brida and elsie--they've been dreadfully afraid they'd have to go home before he came down; they want to see him so! won't they be pleased!" "i want to see david, too," declared the little lady, "and he must come down with you as soon as his is strong enough--unless i get well first," she laughed. "i feel almost well now." polly beamed her delight, and presently was racing upstairs to tell her good news to everybody. dr. dudley managed to get away before noon for the pleasant errand of purchasing the beds, and polly was overflowing with bliss. she had her choice in everything, with the doctor and the merchant as advisers; and although the bill footed up to a little more than the check, the difference was struck off, and the cots and bedding promised to be at the hospital by two o'clock that afternoon. the convalescent ward was in such an ecstasy of excitement that dinner went poorly; but finally it was cleared away, and the cots moved to make room for those were coming. everybody helped that could walk--even those that had to hobble on crutches, for there were many little things to do, and only a short time to do them in. polly was miss lucy's ready right hand, with always a flock of eager assistants. when the beds were actually in place and the men had gone away, came the delightful task of spreading on the sheets and blankets and pretty coverlets. all was in readiness before the hour specified, and then there was nothing to do but wait for the coming of the new patients. at last there were footsteps on the stairs, uneven footsteps, as of one bearing a burden--the children had started! david was the last, and polly had begun to be troubled, lest, after all, something might have delayed him until another day. but there he was, smiling to her, and waving a thin little hand in greeting. polly wished that mrs. jocelyn could be there to see it all. when david was finally in bed, with polly by his side, he said:-"now, tell me all about it, please! it was such a splendid surprise!" so polly told just how it had happened, and talked and kept on talking, until she suddenly discovered that david was looking a little weary--though he insisted that he was not tired. but in her motherly way, that was the delight of the ward, she bade him shut his eyes and "go right to sleep," giving his hand a final caressing pat, and then running away to let him have a chance to follow her injunction. chapter ix a night of song david had been nearly three whole days in the convalescent ward, taking big leaps on the road to health, when polly was summoned to dr. dudley's office. since her meeting with aunt jane, the sharp-voiced woman was ever close at hand, ready instantly to appear in the little girl's thought and fill her with sickening fear. now polly's feet lagged as she went downstairs; she dreaded to look into the office. but dr. dudley was there quite alone, smiling a blithe good-morning. "miss price wishes you assistance in the care of a patient," he began. "wh-y!" breathed polly, "how funny--for her to want me!" "she is nursing burton leonard," the physician explained, "a little six-year-old boy who was operated upon yesterday for appendicitis. his life depends on his being quiet, but he will not keep still. miss price thinks you can help out by telling him a story or two, something that will make him forget, if possible, how terribly thirsty he is." "can't he have anything to drink?" questioned polly, with a sympathetic little frown. "only an occasional sip of warm water--nothing cold." "i'll do my best," she promised. "i shall love to help, if i can." dr. dudley took her hand, and down the corridor they went, the one with long strides, the other on dancing feet. master burton stared at his visitor, his big black eyes looking bigger in a contrast with the white, drawn little face. "what you come for?" he asked fretfully. "to see you," smiled polly. "i do' want to be seen," was the unexpected reply, and he pulled the sheet over his head. polly laughed, and waited. presently the black eyes again appeared. "why don't you lie abed?" he whined. "i did till i got well." "did they make you lie still?" he questioned. "yes, i had to keep very still indeed." "i don't," he whispered, glancing towards the doctor, who was just passing out. "when they ain't lookin' i wriggle round!" "you'd get well quicker if you'd do just as miss price and dr. dudley tell you," advised polly. "huh! my mamma says nobody on earth can make me mind!" he beckoned her nearer. "say," he chuckled, "she put an ice bag on me," with a wink towards the nurse, "_and i got out some o' the ice!_ it's awful good! she would n't give me a drop o' water, only horrid old warm stuff." he showed his tongue, with a bit of ice upon it. polly was shocked. in the light of what the physician had told her, she realized that the boy was ignorantly thwarting the efforts of those who were trying to save his life. she did not know what to say." "do you like stories?" she finally asked. the lad looked surprised, but answered, "some kinds. why?" "i thought i'd tell you one, if you'd like me to." "do you know one 'bout soldiers?" "i don't believe i do; but i know a song about a soldier." "can you sing?" "yes." "sing, then." "will you lie still if i will?" asked polly. "it's a go!" so polly sang the old, old song of "the drummer boy of waterloo," one that her grandmother had taught her when she was a wee girl. the boy was true to his promise, and remained motionless until the last note ceased. "sing it again!" he commanded. "that's a dandy!" twice, three times more, the sad little ditty was sung; then the sweet voice slipped softly into holland's "lullaby," which had been learned from hearing it sung by miss lucy to restless little patients. "rockaby, lullaby, bees in the clover, crooning so drowsily, crying so low. rockaby, lullaby, dear little rover, down into wonderland, down to the underland, down into wonderland go! "rockaby, lullaby, dew on the clover! dew on the eyes that will sparkle at dawn. rockaby, lullaby, dear little rover, into the stilly world, into the lily world. into the lily world gone!" before polly reached the last word the song had died almost to a breath, for burton was "gone"--fast asleep. for a time she watched him. his breathing was slow and steady. finally she slipped softly from her chair, and glanced across the room. miss price nodded and smiled, and polly tip-toed towards the door, beckoning her to follow. outside, in the corridor, the nurse heard of the mischievous act of her little patient. "i did n't think he would do that!" sighed miss price, and she shook her head gravely. "you are right to tell me at once," she went on; "but i will not let burton know that i learned of it through you. thank you for coming down. you may like to hear," she added, as polly was starting away, "that i had good news from turkey this morning. my sister is better; they think she is going to get well." "oh, i'm so glad!" beamed polly. then impulsively, she put up her arms, and the next minute they were around the neck of miss hortensia price. this time she felt sure that the stately nurse did like kisses, else why should she return them so cordially, and presently polly was skipping upstairs, full of gladness that her service had been a success. that night, in the hour before bedtime, david was entertainer. polly had promised the children delightful stories from him, and now he made good her word. he chose for his recital something of his aunt's that polly had never heard, the true account of how some little trickey southern boys obtained a pet goat. david had shown his wisdom in making his first selection a story that would please the crowd. the children laughed and laughed over it, and begged for another. the second was as unlike the first as possible. it was about a little princess who was carried into captivity by some rough people, and who won the hearts of everybody, even those of her captors, by her gentleness and love, and who finally, through her brave unselfishness, found her way to freedom and happiness. "i'd love to be like that princess yvonne," sighed polly. it was in david's heart to say, "you are more nearly like her than any girl i ever saw," but the words were not spoken. he only smiled across to miss lucy, who sent him a smile of comprehension in return. the two had quickly learned to understand each other without words. "it is so hard always to love everybody," polly went on. she was thinking of aunt jane. "do you love everybody, miss lucy,--every single body?" the nurse laughed softly. "i'm afraid i sometimes find it a difficult task," she admitted; "but even when we dislike people, or do not exactly love them, we can wish them well, and be ready to do them kindness whenever it is possible. and we can usually find something lovable in everybody, if we look for it deep enough and long enough." there was a moment's hush, and then elsie piped out:-"david, can't you tell another story, please?" "it is pretty nearly bedtime," miss lucy suggested. "if we have one, it must be short." "oh, david, sing a song--do!" begged polly. "can he sing?" queried cornelius wonderingly. "beautifully!" answered polly. "you don't know!" laughed david. "you never heard me." "yes, i do know!" insisted polly. "they would n't let you sing solos at st. paul's church if you did n't sing well--so!" the children waited in astonished silence. this was an accomplishment of david's which had not been told them. miss lucy propped him up a little higher among his pillows, and then he began the sweet vesper hymn, "the king of love my shepherd is." the children were very quiet until they were sure that the singing was over. then brida voiced everybody's thought. "was n't that beautiful!" presently polly was going about her little nightly tasks humming the melody to herself. she was quick to catch an air, and with a bit of prompting from david she soon had the words. "oh, you david can sing it to us together to-morrow night!" cried elsie, and there was a responsive chorus from all over the ward. polly went to sleep singing the hymn in her heart. miss lucy's cot was nearest the door, and shortly after midnight she waked with the sound of a rap in her ears. hastily throwing on a robe which was always at hand, she answered with a soft, "what is it?" "burton leonard is worse," came in dr. dudley's low voice, "and he wants polly to sing to him. get her ready as quick as you can, please." the little girl was dreaming of aunt jane. she was trying to hold a tall ladder straight up in the air, while aunt jane climbed to the top, and her aunt was fretting because she did not keep it steady. "oh, i can't hold on a minute longer!" polly dreamed she was saying to herself. "but i must! i must! because miss lucy said we were to do kindness for anybody we did n't love!" then she roused enough to know that miss lucy was bending over her, whispering: "polly dear! can you wake up?" "oh! david?" polly's first thought was for her friend. "no, darling; david's all right. dr. dudley wants you to come down and sing to little burton leonard." "oh, of course i'll go!" polly was wide awake now, and ready for anything. she and miss lucy made speedy work of the dressing. dr. dudley was outside the door waiting for her, and quietly they went downstairs. "i'll have to sing pretty soft; shan't i?" she questioned; "or it will disturb the other folks." "yes," the physician agreed. "but the room is rather isolated anyway, and the end of the wing. there's nobody near that there 's any danger of harming." "hullo!" came in a weak little voice, as polly entered the doorway. "i told 'em i'd keep still of you'd sing to me; but i did n't b'lieve you'd come. i thought you'd be too sleepy." the boy's mother was nervously smoothing his pillow, but at a word from the physician she retired to a seat beside the nurse. a small electric light glowed at the other end of the apartment, and the night wind blew in at the open window, fluttering the leaves of a magazine that lay near. polly felt awed by the hush of seriousness that seemed to fill the room. although the doctor spoke in his usual tone, the voices of the others scarcely rose above a whisper. she was glad when dr. dudley took her upon his knee. his encircling arm gave her instant cheer. "sing 'bout the 'drummer boy'!" begged the sick child, plaintively, and there was something in his tone that gave polly a pang of fear. how different from his commands of the morning! ver soft was the singing, as if in keeping with the occasion and the hour, yet every ward was clear. from "the drummer boy" polly slipped easily into "the star-spangled banner," "america," "columbia, the gem of the ocean," and "the battle hymn of the republic." then came two or three negro melodies and some songs she had learned at school, at the end of which dr. dudley whispered to her to stop and rest. while she was singing, the sick boy had lain motionless; but now he began to nestle, and called fretfully, "water! water! do give me some water!" the nurse fetched a glass, but as soon as he discovered that it was warm, he would not taste it. "sing more!" he pleaded. so again polly sang, beginning with "my old kentucky home," and then charming the doctor with one of his favorites, "'way down upon the swanee ribber." "annie laurie" came next, then "those evening bells," and other old songs which her grandmother had taught her. "i'm afraid you're getting too tired," dr. dudley told her; but she smilingly shook her head, and sang on. once or twice the lad drowsed, and she stopped for a bit of a rest, until his insistent, "sing more!" roused her from a momentary dream. the mother sat a little apart, but kept her eyes on her boy's face, ready for instant service. several times the physician reached over to feel his patient's pulse, and seemed satisfied with what he found. so the night dragged by. it was early dawn when miss price, in answer to the repeated call, again fetched water, and, as before, the child refused it. "take away that nasty old hot stuff, and bring me some cold!" he commanded, with a spurt of his usual lordliness. the nurse gently urged him to taste it; but he only pushed the spoon away. dr. dudley was about to speak, when polly interposed with the first lines of "the secret," a little song she had learned in her last days of school. her voice was loud enough to catch the boy's attention, but the words were sung slowly and confidentially. "what do you think is in our back yard? p'rhaps you can guess, if you try real hard. it is n't a puppy, or little white mice, but it's something that's every bit as nice! oh, no, it's not chickens or kittens at all!" she broke off, her eyes smilingly meeting burton's. "what is it?" he asked feebly. "take some of that," she replied, pointing to the cup, and i'll sing "the rest." he frowned at her, as she leaned back on the doctor's shoulder. in her attitude he saw nothing of hope, unless he complied with her requirement. without another protest he swallowed a few spoonfuls of liquid. "can't you think what is soft and round and small? it's two little--somethings, as white as snow! _two dear baby rabbits!_--there, now--you know!" "sing it again!" he begged. soon his eyelids dropped together, but as the song was ended he opened them wide, with a silent appeal for more. so the tired little girl sang the lullaby that had put him to sleep early the day before. this time it did not have the hoped-for effect, and the vesper hymn which david had sung--at the bedtime hour which now seemed so very far away--came to the singer's mind. softly she began the tender little song, going through it without a break. at its close the boy lay quite still, and with a sight of relief her bright head dropped on the pillowing shoulder. the doctor leaned forward, and listened. the lad's breathing was soft and regular. "sound asleep at last! now, thistledown--a-h!" he gasped, for polly lay on his arm, a limp little heap. with great strides he carried her to the window. the nurse reached the couch as soon as he, and thrust the globule into his hand. crushing it in his handkerchief, he passed it before the child's nostrils, and with a little fluttering breath the brown eyes opened. "i guess--i--was--a little tired," polly said brokenly. "you were faint--that's all. don't try to talk." miss price brought some medicine in a glass, and polly obediently swallowed the draught. "is she all right now?" whispered mrs. leonard, who had been standing back, frantically clasping and unclasping her nervous little hands. the nurse nodded. "for a minute i was afraid--she is not very strong; but it was only a faint." "if anything had happened, i should never forgiven myself for letting her sing so long! but did n't he go off to sleep beautifully. just look at him--still as a mouse!" and the two moved nearer the bed. polly went upstairs in dr. dudley's arms. "i can--walk," she murmured. "no; i want the pleasure of carrying you," was the light response, and for answer a soft little hand stroked his own. miss lucy met them at the door of the ward, and her face was white with fear. "she was tired and a little faint," the doctor explained. "i thought i'd better bring her up." "don't worry--miss lucy!" smiled polly. "i'm--all right." she sighed softly, as her head touched the pillow. "precious child!" murmured the nurse, and then followed the doctor to the door. "has she been singing all this time?" reproach was in the gentle tone. he bowed. "i know! it was too severe a strain. but she did n't seem very tired until just at the last--and it has probably saved the boy's life." "that is good--if it has n't hurt her," miss lucy added anxiously. "i think not," he replied. "she seems to be all right now. she will probably sleep late from exhaustion. do you suppose you can keep the children quiet?" "quiet! bless them! they won't stir, if they know it is going to disturb polly!" dr. dudley laughed softly. "don't let her get up till i come," he charged her. "i'll be in early." and he turned away. miss lucy undressed polly so gently that she did not awake. then she sat by her side until broad daylight. the children were still asleep around her, when her name was whispered across the ward. david was sitting up in bed, his face shadowed with fear. "what's the matter with polly?" he questioned. miss lucy told briefly the incident of the night, and he lay down again, but not to sleep. if the nurse so much as stirred, david was always looking her way. the ward was greatly excited at the news; but miss lucy had been true in her predictions. never had such noiseless toilets been made within its walls. everybody went about on tiptoe, and leonora hewitt would not walk at all, lest the thump of her crutch on the floor might waken polly. the little girl was still asleep when dr. dudley came, but soon afterward she opened her eyes to find him at her side. almost her first words were an inquiry about burton leonard. "he is very much better," the doctor replied. "he wanted me to tell you not to worry about him to-day, for he would keep still without your singing. i did n't know there was such good stuff in him. he has been angelic, miss price says, ever since he heard that you were tired out. that seemed to touch his little heart. he called you 'a dandy girl.' you have quite won him over." "i'm glad," smiled polly. "i guess i can sing a little for him to-day, if he needs me." "you won't!" dr. dudley replied. "you are to stay in bed, miss polly may! when young ladies are out all night they must lie abed the next day." "all day long?" she queried. "yes." polly sighed a bit of a sigh; then she smiled again. "i may talk, may n't i?" she begged. "not many bedside receptions to-day," he answered. "i want you to sleep all you can." with a little chuckle she shut her eyes tight. "good-night!" she said demurely. "that is a gentle hint for me to go," the doctor laughed. then he bent for a whisper in her ear. "if you sleep enough to-day, i think we'll have a ride to-morrow." she opened her eyes, returned a happy "thank you," and then cuddled down on her pillow. chapter x the ward's anniversary the convalescent ward was generally a happy place, for everybody was getting well, and getting well is pleasant business. just now it was at its best. the majority of the children had lived together long enough to be loyal friends, and there were no discordant dispositions. in fact, discords knew better than to push in where miss lucy reigned. her gentle tack had proved quite sufficient for any disagreeable element that had yet appeared in the ward, and lately all had been harmony. the nurse would have told you that this was greatly due to polly may, and polly would have insisted it was entirely miss lucy's work; but as long as happiness was there nobody cared whence it came. david collins was a decided acquisition; the ward agreed in that. "he can tell stories almost as well as polly," declared elsie meyer to a knot of her chosen intimates. "not qui-te," objected loyal little brida, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that they were far enough away from the ears of the boy under discussion. "i did n't say quite," returned elsie, in a lover voice, "i said almost. 'course, nobody tells 'em so good as polly--she's 'special!" "but david is a dandy fine feller!" asserted cornelius. "he can play ball, reg'lar baseball! a college feller on a team showed him how!" "wisht i could play ball," sighed leonora hewitt, a bit dejectedly. "girls don't play baseball!" laughed cornelius. "they do some kinds anyway--i used to!" and again leonora sighed. it is hard to be shut out from things when you are only ten. "i would n't care, if i were you," comforted elsie, in a way that showed her to be an unconscious pupil of her adored polly. she threw an arm around the little girl who the doctor feared would never walk again on two strong feet. "there's lots of things better than playing ball." "what?" demanded cornelius, with more curiosity than thoughtfulness. elsie flashed him a look that meant, "how can you?" for cornelius had been able to throw aside his own helps to walking. then she answered triumphantly, "playing with dolls--for one thing!" "dolls!" echoed cornelius, laughing "ho, ho! dolls!" "well, i don't care, they are! ain't they, miss lucy?" "what is it, elsie?" smiled the nurse across from her desk. "i was n't noticing." "dolls--ain't dolls more fun that playing ball?" "that depends," answered miss lucy. "cornelius or moses would no doubt enjoy a game of ball better than the prettiest doll that ever was made; but you and leonora and corinne, for instance, would be unusual little girls if you did n't like dolls best." elsie and cornelius faced each other with good-natured laughter. "but i hain't got any doll," lamented leonora. "nary a ball!" declared cornelius, striking his reast dramatically. "so we're even!" "my doll's 'most worn out," mourned elsie. "guess it will be quite by the time i get home, with rosie and esther bangin' it round." "i want my dolly! i want my dolly!" piped up little isabel. "where's my dolly?" "oh! may i get her the doll, miss lucy?" cried elsie, running over to the chest of drawers where the ward's few playthings were kept. isabel trotted after, her face shining with expectation. barely waiting for the desired permission, elsie dived down into the lower drawer, and, after a brief search among torn picture-books and odds and ends of broken toy, brought forth a little battered rubber doll, which had lost most of its coloring and all of its cry. but baby isabel hugged it to her heart, and at once dropped to the floor, crooning over her new treasure. while the ward was thus discussing dolls, mrs. jocelyn and polly, downstairs, in the little lady's room, were conversing on the same subject. it was polly's first visit since the night she had sung to burton leonard, and they had talked of that any many other things. "it is too bad for you to be shut up in a hospital all this beautiful summer," lamented mrs. jocelyn. "if i were only well, i'd carry you off home with me this very day, and we'd go driving out in the country, and have woodsy picnics, and all sorts of delightful things." "i went to ride yesterday with dr. dudley," said polly contentedly. "yes, that's all right as far as it goes; but your pleasures are too serious ones for the most part. you ought to be playing with dolls--without a care beyond them. by the way, i never have seen you with a doll yet." "no, i have n't any," replied polly sadly. "but you have them up in the ward, don't you?" "there's a little old rubber doll that somebody left because it had n't any squeak--that's all." "for pity's sake!" exclaimed the little lady. "the idea!--not a single doll that can be called a doll! i never heard anything like it! what do yo play with? or don't you play at all?" "oh, yes!" laughed polly. "we play games, and dr. dudley has given me two story-books, and there are some toy soldiers--but they're 'most all broken now. then there's a big book with pictures pasted in it--that's nice! there was noah's ark; but a little boy threw noah and nearly all the animals out of the window, and before we found them the rain spoiled some of them, and the rest were lost." "i declare, it's pitiful!" sorrowed the little lady. "oh, we have a nice time!" smiled polly. "i believe you'd find something to enjoy on a desert, without a soul within fifty miles!" laughed mrs. jocelyn. "guess i'd be lonesome!" chuckled polly. "but i always thought the sand would be lovely to play in." "there, i told you so! oh, you'd have a good time! but, child, have n't you any doll of your own--at home, i mean?" "no, not now--i did have"--and pain crept into the sweet little face. "mamma gave me a pretty doll the last christmas-oh, i loved it so! but after i went to live with aunt jane i helped her 'most all the time i was out of school, and i did n't have much time to play with phebe--she was named for mamma. phebe was mamma's name. so finally aunt jane said that maude might just as well have my doll. i felt as if i could n't give her up, but i had to--" polly's lip quivered, and she swallowed hard. "poor little girl!" mrs. jocelyn put out a hand and gently stroked the bright curls. "how could anybody be so cruel!" "i would n't have cared--much, if maude had loved phebe; but she did n't. she'd swing her round by one leg, and pull her hair when she got mad, or--anything. it seemed as if i could n't stant it!" "bless you! i don't see how you could!" sympathized her listener. "why, i had to!" replied polly simply. "but one day--i never told anybody this, even miss lucy--one day aunt jane took the children to a circus, and i stayed home all alone. after they'd been gone about half an hour i went and dug as deep a hole as i could right in the middle of the clothes-yard--the woman upstairs was gone, too, so she could n't see me--and i wrapped phebe up in a clean piece of paper, after i'd kissed her and bid her good-bye--and then i buried her! it 'most killed me to do it; but i could n't see any other way. do you think it was dreadfully wicked?" polly looked up with wet, appealing eyes, and, to her amazement, saw that tears were running down the little lady's cheeks. "wicked!" mrs. jocelyn ejaculated. "if nobody ever did anything more wicked than that it would be a blessed sort of world! no, dearest; i'm glad you were brave enough to do it--as glad as can be! but what did they say when the came home? did n't they miss the doll?" "not that night; they were so excited about the circus. they never said a word till some time the next morning; then maude wondered where phebe was. i was dreadfully afraid they'd ask me if i knew; but maude only looked for her a little while--she did n't love her a bit. aunt jane told her she was probably kicking round somewhere, and it served her right for not taking better of her. i guess they forgot all about her pretty soon; but i did n't--i never shall forget phebe!" mrs. jocelyn put her arm around polly, and held her close, murmuring sympathetic words, which were very comforting to the bereft little mother. "how did phebe look?" asked mrs. jocelyn, at last. "do you want to tell me?" "oh, yes! she had light curly hair, just like mine, and such pretty blue eyes and red cheeks! she was about _so_ tall," measuring a foot or more with her hands. "she had on a little white muslin dress, with blue sprigs on it--the other dresses maude spoiled. she was just as sweet as she could be!" polly's eyes almost brimmed over, and the lady gently led her thoughts to other things. soon dr. dudley came in, and then the little girl said good-bye. on the stairs she heard her name called and looking back she saw miss hortensia price, a bunch of sweet peas in her hand. "i was bringing these to you," the nurse smiled. "how do you do, my dear? are you feeling quite well again?" "oh, yes, thank you!" cried polly, her little nose among the flowers. "doctor would n't let me get up day before yesterday, and now i'm so rested i don't feel as if i'd ever get tired." "i am very glad. i meant to come up to see you sooner, but i did n't wish to disturb you that first day, and yesterday i was extremely busy." "burton is not worse, is he?" asked polly quickly. "oh, no! his is doing even better than we anticipated. and at last he has decided to keep still--did dr. dudley tell you?" "yes," beamed polly, "and i'm so glad!" "we all are. he has been a hard child to manage. we have much to thank you for--i shall never forget what you have done!" polly was astonished at this praise that she could do nothing but blush and murmur a few words of dissent. "burton's mother," miss price went on, "wishes you would come in some time and sing her that hymn again, the last one you sang, 'the king of love my shepherd is.'" "oh," smiled polly, "i wish she could hear david sing that! he sings it beautifully! i never heard it till that night, so i did n't know it very well; but if she could come up into the ward, i'm sure david would sing it for her." miss price seemed to ignore david altogether, for she only said:-"polly may, if you can learn like that, with your sweet voice,-why, you must have a musical education! i shall speak to dr. dudley about it at once. but i'm keeping you standing here, child, and you not strong!" polly assured her that she was not tired in the least, and thanked her again for the flowers. then she ran upstairs, to tell the astonishing news to miss lucy and the ward, and to show her sweet peas in proof of miss hortensia price's wonderful kindness. after everybody had had a sniff of the fragrant blossoms, polly proposed moving a little table to the side of david's cot, and placing the flowers on it. "because," she argued, "if david had n't sung the hymn that night, i could n't have and if i had n't, maybe miss price would n't have given me the sweet peas; so i think they belong to david as much as to me." the children--all but david, and his protests went for naught--accepted polly's reasoning as perfectly logical, and readily helped carry out her suggestion. miss lucy smiled to herself, while she allowed them to do as they pleased. "will they keep till to-morrow, s'pose?" questioned elsie anxiously. "of course," answered polly. "why?" "cause they'll help celebrate," elsie returned. "celebrate what?" queried polly, wiping a drop of overrunning water from the glass which miss lucy had supplied. "why, the war's birthday! don't you know about it?" and elsie looked her astonishment at having heard any new with which polly was not already acquainted. "i don't know what you mean," polly replied. then what a babel of tongues! each wanted to be first to inform polly. "the ward's five years old to-morrow!"--"miss lucy's been tellin' us!"--"it was started five years ago!"--"there was only three children in it then!"--"she said we ought to celebrate!"--"a lady give it to the hospital!" "we'll every one wear a sweet pea all day!" announced polly. "that'll be lovely!" beamed elsie. "they'll wilt," objected practical moses. "never mind!" returned polly. "we can give 'em a drink once in a while." so it was agreed. meantime miss lucy, at her table, textbook in hand, overheard and wished and planned. downstairs, too, where mrs. jocelyn sat talking with dr. dudley, more planning was going on, and in the physician's own heart a little private scheme was brewing. thus the ward's birthday came nearer and more near. the sweet peas were placed on a broad sill outside the window for the night, lest they might take it into their frail little heads to wither before their time. they showed their appreciation of miss lucy's thoughtfulness by being as sweet and bright as possible, and early in the morning everybody in the ward wore a decoration. about ten o'clock dr. dudley appeared, and polly and elsie hurried to pin a posy in his buttonhole. elsie had chosen a pink and polly a blue blossom, and one little girl held them in place while the other pinned them fast, the doctor sending telegraphic messages over their heads to miss lucy. "now, let me see," he began, after he had returned thanks for his sweets; "think i can squeeze in seven or eight of them?" nodding to the nurse. "they're none of them very bulky," she laughed. "fell strong enough for an auto ride, elsie?" he twinkled. "me?" gasped the little girl. "you don't mean me, do you?" "if your name is elsie meyer, you're the one," he replied. "oh, my! o-h, m-y!" she cried. "polly! polly! he's goin' to take me to ride!" and she whirled polly round and round in her excited joy. "cornelius and moses," he counted, "and elsie and polly,"-his eyes had reached the little girl with a crutch, whose pale face was growing pink and paler by turns,--"and leonora and brida," he went on; "that makes six." "oh, me too?" squealed brida delightedly, clutching her chair for support in the trying moment. leonora said nothing, only gazed at the doctor as if she feared he would vanish, together with her promised ride, if she did not keep close watch. "there are only two more for whom i dare risk the bumpety-bumps," laughed dr. dudley. "corinne, i think you can bear them, and perhaps we can wedge in isabel." "oh, we can hold her!" volunteered elsie. "sure, we can!" echoed cornelius. "no, i want to thit in polly'th lap," lisped the midget, edging away from the others, and doing her best to climb to polly's arms. polly clasped the tiny one tight, smiling her promise, to full of joy in her friends' happiness for any words. "i'll give you fifteen minutes to prink up in," the doctor told them; and away they scampered, polly halting by david's cot long enough to wish he "were going too." the eight were downstairs within the specified time, and they whirled off in the big motor car, which seated them all comfortably without crowding anybody. very demure they were, passing along the city streets, but in the open country their delight found vent in shouts and squeals and jubilant laughter. dr. dudley chose a route apart from the traveled highways, leading through woods and between blossoming fields. "could we get out and pick just a few o' those flowers?" elsie ventured; and presently they were all over the stone wall, leonora with the rest, right down among the goldenrod and asters. the went home with their arms full of beauty, too overjoyed even to guess that they had been away nearly two whole hours, and that it was dinner time. leonora was first to discover it--the beautiful copy of the sistine madonna, hanging opposite david's bed. then dinner had to wait, while they flocked over to look at dr. dudley's gift to the ward. "why, it's just like a story," cried elsie. "something keeps happening all the time." miss lucy smiled mysteriously, which made polly wonder if there were more happenings in reserve for the day. dinner was barely cleared away when a rap sent moses to the door. there stood one of the porters grinning behind a pyramid of white boxes tied with gay ribbons. moses was too astonished for anything but speechlessly to let the man pass him. the pile was deposited beside the nurse, and elsie squealed out:-"they look 'xac'ly like christmas!" "perhaps the inside will look like christmas, too," smiled miss lucy. "let's see what this card says:--'for the young folds of the convalescent ward, in honor of the ward's fifth birthday. from mrs juliet p. jocelyn.' "this box is addressed to miss polly may;" and she handed out the one on top. polly received it with an "oh, thank you!" a sudden tumultuous hope had sprung in her heart, and she gazed down at the oblong box with a mingled anticipation and fear. what could it be but--! yet what if it should n't be! with trembling fingers she hurriedly untied the blue ribbon. she hardly dared lift the cover; but--it was! "oh, phebe!" she cried, with almost a sob, clasping the beautiful doll to her heart. it was not phebe, but so nearly like the cherished one it was not surprising in that first ecstatic moment polly should think it was really her los darling. golden curls, blue eyes, and a frock of white muslin with blue sprigs made the resemblance very true. in her own bliss, polly for a minute, forgot her surroundings. then she became suddenly aware that elsie was dancing about, shrieking with delight, holding a doll the counterpart of polly's own, except for the color of dress and eyes. brida's doll had blue eyes, alike the new phebe, and leonora's brown, like elsie's. miss lucy could not untie the boxes fast enough now, the children were so wildly excited. every girl had a beautiful doll, and every boy a gift that made him shout in glee or wrapped him in speechless joy, according to his nature. "how _did_ she know i'd ruther have 'em than anything in th' biggest store you ever saw?" cried cornelius, with a yell of rapture, throwing off the cover of his box to see a ball, a bat, and a catcher's mitt. "how did she did she know it?" the other big boys had similar presents and the younger lads mechanical toys of various kinds,--railway and track, steamer, automobile, fire engine, and a real little flying machine. besides these there were a number of fascinating games and a box of stone blocks. in the late afternoon some of the nurses made a brief visit, bringing their combined gift,--a dozen books and a shelf to keep them on. miss price, who could not leave her patient, sent a set of crayons and outline picture-books to color. and so one delight followed another until the children were in a state of the happiest excitement. just before supper time dr. dudley came in, full of merriment and droll stories. the tea was there on time, a regular "party tea," with a birthday cake and five small candles. the goodies seemed ready to be eaten; the little folks were eager to taste; still miss lucy did not give the word. she and the doctor would turn towards the door at the slightest sound; then they would go on talking again. finally polly's sharp ears heard footsteps, approaching footsteps. dr. dudley listened, jumped up, and slipped outside the door, shutting it behind him. the steps drew nearer, there were low voices and faint laughter. then something like a small commotion seemed to be taking place just outside. elsie's impatience let loose her tongue. "oh, miss lucy! what is it? do tell us! please do!" "in a minute there'll be no need of telling," was the smiling answer. at the instant a light rap sent polly and elsie flying to the door. polly was ahead and threw it wide open on a pretty picture, --little mrs. jocelyn seated in a wheel chair, dr. dudley and a porter in the background. "oh, o-h!" cried polly, "how perfectly lovelicious!" and she stepped aside to let the guest roll herself in. miss lucy came forward with a glad greeting, while the flock of girls and boys retreated, struck with sudden shyness. polly laid hold of elsie and leonora. "come!" she whispered. "come, and shake hands with her!" "no, no! i can't!" gasped leonora, terrified at the thought of speaking to that beautiful little white-haired lady in the exquisite gray silk. "yes, come!" urged polly. "she gave us our dolls, and we must thank her!" her hand on leonora's gave the timid girl courage, and she allowed herself to be led towards the wheel chair. they were all presented by name, and mrs. jocelyn won the girls' hearts with kisses and kindly words, while the boys, from cornelius o'shaughnessy to little john fritz, were so charmed by her interest in their sports that they afterwards voted her "a dandy one"--their highest praise. the tea went off, as all party teas ought to go, to the music of merry laughter; and when the ice cream came on, the children's glee reached its height--it was in the form of a quaint little girls and boys! it was nearly bedtime when the last gift arrived. the parcel was oblong and flat and heavy. "i bet it's another picture!" ventured moses. polly fairly shouted when miss lucy folded back the wrappings. there lay a superb photograph, handsomely framed in oak, of lone star and his master. the note accompanied it:- to the children's convalescent ward: dear ward:--news has just come that you are having a birthday. i congratulate you on having lived and prospered for five long years. as i have counted only four birthdays myself, i have great respect for those that have attained to five. i cannot let the day pass without sending you a small token of neighborly affection, and because the hour is late and i have nothing better in sight i trust you will pardon my seeming egotism in presenting my own picture. wish bushels of joyful wishes for you future, i will sign myself your fast friend, lone star chapter xi polly plays the part of eva summer still lingered, but signs were abroad of her coming departure. noons were hot, and nights were chill; bird carols were infrequent; chrysanthemums were unfurling their buds. the vines that festooned the windows of the children's convalescent ward sent an occasional yellow-coated messenger to the lilac bushes below--a messenger that never came back. inside the ward there were even greater changes. of the old set of summer patients only a few remained to keep polly company. elsie and brida, corinne and isabel, with moses and cornelius, had received their discharge and had returned to their homes. leonora stayed for more of the treatment that was slowly lessening her lameness and pain. david had so far recovered as to have been appointed office boy for dr. dudley, a position which was, according to david's version, "all pay and no work." but somebody was needed to answer telephone calls during the physician's absence, as well as to note any messages that might arrive for him, and david's strength was now sufficient for the service. so the arrangement was proving a very happy one, and was especially enjoyed by polly and leonora. as their acquaintances drifted away from the hospital, and strangers drifted in, these three became close friends. the girls would join david in the office, generally bringing their dolls with them, when david would be the one to tell or read a story, for his aunt kept him well supplied with interesting tales. sometimes, especially in the early twilight hour, dr. dudley was story-teller; or more often they would talk over together the happenings of the day, the children unconsciously gathering from the physician's rich store bits of wisdom that would abide with them as long as memory lived. they were watching for him, one night, when the telephone bell rang. david sprang to answer the call, and the girls heard him say:-"no, sir, he is not in.--he went out about an hour ago.--we expect him every minute now.--yes, sir, i will." the boy came back looking a little excited. "it was uncle david!" he told them. "he says he is sick, and he wants dr. dudley to come over." "oh, dear," scowled polly; "i hope ther is n't anything bad the matter with him!" "it is the first time i ever spoke to him," said david slowly. "but, of course, he did n't know it was i that was talking." "there's the doctor!" cried leonora, as a runabout stopped at the entrance. "shall i go tell him?" and polly started. but the lad was already on his way. "let me, please!" he answered. "i want to do that much for uncle david." "i thought it might tire him to go fast," murmured polly, apologetically, as she joined leonora at the window. "he'll get all out of breath!" worried leonora. "just see him run!" "he is n't thinking of himself," polly responded. "it's just like him! but his heart is pretty strong now, i guess. though doctor told him to be careful." david returned a little pale, and polly made him lie down on the couch. he did not seem inclined to talk, and the girls waited at the window, conversing in low tones over their dolls. by and by dr. dudley came up the walk, and polly ran to open the door for him. the physician acknowledged the attention with a grave smile, and then went directly to the telephone, calling for miss batterson. david sat up. the girls listened breathlessly. presently they heard arrangements being made for the nurse to go to the colonel at once, and they gathered from what was said that david's great-uncle was ill with typhoid fever, and that the doctor had ordered him to bed. "he has kept up too long," regretted dr. dudley, as he hung the receiver on its hook. "as it is he'll have to go through a course of fever. he is furious at the prospect, but it can't be helped. "i'm so sorry," mourned polly. then, seeing that there was no likelihood of a story or even talk from the doctor, she proposed, softly to leonora, that they go upstairs. "no, stay here with david, if you wish; you're not in the way. i'm going back with miss batterson." so they remained, while the physician put some medicines in his case, and gave david directions regarding a problem caller. soon the nurse came in, suit case in hand, and the two went off together. "i hope mother won't hear of it right away," the lad mused. "she thinks so much of uncle david. she'd want to go and do something for him, you know, and she could n't, and so she'd worry." polly recalled her recent drive through forest park, and could scarcely realize that the big, strong man who had made the time so pleasant for her was now weak and miserable from disease. david related incidents of his mother's life with her uncle when she was a small girl, one leading to another, until, suddenly, dr. dudley opened the door. "what!" he exclaimed. "my girlies not abed yet! why, it is nearly nine o'clock! miss lucy will think i have kidnapped you." they hurried away, with laughing good-nights, after being assured by the doctor that probably colonel gresham would "come out all right." david slept downstairs now, in a tiny room adjoining the physician's, and his last thought that night was of the strangeness of it all--uncle david's hurrying to catch dr. dudley for him, and his being the first to notify the doctor of his uncle's illness, while they had not even a bowing acquaintance with each other! for a few days there was no alarming change in colonel gresham's condition. then he grew worse. he became delirious, and remained so, recognizing no one. the anxiety felt in dr. dudley's office extended upstairs to the little people of the convalescent ward, for since the colonel's birthday gift they had taken great interest in the master of the famous trotter. every morning they were eager for the latest news from the second house away where their friend lay so ill. the twentieth of september was hot and oppressive. early in the evening thunder clouds heaped the western sky, and occasional flashes of lightning portended a shower. after the children were established for the night, miss lucy sat long by the open window watching the electrical display. the clouds rose slowly, lingering beyond the western hills with no wind to aid their progress. finally she partly undressed, and throwing on a kimono settled herself comfortably upon her cot, to await the uncertain storm, ready to shut the windows in case of driving rain. by and by fitful breezes fluttered through the room, the low rumbling of thunder was heard, and presently a soft patter of drops on the leaves. the lightning grew brilliant. the nurse dreamed and waked by turns. at length she was aroused by steps along the corridor. they sounded like dr. dudley's. s she was at the door as the physician's knuckle touched it. in response to his voice she stepped outside, that they might not disturb the sleepers. "i want to take polly over to colonel gresham's," the doctor explained. "he keeps on calling for 'eva,' and nothing will quite him. he is on the verge of collapse." "did n't mrs. collins come?" "yes; but he did n't know her. it broke her all up. i think now that he has gone back to the time when she was a little girl, and possibly has confounded her with polly. at any rate, i'm going to try the experiment of taking polly over. it can do no harm, and may do some good." the hall suddenly burst into light, and there was a simultaneous roar of thunder. "we're going to have a shower," observed the doctor. "i should think it was already here," returned miss lucy. "had n't you better wait till it passes, before taking polly out?" "oh, no! wrap her up well, and i'll carry her. it is only a few stops; she won't get wet." polly was a quaint little figure in the long mackintosh, and it tripped her feet once or twice, until the doctor drew it from her and threw it across his arm. the thunder had been lighter for some minutes; but as they halted at the entrance before going out a tremendous crash jarred the building. "not afraid, thistledown?" smiled dr. dudley, as he wrapped her again in the long cloak. "i don't like it," she confessed; "but i shan't mind with you," putting her arms around his neck. the rain was pouring as they left the piazza, and before they were off the grounds big stones of hail were pelting their umbrella. the doctor hurried along, the lightning glaring about them and the air filled with thunder. colonel gresham's house was nearly reached, when a sudden gust turned the umbrella, and almost at once came a blaze of light and a terrific crash--a great oak across the street had been split from top to root! with a gasp of terror polly clung to the doctor's neck, and he sped up the walk on a quick run. "there!" he exclaimed, setting her down inside the door, "you're safe and sound! but next time we'll take miss lucy's advice, and not run any such risks." "it was awful, was n't it?" breathed polly. "a little too close for comfort," he smiled, taking her wet coat and spreading it over a chair. at the foot of the stairs he halted for a few instructions. "humor the colonel in every way possible," he told polly. "if he names you 'eva," let him think he is right, and call him 'uncle david.'" "i'm afraid i shall make a mistake," replied polly. "you won't," he assured her. "just imagine you are his little niece, doing everything to please him--that is all." miss batterson smiled down on polly, as she entered the sick-room, and spoke in a low voice to the physician. colonel gresham had been muttering indistinctly, and now broke into his persistent call:-"eva! eva! where's eva?" dr. dudley gave polly a gentle push towards the bed. "here i am, uncle david!" she answered, standing where the light slanted across her yellow curls. the sick man started up, and then dropped back on his pillow. "oh, you've come!" he cried, with a breath of relief, "why did you stay away--so--long?" "i did n't know you wanted me till now, uncle david," replied the soft voice. "come nearer, child! let me feel you little hand! i dreamed--i dreamed--you were gone--forever!" "he lay quiet for a moment, her cool fingers in his hot, trembling palm. then he startled her bu the sudden cry:-"that water! it's dripping, dripping right on my head! eva, put up your hand, and catch it!" standing beside his pillow, polly held her hand high. "i'll catch it all, uncle david," she assured him. "you shan't feel another drop!" "that's a good girl! you always are a good girl, eva! seems as --if--" the voice trailed off into confused mutterings, and with trembling fingers he began picking at the sheet and working it into tiny rolls. very gently polly took one of the restless hands in both her own, and smoothed it tenderly. this had a quieting effect, and he lay still for so long that dr. dudley drew polly softly away, letting her rest on his knee, her head against his shoulder. but in a moment the old call burst out:-"eva! eva! where are you, eva?" her prompt assurance, "i'm right here, uncle david!" hushed him at once. presently, however, he began again. "eva! eva! you love your old uncle, don't you, eva? just a-little--bit?" "more than a little bit! i love you dearly, uncle david!" "don't go away any more! promise, eva! promise me!" "i'll stay just as long as you want me uncle david. can't you go to sleep? remember, i'll be right here all the time!" reassured by this, he closed his eyes, and was quiet for a while; yet only to rouse again and repeat the same old cry. the thunder was now only an occasional rumble in the distance, and the lightning had faded to a glimmer; but the rain still kept on, and as the nurse raised another window the ceaseless patter of the drops seemed to disturb the sick man, for he began his complaint of the dripping water upon his head. polly pacified him, as before, and once more he drowsed. the little girl slept, to, in the doctor's arms, until, towards morning the colonel was resting so calmly that they returned to the hospital. miss lucy clasped polly with almost a sob. "if you ever go away again in such a storm," she declared, "i shall go, too! i saw the lightning come down--and--" her voice broke. "and we were not harmed in the least," finished the doctor cheerily. "but next time i promise to act upon your higher wisdom, and not venture among such thunderbolts. now, hustle into bed, both of you, and don't dare to wake up till breakfast time!" the convalescent ward slept late; the nurse and polly strictly obeyed orders. nobody cared, however, and unusual gayety prevailed at the tardy breakfast, to match the bright september morning and the good news of colonel gresham. for word had come up from dr. dudley that the colonel was going to get well. of course the children eagerly heard the story of polly's midnight trip in the physician's arms through the fearful storm. it had to be told over and over again, and the more daring ones wished they had been awake to see it all. the details of what had taken place in the sick-room polly wisely withheld; but the girls and boys were undoubtedly more interested in the account of the lightning's striking the familiar big oak tree than they would have been in the more important part of that night's strange story. it was not many weeks afterward that dr. dudley brought polly a message. "the colonel says he feels slighted because you don't come to see him, and i promised to send you over." "oh, i shall have to go!" cried polly. "i'll run right off and change my dress." colonel gresham was in a great chair by the window, and begged his small guest pardon for not rising to greet her. "i'm not quite firm on my legs yet," he laughed, "and i must n't topple over, as miss batterson has left me for a whole hour." "oh, then i'll stay and wait on you!" beamed polly. "and if you get tired hearing me talk, you can go to sleep." but the colonel seemed very wide awake, and after a gay chat he began:-"dr. dudley has been telling me about bringing you over here in that thunderstorm, and how you quieted me when nobody else could." "yes," replied polly innocently, "you thought i was your little niece, eva, and--" "what?" broke in her listener, amazement in his tone. "oh, i s'posed he 'd told you!" cried polly, in dismay. "i ought not to have--" "yes, you ought!" he interrupted. "what did i say?" polly hesitated. she was not at all sure that dr. dudley would wish her to disclose the wanderings of the colonel's mind, since he had not done so himself. but there seemed no other way, so she replied simply:-"oh, you did n't say much! only you kept calling for eva, and so i pretended i was she, and i called you uncle david. and you heard the rain, and thought it was dripping on your head, and you wanted me to hold my hand up to catch it. that was about all." polly cast furtive glances at the colonel. she could make nothing of his face, beyond that it was very grave. she wondered if he were displeased with her. after a time he spoke. "you have done me a kindness that can never be repaid. such debts cannot be balanced with money. so we won't talk about pay. but i should like to do something for you--give you a sort of remembrance. i don't know what would make you happiest; but you may chose, 'to the half of my kingdom'--anything but lone star. i'm afraid i should hate to give up lone star!" polly laughed, and the colonel laughed too, which put the talk on a cheery footing, and she assured him that she should n't have chosen lone star anyway, because she did n't know how to take care of a horse, and had n't any place to keep him in. then her face grew suddenly serious, and she sat gazing at the pattern of the rug so long that colonel gresham smiled to himself. "is it too much of a problem?" he finally asked. "can't you think of anything within my power that would give you a little happiness?" "oh, yes!" polly answered quickly; "but i'm afraid--" she stopped. "afraid of what?" he questioned. "afraid it is too much to ask," she replied softly, lifting her thoughtful eyes to his. "no, it is n't! anything that will add to your happiness--" "oh, this would make me very happy!" "out with it then! 'to the half of my kingdom,' remember!" "and you won't be offended?" "i give you my word," he smiled. "well," she began slowly, "i should like best of all to have you --oh, i wish you would forgive david's mother, and love her again! she loves you so much!" for several minutes--it seemed an hour to polly--the marble clock over the fireplace, with the bronze mother and child sitting there, tick-tocked its way uninterruptedly. the little girl did not dare to look up. her heart beat very fast indeed. it hurt her to breathe. had she made colonel gresham so angry that he would never speak to her again? she wondered how long it would be before she could gain enough courage for just one glance at his face. the he spoke. "you have given me a hard task, little polly! it would be easier to go through the fever again!" his voice was gentle--very gentle, but sad. "oh, please, please excuse me!" she exclaimed earnestly. "i ought not to have asked it! i'll take it all back! you said what would make me happiest--and so--and so--" she put her face down in her hands. "i did n't mean to hurt you!" she sobbed, "i did n't! i did n't!" "child! child! this will never do! it is i who am wholly to blame! you have done nothing to excuse. i shall keep my promise to you, if you are sure that what you have asked will give you the greatest happiness." he waited for her answer--polly never guessed with what selfish longing. her face burst into radiance. "oh, will you!" she exclaimed. "it will make me so happy, happy, i shan't know what to do!" colonel gresham was very pale, but polly did not notice. she was looking through rose-colored glasses. "is david still at the hospital?" the colonel inquired. "yes, sir; he stays in dr. dudley's office now, to answer the telephone and attend to things. he's almost well." "well enough to walk over here, think?" "oh, yes, sir!" polly beamed. "suppose you run and fetch him then. say to him that i should like to make his acquaintance." polly needed no urging for such a blissful errand, and in her excitement failed to hear the doctor's approaching footsteps. at the threshold she nearly ran into his arms. "why such haste, thistledown? have you and colonel gresham quarreled?" "oh, no! i'm going after david. do you care if he leaves the office for just a little while?" "certainly not. tell him from me that he can come." if the doctor felt any surprise, neither his voice nor his face showed it. it cost polly a deal of talk to convince david that his uncle had actually sent for him, and then, after he had said that he would go, he was afraid that his clothes were not just right for such a visit. "never mind you clothes!" cried polly. "he'll never know what you have on." "well, i must brush my hair," delayed the boy, dreading the ordeal before him. "oh, you hair's well enough! don't flat it down! it's so pretty as it is now--all curly and fluffy!" so they were finally started, polly talking so fast that david had small chance for nervousness or fear. dr. dudley was not in sight when the children entered colonel gresham's room, and polly made a silent wild guess regarding his speedy going away. to david's pleasure the colonel received him as he would have received any other lad whom polly had brought for a call. there was no reference to his mother or to their kinship, and the boy began at once to feel at ease. he inquired about his recent injury and his stay at the hospital, and then, by a chance remark of polly's, the subject of david's church singing was brought up. conversation had not begun to flag, when polly spied the doctor's auto at the curb. mrs. collins was stepping out! david's sentence broke off square in the middle; but colonel gresham did not appear to notice. footsteps neared the door, and the children sat breathless; yet the colonel still talked on as quietly as before. when the door opened, polly saw his fingers grip the arms of his chair. his voice faltered off into silence. dr. dudley stepped aside, and david's mother appeared on the threshold, a little slight, fair-haired woman, her face now pink with emotion, her eyes big and shining. the held out both hands; there was a swish of skirts an something like a sob. polly heard, "eva!"--"oh, uncle david!" then she slipped out to the doctor, and he softly shut the door. they went downstairs hand in hand, and so to the street. "we'll have a little ride," he proposed, "to let off steam. there are n't any patients that will hurt by waiting." the car passed slowly up the pleasant street. "thistledown," he said tenderly, "you have accomplished a blessed work this morning." "why," exclaimed polly, in surprise, "i have n't done a single thing--only go after david! it's the colonel that's done it all! but is n't it splendid of him? are n't you glad for david?" "i am glad for them all. it is what i feared never would come to pass. colonel gresham is sure to like david, and it is going to mean everything for the boy." chapter xii the kidnapping of polly "mamma and i are going to live with uncle david." so the boy told polly late that afternoon. "he says he has lost time enough, and now we must come as soon as we can pack up." "is n't that splendid!" beamed polly, thinking she had never seen david look so happy or so handsome. "uncle david is nicer--a great deal nicer--than i dreamed he could be. o polly, i can't thank you enough!" "thank me?" repeated polly. "what for?" "polly may!" and david gazed at her incredulously. then he laughed. "oh, you little bunch of unselfishness!" he cried. "i believe you have n't the least idea that uncle david's making up with us is all your doing!" "why, david collins, it is n't! i just told him it would make me happy if he would--that's all!" "just as i said!" he laughed. "o polly, polly! don't you see-no, no, i'd rather you would n't! don't try to see!" "i could n't!" chuckled polly. "there is n't anything to see!" "all right! it's grand anyway! mamma looks so much prettier and younger! oh, you can't think how happy--" the telephone cut off his sentence, and he ran across the office. he listened a moment; then polly heard him say, "she is right here. if you'll wait, please, i'll ask her." david turned from the instrument. "it is mrs. jocelyn," he explained. "she wants you to come up there to-morrow afternoon, and stay all night and next day. her cousin's little girl-dorothy cannon, i think the name is--will be there, and she wants you too." "oh, of course i'll go!" and polly's eyes shone: "that is, if miss lucy or dr. dudley don't need me for anything, and i don't suppose they will. tell her i'll come, unless they do. oh, and, david,"--for he had taken up the receiver again,--"ask her what time she wants me, please!" he gave the message, and then turned back to polly. "she says to come as early as you can after dinner. dear me, it will be awfully lonesome without you!" "it will, won't it?" polly's face sobered. "but then," she brightened, "you'll have to be home helping your mother pack up, shan't you?" "so i shall," he returned. "and it will be a good time for you to go. ever hear of this dorothy before?" "oh, yes! mrs. jocelyn has told me lots about her. i guess she's nice. she's twelve." "you'll have a fine time, and i'll try to be glad you're going," laughed david. polly danced off to tell miss lucy and leonora of her invitation, waving a gay good-bye to david from the doorway. she had made several visits of a day to mrs. jocelyn, who had left the hospital some weeks before; but she had never remained overnight. and to see the dorothy cannon of whom she had heard so many happy things! she went upstairs on tiptoe of anticipation. miss lucy was please, and leonora tried to be. polly saw through her forced smiles, however, and proposed all the pleasant make-ups she could think of. "you can take care of phebe while i'm gone, and play she's twin sister to your juliet" (leonora had named her doll after its donor), "and you make take the book burton leonard sent me. we have n't read more than half the stories in it yet." leonora was beaming her thanks and her delight, when miss lucy declared that she should depend on her to help entertain the ward, and that made her look so joyful, polly knew there would be little lonesomeness for the lame girl. when dr. dudley heard that polly was going, he promised to carry her in his automobile, for it was a long walk to mrs. jocelyn's home. "then i shall have you to myself a little longer than the rest of the," he twinkled. "anybody'd think i was n't ever coming back!" laughed polly. "oh, don't say so!" shivered leonora. "talk about what you're going to wear!" "all right!" polly agreed. "miss lucy and i have got it all planned. i shall wear my best white dress, if it is as warm as it is today, and take my white sweater with me, so i'll have it if it comes off cold. and i'm going to wear my beautiful locket and chain that mrs. leonard gave me, and my newest blue hair ribbon, and my best ties, and my best hat." "dear me," mused dr. dudley gravely, "i did n't know i should have to sit beside so fine a young lady as that! i wonder if i must put on my dress suit." polly giggled, and leonora squealed, and they were not sobered down when they bade the doctor good-night. "is n't he nice?" admired the lame girl, as they went slowly upstairs, hand in hand. "he's the very nicest man in the whole world!" asserted polly, and her nodding curls emphasized her praise. dressing came directly after dinner, and polly had the eager assistance of every girl in the ward that was able to be about on two feet. angiola cuneo fetched the pretty black ties, and mabel camp the long stockings. frederica schmelzer held the box containing the hair ribbon of delicate blue while miss lucy brushed the fluffy curls into smoothness. stella pope, greatly puffed up by the importance of her errand, went to miss lucy's own room, and brought back the dainty white frock, all spotless from the laundry. but leonora's was the crowning service of all. with trembling fingers she clasped around polly's white neck the exquisite little gold chain, with its pendent locket, which had been mrs. leonard's farewell gift when burton left the hospital. "there," she whispered delightedly, patting polly's shoulder, "you look too sweet for anything!" polly dimpled and blushed, but only said:-"i wish you were going, too!" "oh my!" gasped leonora; "i should n't know how to act or what to say! i guess i'd rather stay with miss lucy." the nurse, gathering up some of polly's tossed-off belongings, smiled comfortably to herself, overhearing leonora's words. she rarely had so much as to hint of reproof to polly for any breach of courtesy; the child seemed instinctively to know what was due to others. she could be trusted anywhere without a fear. the auto was waiting at the curb, dr. dudley and polly were on their way from office to entrance, when there came a hurried call for the doctor from one of his patients in a private ward. "that's too bad!" he ejaculated. "i wish she had put off her attack an hour. now you'll have to walk--or wait, and it is uncertain how soon i shall be at liberty." "oh, i don't mind walking!" smiled polly. "well, here's for a good time, thistledown!" and the doctor kissed her on both cheeks. she watched him up the stairs, and then went out alone. "i wish i could have had the ride with him," she sighed, as she passed the inviting auto; "but it's a lovely day for a walk," she added. "i shall be there before i know it." she waved her hand to miss lucy and the children, up at the window, who looked astonished to see her walking. laughing at their surprise, she flourished her sweater and the little bundle containing her nightgown. then shrubbery hid them from view. as she went by colonel gresham's, she wondered how soon david would be living there. today he was at home, helping his mother, as she had predicted he might be. a full third of the distance was passed, when, turning a corner, she met a tall woman in a brown skirt and white waist. "wh--", she gasped; "aunt jane!" the woman gave a short laugh. "you did n't expect to see mi; did you? where you bound for, all rigged out so fine?" "i'm going to mrs. jocelyn's," polly answered faintly. "what! that rich mrs. jocelyn?" "i guess so." "where does she live?" "up on edgewood avenue." "yes, that's the one," nodded the other. "you are comin' on! i s'pose you don't go to see anybody but millionaires now'days! you hain't been down to my house in an age." "mrs. jocelyn was at the hospital," polly explained, "and she's invited me up to stay all night, because her cousin's coming." "well, i was on my way to see you and take you home with me. glad you happened along, for it will save my climbin' that hill. here i am slavin' myself to death, and you're kitin' off hither and yon just to have a good time. i thought you was goin' to help 'em out at the hospital." "i do help all i can," polly put in meekly. "looks like it! well, come on! i've got a pile o' work waitin' for me at home. much as ever i could get away anyhow." polly stepped forward, and the two walked along together. "i thought you'd come over and see you new uncle, even if you did n't care anything about me and your cousins." "my new uncle?" repeated polly, looking puzzled. the woman laughed. "did n't you hear i'd got married again?" she asked. "why, no!" cried polly. "i was married three weeks ago to-day," was the proud announcement. "he's got a good job at the silver plate, and i'm takin' work from the button fact'ry; so we're gittin' on. we've moved over on chestnut street--got a flat now. the kids think it's fine." "i'm glad, aunt jane," polly managed to say, just as she reached the street which led out in the direction of edgewood avenue. "i have to go this way." she stepped back to allow her aunt to pass on. "well, i guess not much!" and the child's arm was gripped by a strong hand. "you're goin' home with me--that's what!" "oh, not to-day!" cried polly, in a sudden terror. "i can't, aunt jane! i've promised to go up to mrs. jocelyn's!" "that don't make any difference! you can go up there some other time--or you can stay away, just as i choose to have you! now, you need n't go to cryin' and makin' a fuss!" for polly's lip was quivering. "i guess you know me well enough to know that when i set out to do a thing i do it, and this afternoon i said i was goin' to fetch you home, and i expect to keep my word." a wild thought of flight swept through polly's mind; but she at once realized how futile would be an attempt to run away. her arm was still held as in a vise, and she was being led along an unfamiliar street. aunt jane nodded now and then to people they met, and could quickly call any number to her assistance. polly decided that this was no time for escape. "where'd you get that locket and chain?" her captor queried. "they were a present from mrs. leonard." "what mis' leonard?" "i don't know, her little boy was sick at the hospital, and i sung--" "oh, that one! mis' marvin leonard it is. well, they'd ought to given you some money, too--they've got enough. i read in the paper about your singin'--and faintin' away." "in the newspaper?" polly's face showed her astonishment. "sure! did n't you know it? i should think some o' them doctors or nurses might have let you see the piece. and they'd ought to had your picture taken to go along with it." "oh, no!" breathed polly shrinkingly. "huh! you're a great kid! folks round here thought it was a pretty smart thing. you hain't no call to be ashamed of it." the little girl attempted no reply. she felt that aunt jane would not understand. arrived on the fourth floor of the big tenement house, polly was at once called upon to praise the new quarters. "ain't this more swell than that old-fashioned rent on brewery street?" "yes, i guess it is," was the rather doubtful response, for poly, in her swift survey of the narrow, gaudy parlor, discerned little to admire. "i s'pose it ain't much compared to the elegance of your millionaire friends, aunt jane flung out, nettled at the child's lack of approval. "mrs. jocelyn' furniture is very plain--if you mean her," replied polly gently. "well, come in here and put your things," leading the way to a little dim bedroom, lighted only from the apartment in front. "better take off that white dress, and keep it clean; i'll get you one of sophia's to wear till i can send for your clothes." slowly and sadly polly laid aside her hat, and began to unbutton her dainty frock. tears welled up in her eyes, at thoughts of miss lucy; but with a mighty effort she winked them back. "there!--try that, and see how it fits." aunt jane had emerged from the depths of a dark closet, and now tossed a limp calico print towards polly. the child could discern soiled patches on front and sleeves, and she revolted against the unclean garment; but silently she put it on. "well, that ain't so bad!" approved aunt jane. "sophia's a whole year younger than you; but she takes a bigger waist. stand out there--my, but it's short! never mind! here's a petticoat to go with it." polly looked down in dismay. she had thought she might perhaps steal away to the hospital, just to let the doctor and miss lucy know where she was; but she could never brave the street in such a skirt. "now i'll go to sewin' buttons, and you can do up the dinner dishes. i left 'em, thinkin' you'd be here. this is the way to the kitchen." and presently polly found herself in a little stuffy box of a room, with a tableful of greasy dishes before her. "where are the children?" she ventured. "at school, of course,--where you ought to be. marcus and 'melie i left at mis' cobbe's. that marcus is a terror! i shall be thankful when he goes to school. why did n't they send you this fall? you'll be 'way back in your books." "dr. dudley has made arrangements for me to go to a school near the hospital; it does n't begin till next week." "oh, a private school! my, if they ain't puttin' the airs on to you!" "it's near. that's why--" "huh! well, 't ain't near here. i guess you can git along with the one my kids go to." polly did not reply. experience had taught her to be sparing of words with aunt jane. she was still toiling with the heavy crockery, when a rush of feet in the hallway announced that school was out. the door banged wide. "hoh! you've got back, have you?" "hullo, poll!" "say, what you wearin' my dress for?" "oh, you've got on a gold locket! le' me see it!" katie's fingers began pulling at the clasp. "oh, don't, please!" cried polly. "i'll unfasten it for you as soon as i get the dishes done." "i want to see it now! mamma, shan't polly take off her locket, and let me see it?" "polly, why can't you try to please you cousin, and not be so stingy with your things?" "my hands are soapy," she apologized, "and--" "well, don't you know enough to wipe them?" snapped aunt jane. "you seem to have grown very helpless." "say, what are these blue stones in here?" queried katie, turning the locket curiously. "turquoises," polly answered, eyeing with fear katie's rough handling. "whose picture is this?" was the next question. "stop, you gregory--you'll break it! mamma, shant' he stop pulling it so?" "yes, gregory, you just wait, like a good boy, till your sister's seen it; then you can take it." polly trembled. her beautiful locket and chain in gregory's dirty fingers! "you have n't told me who this is," complained katie. "burton leonard." "it's the kid she sung to," added the mother; "the one the paper told about." "oh!" cried katie. "what big eyes he's got!" and she snapped the locket together. "now it's my turn!" asserted maude, snatching the pretty thing from her sister's hand. gregory burst into a wail. "yer said i could have it next!" he lamented. "let him take it!" urged the mother. but maude only clasped the chain about her own neck, and danced off to the looking-glass over the sink. "yer mean old thing!" screamed gregory. "come get it, greg!" sophia darted towards her sister. "when yer do, let me know!" jeered maude, eluding their outstretched hands, and putting a chair between them and herself. a short skirmish was followed by a chase around the room, until their mother interposed. "gracious me! what a hubbub! maude simpson, bring that locket to me this minute!" "it was n't my fault at all!" whimpered maude, taking off the chain and dropping it in her mother's lap. "there's never no peace when you kids are in the house!" grumbled the woman, tossing aside her work, and disappearing in the next room. "what yer done with it?" whined gregory, as she came back with empty hands. "i've put it where you won't find it in a hurry," she answered tartly. "now hustle outdoors, the whole of you, and don't show your heads in here again till supper time!" polly drew a breath of relief, as the last simpson vanished. she had forgotten how turbulent the children were. when the dishes were out of the way began polly's first lesson in sewing buttons to cards, and to aunt jane's delight she could soon do the work quickly and well. "you'll be quite a help," was the commendation that brought a little solace to her sore heart. "thank goodness, you're quieter than my own kids!" so passed the afternoon, until came supper and the new uncle. polly had been helping set the table, when the door opened, and a little, thin-featured man stepped softly in. "polly may, i'll make you acquainted with your uncle 'rastus, 'rastus bean," called aunt jane from the cupboard that served for china closet and pantry. "how do you do, my dear? how do you do?" smiled mr. erastus bean, holding out his hand. "i'm very glad to see you." polly's little fingers had barely touched the strong, wiry ones, when mrs. bean's rasping voice broke in. "come along and wash up, 'rastus! the water's good and hot." polly's hand was dropped, as if it had been of the temperature of the water. "yis, i'm comin' jane! i'm comin' fas' 's i can!" the little man hurried across to the sink. the children tumbled in, gregory sprawling across the threshold and knocking katie against a chair. "why don't yer ever look where you goin'?" fretted sophia. "he's always runnin' over me!" wailed katie. "say, where's marcus and 'melie?" demanded maude. "over to mis' cobbe's, where i hope they'll stay till after supper," answered their mother. "her kids have been here enough, and i guess she can 'tend to mine for one meal." "i can't go after 'em, 'cause i got to study my spellin'," announced sophia. "nobody asked yer to," retorted mrs. bean. "they'd ought to know enough to come home alone." the meal progressed to the accompaniment of jarring speech, and polly was glad when it was over. "mamma, can we go up on the roof?" asked katie. "the other folks are up there, and we'll keep away from the edge." "i don't care; but, remember, the first one that goes near that rail gets a whippin'!" the door slammed behind maude, and polly began to clear the table. she was taking up her old tasks as naturally as if she had never been free from them. "guess i'll go up myself for a few minutes," mused mrs. bean. "'rastus, you go fetch marcus and 'melie home! marcus 'u'd have a fit if we went up on the roof without him. and, polly, you can put 'melie to bed, and do up the dishes, and then come on up, if you want to. 'rastus!" the little man halted in the doorway. "what, jane?" "split up some kindlin's when you git back, and you may as well fix the fire for mornin'--it must be about out now." the dishes were nearly washed when the children were brought in; and the boy had departed for the roof, and his small sister was in bed, by the time the new uncle had finished his chores. "i'll put them plates up in the cupboard," volunteered the little man. "set ri' down and rest." but polly helped, until the last dish was in place and the pan hung up on its mail. then she dropped wearily into a chair. "that maude ought to have wiped 'em for yer," he sympathized. "but them kids!" he wagged his head soberly. "i'd ruther stan' at the bench, down to the shop, all day long, than be round with such actin' mortals. jane, she can manage 'em if she sets out; but 'most gen'ally she don't set out. wisht i could do somethin' for yer," we proffered. "ye're all tuckered out!" "oh, i'm just a little tired--that's all!" smiled polly. "you are ever so good! i wanted to go up to the hospital, and tell them where i am--they don't know, and i'm afraid they'll worry! but i guess i can't to-night," she ended sadly. "why, i can run up there for yer, jus' 's well 's not," he nodded. "oh! will you?" she brightened. "i'll be so glad! but won't it be too much trouble?" "not a bit!" he returned glibly. then his pinched face shaded. "if i can git back before she comes down," he hesitated, wavering between kindness and fear. "i guess i can," he decided, and put on this hat. "if dr. dudley is n't there," polly told him, "please ask for miss lucy price. she'll do just as well. she's the nurse in our ward." "i'll do it up all straight," he exulted, stepping briskly with the importance of his errand. but as his hand touched the knob, another's was before it. his wife opened the door. "where you goin', 'rastus bean?" she demanded. "i--i was just goin' out for a little walk," he faltered. "a walk!" she snapped. "if you've got your chores done, you'd better walk into bed!" without a word he disappeared in an adjoining room, while his wife lifted the stove cover, to see if his tasks had been faithfully performed. polly's forlorn hope vanished with the little man; but no tears came until she was on her pillow, shut from all eyes. then they gushed forth in a flood. chapter xiii the return polly was awakened early by clashing talk. the girls, whose room she shared, were in a wrangle over her pretty, blue hair ribbon. sophia had spied it first, and was slyly using it for her own straight locks, when maude had snatched it away, and a hubbub followed. the owner of it did not interfere, but began to dress, as if she had no interest in the cause of the quarrel. "she's more stuck-up 'n she used to be!" polly overheard maude sneer, as she hurried away in response to her aunt's call. mr. bean wass already eating breakfast, and he greeted the little girl pleasantly, though keeping watch of his wife, who was frying cakes. "here! give these to you uncle," polly was bidden; whereupon the little man began such attempts at kindliness as to draw out a contemptuous, "huh!" from over the griddle. after that he fastened his eyes on his plate, and ate in silence. by the time the elder children were off for school, and the younger had departed to a neighboring tenement, polly's early tasks were completed, and she sat down again to the button-sewing. the little kitchen was very still, and polly's thoughts sped back to the big house on the hill. she wondered how long it would be before she should see dr. dudley and miss lucy. were they worrying about her and trying to find her? she could only guess. "i b'lieve i'll run up and get that ginger-bread receipt of mis' moore's." the nasal voice broke in rudely upon the wondering. mrs. bean shook the threads from her apron, and turned towards the door. "if the kids come in and want something to eat, before i get back," she halted to say, "there's cookies in that little stone pot in the cupboard. don't let 'em have but two apiece." wild thoughts, entirely foreign to aunt jane's directions, were flashing through polly's mind. if only there were time! she could try it! she must let dr. dudley and the others know! "i shan't be gone long," her aunt was saying. "you stick to your work!" polly waited only to hear her walk the length of the hall above, and a door open and shut. the she cautiously stole out, and down the stairs, three long flights. not more than a block away she had noticed a grocery. groceries have telephones. she would run down there, and call up the hospital! at the outer door she paused an instant for one troubled look at her short skirt; but time was precious, and quickly she was speeding down the sidewalk. "hoh! look at her!" jeered a big boy from across the street. she did not even glance his way. "have you a telephone?" was her breathless inquiry of a man at the entrance of the little shop. a jerk of his fat thumb towards the dim interior was his only answer. "please, may i use it?" he nodded indifferently, and then she was hurrying in the direction indicated. the instrument was on the wall, and polly on tiptoe could not reach the mouthpiece. looking around for a possible foot-stool, she spied a small box, which might have been used before for a similar service, and pulling it into position she found that it brought her to the proper height. with a trembling hand she lifted the receiver from its hook. she was familiar with the hospital number, and gave it without hesitation. "put in your nickel!" came distinctly to her ear. polly started in dismay. this was a pay station! "i--have n't any!" she faltered pathetically, and the merciless snap of the wire told her that her last hope had been cut off. she pushed the box back where she had found it, and walked slowly out of the shop. her feet still lagged when she turned towards the tenement. what mattered it if aunt jane should return and find her absent? what mattered anything now? then came a sudden daring temptation. the road was free--and she was there! why not keep on to the hospital? she looked down--her skirts were inches above her knees! if only aunt jane had not insisted that she wear sophia's petticoats, to match the length of the borrowed dress! could she brave the crowded streets in such attire? one thought of those she loved best brought instant decision. she could dare anything for their sakes. with a shrinking, fast-beating heart. she turned, and went quickly forward. she had not gone far, when ahead, whirling towards her, seemed a familiar object. could it be? there were other dark green automobiles--but it was!--it was dr. dudley! polly dashed into the road,--perilously near the track of the approaching car,--wildly waving her hands. it stopped almost at her feet, and then she was in dr. dudley's arms. for a moment she could only sob out her joy. "where have you been, polly, child? we were all so worried--" "i knew you would be! i knew it! but aunt jane made me come! she held me tight and i could n't get away! mr. bean was going to tell you last night; but she would n't let him--she sent him to bed! and i tried to telephone to you just now, and i had n't any five cents--oh, dear!" "poor little girl!" and the doctor's voice was very tender. his eyes passed beyond the curly head to the curb, where a knot of men and boys regarded them curiously. "where is the telephone, polly?" he asked. "up there, in the little grocery store." her hand showed the direction. he swung her gently into the auto, stepped in beside her, and steered slowly towards the conspicuous sign. "i'll be back in a minute," he told her and disappeared between the shelves of fruit and vegetables. polly's eyes followed him lovingly. presently he was beside her again. "i wanted to let them know that you are safe," he smiled. "now we will see that aunt jane." they went up the long stairs, polly in advance. her aunt heard her, and opened the kitchen door. "where in the world--" she began sharply, but stopped at sight of the tall man. "i did n't know anybody was with you," she muttered; and then recognized dr. dudley. "i've had quite a hunt for you," he remarked. "you have moved recently." "yes," she assented, "when i was married; this is nearer his ship. i s'pose you're after polly," she added; "but i've made up my mind not to let her stay at the hospital any longer. i need her at home." "you will allow her to come to us for a day," he smiled, in a tone that admitted of no refusal. "ain't no need of her goin' back," she fretted; "i can send for her things." "i'll agree to bring her luggage, when she comes for good," the doctor returned pleasantly' "but we want her for another day or two, at the least. polly, run and get ready! i shall be due at the hospital before long." in the little dim bedroom the eager fingers made quick work with the buttons. this was what polly had not dared hope for, a day or two more with those she loved! presently she was back in her pretty dress and shoes, and was fastening on her hat before the little cracked mirror. oh, her locket! she had come near forgetting it. "please, aunt jane, can i have my locket and chain?" she asked, facing the somewhat disturbed woman. "there's not call for you to wear it today," was the sullen reply. "oh, but i'd like it, please, if you don't mind!" polly insisted, gaining courage from dr. dudley's presence. with a toss of her head, mrs. bean stalked into the next room. the moments passed. still she did not return. when she did appear, she looked actually troubled. "that gregory must have got hold of it, and gone and hid it away, or something!" she worried. "i've hunted high and low, but 't ain't anywhere! now you need n't go to bein' scared, polly!" for the little girl's face plainly showed her distress. "i guess you can stand it if you don't have on any _geegaws_ to-day! i'll get it fast enough when that kid comes home from school. but, oh, he's a terror, gregory is!" they went downstairs, polly clinging to the doctor's hand, as if she feared that even now something might separate her from him. in the auto, however, she settled back restfully in her seat. it was so unspeakably good to feel a loving protector close beside. dr. dudley made quick time on the return trip to the hospital, and david was waiting for them by the stepping-stone. "hullo!" cried polly blithely. "hullo!" he responded; adding, "oh! what made you give us such a scare?" "i could n't help it; truly i could n't!" she replied. "well, i'm glad you're back again!" david declared fervently, insisting on carrying her bundle and her little white sweater. "better run up to the ward, and let them have a sight of you," the doctor advised. "did you tell your uncle?" turning to the lad. "yes, sir. and i called up mrs. jocelyn, too; but she said she had just heard from you." polly's eyes grew wide and grave. had her friends all been worrying like this? dr. dudley glanced at his watch. "i shall be busy until noon," he said; "but, polly, i wish you would come down directly after dinner. i want to talk with you." she went upstairs wondering if the "talk" were to be about going back to aunt jane's. she had not reached any conclusion when the sight of miss lucy and leonora put the troublesome matter from their mind. "my precious!" breathed miss lucy in her ear. "oh, you darling polly!" squealed the little lame girl, with a frantic hug. "we thought you must be kid--kid--kid'aped, or whatever 't is!" she ended desperately. "i was--by aunt jane," laughed polly; "but dr. dudley rescued me." "maybe he would n't, if it had n't been for colonel gresham," returned leonora, with a shake of her head, as the other children jostled her carelessly, in their eagerness to be at the front. "what did the colonel do?" queried polly wonderingly' but the rest claimed her, and the answer had to wait. "you've lost your locket!" cried stella pope. "did you know it?" "it is n't los exactly," polly explained, instinctively shielding the guilty lad as much as possible in her brief narration of facts. "aw, what a kid!" sniffed johnny ryan. "the horrid boy!" worried mabel camp. "what if they don't ever find it!" "where's yer hair ribbon?" asked frederica, feeling responsible for the safety of that bit of dainty blue, since she had aided in its first use. again polly stood in defense. "my cousin maude wore it to school, and she had n't come home when i left." "what made yer let her?" mourned frederica. "bet yer i would n't!" "come, polly, and change your dress," interposed miss lucy, guessing somewhat of the truth from the little girl's reddening cheeks and hesitating voice. in the dressing-room, behind the closed door, the nurse took polly in her arms. "it is so good to have you back again," she told her, with kisses for emphasis. the words stabbed the child's heart. the time was to be so short! still polly would not spoil to-day with to-morrow's nor next day's troubles, and she summoned brave smiles and gay responses, until she half forgot the dreary fourth-floor flat where she had passed the night. leonora caught an early chance to draw polly away to a corner where they could talk--or where she could, for she was bubbling with excitement over the untold story of last night's doings. "my! i thought we'd go crazy when mrs. jocelyn telephoned to know why you did n't come! there you'd had time to get to her house over 'n' over again! dr. dudley just left ev'rything and went off in his auto, and hunted and hunted, and you was n't anywhere! the he told the police, and they went to lookin'!" "the police!" repeated polly, big-eyed with astonishment. "yes; but they could n't find you. miss lucy 'most cried, and dr. dudley looked so sober i did n't dare speak to him. oh, it was awful! we was sure you'd been kid--" leonora hesitated, as before. "kidnaped," prompted polly. "oh, yes, kidnapped! i never can remember how it goes. well, david said he knew you had been, and miss lucy kep' saying, 'oh, no! it can't be!' but she looked as if she'd sink when she said it." "and what was it about colonel gresham?" polly asked. "you said --" "yes," leonora hurried on, "i'm comin' to it! we never any of us thought of your aunt jane, till colonel gresham he said had n't you gone to see her. dr. dudley told him of course you wouln n't, when you' started for mrs. jocelyn's, and the colonel he said he should try her anyway. so dr. dudley jumped right into his auto and raced off to where you aunt used to live. when she was n't there, and the folks did n't know where she'd gone, and her name was n't in the directory at any new place, he did n't know _what_ to do!" "she's married mr. bean," poly put in, "so she'd mrs. bean now." "oh, maybe that's why he could n't find her! well, he come home, and he and miss lucy talked and talked, and high price she talked, too, and--" "high price!" poly broke out. "yes, she felt awful about you bein' lost--my! i guess we all did! you don't know! i did n't want to go to bed, and miss lucy let me sit up, hoping we'd hear something; but finally i had to, 'cause there was a woman sick, and the doctor had to stop huntin' for you, and go and 'tend to her, and david went home, for there was n't anybody any more to telephone to. this morning dr. dudley he said he was going to find your aunt jane if she was in this city, and the next thing we knew david come rushin' in, and sayin' you was safe and sound--the doctor had telephoned to him. my! how glad we were! i never wanted to dance so much in all my life! say, why did n't you send word where you was?" "i could n't." and polly related something of her unhappy stay in the house on chestnut street. she had not finished when david called up to know if polly and leonora could be spared. he was alone in the office, and wanted them. the lad was eager for polly's story, and much of it had to be retold. then he disclosed news of his own. "we're going to move up to uncle david's the first of next week. won't that be jolly? you can come over any time; it is so near." leonora beamed her pleasure. polly pushed back the tears. david's face shaded with sudden dismay. "you have n't got to go back to your aunt jane's?" he demanded fiercely. polly's head gave the answer. at the moment speech seemed impossible. "you shall not!" he burst out. "if dr. dudley lets you go and live with those--those heathen, i'll never speak to him again as long as i live!" "why, david collins!" polly's gentle voice was grieved and full of astonishment. the pale, blue-eyed lad seemed to have vanished, and another to be standing there before her. his eyes, grown suddenly dark, set in that flaming face, gave him a most unnatural look. "i shall have to go--aunt jane says i must," she went on sadly. "there's no other way." "there would be another way, if i was a man!" he raged. "oh, oh! i wish i were! i wish i were!" he cried passionately; and throwing himself upon the couch, face downward, his shoulders shook with sobs. leonora bent her head on her arm, and wept silently. polly was endeavoring to soothe them both when dr. dudley came in. learning the cause of the tears, he remonstrated in his humorous way, until leonora smiled again; but david scorned such comfort, refusing to move or to speak. finally the doctor started to prepare the medicine he had come for, and the girls went upstairs, polly renewing to return directly after the noon meal. chapter xiv polly's "anne sisters" dr. dudley's office was without an occupant when polly peeped in. the doctor had not returned from dinner, and david had gone home for the rest of the day. the little girl wandered about the room, too full of vague dread to care for books, or even for the fine collection of sea shells, which usually she never tired of. they had been brought home from foreign shores by an old uncle of the physician's, and now, ranged on their wide shelves, they gleamed out from a farther corner of the office in all the delicate tints of their wonderful family. but to-day polly passed them by with only a sigh, remembering the happy times that she and david and leonora had had in their close company, now playing that they were mermaids, come to tell them strange tales of the under-seas, now holding them to their ears, to catch the mysterious, fascinating songs of the ocean which they were always singing. "here already?" broke in the doctor's pleasant voice. "i don't believe they gave you much of a dinner." "yes, it was good; but i was n't hungry this noon," polly replied, with a wan little smile. "you were in such a hurry to come down and see me that it took away your appetite--was that it?" he laughed. "i don't know," was the sober answer. the doctor glanced furtively at her face, and grew grave at once. he squared some books and magazines upon the table, and then sat down in his lounging-chair, pulling polly to his knee. "i want to know more about that aunt jane of yours," he began. "was you mother her sister, or--" "oh, no, she was n't!" polly interrupted. "mamma was an only child, just like me." "and your father--did he have brothers or sisters?" "i don't know," she answered slowly. "he died when i was three years old. i can only just remember him." "do you recollect what aunt jane's name was before she married? was it may?" polly shook her head doubtfully. "i can't seem to think," she mused. "oh! i guess it was carter, 'cause she's always saying that maude is clear carter, just like her folds, and marcus is all simpson, like uncle gregory." "what was you mother's maiden name, her name when she was a girl?" the doctor next questioned. "phebe illingworth. grandma illingworth was her mother. she lived with us. she died the year before mamma did." "thistledown," went on the doctor, "some of my questions may sound rude, but it is important that i know a little more than i ever have known of your family history. i think you told me that your mother gave piano lessons." "yes, and grandma gave lessons on the violin and guitar, and singing lessons too." "and what became of the piano and other musical instruments?" asked the doctor quickly. "i think aunt jane sold them. she sold 'most everything. some of the furniture she's got now." "was it nice furniture?" "i think it was lovely. there was a beautiful sideboard--that was grandma's--with carved birds on it, and the wood was light brown--kind of yellowish--and so pretty!" "was that sold?" polly nodded sadly. "did you mother ever go to the bank, do you remember?" "oh, yes, she did! she used to carry a little book." "did you always have plenty of money to use--for food and clothes and so on?" "i guess so. we had nice things to eat, and pretty things to wear." "you never heard of any will, i suppose?" the curls shook slowly. "your mother was not sick long, was she?" the doctor asked gently. "she was never sick. she was giving a music lesson, one afternoon, and she fainted away--they could n't make her live." the sorrowful voice softened almost to a whisper, and the golden head drooped to dr. dudley's shoulder. he touched his lips to the white forehead, and tightened his clasp of the slender little form. "i am sorry enough to have to bring all this back," he said; "but, thistledown, i must discover a way, if possible, to keep you from that woman. i want to find out just how much legal right she has in regard to you. if we could only obtain sufficient evidence to prove that she is not a proper person to care for you --" polly had suddenly sat up straight, her eyes round with the startling, beautiful thought. "do you mean," she broke in excitedly, "that i should n't have to go back to aunt jane?" the doctor bowed. "but--" he began. "oh, then i can stay with you!" she burst out. "she is n't proper, she is n't nice, she is n't--anything!" "i know, my dear!" smiled the doctor. "but such things are hard to prove. i shall keep you, thistledown, just as long as the law will let me; but the law must be obeyed, and we can't tell how things will come out." "won't i have to go back to-morrow?" she asked eagerly. "no, indeed," he assured her. "were you dreading that? don't be afraid, thistledown! keep up a stout heart! you shall stay here for the present anyway." he looked at his watch. "i think i'll find jack at home now," he said; and, letting polly slip to her feet, he placed her in his chair and crossed over to the telephone. polly listened breathlessly. she knew that "jack" must mean only jack brewster, a lawyer of the city, who had been a college classmate of the doctor's. the two were close friends. "that you, jack?" polly heard. "yes. i want to see you professionally, as soon as possible. no," laughing; "but it is important. can you come up this evening? all right. good-bye." "jack brewster will do his best for us," the doctor said, coming back. "he says he will be here at seven or a little after. i think it probably that he will wish to ask you a few questions; but you won't be afraid of him. he is one of the gentlest men i ever knew--and the strongest," he added. "i am not afraid of anybody that is your friend," returned polly. the doctor smiled. "a very pretty compliment!" he told her; but she gave his praise scant notice. "i wonder," she said, "if you would like to see the little book mama wrote about my anne sisters." "you what?" he queried. "my anne sisters." only his twinkling eyes disclosed his amusement. "ancestors you mean, don't you?" he corrected gently. "maybe," doubtfully; "but there are lots of annes in it that are related to me." "where is the book?" "right upstairs, in 'under the lilacs.' don't you remember, you went down to aunt jane's, and got some of my books when i was able to sit up?" "i recollect," he nodded. "well, that was why i sent for this one 'specially, because i knew it had the little book init, and mamma told me always to keep it. so i thought i'd better have it with me." "run up and get it, child! it may be--" polly was gone. it was indeed a very little book that she put in the doctor's hand, simply a few sheets of small note paper sewed together. "it has about the illingworth family in one part, and about the may folds in the other," polly explained; but it is to be doubted if dr. dudley heard her, so eagerly was he scanning those lists of names. he clutched at one forlorn thread of hope, and as he read, the feeble thread waxed into a cord of strength. "polly--" he began brightly, and then stopped. after all he could not be sure, and he must not raise happy anticipations only to see them blasted. his face shaded, and he finished the sentence quite differently from what he had intended. he went on gravely, "did the simpsons take charge of everything after your mother went? was nobody else there?" "not to stay, except mrs. brooks, who lived downstairs. she was n't there much. i guess aunt jane did n't want her." "probably not," remarked the doctor grimly. "is the book any good?" she asked wistfully. again he was tempted to tell her, and again he restrained himself. "i think it will be of use to us," he replied. "did you see all the annes?" she queried. "are n't there a lot of them?" he nodded laughingly. "it is a good name and i have discovered yours among them." "did n't you know it before? it is marry anne, after my great-aunt mary anne illingworth. i don't like it so well as polly." "or thistledown," he added gaily. his spirits had risen wonderfully since seeing the little book. the sudden change had its effect on polly, and when she went upstairs it was with something of her accustomed blitheness. the afternoon passed pleasantly, but after supper the little girl grew unaccountably nervous. she started at every ring of the telephone, and gave queer, absent-minded answers to leonora's questions. finally miss lucy, comprehending the situation, proposed a game; but polly, usually the quickest of the children, allowed the others to eclipse her, while her ears were strained for the expected summons. at last, when the message came, she started downstairs with a fluttering heart, her nerves a-quiver with irrational fear. at any other time she would have been pleased at the thought of meeting dr. dudley's friend of whom she had heard so many delightful things; but now a vague terror possessed her, lest he, being a part of that awful law,--which to her was only a name of dread,--might send her directly back to aunt jane's. polly rarely had a fall, so light and sure of foot was she; but at the top of the flight she stumbled and came near going headlong. this, turning her thoughts suddenly into another path, seemed somewhat to steady her quaking nerves, and when she reached the office door she was ready to smile a brave, though shy, greeting to the lawyer. jack brewster was in appearance the opposite of dr. dudley. the physician was tall and broad-shouldered, with no surplus flesh; yet none would have called him thin. the lawyer was slight almost as a boy, of fair complexion, with an abundance of wavy brown hair, and eyes that had a habit of shining as if their owner had just received a bit of good news. they shone now, as he took one of polly's little hands in both his own, and told her how glad he was to make her acquaintance. "i have n't any little girl at my house," he went on smilingly, "but there's a boy who makes things pretty lively. when i started to come away this evening he hugged my leg, and kept saying, 'no sir-ee-sir! no sir-ee-sir!' till i finally had to go back and tell him his usual bedtime story." "how old is he?" asked polly, her fears quite forgotten. "he will be two years, the third of next month. bob," whirling around to the doctor, "why have n't you brought miss polly out to see us? i'm ashamed of you!" the physician laughed. "i am not very neighborly, i'll admit," he returned. "sick people have crowded out the well ones lately. i know well folks will keep." "then the only way for me to get hold of you is to feign a chill or a fever or a broken leg--all right! thank you for the cue! and now, miss polly," he went on cheerily, "i want you hones opinion of that aunt of yours. tell me, please, just how she makes you feel." "wh-y," hesitated the surprised little girl, "if i should say right out, i'm afraid it would n't sound very polite or--" "don't think anything about politeness just now, please. open your heart frankly, and let me see what is there in regard to her. don't be afraid to say exactly what you think. it may help me very much. i want to be able to look at her through your clear eyes." a shadow darkened the fair little face, and pain crept in, and stayed. "she seems," polly began slowly, "like a dreadful dream--you know, when you wake up all shivery, and are so glad it is n't real. only"--with a little catch--"aunt jane is real! sometimes i feel sick all over when i think about her, and going back there--oh," she burst out passionately, "i'd rather die than go back to live with her! mr. brewster, don't make me go! please don't make me go!" the words came with a half sob, but she fought the tears back, and her appealing eyes searched his face for hope. "my dear child," he exclaimed tenderly, "you must not worry one bit more about this! you have given me exactly what i want. now leave the matter with dr. dudley and me. will you agree to do this?" "if i can," she answered softly; "but aunt jane is very hard to forget!" "i dare say she is," smiled the lawyer; "but i think you can do it. you know the best way to forget a disagreeable thing?" no, polly did not. "it is to keep thinking of other things, pleasant things, until the mind is so full of them that there is n't a scrap of room for whatever is annoying. you try it, and see if i am not right!" "there are lots of pleasant things to think of," smiled polly. "to be sure there are! one is, that dr. dudley is going to bring you out to my house some morning to stay all day." "oh," beamed polly, "that would be nice!" she looked across at the doctor. he nodded happily. "if he does n't do it," and the lawyer made a comical grimace in dr. dudley's direction, "i'll come after you myself." polly gurgled out her little laugh, which sounded as if she had already begun to follow the lawyer's advice, and she thanked him very sweetly for his invitation and his promise. presently she went upstairs, and miss lucy was relieved to see that she appeared more like her usual self. but she was very quiet, repeating nothing of what had passed in the office. it had been a hard day, and polly was glad when the time came for her to creep into bed. on saturday miss lucy and her small assistant had a busy morning. there was scant time to think about aunt jane. when she did appear in polly's mind, the little girl remembered mr. brewster's counsel, and hastened to perform her task in hand with exceeding faithfulness, putting on fresh pillows slips with as much care as if the welfare of the ward depended on their being straight to a thread. her efforts were successful, for they pushed away aunt jane. so the forenoon passed, leaving her at dinner time a little more tired than usual, but free from the worry of the day before. soon after the meal miss lucy went downstairs. when she came back polly was playing authors with leonora, mabel, frederica, and stella. she stopped beside polly's chair. "dr. dudley wants you," she smiled. "run right along, and i will take your place." polly went, wondering, but fearing little. miss lucy's face was too radiant to betoken anything unpleasant. dr. dudley held out his arms, and the little girl ran into them. "glorious news, thistledown! it is all settled! 'aunt jane' has no right to you whatever!" "oh!" she gasped, and went suddenly white. the doctor dropped into a chair, and took her in his lap, letting her lean against him. "i'm glad you are going to school next week," he declared. "you will get out of doors more. i'm not going to have you paling up in this way every little while. you are in the house too much." "i'm all right," she argued. "tell me about it, please!" "to begin with," he smiled, "these people are no relatives of yours." polly's eyes rounded with amazement. "and aunt jane is n't my aunt at all?" "not the least mite of an aunt," he laughed. "it was a hard thing for her to admit; but she had to do it." "you have seen her?" queried polly. "mr. brewster and i were there this forenoon. it seems that she lived next door to you at the time your father died, and, according to her own statement, she gave you mother a great deal of assistance at that time. it is easy to see how she made your mother feel under obligations to her, and the rest came about as it naturally might with such a woman. when she saw her chance for gain she improved it. she has defrauded you out of household goods and money; but jack thinks we should hardly make anything by taking the matter into court. there is nearly two thousand dollars still to your credit in the bank, and that shall stay there till you are of age. she was allowed only a certain sum per week for your support--the rest she could not touch; but she did what she pleased, it seems, with the money received for furniture and so on. she has no property that we can get hold of, except the things which belonged to your mother. those we can take, if you will tell me what they are." "oh! can i have mamma's little rosewood work-table! i saw it there the other day." the doctor was busy with pad and pencil. "the sooner we get them the better, so think hard now, and i'll note them down." "there's a good deal of china, and some nice glass dishes, and the silver spoons and forks--i could tell which they were if i could see them." "you are going to pick them out, with mr. brewster and me." "i'm going there?" polly cried. dr. dudley nodded. "you're not afraid?" he smiled reassuringly. "oh, no, not with you!" she replied. "there's two trunks," she went on, "with some of mamma's clothes in. a good many are worn out--she wore 'em, and make 'em over for the girls and me. then there are all our books, and three or four chairs, and a lovely clock--oh, and a great pile of mamma's music, with some pieces that she wrote herself!" the list was longer than dr. dudley had expected. when polly could think of nothing more, he called up the lawyer by telephone, making an appointment to meet him. shortly afterwards he put polly in the auto, and they started for mrs. bean's. on the way the little girl thought of her precious locket. "we shall get it if we can," the doctor told her. "mrs. bean appears to be honest about that. she believes the boy has it; but he professes innocence. i fancy she will keep him out of our way if possible." they took the lawyer in at his office, and polly finished her ride sitting on his knee. when mrs. bean learned their errand, she turned, then white, and seemed greatly excited. at first she was inclined to resent their coming as an intrusion, declaring, "there ain't much belongin' to the kid anyhow." but, as earlier in the day, she quailed before mr. brewster's firm, quiet speech, and sullenly led the way to the various articles called for. finally nothing remained unchecked on the list except the two trunks. "i h'ain't got no trunks," the woman bristled. "you've seen my rooms an' all there is in 'em! them trunks prob'ly was sold along with other things." "why, aunt jane," put in polly, "they were here just before i was hurt. i remember, because--" "huh!" she cackled. "i was n't here then, an' i guess they wa'n't!" "i mean where we lived then," corrected polly. "wal, they ain't here nor there now," she insisted. "can't we go up attic?" questioned polly. "you said, the other day, there was an attic to--" "i hain't got nothin' up there," mrs. bean broke in, with flaming face. "will you allow us to look through it, please?" the lawyer's voice was low, but tense. "there ain't no call for you to go paradin' up there," she snapped. "pretty how d' y' do, if you can't take my word for it!" "it is an easy matter to be mistaken," mr. brewster smiled. "have you a key to the apartment? or is it open?" mrs. bean took time for reply, narrowing her eyes, as if in deep thought. she was quick to see the loophole of escape which the lawyer had shown her. still she hesitated. "wal," she muttered finally, "it's barely possible i was thinkin' o' some other trunks; but i don't b'lieve i was. i do' know; i'm driven to death. i sh'd think i'd forgit my own name, slavin' 's i have to! 't won't do no hurt, i s'pose, for you to go up an' see." the trunks were found, as mr. brewster had been sure they would be. he opened both, and he and polly hastily looked over their contents. besides bundles of old letters, photographs, and numerous little mementoes, there was much of value,--fine table and bed linen, and silk dress, some exquisite laces, and a little box of odd pieces of jewelry. "oh!" polly burst out, "i forgot grandma's watch! and mama's coral pin and her topaz ring!" "they're downstairs," volunteered mrs. bean. "i forgot them, too!" after the trunks were locked, and the keys in mr. brewster's pocket, he and the doctor carried them into the hallway. while they were busy, there was a clatter of feet on the lower stairs, and mrs. bean slipped hurriedly away. "i guess the children have come," said polly. but when the three reached the apartment below, no young folds were visible, and the lawyer silently concluded to defer his attempt with gregory until another time. another later polly's goods were brought to the hospital, and leonora and several other children, who were able to be downstairs, were given the unbounded delight of seeing them unloaded. chapter xv a bid for polly early on monday morning polly received an urgent request from mrs. jocelyn that she begin her delayed visit that very hour. so, as school was to open on wednesday, it was decided that the little girl should accept the renewed invitation, and that dr. dudley should fetch her home on the succeeding afternoon. "by that time," observed david, "we shall be all moved, and we can go to school together in the morning." "but, oh, dear!" groaned leonora, "that aunt jane will get you again, sure! oh, dr. dudley, don't let her go alone, please don't!" polly laughed happily. it was hard for leonora to realize that mrs. bean had no more power over her beloved friend. but dr. dudley did not laugh. leonora had been of the band of anxious ones on that night of suspense, and he could understand how she still feared to have polly venture for without a protector. "you need not worry," he assured her. "i shall not let polly out of my sight until she is safely inside mrs. jocelyn's house." "i could go alone just as well," smiled the little girl. "there is n't any danger." "it is too long a walk," returned the doctor, "and don't you dare to come back, young lady, until you come with me!" he shook his finger at her threateningly. she giggled, while david remarked, with a mischievous twinkle:-"that would be a good way to keep her there--you need n't go after her!" "do you want me to stay away, david collins?" demanded polly. "no, i don't," he admitted laughing. "oh, don't talk about her staying away!" pleaded leonora. "we did, just in fun, last time, and then she was lost!" "oh, you funny, blessed leonora!" cried polly, putting her arms around her friend's neck, "i'm not going to get lost, or stay away, either--only one night. i guess you can stand it for just one night." dr. dudley saw his charge inside mrs. jocelyn's door, according to his promise; but the little lady told him that he need not come after her, for she would bring her back on the following day. mrs. jocelyn's home was in a delightful quarter of the city, opposite a park of many acres. the house was dignified mansion, full of stately old furniture, and if it had not been for its owner's cheery hospitality it would have been rather awe-inspiring to a little girl like polly. but polly, having been several times a guest in the big house, now felt quite at home, and ran up and down the polished oaken stairs and through the grand, dimly lighted hallways as merrily as if she had always been used to such imposing surroundings. "it is too bad dorothy could n't stay over till this week," mrs. jocelyn said; "but never mind! she'll come again before long, and then you'll see her. we'll have such pleasant times to-day and to-morrow, that she won't be missed. this afternoon are going shopping, and you are to buy presents for everybody you like." "oh!" beamed polly. "and to-morrow morning," her hostess went on, "we are invited to a musicale across the street, at mrs. trowbridge's, where we shall the wonderful little violinist who is being made so much of by musicians." "won't that be lovely!" cried polly. "i have n't heard any music in ever so long, except at church, and david's singing." mrs. jocelyn smiled appreciatively. "i knew you would enjoy it," she said. "now i shall be busy for a few minutes, and you can do anything you choose,--mouse around the library, or play on the piano, or make out a list of what you'd like to give your friends. we will start soon after luncheon. you won't have time for much; i'm only going to make a salad dressing which i fancy i can mix a little better than tilly can. then i'll help you with the presents." polly had taken lessons of her mother, and her fingers still remembered bits of the pieces she had learned; so the piano was her first choice. lured on by the familiar airs, she played and played, forgetting all but the music she loved. mrs. jocelyn returned from the kitchen, and, unnoticed, slipped into a seat back of the player. finally polly turned around. "i felt you there!" she laughed. "have i hindered you?" "you have been charming me. why, child, i did n't know you could play so well! and all out of practice, too! i should n't think you could recollect a note." "my fingers seem to," polly smiled. "i'll think i don't know a piece, and then my hands go right along and play it." "i wish mine would," laughed mrs. jocelyn. "but i've let my music go too long; it will never come back." her last tones were a little sad, but she quickly recovered her gayety. "suppose we think over now," she proposed, "what you would like to purchase at the stores, and where we shall need to go. then we can the better map out our afternoon." polly was all eagerness at once, and her hostess was no less interested. "are n't there some new girls in the ward who have n't any dolls?" "yes," polly answered, "there are five or six. let me see," tapping off the names on her fingers, "there's mabel, and stella, and frederica, and angiola, and trotty,--she's only four,-and mary pender, and ida regan,--she's real pretty; that makes seven: i think that's all." "you shall choose a doll for each one of them. you will know better than i just what will suit." "oh, it will be such fun!" chuckled polly. "and you sure so good to do it!" "pshaw!" exclaimed the little lady. "i'm only being good to myself. i have just begun to learn what money is for, and i am enjoying it--for the first time in years!" a shadow stole over the wrinkled pink-and-white face; but a smile quickly chased it away. "now, my love, whose name shall head your list of especial friends?" "i don't know," polly hesitated. "do you mean children?" "i mean anybody that you would like to honor with a gift. suppose you begin with miss price--miss lucy price." "oh, i'd love to! but what could i get?" "plenty of things to choose from,--books and jewelry and all sorts of knick-knacks, besides pretty bits to wear." "i think she'd like a new hand bag," ventured polly. "hers is so gray and shabby. would it cost too much?" "no, indeed!" laughed mrs. jocelyn. "you shall buy the very prettiest one we can find. but before i forget it i must see about something else. i want your picture, and i know your hospital friends would like it, too. wait a minute, and i'll call up fisher, and secure an appointment for this afternoon if possible." she disappeared in the tiny room back of the staircase, set apart for the telephone, and polly heard her voice, as she talked over the wire. "i have promised to have you there at three o'clock," she announced presently. "that will give us a good two hours for shopping, if we don't talk too long over our luncheon." "am i dressed all right?" queried polly, anxiously; adding, "who will want my picture? the folks at the hospital see me all the time." "oh, you precious bit of humanity!" cried the little lady, taking polly in her arms. "if i should tell you that you will make so sweet a picture that everybody will want it, would you believe it?" "no," polly laughed, "because it would n't be true." mrs. jocelyn kissed her for answer, and then asked what she would like to give to david. "he has a knife," mused polly, scowling her forehead over the problem. "how would a sterling silver fruit knife do?" suggested the little lady. that was decided to be just the thing, and went down on the list. for dr. dudley, in addition to the photograph, polly thought a nice handkerchief would be suitable gift, and mrs. jocelyn wrote, "box of h." opposite his name. "could i give leonora hewitt something to wear?" ventured polly. "she thinks so much of pretty things; but she can't have many, because her father is poor, and there are a lot of children besides her. leonora is a sweet girl--and, oh, is n't it lovely? dr. dudley says now that she will get over her lameness, and be able to walk as well as anybody!" "that is delightful!" agreed mrs. jocelyn. "you shall surely get a beautiful something for leonora." "don't you think a pink hair ribbon would be nice?" polly asked. her hostess smiled over the modesty of the gift, and was about to suggest some article of jewelry; but she finally let it go as polly had chose, only adding on the paper, "and sash." "we may change every one of these, when we come to the real selection," laughed the little lady; "but the list will be a guide." nobody was forgotten, not even miss hortensia price, an "illustrated browning" being against her name. they were on their way shortly after one o'clock, in mrs. jocelyn's stately coach, drawn by the handsome iron-grays that were polly's admiration. it would be hard to say which enjoyed the shopping most, polly in her innocent delight of giving, or the old little lady who was fast growing young in her now-found life. with a carriage full of bundles, they drove up to the photographer's precisely at the hour appointed, and polly, radiant from her joyful experience, made a picture that charmed the artist as well as his patron. the next morning's musicale was quite the feast that polly had anticipated, and mrs. jocelyn's was a twofold enjoyment. the little girl had feared that her white dress was too wrinkled for grand a party; so her hostess's maid had smoothed it into its original perfection, and, to make good the hair ribbon that had been lost, mrs. jocelyn had bought an even prettier one--the palest blue sprinkled with forget-me-nots, and sash too match. after luncheon came the delightful task of giving the presents pretty holiday touches with fancy tissue papers and gay ribbons. "we're having the best part of it, are n't we?" chuckled polly, tilting her head to one side as she tied a pink baby ribbon around leonora's dainty box. the little lady did not instantly answer; then, dropping her work, she caught the surprised child in her arms with almost a sob. "o polly, polly!" she cried passionately, "i must have you! i must! i must! you have taught me how to live, and you belong to me! o polly! will you come?" she held her off, gazing pleadingly into her face. "what--do you mean?" faltered the little girl. "my darling! did i frighten you? i mean i want you for my own dear daughter! i have n't said anything before, because i feared the woman you have supposed was your aunt would not give you up. but now that you are free i feel that i must have you? i meant to speak to dr. dudley first; but i could n't wait, dearest! don't you want to come and live with me? i know it's a gloomy old house, but i will make it all over into the sunshiniest home you ever saw. you shall have everything you wish! i will buy you the very prettiest pair of shetland ponies i can find, and the loveliest little carriage! you can take your friends driving every day!" "that would be beautiful," responded polly, with a faint smile. "and you shall have the nicest doll house you ever heard of, and a whole set of furniture for your biggest doll! i'll fit you up two of the prettiest rooms in the house, and furnish them in white and blue! you shall have a new piano and take lessons of the very best master, and next summer we will go abroad and see all the wonders of europe! oh, there's no end to the happy things we'll do, if you will come and be my little girl! you will; won't you, polly?" "why, i--don't know!" gasped the child. "you take my breath away!" she looked actually distressed. "poor darling!" the little lady folded polly in her arms. "of course you can't make up your mind all in a minute! i've thought of it so long, i did n't realize that it was news to you. i'm such an impatient body! talk it over with dr. dudley, and he will make things all clear. now we'll forget it, and finish up these packages. what do yo suppose leonora will say to her new ribbons?" the voice was gay, so sure was the little lady that polly, counseled by the far-seeing doctor, would make quick choice of so auspicious an offer. but polly could not easily be won back to her former blitheness. she finished her part of the task in an absent-minded manner; yet by the time she was on her way to deliver her presents she was more talkative and merry. so splendid a coach was seldom seen on the poor, narrow street where brida lived, and big-eyed babies and listless loungers watched its progress. brida was at school; but her mother received with loud expressions of gratitude and praise the pretty doll carriage which polly had brought. elsie, in a still narrower, dirtier street, had a similar gift; while for the others of polly's hospital friends who had returned to their homes there were books and paper dolls, pocket knives and boxes of candy. it was a pleasant hour, yet polly was not sorry when the carriage turned towards the hospital. mrs. jocelyn would not go in, and the little girl bade her good-bye with a clinging embrace. "i love you de-arly!" she whispered: which made the little lady smile happily to herself all the way up the street. nobody was in the doctor's office, and polly lingered by the pile of packages which the footman had deposited on the couch. she was pulling out david's present from under the others, the present that had finally been changed from a fruit knife to a flute, when a voice from the doorway called out:-"hul-lo, pol-lee!" she turned, to see david's merry face. "you can't guess what i've got for you!" chuckled the lad. "you could n't possibly guess what i've got for you!" she retorted gaily. david's eyes opened wonderingly, falling on the pile of bundles. then he went back to his own secret. putting his hand in his pocket, he drew forth what polly had feared she should never see again. "my locket and chain!" she cried. david grinned happily, and passed over the necklace. "where did you get it?" she questioned. "you may thank cornelius for it," he told her. "i met him down on grant street, and--i don't know what made me--i happened to speak of your losing this. he was interested all at once, and wanted me to tell him just how it looked. when i said the locket was set with turquoises, he clapped his hand on his side and cried out, 'i bet yer that was it! i bet yer 't was!' it seems he'd seen a boy--only this morning--showing a locket to a little kid, and he thought then it was queer he should be having a girl's locket round that way. cornelius said he could get it easy enough of the boy had it with him. so we went round to the school, and waited till 't was out. he had to go on an errand for his father this afternoon, and so was excused early. "burt sehl is the boy's name, and cornelius and i walked along with him till we got off the street--cornel' was sharp enough not to tackle him near the school. as soon as the crowd thinned out, he asked him if he had that locket, and at first burt put up a bluff. finally he admitted that he got it from greg. simpson; said he swapped a lot of tops and marbles for it." "i should n't suppose he'd have given it up," cried polly excitedly. david laughed. "he did n't without a tussle; but cornelius was more than a match for him--my! don't i wish i were as strong as he!" "you will be some day," encouraged polly. "but i'm glad i chose that book for cornelius--it's all about a knight!" "what book?" queried david. "oh, the book i left at his home for him this afternoon! i forgot," and she caught up the long parcel for david. "i hope you'll like that," she said. the boy's eyes glistened when he saw what it was. "oh, you don't know how many times i've wished i had a flute!" he cried, fingering the little instrument delightedly. "what's going on here?" called dr. dudley, from the open door. "these are going _in here!_" flashed polly, deftly transferring a square, thin package from the couch to the doctor's pocket. it caught and held by one corner, but the physician did not leave it long. he looked at it critically, and then laid it on the table, and began untying the bright ribbon which bound it. "you have seen the hole in my sunday handkerchief!" exclaimed the doctor, dramatically, his eyes a-twinkle as he opened the box. polly and david laughed. the handkerchiefs were fine and dainty enough to suit the most fastidious gentleman, and dr. dudley expressed sincere admiration for the gift. then the story of the locket had to be told again, and at its end david discovered that it was time for him to be at his new home. polly began to look over the packages, picking out what she wished to carry upstairs at once. "are n't you going to tell me about your visit?" asked the doctor, dropping into his easiest chair with a luxurious sigh of relief, after a hard day. the little girl's face grew suddenly grave. in the pleasure of the last hour she had forgotten the trouble that had been looming ahead of her ever since mrs. jocelyn's proposition. she laid mabel's doll back on the pile, and came slowly over to the doctor. chapter xvi a secret "you went shopping, i observe," began dr. dudley, tentatively. "yes," responded polly, balancing herself on the arm of his chair. "mrs. jocelyn bought lots of things for me to give to people. we bade out a list--or she did. she let me choose." "that was kind." "yes," polly assented, and then studied the rug for a moment. the doctor waited. "we went to a musicale, this forenoon, at mrs. trowbridge's," she resumed. "the little boy was there who plays the violin so beautifully. mrs. jocelyn got me a new hair ribbon and sash to wear." "did you enjoy those better than the music?" twinkled the doctor. "oh, no!" the tone was almost reproachful. "one piece the boy played was lovely. i hated to have him stop. i wish i could play as well as he--no, i don't either! i don't want to!" she burst out fiercely. dr. dudley glanced at her quizzically. "you seem to be a young lady of changeable opinions," he smiled. her lip quivered; but she struggled hard against tears. "suppose you tell me all about it, thistledown," the doctor said gently. "oh, don't let me go and be her little girl!" she broke out. "don't! don't! i'll do anything, if you'll only let me stay with you!" he drew her down into his lap, and soothed her with tender words. "nobody shall ever take you from me against your will, thistledown!" his voice was tensely unnatural. "does mrs. jocelyn wish to adopt you? did she say so?" "i don't know about adopting. she wants me to go and live with her. she said i could have everything, if i only would,--a new piano, and lessons, and two rooms all furnished beautiful, and a doll house, and go to europe, and a pony--two of 'em--and, oh, i don't remember half!" and you are sure you wish to give up all that grandeur for this old codgery doctor who has n't any money?" "you are n't old, and you are n't cod--the other thing--and i love you! do you--do you want me to go?" she sobbed. "thistledown,"--and his voice was very tender,--"i think such an arrangement as mrs. jocelyn proposes would break my heart. still, if you really would be happy in going to her, i trust i should be unselfish and brave enough to give you up. but i am gladder than you can guess that you have chosen the life with me." "i could n't choose any other way; but i love her, i lover her ever so much!" polly sighed. "i'm afraid she will feel bad not to have me go. oh, i wish there did n't so many folks want me-first aunt jane, and now her!" "it must be rather troublesome to be in such demand," the doctor smiled. "it is," responded polly between a laugh and a sob. the sat for a while in silence, polly's head nestled on the broad shoulder. finally dr. dudley spoke. "can you keep a secret?" "i think i could--i know i could," she answered slowly; "but i never have any to keep." "i am going to let you into one," he smiled; "but you must n't breathe a word of it to anybody." "oh, i won't! i won't tell it as long as i live!" she declared solemnly. he laughed. "this will not be so great a tax on your patience as all that. i hope the secret will be out in a month. the thistledown, what should you say if i should tell you that miss lucy and i are going to be married?" polly sat up straight, her eyes round with astonishment. "truly?" she cried. "truly!" he nodded. "why-ee! i never thought as you like miss lucy very much! you acted just as if you like high price better!" the doctor's shoulders shook with soft laughter. "and won't miss lucy be nurse up in the ward any more?" poly queried. "not after we are married. we are going to housekeeping. you know the little brown cottage just beyond colonel gresham's?" "the one with vines all over the piazzas?" "yes. that is to be our home." polly had dropped back on the doctor's shoulder, and he, absorbed in his happy dreams, did not look down to note the shadow that suddenly swept all joy from the little face. when she spoke again, it was the tone rather than the words that brought him to himself with a pang of compunction. "that--won't be so very far away," she faltered. "oh, polly!" with a quick tightening clasp, "you did n't suppose we would leave you behind?" she glanced up in sudden wonder and hope. "our home would n't be home without you. you are going with us, to be our own little daughter! we have it all planned; it has only awaited your sanction." polly lay very still, big teardrops trickling down her cheeks. "you want to go, thistledown?" the doctor asked softly. "oh," she breathed, "i don't--dare--speak, for fear--it is n't real! it is so beautiful!" she stroked his big hand with her slender little fingers. "it is very real," he smiled. "you need n't be afraid. we cannot give you the splendid things that you would have with mrs. jocelyn; but i can promise you all the love that any little girl could wish for. we want to make your life so happy that you will lose sight of troublesome times that have gone before." "i could n't help being happy with you and miss lucy." and polly suddenly sprang up, flinging her arms around the doctor's neck, and resting her cheek against his with almost a sob. "oh, i wish mamma knew!" she whispered. "do you s'pose she does?" "we will surely hope so," he answered. "it seems to me that haven is nearer than some people believe." "it would make her so happy," polly went on. "i do wish you could have known mamma. she was such a dear!" "i am glad to have so close a friendship with her little daughter," smiled the doctor. light raps at the door made polly slip to her feet, and sent dr. dudley across the room. polly hurriedly brushed away the only remaining tear, and looked up to greet miss hortensia price. the nurse had come to talk with dr. dudley about a patient, and polly went over to the couch, and searched among the parcels for a certain package. her fingers trembled with joyous excitement. the world had suddenly turned rose color. every sorrow had flown away. even the grief which had been ever present with her for nearly three years was for the moment swallowed up in the joy of believing that mamma knew! she came upon the package she sought, examined it carefully to make sure that it was the right one, and then went, a little shyly, to miss price. she waited for dr. dudley stopped talking. the lady received the holiday-attired parcel with a surprised look. "mrs. jocelyn bought some presents," explained polly, "for me to give to my friends, a i chose robert browning's 'poems' for you. i hope you'll like it." "like it! why, you dear child!" miss price dropped the book in her lap, and caught polly's hands in hers. "how did you ever guess that browning is my favorite poet?" "you said so, one day, when we were playing authors, up in the ward." "and you remembered!" she began untying the ribbon. "i was thinking only yesterday that i must have a copy." the volume was richly bound, and beautiful with illustrations. miss price fingered it with the caressing tough of a booklover. if her thanks were a bit conventional, polly knew that back of them lay real gratitude and appreciation. the little girl went back to her parcels with an added gladness. she began piling them on her arm. "don't carry too many," warned dr. dudley. "i'll take them up for you." "i will bring some along when i come." promised miss price. so polly put back all but two dolls and a few small packages, and started upstairs humming softly a gay little air. presently the song was hushed by happy thoughts. to think of living in a dear little cottage, all alone with miss lucy and dr. dudley! to sit down at the table, three times a day, with them both! and at bedtime! there was never room for jealousy in polly's heart; but sometimes when miss lucy cuddled the little ones in her arms, her mother-hungry should felt starved out of its rightful food. and now!--she could almost feel the dear arms around her! she stopped halfway up the second flight, and bent her head reverently. "o lord jesus, i think thee!" she whispered. "please let mamma know how beautiful it is going to be! for thy name's sake. amen." the door of the ward was open; but so light were her footfalls that she stood on the threshold a moment before being noticed. then came a shout and a rush and such frantic huggings that polly and her parcels seemed in danger of coming to sorrow. "that is for stella," polly finally managed to say, freeing a hand long enough to pass the box over one or two heads to the little girl beyond. this turned the attention in stella pope's direction, and polly hastened down the room to a cot where a little girl lay, her big blue eyes staring out in line with her pillow, taking no note of the commotion going on behind her. "trotty, see what i've brought you!" was polly's cheery greeting. the little four-year-old turned slightly, with a wavering smile. she was a strange wisp of a girl, and polly was not in the least disappointed when she made no answer, only watched the fingers that were untying the bright ribbon. "now--what do you s'pose?" smiled polly, staying the cover a moment to make the gift of more effect. there was look of expectancy on the midget's face. a word of joy broke from her lips. polly laid the beautiful doll in her arms, smiling to see the rapture in the big blue eyes. then a wee shadow crept over. "mine? all mine?" questioned the tiny one. "yes, all yours," was the sure answer. "is n't it a darling?" trotty did not speak, but hugged the new baby to her heart in a way that left no doubt. polly wished that mrs. jocelyn were there to see. after the other smaller packages had been left with the several patients for whom they were marked, polly said, in a voice that carried to all the cots:-"this is n't all. there is something for everybody; but i could n't bring so many. dr. dudley and miss price are coming up with the rest." they started a babel of joyous questioning; but polly was responsive and patient, and altogether so satisfactory, that the little sick people settled back on their pillows in supreme content, to await the coming of their presents. the others had heard, too, and pressed about polly with eager talk. "i chose a doll for every girl that has n't any," she told them gaily, "and i got just as pretty ones as there were in the store." "say, what colored hair has mine?" questioned mabel. "light, like stella's, i think." "oh, goody!" squealed the little maid. "and is it curly?" polly nodded. "wha' d' yer buy for leonora?" queried a curious one. polly threw a bright smile across to her friend, while she answered merrily:-"you wait! it's something pretty." "i guess polly's had an awful good time," observed thoughtful mary pender; "she's so full of fun." miss lucy, entering the ward at the moment, overheard the remark, as her eyes met polly's. the little girl waived a reply, and ran over to greet the nurse. "is mary right?" miss lucy smiled. polly hesitated, growing grave. then her eyes danced mischievously. "just about right," she answered softly. "it was 'good' and 'awful' both. but i had a lovely time with dr. dudley after i came home--lovely!" miss lucy sent a quick searching glance into the happy eyes, and they fell before it. polly feared she had told too much. but no, she reasoned, because the secret was also miss lucy's. she looked up again half shyly. the nurse's cheeks were very pink, and her lips were smiling. "precious child!" she murmured; and then she kissed her, a bit of favoritism which she seldom allowed herself. but there was now an excuse. polly had been away. shortly afterwards miss hortensia price and the doctor appeared, laden with happiness for the ward. the dignified nurse seemed in a holiday mood, to match her ribboned armful, and she remained to see the delight of the children, as they unwrapped their presents. leonora lingered over the untying of her box, as if reluctant to risk the pretty flowered bit of pasteboard for what lay within. polly went across to where she sat. "i'm waiting to know how you like it," she smiled. leonora finally lifted the cover, and her long-drawn, "o-h!" of surprise and joy was enough for the donor. "it is just like mine," polly explained, "only mine is forget-me-nots on pale blue." "that must be lovely," said leonora; "but i like this best for me--it don't seem as if it could be for me!" she carefully raised an end of the broad white sash ribbon, and sighed rapturously over the beautiful pink rosebuds scattered along its length. "that is exquisite," agreed miss price, coming to her side. "pink is exactly the color for you. polly has shown excellent taste in its selection." "oh, polly always knows just what's right!" praised leonora. miss price did not reply, only smiled across to polly in the friendliest way. "is n't high price lovely this afternoon!" whispered the lame girl, as the tall nurse turned to admire a doll which was help up for her inspection. polly nodded happily. everything was "lovely" now. what a glad, beautiful world it was! "my dear!" a pair of soft arms clasped her from behind, and polly found herself looking up into miss lucy's radiant face. "i believe you are a little witch!" she laughed "you have given me just such a bag as i have coveted for a good many years, but which i never expected to won." "i'm so glad!" responded poly. "but mrs. jocelyn chose it-the kind, i mean." she might have added that she should never have dared select on at that price; but she only smiled joyously. "then i will thank you and mrs. jocelyn both," smiled miss lucy, moving away with the other nurse. "was n't it nice of her to buy all these things for you to give us!" said leonora happily. polly's response was sober. she could not quite forget how sorry the dear little lady would be when she heard what had been decided. but her seriousness soon gave place to laughter. the ward was in too merry a mood to allow aught but mirth within its walls. chapter xvii the wedding the next morning david called for polly on his way to school, and the two went off together, the children waving good-byes from the windows. they returned, at noon, in love with their teachers, in love with the scholars, in love with their new books and all pertaining to the school. such funny, interesting things had happened, and polly told about them all dinner time. leonora watched her two friends go back in the afternoon, feeling a little sad. if only she could go, too! but she was growing well and strong; dr. dudley had assured her that she would soon be able to run about like other girls. the sadness, after all, ended in a long breath of joy. the weeks before the secret came out where very happy weeks for polly. only a ew days after her visit to mrs. jocelyn came a package, a large, flat, nearly square package. it arrived while she was at school, and she found the children eyeing it curiously as it lay on miss lucy's desk. "it's for you," announced stella, "and she said there must n't anybody touch it. she would n't open it herself." polly looked at the white parcel, and wondered, too. she had been expecting photographs; but this was too big for those, she decided. hastily she untied the string. miss lucy came in just as she turned back the wrapper. "o-h!" "why, polly may, you've gone and had your picture taken!" "my! ain't it splendid?" "whew! bet that cost somethin'!" miss lucy caught a glimpse of the photograph, which brought her quickly across the room. "polly dear, what a surprise this is!" "i don't think it looks much like me," murmured the little girl, staring wonderingly and the beautiful picture. it was of large size, exquisitely finished in carbon, and mounted in a handsome folder. "why, it looks exactly like her! don't it, miss lucy?" queried mabel. "i think i never saw a better likeness," smiled the nurse. "there!" exulted mabel. "say, what made you think it did n't?" but polly only laughed a little uncertainly. "never mind, if you like it!" she told them. "oh, here's another kind!" piped stella, whose curious fingers had discovered a photograph showing polly in a different pose. this was full-length; the other was only head and shoulders. "there's one more, i think," said polly, "where i had some flowers in my hand." a hunt soon revealed it,--"the very sweetest of all!" leonora declared. the girls hung over it rapturously. "will you give me one?" begged mabel. "and me"--"and me?"--"and me?" chorused the others. "polly cannot tell right off just what she will be able to do," interposed miss lucy. "dr. dudley has n't seen them yet. suppose you run down and show them to him, polly." down the stairs skipped polly, glad to get away from the too eager children. the doctor received them delightedly. polly watched him with thoughtful eyes. "do you think they look like me?" she ventured at last. "very much," he answered, smiling at the anxious pucker between polly's eyebrows. "what is the trouble?" the pink in her cheeks deepened to crimson. "i am not--so pretty as that," she faltered. "you know i'm not. and i hate to give away such pictures. it seems as if folks would think i wanted to make out i looked better than i really do." dr. dudley's eyes were bent to the photograph in hand. he thought hard and fast. should he tell her the truth,--that the beautiful black-and-white print, with all its exquisite softness, scarcely did justice to the delicate mobile face? "i wanted you and miss lucy to have one," she went on, "and colonel gresham, and david, and high price, and leonora, and cornelius--for he was so good to get my locket back. then the rest of them--there are a dozen--i thought i'd give to anybody that wanted one; but now--" she halted appealingly. "well, if i were you, thistledown," and the doctor threw his arm in a comradely way across the slim shoulders, "i should go straight along and give my pictures to those for whom i had intended them, with no thought about any lack of resemblance. you sat for the photographs, and you are not to blame for any possible mistake the camera may have made; so don't let it bother you." she gave a little gleeful chuckle. "it is the camera's fault, is n't it? i never thought of that. well, if you think it's all right to give them away, it must be; but it did n't seem quite-hones, you know." she looked up still a bit anxious. the doctor smoothed away the tiny wrinkle on her forehead, and smiled down into the clear brown eyes. "it is perfectly right, polly; in fact, it would be wrong to spoil so much pleasure for such a little reason. the pictures are far more lifelike than most people's are, and nobody will stop to compare them with the original, feature by feature." "no, i guess they won't," she laughed. "you pick out the one you want to keep, and next i'll let miss lucy choose." dr. dudley watched her, as she danced away happily up the stairs. the he studied the photograph before him, doing exactly what he had assured her that no one would think of doing; but his final judgment, like his first intuition, was not in favor of the print. the simplest of church weddings had been planned by the two most closely concerned, for neither had other home than the hospital; but mrs. jocelyn overthrew plans and arguments together. "what is my big house good for," she demanded, "if it cannot be useful at a time like this? you shall come and make it merry once more in its old life!" she ended by carrying off miss lucy for a whole week before the appointed day, and the hospital had to hustle another nurse into the ward which was both sorrowful and glad. that was a week of happy upsetting for the stately old mansion. carpenters, electricians, florists, and tradespeople of various classes, all joined in the joyous whirl. dr. dudley and polly whizzed back and forth in the automobile, and the dignified grays were kept trotting to and from the house at all hours of the day and evening. it had been early arranged for polly and leonora to remain with mrs. jocelyn for the two weeks that the doctor and his wife were to be away on their wedding journey, and the little lame girl, who now had only the tiniest limp, was in alternate rapture and dismay. "to think" she would exclaim, squeezing polly ecstatically, "of _me_ being in that splendid house, with you and that beautiful mrs. jocelyn for fourteen whole days! but, oh, mercy!" she would cry, "i'm dreadfully afraid she'll not want me so long! i shall be sure to say or do something wrong! i'm not used to grand folks like her;" and joy would end with a sigh. thin it was polly's part to reassure her with laughing words, until the delight would come back to crowd out all fears. one large room in the house on edgewood avenue had been reserved for the wedding presents, and, although miss lucy had jestingly remarked that a little hall chamber was more than would be needed, the apartment was packed with love tokens long in advance of the day. both the nurse and the physician had won many friends in their years of hospital service, and now all seemed anxious to show honor to these two who had helped to add length and comfort to their lives. one morning, just before starting for mrs. jocelyn's, dr. dudley read this note to polly:- my dear doctor,- i have been wondering, ever since i heard your good news, how polly was going to ride, inasmuch as two fill your runabout. i have too much consideration for the lady who will sit by your side to wish her always to bear the burden of polly's weight; so i have ordered for you a car that will seat five without crowding. there is a place ready for it in my carriage house. that won't be far for you to come, and it will be handier for me whenever lone star goes lame. your sincere friend, gresham. lucky for me i happened to think of this, for it would get on my nerves to see polly hanging on behind every time you and mrs. dudley went to ride. d. g. "what a funny man!": laughed polly. "you'd think lone star went lame about once a week! but is n't that a lovelicious present-a big auto!--my!" "it is too much." dr. dudley shook his head gravely. "why, he loves to do it for you," argued polly. "besides, it is not just for you," she chuckled; "it is so he won't have to see me sitting is miss lucy's lap or 'hanging on behind'! would n't that look funny?" the doctor laughed, and put the note in his pocket. at mrs. jocelyn's, miss lucy met them at the entrance. "i'm so glad you've come," she cried. "i was wishing you would, to see what colonel gresham has sent me." "why--" began polly, and then stopped, blushing at having almost told about the new motor car. that was not hers to speak of first. dr. dudley sent a swift glance of appreciation in her direction, and followed miss lucy's leading. "that came for you, polly, at the same time," she said, handing the girl a small square package. "a man just brought them." "for me?" polly's eyes opened wide. "i'm not going to be married!" they laughed, while the young lady displayed her gift, a necklace of pearls. "oh, is n't that lovely!" exclaimed polly. "how sweet you will look i nit! do put it on!" but miss lucy declared that pearls and gingham dresses were not companionable, and the necklace was returned to its satin case. "why don't you undo your package?" inquired mrs. jocelyn. "oh, i forgot!" cried polly, in sudden compunction. "those beautiful pearls put everything out of my head." she soon had the wrappings off, disclosing a small leather case. "what can it be?" she breathed. "oh, you darling!" gazing delightedly at an exquisite little watch. she caressed it with excited fingers. "why, there's something engraved in here!" as the case flew open, and turning to the light, she read aloud:- to polly of the hospital staff, in remembrance of a stormy midnight and a sunshiny morning, from her devoted lover, david gresham. "and here's something more," she went on, scowling in a puzzled way over the quotation. "it says, 'blessed are the peacemakers.' i don't see what that's for, do you?" the others smiled comprehendingly. "why, dearest," explained mrs. jocelyn, "you know you brought the colonel and his niece together." "oh, no, i did n't do it!" protested polly. "i wonder who did," the little lady laughed. miss lucy was reading the colonel's note, which dr. dudley had given her. she ended it with a silent chuckle, and the doctor passed it over to mrs. jocelyn. "just like david!" the little lady declared. "he enjoys a bit of quiet fun as well as any man i ever knew." polly had gone back to her present, hanging over it in delight. "it is just the right kind of watch for a little girl like you," admired the doctor; "neither too large nor too ornamental." "it is beautiful!" sighed polly rapturously. "is n't colonel gresham nice to give it to me?" the doctor smiled an emphatic "yes," which rejoiced polly's heart. she had been afraid he would shake his head, as he had shaken it over the touring-car. in that case, she reasoned conscientiously, she should have felt as if she ought to give back her watch. it was a six-o'clock wedding. the bridal procession formed at the foot of the stairs in the spacious hallway, marching its length, and then proceeding through the east drawing-room to the library, where the ceremony took place under a canopy of roses. a troop of children attended the ride, children to whom, as nurse of the convalescent ward, she had at some time ministered. the girls, two and two, gowned in silken chiffon of harmonious colors, had each a basket heaped with blossoms. polly and leonora came last of all, both in delicate pink, from the ribbons that bound their hair to the tops of their kid slippers, leonora's black braids in happy contrast with polly's fair curls. the boys, clad as pages, ranged, at regular intervals, on either side of the long line, carried light arches of vines and flowers, making a fragrant arbor for the others to walk under. the brief service over, the flower girls strewed roses in the path of the bridal pair all the way to the great west drawing-room. it was like a queen's pageant in a vision of fairyland. the myriad lights, the gaily dressed children, the lavish profusion of flowers, the soft music floating from a bank of ferns,--all united to make the scene unusually dreamlike and beautiful. as the bride stood to receive her guests, in her simple white silk gown, the necklace of pearly her only ornament, polly gazed into her sweet, thoughtful face, and longed to throw her arms around her neck and give her a loving hug. but she had to be content with only one little decorous kiss, and she consoled herself with the words that had been singing in her heart all the day, "she is going to be my mother! she is going to be my mother!" there were many guests, and it was long before the bride and groom were free from hand-shaking. polly only caught glimpses now and then of the two she loved best. she was with a group of merry children, when she heard her name softly called. turning, she saw dr. dudley in the doorway. she ran to him, and he led her into the library, where his bride was talking with mr. brewster, the lawyer. mrs. dudley drew her down beside her on the divan, and mr. brewster soon took leave of them. the doctor seated himself on her right. "this document," he smiled, tapping lightly the paper in his hand, "makes you legally our own daughter. we have just signed it, for we wanted everything settled before going away." with a quick, graceful gesture, polly wound an arm around each neck. "my dear new father and mother," she whispered solemnly, as if it were a prayer, "i will be just as good, always, as i know how to be, so you won't ever be sorry you made me your own little girl!" [illustration] [illustration: that which had come out of the east on this bright june morning was a ship's lifeboat about eighteen feet long.--page 4.] jack the hunchback; a story of adventure on the coast of maine. by james otis, _author of "the castaways," "a runaway brig," "search for the silver city," "the treasure finders," "with lafayette at yorktown," "with washington at monmouth," "the treasure of cocos island," "wrecked on spider island," etc., etc._ new york: a. l. burt, publisher copyright, 1892, by bradley & woodruff. _all rights reserved._ contents. chapter page i. adrift 1 ii. at aunt nancy's 14 iii. learning to milk 28 iv. pursued 40 v. an encounter 52 vi. a mental struggle 64 vii. farmer pratt 75 viii. a second warning 88 ix. the alarm 99 x. sickness 111 xi. gardening 122 xii. louis's adventure 137 xiii. the sewing circle 152 xiv. after the storm 167 xv. brother abner 179 xvi. a hurried departure 191 xvii. camp meeting 204 xviii. a disaster 218 xix. jack's proposition 232 xx. bill dean 247 xxi. startling information 261 xxii. the arrival 273 _jack the hunchback._ chapter i. adrift. tom pratt firmly believed he was the most unfortunate boy in maine when, on a certain june morning, his father sent him to the beach for a load of seaweed. tom had never been in love with a farmer's life. he fancied that in any other sphere of action he could succeed, if not better, certainly more easily, than by weeding turnips or hoeing corn on the not very productive farm. but either planting or digging was preferable to loading a huge cart with the provokingly slippery weeds which his father insisted on gathering for compost each summer. therefore, when the patient oxen, after much goading and an unusual amount of noise from their impatient driver, stood knee-deep in the surf contentedly chewing their cuds and enjoying the cool footbath, tom, instead of beginning his work, sat at the forward part of the cart gazing seaward, thinking, perhaps, how pleasant must be a sailor's life while the ocean was calm and smiling as on this particular day. so deeply engrossed was he in idleness that his father's stern command from the hillside a short distance away, "to 'tend to his work an' stop moonin'," passed unheeded, and the same ox-goad he had been using might have been applied to his own body but for the fact that just as farmer pratt came within striking distance a tiny speck on the water attracted his attention. "it looks to me as if that might be a lapstreak boat out there, tommy. can you see anybody in her?" "i reckon that's what it is, father, an' she must be adrift." farmer pratt mounted the cart and scrutinized the approaching object until there could no longer be any question as to what it was, when tom said gleefully,-"it must be a ship's boat, an' if she hasn't got a crew aboard, we'll make a bigger haul than we could by cartin' seaweed for a week." "yes, them kind cost more'n a dory," the farmer replied dreamily, as he mentally calculated the amount of money for which she might be sold. "i reckon we'll take her into portland an' get a tidy--" "i can see a feller's head!" tom interrupted, "an' it shets off our chance of sellin' her." that the boat had an occupant was evident. a closely shaven crown appeared above the stem as if its owner had but just awakened, and was peering out to see where his voyage was about to end. nearer and nearer the little craft drifted until she was dancing on the shore line of the surf, and the figure in the bow gazed as intently landward as the farmer and his son did seaward. "it's a boy, father, an' he ain't as big as me!" tom cried. "well, that beats anything i ever saw!" this last remark probably referred to the general appearance of the young voyager. he was an odd-looking little fellow, with a head which seemed unusually small because the hair was closely cropped, and a bent, misshapen body several sizes too large for the thin legs which barely raised it above the gunwales. the face was by no means beautiful, but the expression of anxiety and fear caused it to appeal directly to tom's heart, if not to his father's. farmer pratt was not pleased at thus learning that the boat had an occupant. empty, she would have been a source of profit; but although there was apparently no one save the deformed lad aboard, he could make no legal claim upon her. the craft was there, however, and would speedily be overturned unless he waded out into the surf at the risk of a rheumatic attack, to pull her inshore. although decidedly averse to performing any charitable deed, he did this without very much grumbling, and tom was a most willing assistant. that which had come out of the east on this bright june morning was a ship's lifeboat about eighteen feet long, and with the name "atlanta" painted on the gunwales. she was a much more valuable craft than mr. pratt had ever seen ashore on scarborough beach, and yet he failed to calculate her value immediately, because as the bow grated on the sand the misshapen boy, from whose white lips not a word had escaped during all this time, suddenly lifted what at first appeared to be a bundle of cloth. this act in itself would not have caused any surprise, but at the same moment a familiar noise was heard from beneath the coverings. farmer pratt stepped back quickly in genuine alarm and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt as he exclaimed,-"well, this beats anything i ever seen!" "it's a baby, father!" tom cried, starting forward to take the burden from the crooked little sailor's arms; but the latter retreated as if afraid the child was to be carried away, and the farmer replied testily,-"of course it's a baby. haven't i heard you cry often enough to know that?" "but how did it come here?" "that's what beats me"; and then, as if suddenly realizing that the apparent mystery might be readily solved, he asked the stranger, "where did you come from, sonny?" "from savannah." "sho! why, that's way down in georgy. you didn't sail them many miles in this 'ere little boat?" "no, sir. we broke adrift from captain littlefield's ship yesterday when she blowed up, an' the baby's awful hungry." "ship blowed up, eh? whereabouts was she?" "out there"; and the boy pointed eastward in an undecided manner, as if not exactly certain where he had come from. "what made her blow up?" tom asked curiously. "i don't know. there was an awful splosion like more'n a hundred bunches of firecrackers, an' the captain put louis an' me in the lifeboat to wait till his wife got some things from the cabin. while all the sailors was runnin' 'round wild like, we got adrift. i hollered an' hollered, but nobody saw us." then he added in a lower tone, "louis cried last night for somethin' to eat, an' he must be pretty hungry now." "well, well, well!" and as the thought of whether he would be paid for the trouble of pulling the boat ashore came into the farmer's mind, he said quickly, "'cordin' to that you don't own this boat?" "she belongs to the ship." "an' seein's how the vessel ain't anywhere near, i reckon i've as much right to this craft as anybody else. where do you count on goin'?" "if we could only get back to new york i'm sure i would be able to find the captain's house." "it's a powerful long ways from here, sonny; but i'll see that you are put in a comfortable place till somethin' can be done. what's your name?" "john w. dudley; but everybody calls me jack, an' this is louis littlefield," the boy replied as he removed the coverings, exposing to view a child about two years old. master tom was delighted with the appearance of the little pink and white stranger, who was dressed in cambric and lace, with a thin gold chain around his neck, and would have shaken hands with him then and there if jack had not stepped quickly back as he said,-"he's afraid of folks he don't know, an' if you get him to cryin' i'll have a worse time than last night. what he wants is somethin' to eat." "take 'em right up to the house, tommy, an' tell mother to give them breakfast. when i get the boat hauled around (for i've got every reason to consider her mine), i'll carry both out to thornton's." jack clambered from the craft, disdaining tom's assistance, and, taking the child in his arms, much as a small cat might carry a very large kitten, stood waiting for his guide to lead the way. farmer pratt's son was in no especial hurry to reach home, for while escorting the strangers he certainly could not be expected to shovel seaweed, and jack said as tom walked leisurely over the hot sand,-"if you don't go faster, the baby'll begin to cry, for he's pretty near starved." "why not let him walk? he's big enough; his legs are twice as large as mrs. libby's baby, an' he went alone a good while ago." "i'd rather carry him," jack replied; and then he refused to enter into any conversation until they were at the foot of the narrow, shady lane leading to the house, when he asked, "who's mr. thornton?" "he keeps the poor farm, an' father's goin' to take you out there." "what for? we want to go to new york." "well, you see i don't reckon you'll get as far as that without a slat of money, an' father wants to put you fellers where you'll be took care of for a while." jack stopped suddenly, allowed the baby to slip from his arms under the shade of an apple-tree whose blossoms filled the air with perfume, as he said angrily,-"louis sha'n't be taken to the poorhouse! i'll walk my feet off before anybody but his mother shall get him." "you couldn't go as far as new york, an' if he's so hungry you'd better let him have some bread an' milk." "how long before your father'll be back?" "it'll take him a couple of hours to carry the boat down to the neck, an' that's the only place where she can lie without gettin' stove." "then we'll go into your house long enough to feed the baby, an' i'll leave before he comes." "all right," and tom took up the line of march once more. "i don't know as i blame you, for thornton's ain't the nicest place that ever was, an' i'd rather haul seaweed for a month than stay there one night." jack looked wistfully at the little farmhouse with its beds of old maid's pinks and bachelor's buttons in front of the muslin-curtained windows, thinking, perhaps, that shelter should be given him there rather than among the town's paupers; but he made no remark, and a few moments later they were standing in the cool kitchen while tom explained to his mother under what circumstances he had made the acquaintance of the strangers. mrs. pratt was quite as economical as her husband; but the baby face touched her heart fully as much as did the fact that the boat in which the children had drifted ashore would amply repay any outlay in the way of food and shelter. she accepted the statement made by tom, that the children were to be sent to thornton's, because the town provided such an asylum, and there was no good reason, in her mind at least, why it should not be utilized in a case like this. thus, with the pleasing knowledge that her involuntary guests would remain but a short time and cost her nothing, she set out a plentiful supply of fresh milk and sweet home-made bread, as she said,-"fill yourselves right full, children, for it will rest you to eat, and after you've had a nice ride, mrs. thornton will give you a chance to sleep." jack looked up quickly as if about to make an angry reply, and then, as little louis went toward the table eagerly, he checked himself, devoting all his attention to the child by waiting until the latter had finished before he partook of as much as a spoonful. then he ate rapidly, and after emptying two bowls of milk, asked,-"may i put some of the bread in my pocket?'" "certainly, child; but it won't be needed, for there is plenty to eat at thornton's, and most likely in a few days the selectmen will find some way to send word to the baby's relatives." jack put three slices of bread in his pocket before replying, and then, as with an effort he lifted louis in his arms, said,-"we're not goin' to the poor farm, ma'am. we are bound to get to new york, an' thank you for the bread an' milk." just at that moment mrs. pratt was intent on carrying the dishes from the table to the pantry, therefore she did not see the deformed boy leave the house quickly, tom following close behind. jack heard her call after him to wait until mr. pratt should return; but he shook his head decidedly, and trudged out from the green-carpeted lane to the dusty road, bent only on saving his little charge from the ignominy of the poorhouse. "say, hold on for father!" tom cried. "you can't walk even so far as saco, an' where'll you sleep to-night?" "i'd rather stay in the woods, an' so had louis," jack replied; and then in reply to the child's fretful cries, he added, "don't fuss; i'll find your mother." "but how can you do it if the ship has blowed up?" tom asked, quickening his steps to keep pace with the deformed boy. "perhaps mother'll let you sleep in my bed to-night, an' you won't have to go out to the poor farm." "and then again she mightn't, so i guess we won't risk it." "have you got any money?" "not a cent." tom halted irresolutely for a moment, and then his charitable impulses gained the mastery. "here's half of what i've got, an' i wish it was more." involuntarily jack extended his hand for the gift. four marbles were dropped into it, and then tom turned and ran like a deer as if afraid he might regret his generosity. the dusty road wound its way among the fields like a yellow ribbon on a green cloth, offering no shelter from the burning rays of the sun, and stretching out in a dreary length. the hunchback plodded steadily on with his heavy burden, and as he walked the good people in the neighboring city of portland were reading in their morning papers the following item:- a singular explosion. the ship "atlanta" anchored inside the breakwater just before midnight, and her master reports a remarkable accident. the "atlanta" loaded at savannah last week with cotton and turpentine, bound for bremen. owing to baffling winds she was eighty miles off wood island yesterday afternoon when an explosion occurred which blew off the main hatch, and was followed by dense volumes of what appeared to be smoke. believing the ship to be on fire, capt. littlefield's first thought was of his wife and child, who were on board. the lifeboat was lowered, and in her were placed the captain's son and the cabin boy, a hunchback. before mrs. littlefield could be gotten over the side, the sailors reported no fire in the hold, and the vapor supposed to be smoke was probably the gases arising from the turpentine stored in porous barrels of red oak. in the excitement no particular attention was paid to the children for some time, since the boat was believed to be firmly secured, and the consternation of the captain can be imagined when it was discovered that the craft had gone adrift. the ship stood off and on several hours without discovering any signs of the missing ones, and was then headed for this harbor. as a matter of course the captain will be obliged to proceed on his voyage without delay; but mrs. littlefield is to remain in town several days hoping to receive some news of her child, and it is believed that the revenue cutter "cushing" will cruise along the shore until the boat is found. it is understood that a liberal reward will be offered for any information which may be given regarding the whereabouts of the children, and until that has been done the editors of this paper will thankfully receive tidings of the missing ones in case they have been seen or sighted. it is particularly desirable that masters of vessels should keep a sharp lookout for a drifting boat. chapter ii. at aunt nancy's. jack toiled manfully on, running until his breath came in such short gasps that he was forced to walk slowly, and then pressing forward once more as if expecting farmer pratt was in full pursuit, urged to rapid travelling by the fear that little louis would be taken to the poor farm. up the long, steep hill, past the railroad station, until three roads stretched out before him: one straight ahead, another to the right, and the third to the left. he believed there was no time for hesitation. the one leading toward the south was the most inviting because of the trees scattered here and there along its edges, and into this he turned, going directly away from the city where louis's mother awaited tidings of her darling. the child grew fretful because of the heat and the dust, and the little hunchback heeded not his own fatigue in the effort to quiet him. on he went, literally staggering under his heavy burden, until the yellow road seemed to mellow into a mist which danced and fell, and rose and danced again before his eyes until further progress was wellnigh impossible. they had arrived at a tiny stream, the banks of which were fringed with alders, and overhead a wooden bridge afforded a most pleasing shelter from the sun's burning rays. wiping the perspiration from his face, jack looked back. no one was in sight. if farmer pratt had come in pursuit he might have mistaken the road, or turned homeward again some time previous, believing the boat not of sufficient value to warrant the journey which, if successful, would only end at the poorhouse. "here's where we're goin' to stop, louis," jack said, lowering the child to the ground. "it'll be cool among these bushes, and if we turn into the fields a bit no one can see us from the road." then jack took off his shoes and stockings, holding them on one arm as he raised the child with the other, and, wading through the shallow water, made his way among the bushes a distance of forty or fifty feet to where the leafy screen would prevent passing travellers from seeing them. "i tell you what, the water feels good around a fellow's feet. i'm goin' to give you the same kind of a dose, an' then you'll be ready to go to sleep." louis, sitting on the grass at the edge of the stream, offered no objection to the plan, and jack soon made him ready for the partial bath. as the child's feet touched the water he laughed with glee, and jack's fatigue was forgotten in his delight at having been able to afford this pleasure. after a few moments of such sport the misshapen guardian wiped the pink feet carefully with his handkerchief, replaced the shoes and stockings, took from his pocket the bread which was crumbled into many fragments, moistened them in the brook, and fed his charge until the latter's eyes closed in slumber. not before he had arranged a screen of leaves in such a manner that the sun would be prevented from looking in upon the sleeping child did jack think of himself and then he too indulged in the much-needed rest. the hours passed until the sun began to sink in the west. the birds came out from among the leaves and peeped down curiously at the sleeping children, while a colony of frogs leaped upon a moss-covered log, croaking in chorus their surprise at these unfamiliar visitors. one venerable fellow seemed to think this a most fitting opportunity to read his sons a homily on the sin of running away, and after the lengthy lesson was concluded he plunged into the water with a hoarse note of disapprobation, making such a splash that jack leaped to his feet thoroughly awake and decidedly frightened. the hasty departure of the other frogs explained the cause of the disturbance, and he laughed to himself as he said,-"i reckon my hump frightened them as much as they did me." he made a hurried toilet, bathed louis's face with his wet handkerchief until the little fellow awoke, and then continued what was at the same time a flight and a journey. "we've got to run the risk that somebody else will try to send us to the poor farm," he said when they had trudged along the dusty road until the child became fretful again. "at the next nice-lookin' house we come to i'm goin' to ask the folks if they'll let me do chores enough to pay for our lodging." fully half an hour passed before they were where this plan could be carried into effect, and then jack halted in front of a small white cottage which stood at the head of an arm of the sea, partially hidden by the trees. "here's where we've got to try our luck," the boy said as he surveyed the house intently, and almost as he spoke a tiny woman with tiny ringlets either side her wrinkled face appeared in the doorway, starting back as if in alarm on seeing the newcomers. "goodness me!" she exclaimed as she suddenly observed jack staring intently at her. "why don't you come out of the sun? that child will be burned brown as an injun if you stand there long." jack pressed louis closer to him as he stepped forward a few paces, and asked hesitatingly,-"please, ma'am, if you'll let us stay here to-night i'll do up all the chores as slick as a pin." the little woman's surprise deepened almost into bewilderment as she glanced first at louis, who had by this time clambered down from his guardian's arms, and then at jack's boots, which were covered thickly with dust. "oh, i'll brush myself before i come in," the boy said quickly, believing her hesitation was caused by the dirt on his garments, "an' we won't be a mite of trouble." the mistress of the cottage took louis by the hand and led him, with jack following close behind, into the wide, cool hall, the floor of which was covered with rugs woven with representations of impossible animals in all the colors of the rainbow. "now tell me where you came from, and why it is necessary to ask for a home?" jack hesitated an instant. the fear that she too might insist on sending louis to the poor farm caused him to question whether he had better tell the whole truth, but another look at the kindly face decided him. he related his story with more detail than he had to farmer pratt, and when he concluded the little woman said in a motherly tone,-"you poor children! if the ship exploded there's no one for you to go home to, and what _will_ become of such a helpless pair?" "i can't tell i'm sure, ma'am; but i know we ain't helpless"; and jack spoke very decidedly now. "i'm big an' can work, so i'll take care of louis till we find his father." "but if the ship was blown all to pieces?" the little woman continued. "that don't make any difference," jack interrupted. "we're goin' right to his house in new york some time, no matter how far it is." "but it's a terribly long distance, and you children will surely be sun-struck before you get even to boston!" then she added quickly, "here i am forgetting that you must be hungry! come straight away into the kitchen while i see what there is in the cupboard, for aunt nancy curtis never lets any one, much less children, want for food very long in her house." "are you aunt nancy?" jack asked. "i'm aunt to everybody in the neighborhood, which ain't many, and two or three more nephews won't make any difference. set right up to the table, and after you've had a glass of cool milk, a piece of chicken and some cake i baked to put away for the summer boarders, we'll see what can be done." jack was disposed to be just a trifle jealous of louis's evident admiration for this quaint little aunt nancy. he had already taken her by the hand, and, in his baby fashion, was telling some story which no one, probably not even himself, could understand. "you are a dear little boy," the old lady said as she led him into the kitchen; "but neither you nor jack here is any more calculated to walk to new york than i am to go to china this minute." "if you'll let me have a brush i'll get some of this dust off," jack said as he glanced at the well-scoured floor and then at his shoes. "i'm not fit to go anywhere till i look more decent." "here's a whisk-broom. be careful not to break the handle, and don't throw it on the ground when you're done," aunt nancy said as she handed the brush to jack. "there's the pump, and here's a towel and piece of soap, so scrub yourself as much as you please, for boys never can be too clean. i'll comb the baby's hair while you're gone, and then we'll have supper." louis made not the slightest protest when his misshapen little guardian left him alone with aunt nancy. he had evidently decided that she was a woman who could be trusted, and had travelled so much during the day that even a journey to the pump was more than he cared to undertake. jack brushed and scrubbed, and rubbed his face with the towel, after holding his head under the pump, until the skin glowed red, but cleanly. when he entered the kitchen again where the little woman and louis were seated cosily at the table, he was presentable even to aunt nancy, in whose eyes the least particle of dirt was an abomination. he took the vacant chair by louis's side, and was considerably surprised, because it was something so unusual in his experience, to see the little woman clasp her withered hands and invoke a blessing upon "the strangers within her gates," when she had thanked her father for all his bounties. "i went to meetin' once down in savannah," jack said; "but i didn't know folks had 'em right in their houses." aunt nancy looked at him with astonishment, and replied gravely,-"my child, it is never possible to give too much praise for all we are permitted to enjoy, and one needn't wait until he is in church before speaking to our father." jack did not exactly understand what she meant, but he knew from the expression on the wrinkled face that it was perfectly correct, and at once proceeded to give his undivided attention to the food which had been put upon his plate with a liberal hand. how thoroughly enjoyable was that meal in the roomy old kitchen, through which the summer breezes wafted perfume from the honeysuckles, and the bees sang at the open windows while intent on the honey harvest! when the children's hunger was appeased, it seemed as if half their troubles had suddenly vanished. louis crowed and talked after his own peculiar fashion; jack told stories of life on board the "atlanta," and aunt nancy appeared to enjoy this "visiting" quite as much as did her guests. the housework was to be done, however, and could not be neglected, deeply interested though the little woman was in the yarns jack spun, therefore she said as she began to collect the soiled dishes,-"now if you will take care of the baby i'll have the kitchen cleaned in a twinkling, and then we'll go out under the big oak-tree where i love to sit when the sun is painting the clouds in the west with red and gold." "louis can take care of himself if we put him on the floor," jack replied, "and i will dry the dishes for you; i've done it lots of times on the 'atlanta.'" the little woman could not refuse this proffered aid, although she looked very much as if she fancied the work would not be done exactly to her satisfaction, and after glancing at jack's hands to make certain they were perfectly clean, she began operations. much to her surprise, the deformed boy was very apt at such tasks, and aunt nancy said as she looked over her spectacles at him while he carefully dried one of her best china cups,-"well i declare! if you ain't the first boy i ever saw who was fit to live with an old maid like me. you are handier than half the girls i have here when the summer boarders come, and if you could only milk a cow we should get along famously." "it wouldn't take me long to learn," jack said quickly; for he was eager to assist the little lady as much as possible, having decided in his own mind that this would be a very pleasant abiding place for himself and louis until the weather should be cooler, when the tramp to new york could be continued with less discomfort. "if you'd show me how once i'm sure i'd soon find out, and--" "it won't do any harm to try at all events," aunt nancy replied thoughtfully; "but the cow hasn't come home yet, and there's plenty of time." when the dishes were washed and set carefully away in the cupboard, the little woman explaining to her assistant where each particular article of crockery belonged, jack began to sweep the already painfully clean floor. aunt nancy wiped with a damp towel imaginary specks of dirt from the furniture, and louis, as if realizing the importance of winning the affections of his hostess, laid his head on the rag rug and closed his eyes in slumber before the work of putting the kitchen to rights was finished. "dear little baby! i suppose he's all tired out," aunt nancy said as she took him in her arms, leaving to jack the important duty of folding one of her best damask tablecloths, a task which, under other circumstances, she would not have trusted to her most intimate friend. "i'm not very handy with children, but it seems as if i ought to be able to undress this one." "of course you can. all there is to do is unbutton the things an' pull them off." aunt nancy was by no means as awkward at such work as she would have her guest believe. in a few moments she had undressed louis without awakening him, and clothed him for the night in one of her bedgowns, which, as a matter of course, was much too long, but so strongly scented with lavender that jack felt positive the child could not fail to sleep sweetly and soundly. then laying him in the centre of a rest-inviting bed which was covered with the most intricate of patchwork quilts, in a room on the ground-floor that overlooked the lane and the big oak-tree, they left him with a smile on his lips, as if the angels had already begun to weave dream-pictures for him. aunt nancy led the way out through the "fore-room," and, that jack might see the beauties it contained, she opened one of the shutters, allowing the rays of the setting sun to fall upon the pictures of two of the dead and gone curtis family, an impossible naval engagement colored in the most gorgeous style, two vases filled with alum-encrusted grasses, and a huge crockery rooster with unbending feathers of every hue. this last-named ornament particularly attracted jack's attention, and during fully five minutes he stood gazing at it in silent admiration, but without daring to ask if he could take the brilliantly painted bird in his hands. "handsome, isn't it?" aunt nancy asked, turning her head slowly from side to side while she critically viewed the combination of colors much as if she had never seen them before. "its perfectly splendid!" "i'm glad you like it. i think a great deal of him; too much to allow a live rooster on the place crowing around when he can't. it was presented to me in my girlhood days by a young gentleman whom every one thought was destined to be an ornament in the world; but--" aunt nancy paused. her thoughts had gone trooping down the dusty avenues of the past, and after waiting fully a moment jack asked,-"where is the young gentleman now?" "i don't know," was the reply sandwiched between two sobs, and then aunt nancy became her old self once more. she closed the shutters carefully, waved her apron in the air to frighten away any overbold dust specks, and the two went out on the long, velvety lane that the little woman might admire the glories of the setting sun. chapter iii. learning to milk. a low bench painted green and fastened against the trunk of the old oak, that there might be no possibility of its being overturned, was the place where aunt nancy told jack she spent the pleasant summer evenings. "except where there are caterpillars around," she added, "and then i carry the rocking-chair to the stone doorstep. if you could kill caterpillars, jack, you would be doing the greatest possible favor, for they certainly make my life wretched at times, although i don't know why a person should be afraid of anything god has made." "oh, i can kill 'em," jack replied confidently. "bring on your caterpillars when you want 'em killed, an' i'll fix the job. there ain't any trouble about that." "but i don't want to bring them on," aunt nancy said, hesitatingly. "i never like to touch the little crawling things, and you will have to do that part of the work." "i'll see to it," jack replied, and believing she would be free in the future from the pests which interfered with her twilight pleasures, aunt nancy's face took on an expression of complete satisfaction. "now let's talk about yourself and the baby," she said. "you must not attempt to walk to new york while this hot weather lasts, and it would cost a power of money to go there on the cars." "i know it," jack replied with a sigh, "but so long as there isn't a cent between us, i guess we'll have to foot it." "i've been thinking why you shouldn't stay here a spell. you make yourself so handy about the house that i sha'n't mind the extra trouble with the baby, and there are times while the summer boarders are here when i do need a boy very badly." "that's just what i'd like," and jack spoke emphatically. "if you'll let us stay two or three weeks i'll pay my way in work, an' see that louis don't bother you." "i believe that will be the best way out of it. the summer boarders are to come in two or three weeks. before then i'll write to my brother abner, in binghamton, who'll be sure to know about capt. littlefield, and perhaps he can make some arrangement for your passage." "where's binghamton?" jack asked in perplexity. "why, it's in york state. i ain't certain how near to the big city, but of course it can't be very far away. abner's a master hand at readin', so if he don't happen to know capt. littlefield as a friend, he'd be sure to have heard of him. when he was home here he was acquainted with everybody for fifty miles around. he could tell you who each man married, how many children they had, and kept the run of everything that happened in the neighborhood. i used to say abner minded other people's business better than his own, and that _was_ his fault," she added with a sigh. "but we all of us have our faults, and it's never right to speak about those of another before we have fairly weighed our own. he's the one, though, to find the baby's father, so you needn't have any further trouble regarding it; but wait till we get a letter from him." jack was not as confident as aunt nancy appeared to be that this "brother abner" would know all the people in new york; but he was more than content to remain where he was for a certain length of time in the hope of being able to reach the city in some less laborious way than by walking. then aunt nancy told him about herself, and of the farm which had belonged to her father, but descended to her at his death, because abner was unwilling to spend his time on land so unproductive that the severest labor failed to bring forth a remunerative crop. "it isn't very good, i'll admit," she said reflectively; "but by taking a few summer boarders i've been able to make both ends meet, and that's all an old maid like me ought to expect." "have you always lived alone?" "it's nigh on to twelve years since father died, and, excepting in the summer, i've had neither child nor chick here. an old woman ain't pleasant company at the best, and if abner's daughters don't like to visit their aunt, i can't say i blame them." "well i do!" jack said decidedly. "i think you're the nicest old lady i ever saw, and i'd be willin' to stay here all the time if i could." aunt nancy was not accustomed to flattery; but it must be admitted, from the expression on her wrinkled face, that it was far from unpleasant, and by way of reward she patted jack on the head almost affectionately. "perhaps you won't think so after a while," she said with a smile; and then as jack was about to make protestations, she added, "it's time to go after the cow, and then i'll give you the first lesson in milking." the farm was not so large that it required many moments to reach the pasture, for the old lady had only to walk to the rear of the barn where the crumple-horned cow was standing at the end of a narrow lane awaiting her coming. as the animal stepped carefully over the bars after they had been let down, jack could not help thinking she was just such a cow as one would fancy should belong to aunt nancy. she walked in a dainty manner, acting almost as if trying not to bring any unnecessary amount of dirt into the barnyard, and behaving in every way as one would say her mistress might under similar circumstances. "while i go for the milking pail you pull some clover from under the trees, for she always expects a lunch while being milked," aunt nancy said; and in a few moments jack had gathered such a feast as caused the sedate animal to toss her head in disapprobation at the unusually large amount she was expected to devour after having been cropping pasture grass all day. with a pail which had been scoured until it shone like silver, and a tiny three-legged stool, white as the floor of her kitchen, the little woman returned. then with many a "co, bossy! so, bossy!" as if the quiet-looking animal was expected to give way to the most violent demonstrations of wrath, aunt nancy placed the stool in the most advantageous position, and said, as she seated herself,-"now watch me a few minutes, and you'll see how easy it is after getting the knack." jack gazed intently at every movement, his eyes opened wide with astonishment as the streams of milk poured into the pail with a peculiar "swish," and before the creamy foam had fully covered the bottom he was quite positive it would be no difficult matter for him to perform the same operation. "i can do it now, if you'll get up." aunt nancy vacated the stool without hesitation, for milking seemed such a simple matter that there was no question in her mind but that it could be learned in one very short lesson, and jack sat down. the cow looked around at this change of attendants, but was too well-bred to express any great amount of surprise, and the hunchback took hold of what appeared like so many fat fingers. fancying that strength alone was necessary, he pulled most vigorously. not a drop of milk came; but he accomplished something, for the animal tossed her head impatiently. jack pulled harder the second time, and then, as aunt nancy screamed loudly, the cow started at full speed for the other side of the yard, facing about there at the boy whom she believed was tormenting her wilfully, while she shook her head in a menacing manner. fortunately the milk-pail was not overturned; but in preventing such a catastrophe, jack rolled from the stool to the ground with no gentle force, terrified quite as much by aunt nancy's screams as by the sudden movement of old crumple-horn. "why, what's the matter?" he asked, as he scrambled to his feet, looking first at his hostess, and then at the frightened animal. "i ought to have known a boy couldn't milk," aunt nancy said impatiently and almost angrily. "it seems as if they have a faculty of hurting dumb beasts." "but i didn't mean to," jack said apologetically. "i worked just as you did, and pulled a good deal harder, but yet the milk wouldn't come." aunt nancy made no reply. taking up the pail and stool she walked across the yard, trying to soothe the cow in the peculiar language she had used when beginning the task; and jack, understanding that he had hurt the feelings of both his hostess and her pet, followed contritely, as he said coaxingly,-"please let me try it once more. i am certain i can do it if you'll give me another chance." it was not until aunt nancy had led the cow back to the pile of clover, and there stroked her head and ears until she was ready to resume the rudely interrupted feast, that any attention was paid to jack's entreaties. "i'll show you once more," she finally said, "and you must watch to see exactly how i move my fingers. it isn't the pulling that brings the milk, but the pressure of the hand." this time jack paid strict attention, and in a few moments began to fancy he had discovered what aunt nancy called the "knack." but she would not relinquish her seat. "take hold with one hand while i stay here, and be careful not to hurt the poor creature." very tenderly jack made the second attempt, and was so successful as to extract at least a dozen drops from the well-filled udder. this was sufficient, however, to show him what should be done, even though he was at first unable to perform the task, and, thanks to aunt nancy's patience, and the gentleness of the animal, before the milking was brought to a close, he had so far mastered the lesson as to win from his teacher a limited amount of praise. "i don't know as i should expect you to learn at once," she said; "but you are getting along so well that by to-morrow night i wouldn't be surprised if you could do it alone. now i'll go and strain the milk, and you may split me a little kindling wood if you will. somehow i have never been able to use an axe without danger of cutting my feet, and it's almost like tempting providence to take one in my hands." jack did as he was bidden, and although the axe was decidedly rusty and very blunt, to say nothing of its being shaky in the helve, before she finished taking care of the milk he had such a pile of kindlings as would have cost her a week's labor to prepare. "well!" the little woman said as she came from the cool cellar and surveyed the fruits of his industry, "if you can't do anything else on a farm but that, it'll be a wonderful relief to me. an axe is such a dangerous instrument that i always tremble when i touch one." jack looked at the ancient tool (which could hardly have inflicted any injury unless one chanced to drop it on his toes) with a smile, but said nothing, and after aunt nancy had shown him how to fasten the woodshed door with a huge latch that any burglar over four feet tall could have raised, she led the way into the house. the milking pail was to be washed, a solitary moth which had found its way into the kitchen was to be killed lest he should do some damage to the rag carpet, and aunt nancy lighted a candle with a solemn air. "this is the last work of the day," she said, "and perhaps i attach too much importance to it, but i never allow myself to go to bed without making sure there's no one hidden in the house. we'll examine the upper part first, and after that has been done i will show you a chamber which you can have until the summer boarders come. then we must make different arrangements, for the house is so small that i'm terribly put to it for room." jack followed the little woman up the back stairs, and each of the four apartments was subjected to the most rigid scrutiny, the boy holding the candle while aunt nancy not only peered under the beds and behind the bureaus, but even opened the tiniest closets in search of a supposed intruder. "we are safe for another day," she said with a long-drawn sigh of relief, "and after looking through the fore-room once more i'll lock the doors." there was such an air of responsibility about the little woman that jack, not fully understanding what she expected to find, immediately conceived the idea that peaceful though this portion of the country appeared, it must be a very dangerous neighborhood, for his hostess could not have taken more precautions had it been known positively that a band of indians were lurking in the vicinity. nothing more alarming than the moth was found, however, and after the window fastenings had been carefully examined, aunt nancy led the way back to the kitchen, where she once more surprised her guest by taking down the well-worn bible. in a thin, quavering voice she read therefrom a certain number of verses in which she seemed to find the greatest satisfaction, and then replaced the book reverentially on the stand appropriated to its keeping. then, to jack's further surprise, she knelt by the side of the chair and began a simple but heartfelt prayer, while the boy nestled around uneasily, not certain whether it was proper for him to stand up, or follow her example, therefore he remained where he was. when the evening devotions had been brought to a close, he felt decidedly uncomfortable in mind, but did not think it advisable to expose his ignorance by asking the little woman what he should have done. "now we'll go to bed," aunt nancy said as she arose to her feet with such a look of faith on her wrinkled face as reminded the boy of pictures he had seen. without a word he followed her upstairs to a small room directly over the kitchen, which, however contracted it might seem to others, was twice as large as he needed when compared with his quarters on board the "atlanta." then, as if her aim was to astonish and bewilder him on this first evening, aunt nancy kissed him on both cheeks as she said "good night," and left him to his own reflections. chapter iv. pursued. it was a long while before slumber visited jack's eyelids on this first night spent at the farm. to have found such a pleasant resting place after his experience at farmer pratt's, and when the best he had expected was to be allowed to remain until morning, was almost bewildering; at the same time the friendly manner in which the kindly faced old lady treated him made a deep impression on his heart. during fully an hour he speculated as to how it would be possible for him to reach new york with louis, and, not being able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, he decided that that matter at least could safely be left in aunt nancy's care. then, all anxiety as to the immediate future having been dissipated, he thought of various ways by which he could lighten the little woman's labors. he laid plans for making himself so useful about the farm that she would be repaid for her care of louis, and these ideas were in his mind when he crossed the border of dreamland, where, until nearly daybreak, he tried to milk diminutive cows, or struggled to carry enormous tin pails. despite his disagreeable dreams, the sleep was refreshing, and when the first glow of dawn appeared in the eastern sky he was aroused by the sound of aunt nancy's voice from the foot of the stairs. jack's first waking thought was a continuation of the last on the night previous, and, dressing hurriedly, he ran down to the kitchen to begin the labor which he intended should make him a desirable member of the family. to his great disappointment the fire had been built, louis dressed, and the morning's work well advanced when he entered the room. "why didn't you call me before?" he asked reproachfully. "i meant to have done all this while you were asleep; but i laid awake so long last night that it didn't seem possible for my eyes to open." "i am accustomed to doing these things for myself," aunt nancy replied with a kindly smile, "and don't mind it one bit, especially when the kindlings have been prepared. i got up a little earlier than usual because i was afraid there might be some trouble about dressing the baby; but he's just as good a child as can be, and seems right well contented here." "it would be funny if he wasn't," jack replied as he took louis in his arms for the morning greeting. there was a shade of sorrow in his heart because the child evinced no desire to remain with him, but scrambled out of his arms at the first opportunity to toddle toward aunt nancy, who ceased her work of brushing imaginary dirt from the floor in order to kiss the little fellow as tenderly as a mother could have done. "it seems as if he'd got all through with me," jack said sorrowfully. "i believe he likes you the best now." "don't be jealous, my boy. it's only natural the child should cling to a woman when he can; but that doesn't signify he has lost any affection for you. it is time old crumple-horn was milked, and we'll take louis with us so he won't get into mischief. i'm going to give you another lesson this morning." jack made a vain effort to repress the sigh which would persist in coming to his lips as the baby crowed with delight when the little woman lifted him in her arms, and taking the milking pail, he led the way out through the dewy grass to the barnyard, where the cow stood looking over the rails as if wondering why aunt nancy was so late. jack insisted that he could milk without any further instructions, and, after gathering an armful of the sweet-scented clover, he set boldly to work while aunt nancy and louis watched him from the other side of the fence. this time his efforts were crowned with success, and although he did not finish the task as quickly as the little woman could have done it, by the aid of a few hints from her he had drawn the last drop of milk into the pail before the cow began to show signs of impatience. then aunt nancy and louis returned to the house while jack drove the meek-eyed animal to the pasture, and when this was done he searched the shed for a rake. he succeeded in finding one with not more than half the teeth missing, and began to scrape up the sticks and dried leaves from the lane, a work which was well calculated to yet further win the confidence of the neat little mistress of the farm. when the morning meal was served, jack had so far become accustomed to aunt nancy's ways that he bowed his head without being prompted, while she asked a blessing. after breakfast was concluded the hunchback proceeded to put into execution the plan formed on the night previous. "if you'll tell me what to do i'll go to work as soon as the lane is cleaned, an' that won't take a long while. i s'pose there's plenty to be done." "yes," aunt nancy replied with a sigh, "there's a great deal of work which a woman can't do; but i don't know as a boy like you would be able to get along any better than i." "there won't be any harm in tryin'," jack said manfully. "tell me what it is you want." "well, the pasture fence is broken in several places, and i was thinking of getting daniel chick to come an' fix it; but perhaps you might patch the breaks up so's a cow couldn't get out." "of course i can. it ain't much of a job if you've got nails an' a hammer. i'll tackle it as soon as the lane is finished." aunt nancy explained that the fence to which she referred bordered the road a short distance above the house, and jack was so impatient to begin the labor that, contrary to his usual custom, he took a hurried leave of louis. an hour was sufficient in which to finish the self-imposed task on the lane, and then, with a very shaky hammer and a handful of rusty nails, he set out to repair the fence, leaving louis playing in the kitchen with the gorgeous crockery rooster, while aunt nancy was busily engaged setting the house to rights generally. the scene of jack's first attempt at fence building was fully an eighth of a mile away, and in a clump of alder-bushes which shut off all view of the house. it was by no means a simple task which he found before him. the posts had so far decayed that an expert workman would have considered it necessary to replace them with new timbers; but since this was beyond his skill, he set about mending it after his own fashion. it must not be supposed that jack loved to work better than does any other boy; but he believed it was necessary for him to remain with aunt nancy until such time as he could find an opportunity of continuing the journey in some more rapid manner than by walking, and the desire to make himself useful about the farm was so great that labor ceased to be a hardship. he had been engaged in this rather difficult task fully an hour, paying little or no attention to anything save the work in hand, when the rattle of wheels on the hard road attracted his notice. up to this time no person had passed in either direction, and it was from curiosity rather than any idea the approaching travellers might be connected with his fortunes, that he peered out from among the alder-bushes. immediately he drew back in alarm. he had seen, coming directly toward him in a lumbering old wagon and hardly more than a hundred yards away, farmer pratt and his son tom. "they're huntin' for me!" he said to himself as he crept farther among the bushes to conceal himself from view, and a secure hiding place had hardly been gained when the travellers came to a full stop at the little brook which ran on the opposite side of the road, in order to give their horse some water. as a matter of fact farmer pratt _was_ in search of the two who had left his house so unceremoniously; but now he had no intention of taking them to the poorhouse. quite by accident a copy of a newspaper containing an account of the explosion on board the "atlanta," and the information that mrs. littlefield would remain in portland in the hope of gaining some information regarding her child, had come into his hands, and it did not require much study on his part to understand that in the greed to possess himself of the boat by ridding himself of the children, he had lost the opportunity of earning a valuable reward. there was a stormy time in the pratt household when this fact became known, and even master tom came in for more than his full share of the scolding because the children had been allowed to go away. "it would have been as good as a hundred dollars in my pocket if i could have lugged them youngsters into town," the farmer repeated over and over again as he blamed first his wife and then his son for what was really his own fault. "i thought a boat worth twenty dollars would be a mighty big haul for one mornin', but here was a show of gettin' five times as much jest by holdin' them two over night, an' you had to let 'em slip through your fingers." farmer pratt dwelt upon this unpleasant fact until he finally convinced himself that he would have acted the part of a good samaritan had the opportunity not been denied him, and very early on this same morning he started out for the purpose of earning the reward by finding the castaways. jack, crouching among the bushes where he could distinguish the movements of those whom he considered his enemies, heard the farmer say, while the half-fed horse was quenching his thirst,-"i reckon we've got a day's work before us, all on account of you an' your mother, for that hunchback couldn't have walked as far with the baby. most likely he found some one who gave him a lift on the road. the chances are he's in biddeford by this time, other folks have heard the whole story." tom made no reply, probably because he feared to say anything which might again call forth a flood of reproach, and his father added,-"i reckon our best way will be to push right on to town instead of huntin' along the road as we've been doin'. time is gettin' mighty short if we want to catch him before people know what has happened." the farmer was so impatient to arrive at the city that the horse was urged on before his thirst was fully quenched, and as the noise of the wheels told that the briefly interrupted journey had been resumed, jack crept cautiously out from among the bushes to where he could watch the movements of the travellers until they should have passed aunt nancy's farm. as may be supposed, he was thoroughly alarmed. that which he heard convinced him beyond a doubt the farmer was searching for him, and there was no question in his mind but that it was for the sole and only purpose of carrying him and louis to the poor farm. "i s'pose aunt nancy would up an' tell the whole story if they should ask her," he muttered, "an' then i'd have to come out an' go along with 'em, 'cause i wouldn't let that man carry louis off alone." the color came back to his cheeks, however, and the throbbing of his heart was lessened as he saw the wagon wheel past the lane without either of its occupants making any move toward calling at the house. most likely neither aunt nancy nor louis were in the yard, and farmer pratt was so eager to reach the town where he believed the children to be, that, as he had intimated, there was no further stop to be made along the road. but jack's mind was far from being relieved even after the clumsy vehicle had passed out of sight, for he knew the farmer would return, failing to gain any information of those he was so anxious to find, and he might think it worth his while to call at aunt nancy's. jack had now lost all interest in his work, and seated himself near the fence trying to decide whether he would be warranted in leaving the temporary home he had found, to take refuge in flight. this he might have done on the impulse of the moment but for the restraining thought that it would be in the highest degree dangerous to travel in either direction on the road, and to make his way through the fields and woods was a matter of impossibility, since he had no idea of the proper course to be pursued. "i don't s'pose aunt nancy'd lie even to save us from goin' to the poor farm," he said aloud to himself; "but if she would, i'd hide out in the bushes with louis till i was sure that man had got through huntin' after us, 'cause he can't keep this thing up all summer." this was by far the best plan jack could devise for the baby's safety, and yet it seemed hardly possible it would be carried into execution because of the probable unwillingness of aunt nancy to so much as equivocate. after thinking the matter over fully twenty minutes without arriving at any other conclusion which promised the slightest hope of escape from his pursuers, he decided to boldly ask the little woman if she would promise, in case mr. pratt should call upon her, to say that she had seen neither of her guests. "she can't any more'n get mad at it, an' if she won't agree then i'll take the risk of startin' off once more, but it's goin' to be pretty tough on both of us." there was yet considerable work to be done in the way of fence building; but now jack had no idea of continuing the labor. he was so agitated that the shaky hammer lay unheeded on the ground where it had fallen when he first saw the travellers, and the nails were left to gather a yet thicker coat of rust as he made his way up through the line of bushes to approach the house from the rear, not daring to go boldly around by the road. chapter v. an encounter. believing his only enemies were those whom he had seen driving up the road, jack paid no attention to anything in front of him, save when it was absolutely necessary in order to guide his footsteps, but kept his eyes fixed upon the dusty highway. owing to the straggling line of bushes, he was forced to make a wide detour to reach the barn unseen by any travellers, and he had not traversed more than half the required distance when a loud cry from a clump of alders which bordered the duck pond caused him to come to a full stop. "hello, hunchie! what are you doin' here?" jack looked up quickly in alarm, fancying the voice sounded like tom pratt's, and for an instant believed his pursuers had apparently continued their journey only for the purpose of taking him by surprise in the rear. there was no person in sight, however, and during a few seconds he stood motionless, trying to decide whether it would be safest to run directly toward the farmhouse, or attempt to make his escape through the fields. then the question was repeated, and before jack could have fled, had he been so disposed, three boys came out from among the alders, approaching very near as if to prevent flight on the part of the hunchback. "who are you?" one of the strangers asked, "an' where did you come from?" "i'm jack dudley." "where do you live?" "i'm stayin' over to aunt nancy curtis's awhile," jack replied hesitatingly, doubtful if it would be well to give these not over-friendly looking boys all the information they desired. "what are you doin' there?" another of the party asked. "helpin' 'round at whatever she wants done till the summer boarders go away." "oh! so you're the hired man, are you?" the first boy said in a sneering tone. "i ain't so very much of a man; but i reckon i can do her work, an' i mustn't fool 'round here, for i'm pretty busy this mornin'." "you'll stay till we find out what right you've got to run across this field," the boy who had first spoken said decidedly. "we've always done aunt nancy's chores, an' you're makin'a big mistake by takin' our job away." jack looked once more toward the road to make certain farmer pratt and his son were not returning. then he glanced in the direction of the house, hoping aunt nancy might be in sight, for he understood from the tone and attitude of the strangers that they were bent on mischief. not a person could be seen, and he had no other alternative save to remain where he was until such time as the boys should be willing to let him pass. any attempt at flight could have been easily checked, since, owing to his deformity, he was not able to run as fast as others of his age. probably he felt just a trifle frightened; but he stood his ground boldly, determined not to let the strangers see a show of weakness, as he said,-"i didn't come here to take any feller's job. aunt nancy gave me a chance to stay this summer, an' i jumped at it, 'cause there's no boy needs a home more'n i do jest now." "well, see here, hunchie," the elder of the party replied in a threatening tone, "we don't know how much you need a home, nor we don't care; but there's one thing certain, you ain't goin' to stay 'round here this summer." "us fellers can do all aunt nancy's chores an' a good deal more. the job belongs to us. if you say you'll leave before night, it'll be all right, an' if not, we'll thump the life out of you." [illustration: "does that mean you ain't goin' to leave?" and the boy advanced threateningly with clinched fists, until he stood within a few inches of the deformed lad.--page 55.] "perhaps that can't be done," jack said calmly, with an assumption of courage which was far from natural. "last summer there was a feller come snoopin' 'round to help on the summer-boarder business, but he soon found it wasn't safe to steal jobs from them as lives here the whole year. we jest about killed him." "why didn't you stuff his skin an' set it up on the road here, so's other fellers would know enough not to stop?" jack asked in a sarcastic tone as he stepped back a few paces toward a thicker clump of bushes, where it would be impossible for the strangers to make an attack from the rear. "you can't be any tougher than you look, an' i guess i'll be able to keep on livin' till summer's over, even if i do stay." "does that mean you ain't goin' to leave?" and the boy advanced threateningly with clinched fists until he stood within a few inches of the deformed lad, who now understood that a fight was inevitable. "it's pretty nigh the size of it," jack replied; and despite all efforts, his voice trembled slightly, for he knew full well it would be impossible to hold his own against three bullies. "but before beginnin' the row i want you to understand one thing: if i don't work for somebody, i've got to live out of doors, for i haven't a cent. i ain't sayin' but the three of you can lick me, of course, but you'll have to do it every day in the week before i'll leave this farm." perhaps the bully was a trifle ashamed for threatening one so much smaller than himself, and deformed, for, instead of immediately striking a blow as at first had seemed to be his purpose, he drew back a few paces to hold a whispered consultation with his companions, after which he said,-"look here, hunchie, we're willin' to give you a show, but won't allow no fellers 'round takin' away money we could earn as well as not. aunt nancy's always hired us to do her chores when the city folks was here, till she got that feller last year, an' then the old fool said she'd never pay us another cent jest 'cause we didn't jump spry enough to please her. now we're goin' to show that it's got to be us or nobody. we're willin' to wait till to-morrow night if you say you'll go then. there's plenty of jobs up old orchard way, so there ain't any need of your feedin' on wind." "why don't you go there?" "'cause we don't want to. this is where we live, an' anything that's to be done 'round here belongs to us. now cross your throat that you'll leave before to-morrow night, an' we won't say another word." "i'll go an' see what aunt nancy thinks about it," jack replied, not with any intention of obeying these peremptory demands, but in order to escape from what was a very awkward predicament. "you won't do anything of the kind! promise before leavin' this place or we'll thump you!" "then thump away, for i won't go," jack replied determinedly as he backed still farther into the bushes and prepared to defend himself as best he might against such an overwhelming force, although knowing there was no question but that he would receive a severe whipping. "give it to him, bill!" the boys in the rear cried. "you can polish him off with one hand, so there's no need of our chippin' in." bill did not wait for further encouragement. jack's defence was necessarily very slight, and before he was able to strike a blow in his own behalf, bill had him on the ground, pounding him unmercifully, while his companions viewed the scene with evident satisfaction. jack made no outcry: first, because he feared that by bringing aunt nancy on the scene the fact of louis's being at the farm would be made known; and, secondly, he fancied farmer pratt might be near enough to hear his appeals for help. therefore he submitted to the cruel and uncalled-for punishment without a word, although every blow caused severe pain, and when bill had pummelled him for fully five minutes the other boys interrupted by saying,-"come, let up on him! that's enough for the first, an' if he ain't out of town by to-morrow we'll give him another dose. let's cool him off in the pond." jack struggled in vain against this last indignity. it was a simple matter for the three boys to lift and throw him half a dozen feet from the bank into the muddy water. there was no danger the little fellow would be drowned, for the duck pond was not more than two feet deep, and as his assailants ran hurriedly away he scrambled out, presenting a sorry sight as he stood on the firm ground once more with mud and water dripping from his face and every angle of his garments. jack was as sore in mind as he was in body; but even while making his way toward the house he did not neglect any precautions which might prevent his being seen by farmer pratt. he skirted around through the straggling line of alders until he reached the rear of the barn, and then, coming across crumple-horn's yard, he was confronted by aunt nancy, who had just emerged from the shed. "for mercy's sake!" the little woman screamed, raising her hands in dismay as she surveyed the woe-begone jack, who looked more like a misshapen pillar of mud than a boy. "where _have_ you been, and what _have_ you done to yourself? it _is_ strange that boys _will_ be forever mussing in the dirt. i thought i'd had some bad ones here, but you beat anything i ever saw! why, you must have been rolling in the pond to get yourself in such a condition." "yes, ma'am, i have," jack replied meekly as he again tried to brush the mud from his face, but only succeeded in grinding it in more deeply. "what's the matter with your nose? it's bleeding!" aunt nancy screamed in her excitement; while louis, who was sitting on the grass near the broad doorstep, crowed and laughed as if fancying she was talking to him. "three fellers out there tried to make me promise i'd go away before to-morrow night, an' when i wouldn't, they gave me an awful poundin'. then the fun was wound up by throwin' me in the pond." "three boys!" and aunt nancy's tone was an angry one. "i'll venture to say william dean was among the party; and if he thinks he's going to drive off every decent child in the neighborhood, he is mistaken. i'd do my chores alone, and wait on the city folks too, before he should come here again!" then aunt nancy peered in every direction as if fancying the evil-doers might yet be in the vicinity where she could punish them immediately, while jack stood silent, if not quite motionless, wiping the mixture of blood and mud from his face in a most disconsolate manner. aunt nancy's anger vanished, however, as she turned again toward the cripple. all her sympathies were aroused, but not to such an extent as to smother her cleanly instincts. "did they hurt you very much?" she asked solicitously. "they wasn't any too careful about hittin'," jack replied with a feeble attempt at a smile, to show that his injuries were not really serious. "if there hadn't been more than one, i'd have hurt him some before he got me into the pond." "i wish you had flogged every single member of that party in the most severe--no, i don't either, for it wouldn't be right, jack. we are told when anybody smites us on one cheek, we must turn the other also; but it's terrible hard work to do right sometimes. i'm glad you didn't strike them, though i _do_ wish they could be punished." again aunt nancy showed signs of giving way to anger, and one could see that a severe conflict was going on in her mind as she tried to obey the injunctions of the book she read so often. as if to turn her attention from vengeful thoughts, she immediately made preparations for dressing jack's wounds. "if you can stand a little more water," she said, "we'll try to get you into something like a decent condition." "i reckon i can stand almost anything after the dose i've had," jack replied grimly; and aunt nancy led him under the pump, stationing him directly beneath the spout as she said,-"now i'll wash the mud off; but if the water feels too cold let me know, and we'll heat it." "i'll take it as long as you can keep the handle goin'," jack replied as he bent his head and involuntarily drew a long breath preparatory to receiving the expected shock. aunt nancy could pump a long while when it was for the purpose of removing dirt; and during the next five minutes she deluged jack with the cold spring water until he stood in the centre of a miniature pond, no longer covered with mud, but dripping tiny streams from every portion of his face and garments. sitting on the grass near by, louis clapped his hands and laughed with glee at what he probably thought a comical spectacle designed for his own especial amusement. it was not until jack had been, as he expressed it, "so well rinsed it was time to wring him out," that either he or aunt nancy remembered the very important fact that he had no clothes to replace those which were so thoroughly soaked. "now what _are_ we going to do?" aunt nancy asked in dismay, as she surveyed the dripping boy, who left little rivers of water behind him whenever he moved. "you haven't got a second shirt to your back, and i can't let you remain in these wet clothes." "i might go out to the barn an' lay 'round there till they dried," jack suggested. "mercy on us, child, you'd get your death of cold! wait right here while i go into the attic and see if there isn't something you can wear for a few hours. don't step across the threshold." this last admonition was unnecessary. short a time as jack had known aunt nancy, he was reasonably well acquainted with her cleanly habits, and to have stepped on that floor, which was as white as boards can be, while in his present condition, would have been to incur the little woman's most serious displeasure. he was also forced to remain at a respectful distance from louis, who laughed and crowed as if begging to be taken, and while moving farther away he whispered,-"it wouldn't do at all to touch you when i'm so wet, old fellow, but i'll lug you around as much as you want as soon as i'm dried off. after aunt nancy comes back, i'm goin' to talk with her about farmer pratt, an' see if she'll agree to say we ain't here in case he calls. you an' i'll be in a pretty hard box if she don't promise to tell a lie for us." chapter vi. a mental struggle. when aunt nancy returned from the attic, she had a miscellaneous collection of cast-off garments sufficient to have clothed a dozen boys like jack, providing they had been willing to wear female apparel. "i thought there might be some of father's things upstairs," she said, examining once more each piece; "but i've given them away. you won't care if you have to put on a dress for a little while, will you? here are some old ones of mine, and it will be a great deal better to use them than to stand around in wet clothes." jack was not at all anxious to masquerade as a girl, and would have preferred to "dry off," as he expressed it, in the barn; but, fearing lest he should offend the old lady at a time when he was about to ask a very great favor, he made no protest. aunt nancy selected from the assortment two skirts, a pair of well-worn cloth shoes, and a shawl, saying as she handed them to the boy,-"now you can go out in the barn and put these on. then we'll hang your clothes on the line, where they'll dry in a little while. in the mean time i'll find some sticking plaster for your face, and a piece of brown paper to put over your eye to prevent it from growing black." jack walked away as if he were about to perform a very disagreeable task, and by the time aunt nancy had carried the superfluous wardrobe upstairs and procured such things as she thought would be necessary in the treatment of the boy's wounds, he emerged from the barn looking decidedly shamefaced. he knew he presented a most comical appearance, and expected to be greeted with an outburst of laughter; but aunt nancy saw nothing to provoke mirth in what had been done to prevent a cold, and, in the most matter-of-fact manner, began to treat the bruises on his face. a piece of court plaster fully half as large as jack's hand was placed over the scratch on his right cheek, another upon a small cut just in front of his left ear, while a quantity of brown paper thoroughly saturated with vinegar covered his eye and a goodly portion of his forehead. this last was tied on with a handkerchief knotted in such a manner as to allow the two ends to stick straight up like the ears of a deformed rabbit. during this operation louis laughed in glee. it was to him the jolliest kind of sport to see his guardian thus transformed into a girl, and even aunt nancy herself could not repress a smile when she gazed at the woe-begone looking boy who appeared to have just come from some desperate conflict. "i s'pose i look pretty rough, don't i?" jack asked with a faint attempt at a smile. "i feel like as if i'd been broke all to pieces an' then patched up ag'in." "it isn't as bad as it might be," aunt nancy replied guardedly; "but out here where we don't see any one it doesn't make much difference, and to run around this way a few hours is better than being sick for a week." "i reckon i can stand it if you can," jack said grimly, "but i don't think i want to fix fences in this rig. them fellers would think i'd put on these things so they wouldn't know me." "no indeed, you mustn't leave the house even when your clothes are dry, until i have seen that dean boy's father." "you ain't goin' to tell him about their poundin' me, are you?" jack asked quickly. "of course i am. you don't suppose for a single moment that i intend to run the chances of your being beaten to death by them! if mr. dean can't keep his boy at home i'll--i'll--i don't know what i will do." "seems to me it would be better not to say anything about it," jack replied hesitatingly. "if we go to tellin' tales, them fellers will think i'm afraid, an' be sure to lay for me whenever i go out." "i'm not going to tell any tales; but i intend to see if it isn't possible for me to have a decent, well-behaved boy around this place without his being obliged to fight a lot of disreputable characters such as some we've got in the neighborhood." this is not the time for jack to make any vehement protests, lest aunt nancy should be provoked because of his persistency, and he changed the subject of conversation by broaching the matter which occupied all his thoughts. "that mr. pratt what tried to send louis an' me to the poor farm drove past here with tom jest before them fellers tackled me, an' i heard him say he was lookin' for us." "mercy on me!" aunt nancy exclaimed as she pushed the spectacles back from her nose to her forehead and peered down the lane much as if expecting to see the farmer and his son in the immediate vicinity. "why _is_ he so possessed to send you to the poorhouse?" "that's what i don't know," jack replied with a sigh; "but he's after us, an' if he once gets his eye on me, the thing is settled." "he has no more right to bother you than i have, and not half as much. according to your story, he didn't even take the trouble to give you a decent meal, and i'll soon let him know he can't carry you away from here." "but how'll you prevent it if he starts right in an' begins to lug us off? he's stronger'n you an' me put together, an' if he's come all this distance there won't be much stoppin' for anything you'll say to him, i'm afraid. now don't you think it would be better to tell him i wasn't here?" "mercy on us, jack! how could i do that when you _are_ here?" "well, you wouldn't like to have him lug us off if you knew we'd got to go to the poorhouse, would you? 'cause neither louis nor me ever did anything to you, or to him either." "but you sha'n't go there, my dear child. so long as i am willing to keep you here, i don't see what business it is of his, or anybody else's." "it seems as though he was makin' it his business," jack replied disconsolately; for he was now beginning to despair of persuading aunt nancy to tell a lie. "if you'd say we wasn't here, that would settle it, and he wouldn't stay." "but i can't, jack; i can't tell an absolute falsehood." jack gave vent to a long-drawn sigh as he looked toward the baby for a moment, and then said,-"well, i didn't s'pose you would do it anyhow, so louis an' me'll have to start off, 'cause i won't go to that poor farm if i have to walk every step of the way to new york an' carry the baby besides." "i don't see why you should talk like that, my child. in the first place, there is no reason for believing that hard-hearted man will come here, and--" "oh, yes, there is!" and jack repeated the conversation he had overheard while hiding in the alder-bushes. "when he finds out we haven't been to biddeford, he'll ask at every house on the way back." "do you really think he would try to take you if i said to him in a very severe tone that i would have him prosecuted for attempting anything of the kind?" "i don't believe you could scare him a bit, an' there isn't much chance you'd be able to stop him after he's come so far to find us." "but i can't have you leave me, jack," the little woman said in a quavering voice. "you have no idea how much i've been countin' on your company." "you won't feel half so bad as i shall to go," jack replied mournfully. "but it is out of the question to even think of walking all that distance." "it's got to be done jest the same, an' as soon as my clothes are dried we'll start. things will come mighty tough; but they can't be helped." aunt nancy looked thoroughly distressed, and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes as she asked,-"how would it do to lock the doors, and refuse to come down when he knocked?" jack shook his head. "i don't believe it would work." "no, it mustn't be thought of, for then we should be acting a lie, which is almost, if not quite, as bad as telling one." "how do you make that out?" jack asked in surprise. "we shouldn't lock the doors unless it was to give him the impression that there was no one at home, which would be a falsehood." the expression on jack's face told that he failed to understand either the argument or the spirit which prompted it, and for several moments no word was spoken. then, as a happy thought occurred to him, the boy said eagerly,-"i'll tell you how it could be done without any lie at all, an' everything would go along as slick as grease." "how?" aunt nancy asked quickly, as a look of relief passed over her face. "i'll watch up the road a piece till i see the team comin'. then i'll run back here, get louis, an' carry him off somewhere." "well?" the little woman asked as he paused. "why, can't you see how easy it'll be then? you'll only have to tell him you don't know where we are, an' he'll be bound to leave." "but, jack dear, i should know where you were." "how do you make that out?" "you wouldn't leave the farm, an' while i--" "that's jest what you don't know. i didn't tell you where we'd go. it would be the same thing if we left for new york this minute; you might think we was on the road somewhere; but that wouldn't make it so." aunt nancy remained silent, and although he did not believe she was convinced, jack fancied there was a look of hesitation on her face as if she might be persuaded into complying with his request, therefore he added eagerly,-"you want us to stay here, an'--" "indeed i do!" the little woman replied fervently. "i never knew a boy who seemed so much like our own folks as you do, and since last night it has been a great relief to think i should have you with me this summer." "and if mr. pratt knows we're anywhere around, he'll snake us away for certain." "i don't understand how that can be done, jack." "neither do i; but he has come to do it, an' you can't stop him. now i'll promise to go where you'd never guess of our bein', an' then there wouldn't be the least little bit of a lie in sayin' you didn't know." "i would do almost anything for the sake of keeping you here, jack, except to commit a sin." "this way you won't be doin' anything of the kind. i reckon my clothes are dry now, an' i'd better put 'em on so's to be ready to watch for mr. pratt." then jack hurried off as if the matter had been positively settled. aunt nancy gazed after him with an expression of mingled pain and perplexity on her wrinkled face, and just then louis crept to her knee, begging in his odd language to be taken on her lap. "you dear little creature!" she cried, pressing him to her bosom while he chattered and laughed. "it would be cruel to send you among the paupers, when a lonely old woman like me loves you so much!" jack looked back just in time to see this picture, and there was no longer any doubt in his mind but that aunt nancy would accede to his request. five minutes later he returned clad in his own garments, which looked considerably the worse for the hasty drying, and said as he ran swiftly past the little woman,-"don't let louis go into the house, for i'll want to get hold of him in a hurry!" aunt nancy began to make some remark; but he was moving so swiftly that the words were unheard, and the old lady said to herself with a long-drawn sigh as she pressed the baby yet more closely,-"i'm afraid it is wrong to do as he wishes; but how can i allow cruel men to take this dear child from me, when i know he will not be cared for properly?" then she began to think the matter over more calmly, and each moment it became clearer to her mind that by acceding to jack's request she would be evading the truth, if not absolutely telling a lie. "i can't do it," she said, kissing the baby affectionately. "much as i shall grieve over them, it is better they should go than for me to do what i know to be wrong." having thus decided, she hurried up the lane to warn jack; but before reaching the road the boy was met coming at full speed. "mr. pratt has just shown up at the top of the hill; he's stoppin' at the house over there! i'll get louis and hide." "but, jack dear, i have been thinking this matter over, and i can't even act a lie." "why didn't you say so before, when i had a chance to get away?" he cried reproachfully. "by lettin' me think you'd do it, you've got us into a reg'lar trap!" the boy did not wait to hear her reply, but ran to where louis was seated contentedly on the grass, raised him in his arms and disappeared behind the barn, leaving the little woman feeling very much like a culprit. chapter vii. farmer pratt. aunt nancy was now in a fine state of perplexity. jack's reproachful tone had cut very deeply, and she began to consider herself responsible for all which might happen because of not having warned him in time. "i'm a wicked woman," she said, wringing her hands distractedly, "and accountable for all that happens now. why was i so weak as not to give the dear boy a decided answer when he came from the barn?" then she ran to the bars and called after jack in a whisper; but if any one had asked why she wanted him to come back just at that time, she could not have explained. returning to the old oak, she was about to sit down again when the rattle of wheels told that farmer pratt was near at hand. hardly aware of what she did, the little woman went hurriedly into the house, and there awaited what must necessarily be a very painful interview. a few moments later the man whom jack looked upon as a merciless enemy knocked at the door, and aunt nancy said feebly, "come in." farmer pratt entered without very much ceremony, and as the little woman gazed at his face she fancied, probably from what jack had told her, that it was possible to see covetousness and hard-heartedness written on every feature. he did not remove his hat, but stood in the centre of the floor, whip in hand, as he said,-"mornin' ma'am, mornin'. i'm from scarborough, an' my name is nathan pratt. p'rhaps you've heard of me." aunt nancy was about to say she never had, meaning that her neighbors never had spoken of him as a person of importance; but she checked herself on remembering this would be a falsehood because of what jack had said. "i have heard the name," she replied faintly. "i thought so, i thought so. i've lived, man an' boy, in scarborough for nigh on to fifty years, an' when that's been done without givin' anybody a chance to say a word agin me, except that i want my own, as other folks do, then it would be kinder strange if i wasn't known within a dozen miles of home." "was that all you came here to say?" aunt nancy asked. "of course not,--of course not"; and the farmer seated himself without waiting for an invitation. "the fact of the matter is, ma'am, i'm huntin' for a couple of children what drifted ashore on my place the other day. one of 'em was a hunchback, an' i must say he is bad, for after eatin' all the food in my house that he an' the young one wanted, he run away, leavin' me in the lurch." "i don't suppose they stole it, did they?" and aunt nancy spoke very sharply, for it made her angry to hear such things said about jack. "no, it wasn't exactly that," and the farmer hesitated, as if to give her the impression something equally wrong had been done by the boy; "but as a citizen of the town i don't want it said we let a couple of youngsters run around loose like calves." "what do you intend to do with them?" the little woman asked severely. farmer pratt had no idea of telling a secret which he believed would be worth at least an hundred dollars to him, and by keeping it he again defeated himself. "they oughter be carried to the poor farm till we can find out who owns 'em. you see i'm as big a tax-payer as there is in scarborough, an' if any other town takes care of the children, we're likely to be sued for the cost of keepin'. now i don't believe in goin' to law, for it's dreadful expensive, so i've come out to save myself an' my neighbors what little money i can." if farmer pratt had told the truth, aunt nancy would have done all in her power to aid him, and jack could not but have rejoiced, although the farmer received a rich reward; but by announcing what was a false proposition, he aroused the little woman's wrath. she no longer remembered that it was wrong even to act a lie, and thought only of the possibility that those whom she had learned to love were really to be taken to the refuge for paupers, if her visitor should be so fortunate as to find them. "it seems hard to put children in such a place," she said, with an effort to appear calm. "that's only prejudice, ma'am, sheer prejudice. what do we keep up sich institoots for? why, to prevent one man from bein' obleeged to spend more'n another when a lot of beggars come around." "and yet it seems as if almost any one would be willing to feed a couple of children who were lost." "there's where you are makin' a mistake ag'in, ma'am. youngsters eat more'n grown folks, an' i know what i'm talkin' about, 'cause i've raised a family. heaven helps them as helps themselves, an' when we find two like the one i'm huntin' for, then i say since heaven won't take a hand at it, the town should." aunt nancy remained silent, but those who knew her intimately would have said, because of the manner in which she moved her chair to and fro, that the little woman was struggling very hard to "rule her spirit." "i don't reckon you know anything about 'em, ma'am," farmer pratt said after a long pause, during which aunt nancy had rocked violently, with her gaze fixed upon an overbold honey bee who was intent on gathering the sweets from a honeysuckle blossom which the wind had forced through the open window. "i know this much," she replied with vehemence, "that i hope you won't find the children if it is simply to carry them to the poor farm. we are told of the reward which--" "who said anything about a reward?" the farmer asked in alarm, fearing that which he wished should remain a secret was already known. "the book tells us what shall be the reward of those who give a cup of cold water only to these his little ones--" "oh! is that it?" and the visitor appeared greatly relieved. "i count myself about as good as my neighbors, but when it comes to keepin' a parcel of children, after i've paid my taxes to run a place especially for sich as they, then i say it's a clear waste of money, an' that's as much of a sin as anything else." "we won't argue the matter," the little woman replied with dignity, "but i hope the time will never come that i, poor as i am, can count the pennies in a dollar when it is a question of giving aid or comfort to the distressed." "since you haven't seen the youngsters, there's no need of my stayin' any longer, ma'am, but it does seem funny that nobody has run across 'em, when i heard for a fact that they'd come up this road." aunt nancy knew full well that by remaining silent now, she was giving the visitor to understand she knew nothing about the missing ones; but just at the moment she would have told a deliberate lie rather than give jack and louis up to such a man, however much she might have regretted it afterward. "of course there's no harm in my askin' the questions," farmer pratt said as he moved toward the door, feeling decidedly uncomfortable in mind because of the little woman's sharp words. "certainly not; but at the same time i am sorry you came." "why, ma'am?" "because i have learned how hard-hearted men can be when it is a question of a few dollars. if the children should come to me, they would be given a home, such as it is, until their relatives could be found." "if they should come, i warn you that it is your duty to let me know, for they drifted ashore on my property, an' i've got the first claim." this was rather more than meek little aunt nancy could endure; but she succeeded in checking the angry words, and rose from her chair to intimate that the interview was at an end. farmer pratt went out very quickly, probably fearing he might hear more unpalatable truths, and the old lady watched him until he drove away. "it was wicked, but i'm glad i did it!" she said emphatically. "the idea of hunting up such children as jack and louis simply to send them among paupers!" not for many moments did the little woman remain in this frame of mind. after a time she began to realize that she had done exactly what she told jack would be impossible--acted a lie, and her conscience began to trouble her greatly. she tried to read a chapter in the book with the hope of finding something to comfort her, and, failing in this, her thoughts went out to the children who had left so suddenly. "mercy on us!" she exclaimed. "suppose jack really has gone away, believing i would tell that man all i knew about him!" this idea was sufficient to arouse her to action, and she went behind the barn, where she called softly,-"jack! jack! where are you?" not until this very feeble outcry had been repeated half a dozen times did she receive any reply, and then the hunchback, with louis clasped in his arms, peered out from among the bushes. "has the farmer gone?" he asked in a whisper. "indeed he has." "and you didn't tell him where we was?" "he never asked the question; but all the same, jack dear, i did wrong in allowing him to suppose i knew nothing about you." "you're the sweetest aunt any feller ever had," the hunchback said heartily as he came swiftly up and kissed one of the old lady's wrinkled hands before she was aware of his intentions. "i couldn't believe you wanted us taken to the poorhouse, so i didn't go very far off." "i almost wish i hadn't done it, for--no, i don't either! after talking with that wretch it would have broken my heart to see him take you away! give me the baby this minute; it seems as if i hadn't seen him for a week." jack willingly relinquished his charge to the motherly arms extended to receive the laughing child, and said, as aunt nancy almost smothered louis with kisses,-"you sha'n't ever be sorry for what you have done. i'll work awful hard, an' take care of the baby whenever you've got somethin' else to do." "i know you are a good boy, jack, and i wouldn't undo what's been done if i could; but at the same time my conscience will reproach me, for i realize that i acted wickedly." so far as the sin was concerned, jack did not think it of great importance, and wondered not a little that as good a woman as aunt nancy should attach so much importance to what, in his mind at least, was nothing more than a charitable act. he took care not to give expression to his thoughts, however, and led the way back to the old oak-tree, where he said,-"you sit down here awhile, an' i'll go out to make certain that man has gone. it might be he's waitin' 'round somewhere to find whether we're really here." "i don't think there is any danger of that," aunt nancy replied as she seated herself on the bench and fondled louis until the little fellow was tired of caresses. jack could not be comfortable in mind unless positive his enemy had left the vicinity, and he walked quite a long distance up the road before convincing himself of the fact. when he returned the desire to make himself necessary to the little woman was stronger than ever, and he proposed to finish the work of fence mending at once. "better wait till after dinner now that it is so near noon," she said. "we'll have a quiet talk, and then i will start the fire." "is it about farmer pratt you want to say something?" "no, we'll try to put him out of our minds. it is the baby." "what's the matter with him?" "he must have another frock and some clothes. these are very dirty, and i'm afraid he'd take cold if i should wash them at night, and put them on again in the morning." "haven't you got an old dress like the one i wore? by pinnin' it up he'd get along all right." "indeed he wouldn't, jack. boys can't be expected to know what a child needs; but it puzzles me how to get the material from the store." "what's the matter with my goin' after it?" "it is a very long distance--more than four miles away." "that's all right; i walked a good deal farther the day i came here. jest say what you want, an' i'll go after it now." "do you really think you could get back before sunset?" "i'm certain of it, providin' i don't wait for dinner." "but you must have something to eat, jack dear." "i can take a slice of bread and butter in my hand, an' that'll last me more'n four miles." "i have half a mind to let you go," aunt nancy said as if to herself, and jack insisted so strongly that she finally decided he should do the shopping. not one, but half a dozen slices of bread were spread thickly with butter as a dinner for the messenger, and then the little woman wrote on a slip of paper the different articles she needed. "you must see that mr. treat gives you exactly what i've asked for," she said as she read the list, and explained what the texture or color of each article should be. "watch him closely, and be sure he makes the right change." then she gave him the most minute directions as to the road, the time which should be occupied in the journey, and the manner the goods were to be brought home. a basket was provided for the purchases, and aunt nancy said as she gave jack a ten-dollar note,-"tie that in your handkerchief so's to be sure not to lose it, jack dear, for it's a great deal of money to a lone woman like me." he promised to be careful, and kissed the baby good by. aunt nancy leaned over for the same salute, and when it had been given she said in a sorrowful tone,-"it is a deal of comfort to have you with me, jack; but i do wish i had been bold enough to tell that man the truth, and then refused to let you go with him." "it's lucky you didn't, aunt nancy, for he'd been bound to have us any way." then jack walked swiftly down the daisy-embroidered lane, thinking he was a very fortunate boy indeed in having found such a good friend as the sweet-faced old lady. chapter viii. a second warning. true to his promise, jack returned before the sun was very low in the western sky, and aunt nancy expressed the greatest surprise at seeing him so soon. "when i send william dean to the store he needs all day for the journey, and on two or three occasions it has been late in the evening before he came back." "it isn't such an awful long walk, but it makes a feller kinder tired, an' i s'pose he had to rest a good while before startin' back. i thought i'd better come the minute the things were ready, 'cause i was afraid you'd do the milkin'." "of course i shall. you don't suppose i'd let you work after that terribly long walk." "but i'm goin' to do the chores jest the same," jack replied; and to prove his words he carried in the kindlings for morning. aunt nancy was perfectly satisfied with the purchases he made, and until it was time to bring the cow up from pasture she explained her intentions in the way of making clothes for louis. "this piece of calico isn't as pretty as some i've had from treat's," she said, unfolding the goods, "but it seems to be a good quality, and that's the main thing. now, the question is whether i shall make his frock with a yoke, or plain? what do you think, jack dear?" jack hadn't the faintest idea of what she meant by a "yoke" or a "frock," but, wishing to please the little woman by giving an opinion, he answered decidedly,-"i should make it plain." "that was just my idea. how queer it is that you should know all about such things, and have good judgment too!" jack came very near smiling because of this praise which he did not deserve, but was wise enough not to make any reply, and aunt nancy consulted him on every detail until the garment had been fully decided upon. then it was time to attend to old crumple-horn, and when jack came into the kitchen again supper was on the table. in view of the fact that he had had such a long tramp, the little woman insisted on his retiring very early, and the book was opened as soon as the supper-table had been cleared. on this day aunt nancy's evening devotions occupied an unusually long time, and she prayed fervently to be forgiven for her sin of the forenoon,--a fact which caused jack to say when she had finished,-"it don't seem to me as if you could ever do anything wicked, aunt nancy, an' there ain't any need of fussing about what you said to farmer pratt, for god knows jest how good you are." "you mustn't talk like that, jack dear. there are very many times when i give way to anger or impatience, and there can be no question but that i as much as told a lie when that man was here." jack would have protested that no wrong had been done, but she prevented further conversation by kissing him on both cheeks as she said, "good night." on the following morning, aunt nancy's "man of all work" took good care she should not be the first one awake. he arose as the rays of the coming sun were glinting the eastern sky, and when the little woman entered the kitchen the fire had been built, the floor swept, and the morning's milk in the pail ready for straining. her surprise at what he had done was sufficient reward for jack, and he resolved that she should never have an opportunity to do such work while he was sleeping. "i begin to feel quite like a visitor," the little woman said with a cheery laugh as she bustled around in her sparrow-like fashion, preparing breakfast. "this is the first time in a great many years that the fire has been made and the milking done before i got up." thanks to jack's labors, the morning meal was unusually early, and when it had been eaten and the dishes washed, the hunchback said as he took up his hat,-"i'll go now an' finish mendin' the fence." "wait until i have seen mr. dean. i'm afraid those dreadful boys will do you some mischief." "i don't reckon they'll be stirring so early, an' it won't take me more'n an hour longer. while i'm gone, think of somethin' else that needs to be done, for i'd rather be workin' than layin' still." "you're a good boy, jack dear, and i should be very sorry to have you go away from me now." "there's no danger of that yet awhile, unless mr. pratt takes it into his head to come this way again," jack replied with a laugh as he left the house. it required some search to find the hammer and nails he had thrown down when he was so frightened, and then the task of fence mending progressed famously until a rustling among the bushes caused him to raise his eyes suddenly. bill dean stood before him, looking particularly savage and threatening. jack took a yet firmer grasp of the hammer, resolved to defend himself vigorously providing there should be no other enemies in the vicinity. "so you're still here, eh?" bill asked sternly. "looks like it i reckon." "when are you goin'?" "i haven't quite made up my mind; but i'll write an' tell you before i pack my trunk." bill stepped forward quickly, but jack persuaded him to go back by swinging the hammer unpleasantly near the bully's head as he said,-"don't come too near! you served me out yesterday because there was three in the gang, an' i hadn't anything to defend myself with; but now matters are a little different." "are you goin' to leave this place to-day?" bill asked, as he retreated a few paces. "no, nor to-morrow either." "then remember what i say. this is the second warnin' you've had, an' it'll be the last. look out for trouble if you're in this town to-night!" "i shall be here, an' i want you to remember that somebody besides me may get into trouble if there's any funny business. aunt nancy threatened to tell your father about what was done yesterday, but i coaxed her not to, an' i won't say a word another time." "i don't mind what she says, we'll run you out of this place before two days go by, so take care of yourself." "that's jest what i count on doin', an' if you've got any sense you'll keep away from me." bill shook his fist threateningly as near jack's nose as he thought prudent, and disappeared among the bushes, leaving the hunchback decidedly disturbed in mind despite the bold front he had assumed. "them fellers can make it hot for me, of course," he said to himself when the bully had gone, "an' i expect i shall catch it rough, but almost anything is better than leavin' here after aunt nancy has fixed it so nice with farmer pratt." he worked more rapidly after receiving this second warning, and returned to the house by the main road instead of going around past the frog pond. the little woman was under the old oak making louis's new garments when he arrived, and she saw at once by the troubled expression on his face that something had gone wrong. "what's the matter, jack dear?" she asked kindly. "matter? i guess i don't know what you mean." "indeed you do, so now tell aunt nancy all about it. have you seen that dean boy again to-day?" jack was forced to confess he had, and in a few moments the little woman succeeded in learning the whole story. she insisted that it was necessary for her to see bill's father at once; but the hunchback begged her not to do anything of the kind, and she apparently abandoned the idea. "why is it you don't want me to go?" she finally asked. "because when any fuss is raised about me, i'm afraid it'll come to farmer pratt's ears somehow, an' he'll be over here again." "i wish he would, for then i could confess to him that i the same as told a lie, and defy any one to take you children from me." "when that time comes we shall have to go," jack replied despondently; and aunt nancy endeavored to cheer him by displaying louis's frock, which was rapidly approaching completion. during the remainder of the day jack busied himself around the farm at such chores as he or aunt nancy could find, and when night came nothing had been heard of those who insisted he must leave the town. the baby sat under the old oak during the evening in all the bravery of his new dress, and aunt nancy discussed the subject matter of her proposed letter to "brother abner" until it was time to retire. then jack went into his tiny room with a heart full of thankfulness that his lines "had been cast in such pleasant places," and it seemed as if his eyes had but just closed in slumber when he was awakened by the pressure of a soft hand on his face. fear would have caused him to rise to a sitting posture very suddenly but for the fact that the same gentle pressure forced him to remain in a reclining position, and then he heard a familiar voice whisper,-"o jack dear, burglars are trying to get into the house! what _shall_ we do?" he was now thoroughly awake, and as the hand was removed from his mouth he asked in a low tone,-"are you certain of that?" "absolutely. i thought i heard an unusual noise, and looked out when--there! _do_ you hear that?" "it would be strange if i didn't," jack replied as the creaking of the shed door swinging back on its hinges sounded remarkably loud and harsh on the still night air. "i'll get right up; go downstairs and wait for me." "it will be better if i stay in the hall-way," aunt nancy said in a voice, the tremor of which told that she was thoroughly frightened. never before had jack dressed so quickly, and as he did he tried to think what course should be pursued. there seemed to be no question but that burglars were on the premises, and to encounter them single handed and alone would be the height of folly. as may be fancied, he had not made a very elaborate toilet when he joined aunt nancy at the head of the stairs. it was sufficient that he had on enough clothing to admit of his going out of doors without danger of taking cold. "have you got a gun or a pistol?" he asked of the little woman who was shivering with fear as if with an ague fit. "no indeed, i never would dare to sleep in the same house with such things." "what have you that i can use as a weapon?" "there isn't a single article in this house which is dangerous except the carving knife, and that is very dull." "it will be better than nothing." "but you surely don't intend to go out there when desperate men may be laying in wait to take your life!" "something must be done; we can't stay shut up here and allow them to do as they please." "but you'll be killed, jack dear"; and poor old aunt nancy clung to the boy in a frenzy of fear. "to think that i've been expecting something of the kind all my life, and it has come at last!" a sound as if the shed door had been closed told jack he was wasting what might be precious time. "get the carving knife quick," he whispered, "and when i go out lock the door after me." aunt nancy obeyed in silence. she brought the knife much as though it was the deadliest of weapons, and put it in jack's hands with something very like awe. "don't kill the men if you can help it," she whispered. "it would be better to frighten them very badly rather than stain your hands with blood." jack made no reply; but the thought came into his mind that he would stand a poor chance of frightening a burglar, with nothing but the well worn knife. he opened the door softly. aunt nancy stood ready to close and lock it instantly he was on the outside, and the decisive moment had arrived. chapter ix. the alarm. it must be confessed that jack was not at all eager to face the alleged burglars. he knew very well that if there were no more than two he would stand a slim chance of driving them away, and even one good sized man might make it very uncomfortable for him. had he been left to follow his own inclinations, the outer door would not have been opened, but he knew aunt nancy depended upon him for protection, and he must make a reputation for courage or be disgraced in her eyes. the sky was overcast with clouds, and jack could not distinguish objects ten paces away as he stepped on to the broad stone in front of the door. he heard the key turn in the lock behind him, and this was sufficient to tell him he need not expect any assistance from the little woman inside. grasping the carving knife firmly, he moved forward slowly in the direction of the shed, and saw a shadowy form dart around the corner of the building. then another, or the same one, returned, approached jack, and stooped over as if in the act of placing something on the ground. an instant later the shadow had disappeared, and jack saw before him a thin line of sparks, apparently coming from the solid earth, but not sufficiently large to cast any light. quite naturally jack's first thought was that the miscreants were trying to set the buildings on fire, and he ran forward to extinguish what seemed ready to burst into a flame, when there was a muffled report, the ground appeared to be a mass of coals, while at the same time a soft, sticky substance was thrown in a shower upon him. jack leaped back in surprise and alarm, and as he did so struck his foot against some obstruction with sufficient power to throw him headlong. the explosion, the sudden glare of light, and the shower of he knew not what, all served to bewilder the boy to such an extent that for the moment it seemed as if the same force which caused the report had knocked him down. the first idea which came into his mind was that he had been shot, for he remembered having heard that the victim does not feel pain for some time after a bullet enters his body, and the sticky substance on his face he thought must be blood. "that bill dean meant what he said, an' has commenced drivin' me out of town," he muttered to himself, making not the slightest effort to rise, because he believed it impossible to do so. the silence was almost oppressive after the loud report. jack could hear nothing to denote that there was any one in the vicinity, and was feeling of his limbs to ascertain the amount of injury done, when a shrill, tremulous voice from the doorway cried,-"jack! jack dear! are you hurt much?" "i'm afraid i'm shot. it seems as if i was bleedin' dreadful!" "wait till i can light the lantern, my poor boy"; and the door was closed and locked again. by this time jack had fully persuaded himself he was seriously wounded, and wondered how long it would be before the pain came. two minutes later aunt nancy, partially dressed and with an odd little lantern in her hand, emerged very cautiously from the house. the fear jack might be fatally injured was greater than that of the supposed burglars. her desire to aid others conquered her timidity, and the only thought was to bring relief as speedily as possible. "mercy on us! what a dreadful thing!" aunt nancy exclaimed as she arrived at the place where jack was lying at full length on the ground. "tell me where you are hurt, my poor child." "i don't know; but it seems as if somethin' tough must have happened, for i'm bleedin' terribly." the little woman knelt by his side, and held the lantern up until its rays illumined the boy's face. "i can't see any blood, jack dear; but you seem to be literally covered with something yellow." the boy passed his hand over his face, scraping off the supposed sanguinary fluid, and examined it carefully by aid of the light. then he leaped to his feet very quickly, looking both ashamed and angry. "it's some kind of a trick bill dean's gang have been playing!" he cried, and at that instant from behind the barn came a shout of derision, followed by hearty laughter. "oh, i wish i was strong enough to flog those wicked wretches!" aunt nancy said, her eyes filling with tears of vexation. jack made no reply. he had taken the lantern from her hand, and was searching carefully in the immediate vicinity. it was not long before he and aunt nancy decided that the yellow substance was the seeds and pulp of a pumpkin, and jack said, as he picked up several pieces of red paper,-"now i know what it means. those fellers have dug the inside out of a pumpkin, and put into it a big firecracker. they waited until i came near the shed before lighting it, an', of course, when the thing exploded it sent the stuff flyin'." "thank goodness it was no worse!" the little woman added, and jack burst into a hearty laugh. despite the suffering caused by fear, the idea that he had been scared almost into dying by an exploded pumpkin was comical in the extreme, and his mirth was not checked until aunt nancy asked quite sharply,-"what on earth are you laughing at?" "to think how frightened we got about nothing." "i'm sure it was a good deal. here we've been forced out of our beds at this hour of the night, believing burglars were around, and then scared nearly to death because it appeared as if you were wounded, all on account of those terrible boys who wanted to have some sport!" "it can't be helped now, an' the sooner you get into the house the less will be the chances of your taking cold," jack replied, checking his mirth with difficulty as he saw how angry aunt nancy really was. although it was a practical joke which had caused a great deal of mental anxiety for a short time, he could not look upon it otherwise than as funny, except when he realized that this was the first step taken to drive him out of the town. the little woman insisted on examining the interior of the shed to learn if the boys had done any further mischief, and they found fragments of pumpkin and paper, showing that the "infernal machine" had been constructed there. nothing appeared to have been disturbed, and the two who had been so unceremoniously awakened returned to the house after the pulp was scraped with a chip from jack's face, hair, and clothing. it was a long time before the boy could induce slumber to visit his eyelids again that night, but he finally succeeded with such good effect that he did not awaken until the noise aunt nancy made while building the fire aroused him. dressing hurriedly, he went downstairs in time to do a portion of the work, and when the milk was brought into the house after old crumple horn had been driven to pasture, aunt nancy asked,-"do you think you could take care of louis a little while this forenoon?" "of course i can. are you going visitin'?" "yes; i intend to see if something can't be done to prevent those wretched boys from carrying on in this manner." "but, aunt nancy--" "now don't say a word, jack dear. things were very much like this last summer when i hired a boy from portland, and no one can tell what might have happened if he hadn't run away. i know it is wrong to get angry, but i can't help it. seems to me i am growing more wicked every day; yesterday i just the same as told a lie, and last night i did not control my angry passions." "but, aunt nancy--" "don't try to argue with me, or i shall get worse. i am going to see mr. dean at once, and you must keep house till i come back." louis's guardian realized that words would be worse than useless at such a time, and he wisely refrained from speaking, while aunt nancy, as if trying hard to keep her temper within bounds, did the morning work in ominous silence. when the last duty had been performed, she directed jack to take the baby out under the old oak, and then disappeared for half an hour or more, at the end of which time she reappeared dressed with scrupulous neatness, but in the quaintest of fashions. "i sha'n't be away more than an hour; and if any of those boys show themselves, be sure to go into the house with louis at once." saying this, she walked swiftly down the lane, and jack muttered to himself as she turned the corner into the main road,-"i'm mighty sorry she's bent on anything of the kind, for i'm certain there'll be trouble for me come out of it." fortunately nothing occurred to cause alarm during the little woman's absence. jack amused the baby, split more kindlings and piled them up in the shed, being thus occupied when aunt nancy returned, looking mildly triumphant. "there!" she said in a tone of satisfaction as she seated herself beneath the old oak and fanned her heated face with a tiny pocket-handkerchief, "i did control my temper, and i don't think the dean boy will trouble either of us again." "did you tell his father?" "i gave him a full account of all which had been done, both this summer and last. mr. dean has promised me nothing of the kind shall ever happen again, and we are free from that annoyance." jack thought, but did not venture to put it into words, that bill dean would not give up the struggle so easily, and felt convinced there was yet more serious trouble in store for him before the summer came to an end. "do you know, jack dear, i would give almost anything in the world if i hadn't told a lie to mr. pratt. we should have stood our ground, and defied him to take you and the baby away, rather than commit a sin." "but i can't see that you were so very wicked, aunt nancy. he would have carried us off in spite of anything you could say, an' i'm sure you didn't tell a lie." "it is on my conscience just the same, jack dear, and i shall never feel easy in mind," the little woman replied with a long-drawn sigh. jack was really distressed because aunt nancy should regret so deeply what was done in his behalf; but he could think of nothing consoling to say, since she insisted on believing a downright falsehood had been told. "i am also to be condemned for having given way to my temper; but those boys do try it so severely it is very difficult to remember that he who 'rules his spirit is better than he who taketh a city.'" jack looked up in bewilderment. he did not understand the application of the quotation, and the remark about taking a city mystified him. aunt nancy was so intent on her own sad thoughts that she paid no attention to his perplexity, and after a long silence entered the house, returning a few moments later in her home costume, which the boy thought more becoming than the antiquated finery she had been arrayed in for the call on bill dean's father. the little woman did not give jack the details of her visit to mr. dean; but he felt more confident than ever that it was an ill-advised move, so far as his own peace was concerned, and but a little time was to elapse before this was to be proven. "i believe i will send a line to brother abner now," aunt nancy suddenly said. "it is time he learned what has happened; and since we have no pressing work on hand, you can mind the baby. it isn't as easy for me to write letters as it used to be. i need a long while in which to compose my thoughts." then the little woman set about the task, and it could be seen it was a hard one by the manner in which she began. watching through the open window, jack saw her bring pens, paper, and ink from her chamber to the kitchen, and then nibble at the end of her penholder as if to derive inspiration from that source. had it been some weighty document of state she could not have been more particular, and fully two hours were spent before the labor was completed. "took me a long while, didn't it?" she asked on coming into the yard once more. "i believe i've told abner the whole story, and we'll soon know if the baby's parents are yet alive." "shall i carry it to the post-office?" "mercy! no. it is in treat's store, and i couldn't think of letting you take that long walk again to-day." "it won't hurt me a bit." "you must stay here quietly with me, and to-morrow perhaps you shall go. there is plenty of time, and who knows if abner is home now; he's a master hand at gadding about, which accounts for his being so poor. i've always told him that 'a rolling stone gathers no moss,' but he laughs it off by saying he doesn't want to be moss-grown." chapter x. sickness. now that the important letter had been written, aunt nancy was in no hurry to mail it. she acted very much as if believing the children would be lost to her immediately after abner learned the news, and it was simply a case of "deferring the evil day." during the afternoon jack further endeared himself to the little woman's heart by patching up the door of the shed in such a manner that it could not be opened readily, and fastening it with an old padlock he found in the barn. "that is just what i have been wanting for a long time," aunt nancy exclaimed in surprise when he called her to see the result of his labors. "how strange i can't do that as well as you!" "that's because you're a woman," jack replied, not a little delighted with the praise bestowed upon him. "it may be; but i'm so very much older, it seems as if i should be able to do such things properly, and yet i can't even drive a nail." "there'll be no need of your doin' it while i'm 'round." "and i hope you and louis will stay a long time; but i suppose it isn't right to say so, for although there isn't any chance his mother can be alive after the ship exploded, he has probably relatives who want to see him." during the remainder of the day, jack assisted the little woman with the housework, and at sunset the two sat in the favorite place under the old oak, until louis became unusually fretful. after trying in vain to soothe him, aunt nancy insisted they should retire, saying as she went toward the house,-"i am afraid he doesn't feel very well. are you sure he didn't play in the sun while i was away?" "i kept him in the shade as much as i could. do you think he can be sick?" "not enough for us to worry about, jack dear. children are apt to fuss when everything don't go just right. after i undress him, we'll read the book, and then you shall go to bed." the fact that louis was not in his usual good spirits and temper worried jack considerably, despite the little woman's cheery words, and when he went to his tiny room it was impossible for him to sleep immediately. he had lain awake fully two hours, at times speculating as to how he and the baby would finally get to new york, and again wondering if it could be possible that both captain and mrs. littlefield were dead, when the stairway door was opened, as aunt nancy whispered cautiously,-"jack! jack dear! are you awake?" the boy was on his feet in an instant. "what's the matter? is louis worse?" "he seems to be quite sick. will you dress and come down?" jack answered this summons very quickly as he tried to keep back the dry sob which came into his throat, for it seemed as if the greatest misfortune which could befall him would be to lose the baby at the time when he was in such a good home. he found aunt nancy in the kitchen with louis in her arms. a fire had been built in the stove, and the little woman was seated in front of it rocking the baby as she stirred the boiling contents of a tin kettle. "do you know what catnip is when you see it growing?" she asked as jack entered the room. "i don't; but if you'll tell me where to go, i'll hunt for it." "light the lantern, so there won't be any mistake, and run out to the lane. you'll find some growing along the fence. get as much as will fill this kettle, and come back as soon as you can." "is he very bad?" jack asked in a trembling voice as he gazed at the baby's flushed cheeks. "i never have had much experience with children, but i guess a little catnip tea will bring him around all right by morning." "hadn't we better have a doctor?" "there is no need yet, and, besides, there isn't one within six miles." "it don't make any difference how far it is, i'm willin' to walk any distance for him." "we will first see what the morning brings forth." jack delayed no longer. the lantern was lighted, and he started at once in search of an herb he did not even know by sight. ten minutes later he returned with an armful of green leaves, and aunt nancy bestowed but one hasty glance upon them when she cried,-"o jack, jack, you've spent your time gathering burdocks! if you can hold the baby, i'll go after it myself." "i'd rather try ag'in than have you go out where the grass is wet with dew." "it won't hurt me. take louis"; and the little woman put the baby in jack's arms as she hurried away, lantern in hand. it seemed to jack as if she had but left the house before she returned with the desired herb, and the boy said in surprise,-"is that what you call catnip? i saw plenty of it, but didn't think the leaves were big enough to do any good." "in this world it isn't the big things which are capable of working the most benefit, jack." "if i hadn't known that before, i should after seeing you, aunt nancy. you're small, but there couldn't be anybody gooder." although the little woman said nothing, it could readily be seen that the compliment pleased her. she bustled around much like a busy sparrow, putting the herbs in the kettle, making sundry mysterious decoctions, and otherwise preparing such things as she thought might be of benefit to the baby. jack held louis meanwhile, and before aunt nancy was ready to take him again he asked in a low tone,-"do you think there is any chance he would die?" "i don't believe he is in any danger now, jack dear; but all of us should think of death as something which will come sooner or later." the boy was silent for a moment, and then he asked abruptly,-"you pray for everything you want, why don't you do it now so he'll be sure to live?" "it wouldn't be right to ask god simply for the child's life." "why not?" "because he doeth all things well, and we do not know what his purpose may be." "but there can't be any good come of takin' louis away from me, when he's all i've got." "that is something you don't know, jack dear. what god does is right, and we must bow to his will." aunt nancy spoke in such a solemn tone, or, as jack afterward expressed it, "like as if she was in meetin'," that the boy could say no more, but watched intently every move the little woman made until she was ready to take the baby in her arms once more. this night was a long one to both, for neither thought of going to sleep. once aunt nancy insisted jack should lie down; but he pleaded so hard to be allowed to remain awake, that she said no more, and the two sat with louis until daybreak. during this long time neither spoke until the baby had fallen asleep, and jack was on the point of going out to milk the cow, when the little woman said in a tone very like that of fear,-"wouldn't it be a dreadful thing if i should be punished for telling a lie to mr. pratt, by losing louis just now when we are living so comfortably?" "but you didn't tell a lie," jack replied just a trifle impatiently. "both you and i know i did, however much we may try to persuade ourselves that it isn't so, and i am certain some punishment will follow." jack shook his head incredulously. he began to understand that it would be useless to attempt to convince aunt nancy she had not committed a grievous sin, and was disposed to lose faith in a religion which would condemn so good a woman for having saved himself and the baby from much trouble. to avoid paining her by saying what was in his mind, he went out to milk, and on returning found the baby sleeping naturally. "he seems much relieved," aunt nancy said as she put him to bed. "he will probably sleep a long while, and you had better get some rest." jack insisted that he did not need any, and continued doing such chores as he could find around the house until breakfast was ready, after which he proposed going to the post-office. "now the letter is written it had better be mailed, an' perhaps there are some things you want from the store." "i do need a few notions; but it seems too bad to have you walk so far this hot morning." "it'll do me good. i can be back by noon, and the weather won't be very warm while i'm goin' over." aunt nancy allowed herself to be persuaded, because there really were some groceries she wanted, and after making out a list with infinite care, cautioning him not to pay more than five cents a pound for the coarse sugar and eighty cents for the tea, she gave him a lunch to be eaten during the return journey. "i don't want you to stay any longer than is necessary; but at the same time you mustn't hurry too fast," she said, as he walked rapidly down the lane; and jack replied,-"i'll be back by noon, unless something terrible happens." although the hunchback could not move as fast as more favored boys, he "kept at it," to use his favorite expression, and by this means was able to get over the ground with reasonable rapidity. he was travelling steadily on, thinking of the baby and aunt nancy's apparently needless sorrow at having acted a lie during mr. pratt's call, when he was aroused to a sense of what was passing around him by hearing the disagreeably familiar voice of bill dean, as he shouted,-"hold on there a minute, i want to see you." bill was coming across the fields at full speed, and, knowing he could not escape if the bully should pursue him, jack halted. "so you're tryin' to hide behind aunt nancy's apron strings, eh?" master dean cried as he reached the road. "i don't know what you mean." "oh, yes, you do. didn't you send her over to tell my father that i was goin' to drive you out of town, an' didn't she let on about the lickin' we give you?" "that was her business. i tried to stop her, for i can 'tend to my own battles." "perhaps you can; we'll see about that later. say, what of that man who was over here huntin' for you?" jack's cheeks grew pale. he understood to whom bill referred, and it seemed positive the whole story would be known, despite the sacrifice made by aunt nancy. "haven't got anything to say, eh? well, i'm goin' to see him, an' tell where you are, then we'll see how you like tattlers." jack was frightened beyond the power of speech. he had no idea but that his enemy knew exactly where to find mr. pratt, and firmly believed the time was near at hand when he and louis would be forcibly taken away from aunt nancy's kindly care. "that don't seem to strike you very well!" bill cried with a laugh of triumph. "we'll have this thing fixed up in short order, an' then i reckon old nancy will be ready to hire boys who know their business." "what makes you jump down on me?" jack asked piteously. "you know mighty well. we told you what to do, an' you thought we didn't mean business. now you'll soon find out." jack hadn't the heart to hold any further conversation with his tormentor. his only thought was to hurry on that he might be alone where the matter could be calmly discussed in his own mind, and walked swiftly away, followed by bill's jeering words. now indeed he had a cup running over with sorrow. if his enemies knew of mr. pratt, it would not be long before that gentleman learned of his whereabouts, and it surely seemed as if the time had finally come when he must start out on the long journey, leaving behind the dearest friend he had ever met since the day when his mother crossed the dark river. "there's no help for it," he said resolutely, "an' i've got to look at this thing right. bill will tell the farmer right away, an' the sooner we leave the farther we'll be off when they come to find us." thus the matter was settled in his mind that the flight should be resumed at the earliest moment it might be safe to take louis out of doors. chapter xi. gardening. it can readily be supposed jack was not inclined to linger on the road after this interview with bill dean. that the latter would inform farmer pratt of his whereabouts he had no doubt, and this was a method of driving him "out of town" for which he was not prepared. walking at full speed, running over the descending ground, and trying to keep on at a good pace when he ascended hills, the journey to treat's store was accomplished in a remarkably short time. he found many customers before him, however, and was obliged to wait until it should be his turn, although he felt quite certain every moment was precious. it was the proprietor of the establishment, who also acted as postmaster, that waited upon him, and while weighing out the "notions" aunt nancy had sent for, the gentleman said, as if answering his own question,-"so you've been hired by aunt nancy." "i'm stayin' there a little while, sir." "you are, eh? where do you hail from?" jack hesitated an instant, and then replied with a forced laugh,-"i s'pose i oughter say i belong to the farm, 'cause i haven't any other home." "an orphan, eh?" "yes, sir." "where did your folks useter live?" jack was not aware that mr. treat had the name of being the most inveterate gossip in the neighborhood; but felt positive there was no good reason why he should satisfy his curiosity on this point, more particularly since, in view of bill dean's threats, he wished to keep as a secret everything concerning himself, therefore said with an assumption of carelessness,-"almost anywhere. you see i was brought up to be a sailor." "sho! is that so? well now i wouldn't think you'd make much of a fist shinnin' 'round on the riggin'." "even if i am crooked i might be as spry as other fellers." "that's a fact; but you don't look it"; and then the worthy mr. treat turned his attention to the list aunt nancy had written for jack's guidance. when the goods had been made ready the proprietor of the store would have questioned the messenger further, but the latter hurried away without replying to what he did not consider it was necessary strangers should know. jack arrived at the farm unusually early, and aunt nancy exclaimed as he came up the lane looking heated and breathless,-"well, i declare! it does beat all how you can get over the ground! why, i've known it to take daniel chick's horse a good bit longer to go to the post-office and back." "i was in a hurry to talk with you, an' so come as quick as i could, for i'm afraid louis an' i must go away, even after all that's been done." the little woman looked up quickly in mingled alarm and surprise. "why, what has happened, jack dear?" for reply the boy repeated that which bill dean had said, and added in conclusion,-"you see mr. pratt will be over here the minute he hears the news, an' then everything is settled the wrong way." "are you certain bill dean knows where he lives?" "of course he must, else he wouldn't have said what he did." "i'm sorry to have to doubt his word; but i couldn't put the least dependence in a thing he says, and there are more than me in this town of the same opinion. besides, he is too indolent to walk so far." "still there's a chance he might send some word." "you are right, jack; but at the same time i wouldn't borrow trouble. in case that man should come, you can find some way of keeping out of his clutches until i see the 'squire." "what good would that do?" "i don't know; but it does seem as if we might prevent him from carrying you and the baby away when i'm not only willing but anxious to have you both stay with me. i don't believe there is any law to compel children who have a good home to go to a poorhouse, and if there is the least bit more bother i'm going to have the matter settled once and for all in the 'squire's court." aunt nancy spoke in such a decided tone, and seemed so thoroughly convinced there was a legal remedy for the trouble, that jack felt relieved at once. "i could get out of his way, no matter how close he got to me; but there's the baby. it might be i was where i couldn't find louis quick enough when the farmer came, an' then he'd soon drag him away." "the baby will be with me, and i promise you there'll be no dragging when i'm around," the little woman said with considerable dignity. "keep up your courage, and i'm sure we shall come out all right, except for that miserable action of mine yesterday. if i had told the truth then and defied him, things would seem a great deal smoother now." "then i'll hold on a while longer." "certainly, and in the future stay close around the house, so those terrible boys can't make mischief. did you ever do any gardening, jack?" "do you mean plantin' seeds an' makin' 'em grow?" "i mean cultivating the ground. no one can force the seeds to grow but he who rules over all. i would dearly love to have a few string beans and some cabbages, but it's so expensive hiring the land ploughed that i haven't been able to afford it." "i could dig up a good deal with a shovel." "if you'll try it i will get the seeds, and perhaps we shall have the pleasure of harvesting our own crops." jack was so relieved in mind that he did not feel any fatigue because of the long walk, and insisted on beginning work in the garden at once. despite all aunt nancy could say against it, he labored industriously with the shovel during the next two hours, and at the end of that time as much ground had been prepared as the little woman thought necessary. "it won't do to try too much at first," she said musingly, as, with louis in her arms, she watched the deformed boy make ready the small plot between the woodshed and barn. "i'll see about the seeds to-morrow, and it does seem as if we might put in more than cabbages and beans now that we've got so much room. i didn't suppose you would care to dig up very much." "it isn't such hard work but that i'd be willin' to make one twice this size; as it is, i reckon you can plant pretty nearly all you want." then aunt nancy, looking very grave as if the task was one of the greatest importance, measured the plot into rows, putting in little bits of wood to mark where each kind of seed should be planted, and when it was finished she looked thoroughly happy. "we shall have a famous garden, jack dear, and it won't be necessary for me to spend so much money for vegetables when the summer boarders come. they always wonder why i don't raise my own green stuff." the garden and the plans concerning it gave both so much pleasure that, for the time being at least, farmer pratt was almost forgotten. the chores occupied jack's time during the remainder of the day, and when he retired it was to fall asleep almost immediately because of fatigue. early next morning aunt nancy visited one of the neighbors to procure seeds, and when another night came every row was planted. during the three succeeding days jack remained near the house, never going farther away than the main road, where he spent his spare time watching for farmer pratt. it surely seemed as if bill dean was ignorant of the gentleman's address, or, as aunt nancy had suggested, was too indolent to make the journey to scarborough, for nothing was seen or heard of tom's father, and jack began to feel a certain sense of security. louis was as contented as a child well could be, and each day claimed more of the little woman's affections until she actually began to look forward with dismay to the coming of the summer boarders, because then she could not devote to him so much of her time. never once was the nightly search for burglars omitted; and when jack asked why such a labor was necessary when it was positive no one could enter the house during the day without her knowledge, she replied with an ominous shake of the head,-"we can't say, jack dear, what might happen. i have done this same thing for the last fifteen years, and don't intend to be careless now in my old age." "but you never found anybody, did you?" "no, and i hope i never shall; but it would be impossible to sleep if i neglected what seems like a solemn duty." on the fourth day after the garden was planted both jack and aunt nancy visited it twice to see if the seeds had sprouted, and several times did the sight of a weed cause them the greatest joy for a few moments, since it seemed certain something in the vegetable line had shown itself. like farmer pratt, bill dean remained out of sight, and the little woman was confident she had frightened him away. "we can count on being left alone this summer, jack dear, for he won't show his head around here. in all the years i have lived on the farm, when i went to his father was the first time i ever made a complaint to a neighbor, and i hope it will be the last, for i do think people should avoid troubling others with such things. we are told that we must forgive our brother seventy times seven; but there was no use in doing that by william, since it made no difference to him whether he was forgiven or not." jack was not so confident that those who threatened to drive him away had relinquished their purpose; but he said nothing regarding his fears, since no good could come of alarming the little woman. the day on which the first cabbage showed two tiny leaves above the surface was a red-letter day for the amateur gardeners. aunt nancy spent at least two hours admiring it, and the seat under the big oak was abandoned at sunset in order that she might search for further proofs of their success. "there is so much pleasure in having a garden that i shall never again be without one, that is," she added with a sigh, "if i have you with me. i can't bear to think that the time may come when we must part." "may come? why, it must come, aunt nancy. just as soon as the weather gets cool, we are bound to start." "i have been thinking perhaps louis hasn't any relatives living, and in that case what would prevent you and he from staying here until i go down into the valley of the shadow of death?" "nothing would suit me better," jack replied emphatically. "this is the first home i have ever known, and it will be hard to leave it." "if you do go, jack dear, it will be a lonely old woman you leave behind. i had gotten accustomed to living alone; but now it is different, and the house would seem deserted without you and the baby. yet i am afraid something of the kind must happen to punish me for telling mr. pratt a lie. it is through a crime that i was enabled to enjoy your company, and we know what are the wages of sin." jack was not disposed to allow the conversation to continue in this channel. he could not bring himself to believe the little woman had done anything wrong in letting farmer pratt think he and louis were not there, and it made him impatient to hear her blame herself so severely. "you see, aunt nancy, we would have to leave whether you done as you did or not, for how can we tell whether capt. littlefield or his wife are alive unless we go to find out?" "oh, abner will attend to all that! he lived in york state so long that he knows nearly every one in it by this time, and when we hear from him the whole story must be known, for interesting himself in other people's affairs is what exactly suits abner." jack could not be satisfied with this reply. he believed implicitly everything aunt nancy told him, and she was so positive that there appeared to be no chance for doubt. the little woman was called from the contemplation of the garden by that which, for a moment, caused jack the greatest alarm. the rattle of wheels was heard from the road, and an instant later aunt nancy said in surprise,-"mercy on us! who can that be driving up the lane?" "it is the farmer comin' for us!" jack cried excitedly as he caught louis from aunt nancy's arms, and would have run off at full speed if she had not restrained him. "wait a moment, my child. i don't see any man in the wagon." jack looked quickly in the direction of the newcomers and then said,-"there are two women, but one of them may be mrs. pratt." again he would have sought refuge in flight but for aunt nancy's detaining hand. "it is only mrs. hayes and mrs. souders. i suppose they have come to make a call, and what _will_ they think at seeing the house in such confusion?" jack, now that his fears were allayed, could not repress a smile at the idea of aunt nancy's house ever being in anything save a cleanly and orderly condition; but the little woman appeared really distressed because she had not had an opportunity to inspect it thoroughly before receiving company. "take care of louis, and stay under the oak-tree until i come out again," she said, hurrying away to receive the newcomers. jack loitered near the barn where he would not be seen until the visitors had alighted, tied securely the aged horse, whose only ambition appeared to be to remain motionless, and entered the house. then, instead of doing as aunt nancy had suggested, he took louis into the woodshed, amusing him there for nearly an hour, when the two ladies departed. "where are you, jack?" the little woman called softly when the horse had drawn the wagon and its occupants on to the highway. "what is the matter?" jack cried, as on emerging from his place of retreat he saw a look of deepest anxiety on aunt nancy's face. "did they come here to take us away?" "it's not quite as bad as that," the little woman replied with a long-drawn sigh, "but very nearly. what _do_ you suppose they wanted?" jack didn't even attempt to hazard a guess, and aunt nancy continued in a mournful tone,-"they want to hold the monthly sewing circle here day after to-morrow!" "well?" jack asked, surprised that such a request should have caused so much distress. "well? why, jack, how can you treat it so lightly? just think of it! only one day to clean house, go to the store, and do all the cooking!" "i don't see that there'll be very much to do in the way of cleaning house. it shines like a new three-cent piece already, and how are you goin' to make it look any better?" "o jack! boys don't understand about such things. you can't see in the corners where the dirt always lodges, and the company will be sure to find everything that is slighted." "well, i can go to the store for you at least." "i wouldn't allow you to take the chances of seeing william dean even if you could do the errands, which is impossible. i must get mr. chick to carry me over in his team, and while i am away you and louis are to stay in the house with the doors locked." "i don't think there is any need of that. those fellers wouldn't dare to come here." "i can't believe they would; but at the same time it will do no harm to be careful. now what _shall_ we have for supper?" "do you mean to-night?" "of course not. it doesn't make any difference what we eat for a day or two; but we must think very seriously of what is to be cooked for the circle." "have some of your nice biscuits and a piece of cake. if folks can get anything better than that, they deserve to go hungry." "o jack! you don't understand such things. i should be mortified almost to death if i didn't do as well as mrs. souders did when the circle met at her house last month." then aunt nancy, looking as if a heavy burden of care had suddenly fallen upon her, went in to the kitchen, taking louis with her, that jack might be free to milk the cow. chapter xii. louis's adventure. on this evening, immediately after supper had been eaten and the dishes washed, aunt nancy announced that it would be necessary for her to call upon mr. daniel chick. "if i wait until morning his team may not be at home, and, besides, i want him to be ready to make an early start. we must be back by noon at the latest." "why not let me go and tell him what you want?" jack asked. "because you don't know where he lives, and then again it is necessary to pass mr. dean's in order to reach his house. william might be at home, and who knows what would happen?" then aunt nancy made a hurried toilet, clothing herself in one of those quaint costumes which jack did not think at all becoming, and said, as she entered the kitchen again,-"you must promise not to step your foot out of doors while i am gone. keep everything well locked, and if any one should happen to call don't show yourself without first learning who they are." jack agreed, and while the little woman was absent he rocked louis to sleep, swept the floor until one would have said a broom ought to be ashamed for going over such a cleanly surface with any idea of collecting dirt, and was in the "fore-room" with a lighted candle admiring the crockery rooster when aunt nancy returned. "it's me, jack dear!" she cried as she knocked softly on the door, and when it was opened, entered with the air of one who has been successful. "i got there just in time. he was going over to henry mitchell's to tell him he'd haul gravel to-morrow; but of course he had rather go to treat's, for the work isn't so hard on either himself or his horse. now we must get to bed early, for i told him i wanted to start by sunrise at the very latest." "but, aunt nancy, you don't mean that i am to stay in the house with the doors locked all the forenoon, do you? there are lots of things i could do; but it would be pretty warm if there wasn't any chance for air." "i suppose you might have the doors open, provided you kept a sharp watch on the road, and closed them again in case that dean boy or his associates should come," the little woman replied thoughtfully. "what shall i do?" "you could clean the knives and forks, and wash all the best dishes through two waters. be careful when you wipe them, jack dear, for it would be terrible if any should be broken." after these arrangements had been made, aunt nancy remained silent a short time to free her mind from worldly thoughts, and then came the evening devotions, when the little woman prayed earnestly for the "weary and heavy laden," which jack thought was a reference to herself and the expected company. it was yet dark next morning when a noise from the kitchen aroused the hunchback, and hurrying down he found aunt nancy busily engaged preparing breakfast. "why, you must have stayed awake all night!" he exclaimed in surprise. "indeed i wasn't so foolish as to do anything of the kind; but when i have work on hand i like to be about it, and goodness knows there's plenty for me to do between now and to-morrow night." "did you wake louis?" "no; let him sleep as long as he chooses. you can dress and give him some bread and milk?" "that part of it will be all right," jack replied confidently, and then he prepared to astonish old crumple-horn by appearing before her while it was yet so dark that she could hardly see the lunch of clover to which she was accustomed during milking time. breakfast had been cooked, eaten, and the dishes washed before mr. daniel chick and his venerable horse came up the lane. aunt nancy was not only ready for the journey, but had begun to grow impatient because of the delay, when he reined up in front of the broad stone step as he said in a cheery tone, calculated to soothe any angry feelings,-"well, i must say you're a master hand at gettin' up, aunt nancy. 'pears like as if you was allers on foot like a sparrer." "i try to do what i have on hand in good season," was the rather sharp reply. "there would be less poor folks in this world if people didn't dally round in such a shiftless manner." mr. chick knew full well that this remark was aimed especially at him; but like a wise man he made no reply lest worse should follow, and turned the wheels of the wagon that the little woman might have no trouble in clambering on board. aunt nancy stopped only long enough to give some parting advice to jack. "be sure to keep a sharp watch on the road if you have the doors open," she whispered, "and don't go out, even into the yard, unless it is absolutely necessary, for nobody knows what may happen. when you wash the best dishes be careful, jack dear, for i should feel very badly in case any were broken." "i'll attend to it in great shape, aunt nancy." "don't give louis too much milk at a time, the weather is so hot that it might curdle on his stomach; and if i don't succeed in getting home until afternoon, there is some cold meat and cake on the hanging shelf in the cellar. don't go without a lunch; it is very unhealthy to work while you are hungry." "who's dallying now, aunt nancy?" mr. chick cried as he tried to prevent his horse from nibbling at the honeysuckle-bush. "if you had come as you agreed i should have had plenty of time to attend to matters," was the sharp reply; and then with many injunctions for him to keep a firm hold on the reins, the little woman succeeded in gaining the rather shaky seat. "take good care of louis!" she cried as the horse ambled slowly down the lane; and jack re-entered the house feeling decidedly lonely at the prospect of being without aunt nancy for several hours. in order to occupy his mind he set about the work laid out, and was so industrious that before the baby made known the fact of being awake, the knives and forks had been cleaned. fully an hour was spent dressing and feeding louis, after which he was allowed to play on the kitchen floor while his crooked guardian washed the "best dishes." this was a task which required considerable time, and at eleven o'clock it was hardly more than half finished. then again louis wanted milk, and when it had been given him he insisted upon being allowed to go out on the doorstep. at first jack was disposed to keep him in the house; but when he became fretful, gave him his own way, as he said half to himself,-"i don't s'pose there can be any harm in lettin' you stay here; but if anything _should_ happen, aunt nancy would think i had been careless." after that he kept a strict watch over the baby, going to the door every few moments, and on each occasion finding louis playing contentedly with a string of buttons the little woman had prepared for him. the fact that he showed no disposition to leave the broad stone caused jack to have less care than usual, and this, coupled with the idea of cleaning the most elaborate dishes, rendered him oblivious to the flight of time. he was brought to a realization of what was passing around by hearing the rumble of a carriage in the lane, and almost before he could reach the door, aunt nancy was in the house, while mr. chick had driven away at the full speed of his very slow horse. "did you get along all right, jack dear?" the little woman asked, as she deposited an armful of bundles on the table. "yes, indeed. you see there has been plenty of work, and it doesn't seem any time since you left." "where is the baby?" "on the doorstep. he fussed to go out, an' i thought the fresh air wouldn't do him any harm." "which doorstep?" "why here, of course"; and jack stepped forward only to give vent to a cry of alarm an instant later. "he isn't here at all! where do you suppose he could have gone?" aunt nancy was at the door before he ceased speaking, and gazed up and down the yard in bewilderment, but without seeing any signs of the missing baby. for an instant the two stood gazing at each other in perplexity, and then aunt nancy asked sharply,-"how long since you saw him?" "it didn't seem many minutes before you came; but i s'pose it must have been, else he'd be 'round here now." "run up to the barn and see if he is there!" as she spoke the little woman went down the lane, returning just as jack came back. "he isn't there," the latter said. "nor on the road. of course he must be somewhere near, for children can't disappear entirely in such a mysterious fashion. go up the lane and i'll look back of the barn." "but then we shall be leaving the barn alone you stay here an' i'll do the searchin'." "it wouldn't make any difference if we left the house wide open for a month, i couldn't stand still while that dear little baby is wandering around nobody knows where." jack understood that it would be useless to remonstrate, and started off at full speed. up to the entire length of the lane he ran without finding that for which he sought, and then back to the house where he was met by aunt nancy on whose wrinkled face was written fear and anguish. she did not wait for him to tell her that the search had been in vain, but cried,-"go up through the field from the shed. there is a place where he might have gotten through the fence, and it would lead directly to the duck pond if he kept on in a straight line!" there was a tone in her voice which told of the fear she had regarding the possible ending of his adventures; and jack, with a mental prayer that he would find the little fellow before it was too late, ran across the enclosure, aunt nancy going in the same direction, but at a slight angle. the little woman's anxiety gave fleetness to her feet, and she travelled even faster than jack could. both called loudly from time to time, but without receiving any answer, and jack's heart grew heavy as he thought of what might have happened while he was in the house all unconscious of impending trouble. as the two neared the pond the figure of a boy could be distinguished among the foliage of alders running at full speed toward the main road, and jack shouted to aunt nancy,-"there goes one of bill dean's gang. they know where louis is." this caused the little woman to redouble her cries, and a few seconds later two more boys could be dimly seen as they hurried away, keeping well within the shelter of the bushes to avoid recognition. there was no longer any question in jack's mind but that he would soon find the baby, nor was he mistaken. on arriving in view of the pond both saw a rudely constructed raft of fence rails at least ten yards from the shore, and on it, crowing and laughing as if he was having the jolliest possible time sat louis. "how can we reach him?" aunt nancy cried, as she stood wringing her hands, while the big tears ran down her cheeks. "he will surely be drowned, jack! what is to be done?" the hunchback had no thought of his own safety or discomfort as compared with that of rescuing the baby. without hesitation he ran into the pond, continuing on at risk of being mired, until the water was above his waist, and the baby held out his hands to be taken. [illustration: jack ran into the pond, until the water was above his waist, and the baby held out his hands to be taken.--page 147.] "sit still louis, sit still an' jack will come to you!" it was impossible to run very fast through the water; and to aunt nancy, who stood on the bank in helpless grief, it seemed as if the deformed lad hardly moved, so slow was his progress. more than once did it appear as if the baby would attempt to leave the raft in order to meet his crooked guardian; but by dint of coaxing, jack succeeded in persuading him to remain seated until he gained his side. then he lifted the child in his arms, staggering ashore to where the little woman stood waiting to receive him, and the rescue was accomplished. aunt nancy alternately laughed and cried as she pressed louis closely to her bosom, and jack stood silently by, wondering whether he was to be scolded for having so grossly neglected his charge. it was several moments before she paid any attention to the older boy, and then it was to exclaim,-"mercy on us, jack! i had entirely forgotten you! run home as soon as possible, or you will catch your death a cold!" "a wettin' won't hurt me on a warm day like this. i'm used to such things." "but you must change your clothes at once, and there's no other way but to put on one of my dresses again." jack gave no heed to this suggestion, or command, whichever it might be called. he was trying to understand how the baby could have come so far without assistance, when aunt nancy said suddenly,-"it doesn't take one loner to realize how the dear little fellow came here. those wicked boys must have found him near the shed, and brought him to this place." several poles lying near by told how the raft was forced toward the centre of the pond, and the fact that three fellows had been seen running through the bushes was sufficient proof, at least to aunt nancy and jack, that bill dean and his friends had done the mischief. "i should forget everything i ought to remember if i had that dean boy here this minute!" the little woman said angrily as she surveyed the evidences of the cruel work. "it is a burning shame that such as he should be allowed among decent people!" "we don't know for certain that it was bill dean," jack suggested. "yes, we do, for there is no other boy in this town who does such things. i shall see his father again, and when i do it will be very hard work to rule my spirit." "it only makes them worse to complain." "then i will have him arrested!" and now aunt nancy spoke in such an angry tone that jack did not venture to reply; but he knew from past experience that she would soon be sorry for having given way to her temper. again the little woman spoke of jack's condition as if she had not noticed it before, and insisted on his coming home at once, although she could not have supposed he wished to go anywhere else. louis apparently had no idea he had been exposed to danger, but laughed and pulled at the tiny ringlets either side aunt nancy's face until her anger vanished, and she said in a tone of penitence,-"really, jack dear, i get frightened sometimes when i realize how wicked i am growing. i can't seem to control my temper in anything which concerns the baby, and goodness knows how it is all going to end. i began by telling a lie, and now say terrible things on the slightest provocation, though goodness knows this would have stirred up almost any one. you see i took the first step, which is the hardest, and now fall before the least temptation." "you oughtent talk that way, aunt nancy. if everybody was as good as you are, this would be an awful nice place to live in." the little woman shook her head as if reproaching him for his words of praise, but did not continue the subject, because by this time they had arrived at the house, and it was necessary she should get the garments jack had worn once before. again the hunchback received a ducking under the pump, and then went out to the barn to make his toilet. "come back as soon as you can, for i want to show you what i bought, and between us we must decide what we shall have for supper to-morrow." when jack returned to the house, aunt nancy had her purchases arranged on the table that he might see them to the best advantage, and then came the discussion of what was a very important matter in the little woman's mind. "i bought citron so as to make that kind of cake if you think it would be nicer than sponge, though i have always been very fortunate in making sponge cake, and that is a good deal more than most people can say." "why not have both kinds?" "i declare i never thought of that. it is the very thing, and i'll begin at once while you finish the dishes. this time we'll see if between both of us we can't keep louis away from those wicked boys. i got a nice ham, for that is always good cold, and i engaged two chickens from daniel chick. had we better have them roasted or boiled?" "i thought this was to be only a supper." "that's what it is; but it would never do to have but one kind of cold meat. why, if you'll believe me, mrs. souders had chicken, ham, and tongue, to say nothing of soused pig's feet." "your supper'll be better'n hers if you make plenty of hot biscuit." "i shall surely do that, and have loaf bread besides. i wonder if you couldn't wait on the table?" "of course i can. that was what i did on board the 'atlanta.'" "then we shall get along famously. now help me clear off one end of this table, and i'll begin work." the little woman at once set about the task of preparing food for the members of the sewing circle, and nothing was done without first asking jack's advice. chapter xiii. the sewing circle. so deeply engrossed was aunt nancy in the work of making ready for the supper, that the indignities offered louis by bill dean and his partners passed almost unheeded for the time being. it is true that now and then she would speak of what had been done, announcing her intention of complaining again to bill's father; but the words would hardly be spoken before something in the culinary line demanded her attention, and the subject would be dropped until a more convenient season. jack labored most industriously, beating eggs, sifting flour, washing pans, and keeping the fire roaring, thus doing his full share in the important preparations. louis was forced to remain in the kitchen, despite his great desire to get out of doors; and both jack and the little woman kept strict watch over him, but happily ignorant of the fact that hidden within the friendly shelter of the alder-bushes were bill dean and his chums watching another opportunity to get hold of the baby as before. "the sewin' circle is goin' over to old nancy's termorrer," bill said in a whisper, "an' we won't be smart if we don't get a chance to square off with hunchie." "what do you count on doin'?" sam phinney asked. "that's jest what we've got to fix up. the old woman will have her hands full of company, an' it seems as if we might rig somethin' that'll pay. hunchie won't show himself outside the place, for he knows we're layin' for him, an' our only show is to sneak in while the supper is goin' on." "we can easy get in the shed an' wait for something to turn up," jip lewis suggested; and the others thought this a very good idea. "i'll cook up somethin' between now an' then," bill said confidently. "there ain't much chance they'll let that youngster out ag'in, so come, go over on the hill an' see what the fellers there are doin'." this had the effect of causing the party to adjourn without anything having been accomplished save an agreement between the three that, during the meeting of the sewing circle something should be done toward settling matters with the boy who insisted upon remaining in town after they had warned him to leave. during the remainder of the day aunt nancy and jack worked without ceasing in the kitchen, and when night came the arrangements for the company were so nearly completed that the little woman said with a sigh of relief when she and her crooked-assistant were resting under the old oak,-"i declare, jack dear, it is surprising how much we have done since noon! i never could have gotten through without you, and don't understand what i did before you came." "i wish i could do more. it doesn't seem as if i worked half hard enough to pay for what you've done to help louis an' me." "bless you, child, i'd be paid a dozen times over if i had nothing more than your company; and as for work, why, you've done twice as much as daniel chick's daughter would in the same time, and i should have paid her fifty cents, at least, if you hadn't been here." "it doesn't seem very much anyhow; but if you're satisfied, why that settles it, of course. i wonder if bill dean's crowd will try to get hold of louis again?" "not after i've seen his father, and that's just what i intend to do when the circle meetin' is over. we had better get old crumple-horn in the yard now so we can go to bed early, for i count on being at work by sunrise to-morrow." the chores were quickly done, the house searched once more for possible intruders, the evening devotions concluded, and jack went to his tiny room happy in the thought that he had been of considerable assistance to aunt nancy. the finishing touches were completed by noon on the following day, and the little woman was arrayed in all her antiquated finery to receive the expected guests. jack had only the suit of clothes he had worn at the time of leaving the "atlanta," consequently very little could be done on his part toward "dressing up"; but his face shone from repeated applications of soap and water, his hair was combed until every portion of it looked as if it had been fastened in place, and his shoes had a very high polish. louis's white frock had been washed and ironed, therefore he was, as aunt nancy expressed it, "in apple-pie order, and as pretty a baby as ever came into maine." "i suppose we shall have to put some of the horses in the stable, jack dear, for a good many of the people will ride, and the question is whether you could unharness them?" aunt nancy said as she sat in the "fore-room" awaiting the coming of the guests. "i never did such a thing; but it can't be hard if a feller watches how the harness comes off." "you are smart enough to do almost anything. i'm certain there won't be trouble," aunt nancy said in a tone of conviction, and then the rumble of wheels on the lane told that the first of the "company" was coming. the newcomer was mrs. souders, who drove a horse jack felt confident he could unharness; and as she alighted he stood by the head of the venerable animal as he had seen regular grooms do in the city. from that time until nearly three o'clock the hunchback was kept very busy attending to the stable work. not less than ten horses were driven into the yard, and he was expected to put them in a barn where were but two stalls, including the one it would be necessary to reserve for old crumple-horn. it was some time before he could solve the problem, but it was finally done by hitching several to the fence outside, and standing the remainder on the thrashing-floor. the matter of harness and carriages troubled him considerably; but he believed the owners of the same would be able to recognize their property, therefore no attempt was made to keep them in regular order. when the visitors ceased to arrive, and aunt nancy told him she did not think any more were coming, he went to the pump for a thorough wash, and while thus engaged heard a certain portion of the conversation which came from the "fore-room" where the members of the circle were supposed to be working very hard to relieve the poor and distressed by supplying them with garments, each fashioned according to the fancy of its maker. not for a moment would jack have thought of deliberately playing the part of eavesdropper; but hearing reference made to louis and himself, it was only natural he should linger longer than was absolutely necessary. mrs. souders was speaking when he first came near the house, and he heard her say quite sharply,-"why, nancy curtis, are you thinkin' of adoptin' a couple of children at your time of life, an' one of 'em a worthless cripple that'll always be a bill of expense? it seems as if you'd lived long enough in the world to be more sensible." "i'd like to know, sarah souders, why you think jack is 'worthless'?" the little woman asked in a tone of indignation. "because he can't be anything else. a hunchback isn't any better than a reg'lar invalid, an' besides i've always heard it said they are terribly conceited." "then this one is an exception. i never had a girl on the farm that helped me as much as he does, and as for the baby--" "that's it exactly," mrs. souders interrupted. "it seems that the cripple isn't enough, but you are determined to make your cross heavier by taking care of a baby, when it would be better to think of restin' your old bones." "if it is a pleasure to me, it would seem as if nothing should be said against it," aunt nancy replied mildly. "i only wish it might be possible for me to keep the little fellow as long as i live." then jack heard that which told him aunt nancy was kissing the baby, and he said to himself,-"if these people think aunt nancy has no business to keep me here, i s'pose they are right, an' i oughter go away." "of course you've the privilege of doing as you please, nancy curtis," mrs. souders continued, "but i must maintain that it is wrong for you to be obliged to support two helpless children when it is hard work to make both ends meet. i am only sayin' this for your own good, nancy, an' both mrs. hayes an' myself decided it was the duty of some one to talk with you about it." the little woman made no reply to this, and jack was forced to leave the pump, since his toilet had been completed. "they've made her believe it," he said to himself as the tears would persist in coming into his eyes, "an' it's my place to tell her i'll go. then she won't have any more trouble with bill dean's crowd." he firmly believed it was necessary he and louis should leave the farm, and the knowledge that aunt nancy depended upon him during this day, at least, was a positive pleasure. it had been agreed he should wait upon the table. such dishes as could not well remain on the overladen board were to be left in the small summer kitchen, and the little woman had arranged a system of signals by which he could understand what she wanted. although it was yet too soon for supper, he went to his post of duty in order to be ready at the earliest moment aunt nancy should require his services, and there stayed, thinking mournfully of what he had heard. in the mean while the stable was unguarded, for jack had no idea danger was to be apprehended from that quarter, and at about the same time he entered the kitchen, bill dean said to his companions who had followed him into the shed,-"i did have a plan for some fun, fellers; but now there's a bigger show than we ever struck. i don't reckon hunchie knows very much about harnessin' horses, an' even if he does we'll set him wild." "how?" sam asked in a whisper. "it ain't likely anybody will go out to the barn till after supper, is it?" "of course not." "then all we've got to do is to sneak around back of the stable. i know how to get in from there, an' we'll mix them harnesses up in sich shape that even mike crane himself couldn't put 'em together in less'n one day." "you're a brick, bill, at fixin' things. let's hurry, for it'll take quite awhile." with decidedly more care than was necessary, the conspirators crept out of the shed, and, going around by the rear of the buildings, entered the barn where jack had left the harness. there was not one in the party who would not have grumbled loud and long had he been obliged to work as rapidly and hard as was necessary in order to effect their purpose; but since it was mischief instead of useful labor, neither so much as dreamed of complaining. the harness belonging to the teams driven by mrs. souders and mrs. hayes received the greater portion of their attention. on them nearly every strap was shortened or lengthened, and other parts interchanged, until one not thoroughly familiar with both could hardly have recognized the original set. each in turn was overhauled, and when the mischief-makers left the barn there was no question but that jack would have great difficulty in untangling the snarl, even if he should ever be able to do so. "i reckon that will make all hands mad, an' hunchie's the one who is bound to get the blame," bill said with a chuckle of satisfaction as they stood for an instant at the rear of the barn. "now where'll we stay to watch the fun?" "out by the cow-yard. the grass is so tall nobody'll ever see us." this appeared to be a good idea, and the three adopted it at once, although all believed it must be several hours before jack would be called upon to harness the horses. in the kitchen the deformed boy, with a heart so heavy it seemed as if he could never smile again, waited patiently until a bustle from the "fore-room" told that the guests were making preparations to discuss aunt nancy's supper. "they are getting ready to come," the little woman said excitedly, as she entered the kitchen hurriedly. "help me fill these plates with biscuit, and then cover the rest over and leave them in the oven till they are needed. i was afraid i should have bad luck with my bread; but it seems to be all right." "them biscuit couldn't be better if the queen of england had made 'em," jack replied emphatically. "i'm sure i don't know what kind of a breadmaker she may be; but i wouldn't like to have it said that even a queen could do better than i, taking it the whole year through, an' allowing for the trouble that yeast will sometimes cause." aunt nancy was ready to go into the main kitchen, which on this occasion had been converted into a dining-room, and jack followed close behind with his hands full of plates. it so chanced that the guests had not waited to be summoned, but came from the "fore-room" under the pretence of assisting the little woman, and jack, who was walking quite rapidly, intent only on carrying the dishes without accident, ran directly into mrs. souders. that lady had never been celebrated for curbing her temper, and to-day she appeared to be in a very ill-humor, probably because of something which may have been said by her friends in the "fore-room." therefore, instead of treating the matter as an accident, and acknowledging she had no business to be standing in the way of those who were working, she wheeled suddenly and gave the cripple a resounding blow on the ear, which sent him headlong, scattering plates and biscuit in every direction. "you little beggar!" she screamed, as her face grew crimson with rage. "i didn't come here to have any of your low tricks played on me. if nancy curtis hasn't got spirit enough to give you a lesson, i'll do it myself." she stepped quickly toward poor jack, who stood silent and motionless surveying the wreck of aunt nancy's best crockery, never for a moment thinking the guest had any idea of inflicting further punishment, and seized him by the coat collar. jack involuntarily threw up his arm to ward off the blow; but the heavy hand descended twice in rapid succession, and then it was grasped from behind as the little woman's voice, trembling with suppressed rage, was heard,-"sarah souders, aren't you ashamed to strike a cripple?" "indeed i'm not when it is one like this, whose place is at the poor farm rather than in decent people's houses"; and the lady would have repeated the blow but for the fact that aunt nancy clung to her with nervous desperation. "don't you _dare_ strike that child again, sarah souders!" she cried. "i am trying hard to rule my spirit, but the struggle may be too much for my strength, and then i shall say that which would make me sorry afterward." "you should be sorry now when you reject the advice of your best friends," mrs. souders replied; but she released her hold of jack's collar, and he began gathering up the fragments of crockery and bread. "if you mean that i ought to throw these children, who have made my life happier than it has been for many years, out on to a world of such hard-hearted people as you, then it is time you tried to understand the meaning of the word 'charity,'" the little woman said with a slight tremor of the voice as she stepped back a few paces from her angry guest. "the fault was yours, so far as his running into you was concerned. he was doing his work, and you were in his way." "i didn't suppose your foolishness had gone so far that you would uphold the crooked little beggar when he deliberately insults one who has been your best friend." "he had no intention of insulting you, and i do not want him called a beggar, for he isn't. even though he was, i have yet to learn that poverty is a crime." "i see plainly this is no place for me. the most you can do now is to turn me out of doors." "i do not wish to do anything of the kind, but feel called upon to advise that you think the matter over before speaking again." "that is sufficient, nancy curtis, quite sufficient. jane hayes, will you go with me, or do you prefer to remain?" "i shall stay here," mrs. hayes replied; and with a fling of her skirts, which was probably intended to express both indignation and injury received, mrs. souders sailed out of the room. chapter xiv. after the storm. jack who had gathered up the fragments and swept the crumbs from the floor, now looked about him in alarm. the sense of having been wrongly treated was overpowered by the thought that he was the cause, however innocent, of plunging aunt nancy into new troubles. it seemed just then as if he was pursued by some unkind fate which brought to him and those who befriended him all manner of misfortune. during fully a minute after mrs. souders drifted so majestically from the room, not a word was spoken. aunt nancy stood leaning against the table, a vivid red spot glowing on either cheek, and holding her hand over her heart as if to repress its beatings. the guests gathered around her, each trying at the same time to express her opinion of what had occurred,--a proceeding which resulted only in a perfect babel of confusion. the little woman soon recovered her composure sufficiently to remember her duties as hostess, and said to jack in a low tone,-"do you think you can harness mrs. souders's horse? we mustn't forget the courtesy we owe a guest, no matter what has happened." "i can do it if she will show me which wagon an' harness is hers. you see there were so many teams comin' all at once i couldn't keep run of 'em." "go out and do the best you can. very likely she will be at the stable by the time you get there." jack hurried away feeling rather uncertain as to what the result would be when he was alone with the angry woman, but determined to remain silent whatever she might say. on reaching the barn he had but little difficulty in deciding upon the carriage he believed belonged to mrs. souders, and was backing it into the yard when that lady arrived. "are you so stupid that you can't tell one wagon from another?" she asked sharply. "isn't this yours, ma'am?" "no, it isn't, and you know as well as i do." "i never saw it but once, an' that was when there were a good many here. if you'll pick it out, an' show me the harness, i'll soon have the horse hitched up." "i suppose nancy curtis told you to get rid of me as soon as possible; what you did in the dining-room wasn't enough, eh?" "indeed she didn't; an', if you please, ma'am, i couldn't tell where you was goin' to step when i had my arms full of dishes." "you needn't talk to me. if nancy curtis is fool enough to put you above your place, it's no reason why you should think others haven't good sense. that is my carriage, and the sooner it is ready the better i'll be pleased." jack wheeled out the vehicle she designated, and then asked,-"now will you tell me which is your harness an' horse?" "you're a bigger fool than i took you to be," was the reply, as the lady rushed like a small-sized tornado into the barn, and, after some difficulty, succeeded in finding the animal, which was hitched with the others on the thrashing-floor. "couldn't even find a stall for him! i don't know what's come over nancy curtis since you brats arrived at this place!" then she examined the pile of harness, expressing her opinion very forcibly because jack had laid them on the floor instead of hanging each set on pegs; but to find her own was more than she could do. "take any one of them," she finally said in an angry tone, wiping the perspiration from her flushed face. jack obeyed without a word, but, thanks to the efforts of bill dean and his partners, neither he nor mrs. souders could gear the horse. one set of harness was much too large, and another so small a goat could hardly have worn it, while all were strapped together in the oddest fashion. this mrs. souders believed was owing to jack's carelessness or ignorance while unharnessing the horses, and the more she struggled to fit one without regard to ownership the greater became her anger, until it was almost beyond bounds. "my husband shall hear of this," she said wrathfully. "put that horse right back, and he will come over to undo your wicked tricks. don't speak to me, you little pauper," she cried as the cripple was about to reply; and dealing him a blow on the ear which sent him reeling against the animal, the lady walked rapidly out of the barn. jack rubbed the injured member an instant, looked about ruefully, wondering what could have happened to the harness, led the horse back to his place, and went out of the barn just in time to see mrs. souders sailing around the corner of the lane into the main road. he walked slowly to the house, arriving there as the guests had seated themselves at the table, and aunt nancy, who looked as if she had been crying, asked,-"why didn't mrs. souders go with her team?" jack told the story of the bewitched harness, adding in conclusion,-"i took every piece off as carefully as i knew how, and laid them on the floor, because there wasn't any pegs or nails to hang them on. now it seems like as if nothing was right, an' in the whole lot we couldn't find a single thing which would fit." the guests looked at each other in surprise and alarm, probably thinking if mrs. souders didn't succeed in getting her team with the entire collection to choose from, their chances of leaving aunt nancy's save by walking were exceedingly slim. a flood of questions were poured forth on the hapless jack, who could only repeat his former statement. the matter was now becoming so serious that aunt nancy's inviting meal no longer had sufficient charms to command their attention, and the entire party insisted on visiting the barn at once to ascertain for themselves the true condition of affairs. with the baby in her arms, aunt nancy led the way. bill dean and his friends, seeing the procession coming, were not at a loss to divine the meaning of this sudden exodus from the house. "this is gettin' too hot for us," bill said in a whisper. "with all them old women around we'll be found for certain, an' the quicker we skin out of here the safer we'll be." his partners were of the same opinion, only a trifle more frightened, and their terror caused them to do a very foolish thing. instead of crawling under shelter of the grass until they were at a safe distance, sam and jip leaped to their feet, running at full speed toward the road. as a matter of course bill was bound to follow the example, thinking how pleased he would be to have his hands on jip for a single moment in order to punish him for his cowardice, and thus the conspirators stood revealed. "i think we can understand now what has happened to the harness," mrs. hayes said as she pointed towards the fugitives, "and i for one say it's time that dean boy was made to believe it is dangerous to play such tricks." the red spots came on aunt nancy's cheeks again as she gazed after the retreating figures, and from the nervous working of her fingers jack understood she was using every effort to "rule her spirit." as she stood silent and motionless, heeding not the fact that louis was pulling her ringlets out of shape, some of the other ladies continued on to the barn, and a single glance at the mismated harness convinced them it was useless to attempt straightening matters. "it is foolish to stand here while the biscuit are getting cold," mrs. hayes finally said. "let us go and get supper, after which there will be plenty of time to think over what should be done." the majority of the party shared this opinion, and aunt nancy was literally led back to her own home, while the guests divided their attention between the bountiful supper and a discussion as to how bill dean and his associates could best be suppressed. none of the party had had more than three cups of tea when mr. souders arrived looking very warm because of his long walk, and decidedly angry in consequence of the report made by his wife. he first demanded an interview with jack, who was sitting in the kitchen fully occupied with his mournful thoughts; but when the ladies began to explain matters relative to the mischief done, he could not but believe the hunchback was innocent of the charges brought against him by mrs. souders. "i'll take bill dean in hand myself," he said with an ominous gesture. "there is plenty of time for that; but i reckon fixing things in the barn will last longer. can you lend me the cripple for a while, aunt nancy?" the little woman called jack, explained that he was to assist the gentleman, and as the two went toward the barn she said feelingly,-"it makes very little difference what people may say, although i would rather have the good will of a dog than his ill will; but if i can prevent it that boy shall not leave this farm unless relatives come forward to claim him." several united with aunt nancy in praising jack, and since the others remained silent there was no opportunity for a disagreeable argument. it did not require many seconds for mr. souders to see that the harness had been tampered with, and he said in a cheery tone, which was a delightful contrast to the one used a short time previous by his wife, as he pulled off his coat,-"i reckon you an' i have a big contract ahead of us, my boy. it would puzzle a lawyer to fix all these as they should be, and the most we can hope for is to put the sets together so the old women may go home. we'll begin with mine, an' see what can be made of the job." it was a long and tedious task, and before it had been half completed jack was so well pleased with the gentleman that he said confidentially,-"mr. souders, i don't want you to think i tried to insult your wife. it was an accident which i couldn't prevent, an' you see for yourself i wasn't to blame for this muss." "don't worry about it, my boy. mother is a leetle hot-headed with a powerful dislike to youngsters 'cause she hain't got any of her own; but i'll venter to say she's sorry as a cat this very minute for what's been said an' done. if you knowed her little ways you wouldn't mind anything about it; but i'm put out to think she laid her hands on a poor cripple like you." "it wasn't that which made me feel so bad as to have her think i would act mean." "she don't believe a word of what she said by this time, an' for that i'll go bail. there's no use talkin' 'bout it now; i allow you'll see her ag'in mighty soon. have you been havin' a great deal of trouble with bill dean?" jack was not disposed to tell very much lest it should be thought he was complaining; but mr. souders finally succeeded in drawing from him a full account of the threats made. "you sha'n't be troubled any more, my boy, that i'll answer for. bill is pretty wild, but i reckon we can tame him down a bit before another day goes by." "i wouldn't like any of the fellows to say i'd been carryin' tales, sir." "neither have you. aunt nancy's life is bein' worried pretty nigh out of her, an' that's enough to give me a right to interfere." jack did not think it proper to tell anything more regarding his experiences with the village boys, and, as a matter of fact, would have preferred saying nothing whatever to mr. souders until he had talked with aunt nancy. before the gentleman left the barn he so far sorted out the harness that it was possible to gear up his own team, and jack thought best to get each one ready while he had the opportunity to call upon such a valuable assistant. when the two returned to the house the supper was ended, and one of the ladies held louis in her arms while aunt nancy and several of the guests washed the dishes. then jack milked old crumple-horn, and when the last of the visitors departed all of the chores had been done, therefore nothing prevented he and aunt nancy from discussing the events of the day. "i can't say i'm sorry william dean cut up as he did," the little woman said, "for it has given mr. souders a chance to see what he really would do, and there is reason to believe the boy will be obliged to mend his ways." jack had very little interest in bill dean at that moment. he was thinking only of the conversation he heard from the "fore-room," and had determined the matter should be settled finally before he retired. "it seems as if most of the folks think i oughtn't to stay here makin' you feed me," he began. "bless my soul, what has put that idea into your head, my child?" "i heard what mrs. souders said in the front-room before supper." aunt nancy looked around quickly as a shade of displeasure passed over her face. "i'm sorry you did hear it, jack dear; but you must not be so foolish as to let it worry you. i am old enough to attend to my own affairs, and, even if i wasn't, sarah souders is not the one to whom i should go for advice." "but, aunt nancy, my being here makes trouble for you with your neighbors, and i have been thinking it would be better for louis an' i to go away at once." "your being here has very little to do with the trouble i may have. it is my own wicked self. i began by telling a lie to that man from scarborough, and one sin surely leads to others. you are of great assistance to me, and i should be more sorry than i can say if you went away." jack was about to make some reply, but before the words could be spoken, aunt nancy checked him by laying her hand on his shoulder as she said,-"don't argue the matter, jack dear. we are all tired enough to go to bed, and we'll make ready by searching the house again. after what has happened since noon it wouldn't surprise me the least little mite, if we found half a dozen burglars in hiding." chapter xv. brother abner. when jack retired on this night he was far from feeling comfortable in mind. aunt nancy had literally obliged him to cease speaking of the matter, and during the evening devotions prayed so fervently that she might be forgiven for acting a lie, it really distressed him. she had done it solely for him, and he felt personally responsible for her mental trouble. it caused the little woman great anxiety as he could well understand from the fact that she referred to the subject very frequently, and never ceased to sue for pardon. as has been said, jack did not think the little woman did any great wrong; but since she believed it, the case was as serious to her as if a deadly crime had been committed. he remained awake a long while trying to decide what should be done, and more than once was he tempted to run the risk of calling upon farmer pratt to explain all the circumstances, in order to relieve aunt nancy's mind. to do this would be, as he firmly thought, neither more nor less than voluntarily condemning himself to the poor farm; but louis would be safe from the ignominy, and he would be doing the little woman a very great favor. he had decided upon nothing when sleep visited his eyelids, and on the following morning there was so much to be done around the house he could not find any opportunity to study the subject. aunt nancy believed it necessary to clean nearly every portion of the house, and as a matter of course he assisted. louis was really neglected on this day. having been allowed to play on the floor to his heart's content, neither his crooked guardian nor aunt nancy paid very much attention to him. not until late in the afternoon was the labor brought to a close, and then the tired ones sought rest under the big oak. jack was about to broach the subject which occupied the greater portion of his thoughts, when the rumble of wheels at the end of the lane caused him to look up in alarm. "who is that?" he asked excitedly, fearing lest it might be a messenger from farmer pratt. "only deacon downs. he sometimes stops on his way home from treat's store to see if anything is needed. i buy a good many vegetables of him." on this occasion the deacon had not called for any such purpose. he reined in his horse near where aunt nancy was sitting, and, refusing her invitation to "get out and visit," unbuttoned his coat in a deliberate manner, saying slowly as he did so,-"i found this 'ere for you down to treat's, an' kinder 'lowed you'd be wantin' it." then fully a moment more was spent before the article referred to was produced, and, meanwhile, aunt nancy was in a mild state of excitement through curiosity. "something for me? what is it, deacon?" "wait till i find the pesky thing. i put it in this pocket so there shouldn't be any chance of losin' it, an' now i wouldn't be surprised if it had slipped out." aunt nancy came close to the wagon watching the old gentleman's every movement, her face expressing the liveliest impatience; but the visitor did not gratify her curiosity until having found that for which he sought. "here it is," he said, as he handed her a letter, "an' seein's how it's stamped binghamton, i wouldn't be surprised if it was from abner, for i don't reckon you know anybody but him in york state, nancy?" "of course it's from abner, and you gave me almost a shock, deacon, for i couldn't imagine what you had found of mine." "i don't allow there's any bad news, eh?" and the visitor waited as if expecting aunt nancy would open the letter at once. "it's only in regard to some business, deacon," the little woman replied in a tone which told she did not intend to read the missive until she should be alone. "i don't reckon he's thinkin' of comin' here this summer?" "dear me, no. abner's getting too old to go gallivantin' 'round the country very much, an' it's a powerful long journey from here to york state." "you're right, nancy; but you know abner allers was a master hand at travellin'." then the deacon, despairing of getting a glimpse of the letter, urged the aged horse into a slow trot, and the occupants of the curtis farm were alone once more. "the deacon is a real obliging neighbor," aunt nancy said as the rumble of wheels died away in the distance, "but terribly inquisitive. he thought i would read abner's letter so he'd know what was going on, and perhaps i might have done so if it hadn't been concerning your business, which should be kept to ourselves." "do you s'pose he has found out anything about louis's father?" jack asked, eager to learn the contents of the letter, but not feeling at liberty to hurry the little woman. "i don't think there is any doubt about it"; and aunt nancy tore open the envelope with a slowness and deliberation which was almost provoking. during the next five minutes jack waited impatiently to hear "brother abner's" reply; but nothing was said until the letter had been read carefully twice over, and then aunt nancy exclaimed as she took off her spectacles,-"well, i declare!" "does he know the captain?" "he's never heard of him! it's so surprising when i think of how many people he used to be acquainted with when he lived here." "what does he say about it?" "nothing of any consequence, and writes as if he was provoked because i asked the question. wants to know how i suppose he can find a man who was exploded in a vessel at sea; and i can't say but there is considerable good sense in his asking that, for of course when the ship blowed to pieces that settled the whole thing." "but the captain might have been saved, and, besides, while we were in sight the 'atlanta' looked whole and sound as before the explosion." "but if she didn't go to pieces why hasn't the captain come after his son?" this was a question which jack could not answer, and had to remain silent. "according to abner's story, he don't know many of the york state folks except them as lives in binghamton. perhaps he's settling down, and isn't as newsy as when he was with me." "if he can't help us, what are louis an' i to do?" "stay here, of course." "but, aunt nancy, i must try to find louis's relations, even if his father and mother are dead." "i reckon you're bound to do that somehow; but there's no sense in trying to walk to new york while the weather is so hot." then the little woman, as if believing the matter had been finally settled, began to speak of the subject which was very near her heart, and for at least the hundredth time jack was forced to listen to her lamentations because of the equivocation when farmer pratt called. it was particularly hard for him to remain quiet during her self-accusations, for now that it was useless to expect "brother abner" could do anything in the way of learning the details concerning the fate of the good ship "atlanta," it seemed in the highest degree important to decide upon some course of action. he was well content to stay where he was a certain time; but it seemed as if he should have at least some idea of what was to be done in the future. aunt nancy did not give him an opportunity to discuss the matter, however, and when the hour came to search the house for supposed burglars he was in a fine state of perplexity. on the following morning it seemed as if the little woman had dismissed all such thoughts from her mind, for whenever she spoke to jack it was upon anything rather than how he might best accomplish that which he believed to be his duty. he noticed she was particularly tender toward louis, and gave him an unusual amount of attention when she thought he and she were alone. it was on this day mrs. souders called, and during fully half an hour was closeted with aunt nancy, after which she met jack in the yard when her greeting was more than cordial, but never a word was spoken in reference to the incidents of the day she allowed anger to overcome judgment. since jack had not expected anything in the way of an apology, he was agreeably surprised by the change in her manner toward him, and felt that ample reparation had been made. what the lady may have said to aunt nancy will never be known, for the little woman maintained the most perfect secrecy regarding it, despite the fact that jack questioned her as closely as he dared. it was on the evening of this day when they were sitting under the old oak, and louis was playing in front of them, that bill dean walked boldly into the yard, accosting aunt nancy as if he and she were on the most friendly terms. jack was so thoroughly surprised that he experienced the sensation of one who has suddenly been plunged into cold water, for the assurance of the boy was more than he could understand until master dean handed aunt nancy a printed circular, as he said,-"i've been hired to carry these around, an' i know you allers go to camp meetin', so i stopped here first. i s'pose you think i'm kinder tough; but them as come here lookin' for jobs without wantin' to work ain't so good as you believe they are." "i don't intend to argue with you, william; but you know very well i have good reason to feel harsh toward you." "why, what have i done?" and bill looked as innocent as a lamb. "it would be better if you asked what you haven't done," and the little woman spoke in the most severe tone. "in the first place you drove away a well-disposed boy last summer, and are now trying to do the same by poor little crippled jack." "i don't see how you can say sich a thing, aunt nancy"; and bill assumed an injured expression. "didn't you mix up the harness when the circle met here, and didn't you try to drown the baby?" "me drown a baby?" bill cried in a horrified tone. "yes, it was you and your friends who carried him to the duck pond and set him adrift on a raft." "now, aunt nancy, it ain't right to talk agin me in this way"; and a stranger would have said that bill was on the point of crying. "why, william dean, i saw you running away!" "i ain't sayin' you didn't; but that's nothin' to do with the baby. when i came across the field he was at the pond, an' i didn't know what he might do to my raft. before i got up to him he was sailin' like all possessed, an' when you came i run away for fear you'd want me to wade in after him." aunt nancy's eyes opened wide in astonishment at this marvellous story, and while she felt convinced it was false, she would not accuse him of telling a lie without having something in the way of evidence against him. "at least i know you fought with jack because he wouldn't promise to go away," she said after quite a long pause. louis's guardian tried to prevent this last remark by a look, but was unsuccessful, and bill replied boldly,-"there ain't any use sayin' i didn't, 'cause it's true; but us fellers only was doin' what we had a right." "what do you mean by that?" "why, we've got a license from the s'lectmen to do all the chores 'round this neighborhood, an' had to pay a mighty big price for it. do you s'pose we'll let any other fellers come in an' take the bread an' butter outer our mouths after we've scraped the cash together to pay the town tax for that kind of business?" this statement was rather more than even aunt nancy could credit, and she said quite sharply,-"william dean, i won't have you standing there telling such wrong stories! you must think i'm a natural born idiot to listen." "it's the truth all the same, and if hunchie don't clear out he won't get along very easy. good by, aunt nancy, i s'pose i'll see you at camp meetin', for all the old maids will be there." bill did not linger in the lane after this last remark, but went quickly out into the highway, leaving the little woman literally gasping with surprise and indignation. "it's no disgrace to be an old maid," she said when it was once more possible for her to speak; "but i won't have an impudent boy like william dean throwing it in my face as if it was something to be ashamed about." "i wouldn't pay any 'tention to him," jack replied consolingly. "you're nicer than any woman _i_ ever saw, an' he'd be only too glad if you was as much of a friend to him as you are to me." aunt nancy leaned over and kissed the little cripple on the forehead as she said in a low tone,-"you are a good boy, jack dear, and would be a great comfort to me if we were never to part until the good god calls me home." chapter xvi. a hurried departure. it was not until the following morning that aunt nancy paid any particular attention to the circular regarding camp meeting which bill dean had brought. then, as jack came in from milking, she said with a suddenness which caused the boy to start in surprise,-"i have been thinking about the camp meeting. what is your opinion?" "i don't know what you mean." "you remember the paper which william dean brought last night?" "yes." "well, it was the time-table of the trains which run to the grounds. somehow your coming upset me so i had forgotten all about the meeting, and if i should miss it, it would be the first time since i was quite a young girl." "when does it begin?" "day after to-morrow." "why don't you go? i can stay here an' take care of crumple-horn and louis well enough." "bless you, child, i wouldn't think of leaving you alone three or four days." "would you be gone as long as that?" "a great many stay the whole week, and i did one year; but it was almost too tedious." "well, both of us couldn't be away at the same time, an'--" "why not?" "because the cow must be milked an' put in the barn." "daniel chick's daughters have always done that for me, and would again." "but what about louis?" "i have been wondering whether i couldn't take him with me." "it would be terrible hard work to lug a baby 'round all the time." "if you went i should be relieved of the greater portion of that care." "it seems as if you had pretty nigh made up your mind already." "there is only one thing which prevents me, and i can't figure it out," the little woman said with an air of anxiety. "what is it?" jack asked in surprise. "i don't know that it is prudent to spare the money. you see it won't be long now before the summer boarders come, and it costs a great deal to get ready for them." jack could make no reply. this was a question about which he was ignorant, and there was a certain hesitation on his part regarding the discussion of such a subject when he could do nothing to forward the matter by pecuniary aid. no more was said until after breakfast, when mrs. hayes came in, looking excited and breathless. "haven't you done anything about going to camp meeting, nancy curtis?" she cried, as she swung the big rocking-chair around and would have sat on louis had not jack called her attention to the fact by pulling the baby from his dangerous position. "i was just speaking about it, but don't know as i shall go." "but you must, nancy. the children can stay at my house." "if i went they would go with me," the little woman replied, in a tone which told she was not willing to discuss that question. "very well, there is nothing to prevent. daniel chick will take his big tent, and he says you're welcome to use as much of it as you want." "he is very good, i'm sure." "and you'll go, of course? it wouldn't seem like a camp meeting if you wasn't there; and, besides, we always look to you for the coffee. deacon downs says it's one of the pleasures of the week to drink aunt nancy's mocha." "i do try to get the best, and when that has been done any one can make it good," the little woman said as her withered cheeks flushed with pleasure at the compliment, while never for a moment did she fancy this praise might have been given only that she should supply the occupants of the tent with their morning beverage. "then it is settled, you will go?" and mrs. hayes arose to her feet. "i can't stop a minute, but felt i must run over to find out if you'd begun preparations." "i haven't, and whether you see me there or not depends. i will let you know to-morrow." "but you must go, because we won't take no for an answer." aunt nancy shook her head as if to say the matter was very uncertain, and the visitor took her departure, insisting that the townspeople "couldn't get along without their coffee maker." "i'm sure i don't know what to do," the little woman said with a long-drawn sigh when she and jack were alone. "if you haven't money enough, why not leave me an' louis here alone? i'll be awful careful with the house, an' there can't any accident happen." "i'm not afraid to trust you, jack dear; but as i told mrs. hayes, it isn't to be thought of for a minute." "ain't there some way i might earn the money?" "bless you, no, child. even if i was willing you should do such a thing, there isn't any time. the most expensive part of it is that i have always furnished the coffee for all in the tent, and it does take a powerful lot to go around. why, deacon downs himself can drink three cups of a morning, an' then look around sort of wishfully for another. i always give it to him, too, if there's enough left in the pot." jack felt very badly because he could do nothing toward helping the little woman out of her difficulty, while louis laughed and crowed as if he thought the whole affair decidedly comical. aunt nancy bustled around the house performing a great deal of unnecessary work, her forehead knitted into a frown which showed she was thinking the matter over in the most serious fashion, and jack watched her every movement. finally the problem was solved, for her face lighted up as, taking louis in her arms and seating herself in the rocking-chair, she said cheerily,-"i don't think william dean would attempt to make trouble for you now, jack dear." "neither do i. mr. souders probably scolded him for mixin' up the harness, and he won't bother me." "do you feel quite certain of that?" "indeed i do." "then would it be too much of a walk for you to go to treat's store?" "of course it wouldn't, aunt nancy. you've only to say the word, an' i'll be off like a shot." jack had seized his hat as he spoke, and appeared to be on the point of rushing away without waiting for the message, when she stopped him by saying,-"there's no need of such haste. it will take me some time to fix the errand so you can do it. last season daniel chick farmed the back field for me on shares, and i have quite a lot of wheat on hand. mr. treat wanted to buy it, and now i'm going to accept his offer. in case he still wants it, you must bring back some things from the store." "am i to get the coffee?" "no, that would be too large a bundle. i'll write mr. treat a letter, and the remainder of the business you can arrange." jack was delighted at being able to do something toward settling the vexed question, and waited very impatiently for the little woman to make her preparations. this was quite a long task because a letter was to be written, and after that a list of articles prepared; but finally aunt nancy completed the work, and jack set off at full speed with a generous supply of bread and butter in a neatly tied parcel. he returned before she fancied he could have more than gotten there, and brought with him the goods required. "mr. treat says he'll tell daniel chick to haul the wheat, and you shall know how much there is as soon as it can be weighed. if you want anything more you shall send for it." "did he say i could have some money?" aunt nancy asked anxiously. "he told me to tell you to call on for cash or goods up to thirty dollars, for he was certain it would amount to as much as that." "then everything will be fixed without any trouble, and i will tell mrs. hayes we shall go to the camp meeting. now, jack dear, lie down a little while and get rested so you can help me. we must do a great deal of cooking before to-morrow night." during the remainder of the afternoon and the day following, the household was in as great a state of confusion and excitement as when arrangements were being made for the sewing circle. aunt nancy, assisted by jack, cooked provisions sufficient to have kept a much larger family in food fully two weeks; but the little woman explained she "never liked to go to camp meeting without having something to give those who might come hungry." the neighbors, and, more particularly, deacon downs, had called to ascertain if "the coffee maker" was really going, and daniel chick promised to come for her with his wagon at an early hour the following morning. the deacon agreed to attend to the transportation of the mocha, and on the evening before the journey was to be made everything appeared to be in "apple-pie order," although to aunt nancy's eyes the house was far from being in a proper condition. jack was both tired and excited. the prospect of going to a camp meeting pleased him wonderfully, for he had never attended one, and fancied it was something intended for sport rather than anything serious. the baskets were packed; louis's suit of white clothes stiff with starch and without a blemish; jack's boots were polished until they shone like a mirror; and aunt nancy spent considerable time bewailing the fact that she could not afford to buy him a new coat and pair of trousers. not until late was the little woman ready to retire, and it appeared to jack as if he had just fallen asleep when she awakened him to milk the cow. after feeding the animal it seemed as if a very long time would elapse before it would be possible for him to do the same again, and he patted her sleek sides affectionately as he explained that one of mr. chick's daughters would take his place during the next three or four days. it isn't very likely the animal understood what he said, but she was perfectly willing to part with him, since it was to exchange the stuffy barnyard for the cool, inviting pasture. the milk was strained and put out on the doorsteps for miss chick, since aunt nancy could not take it with her, and then a hurried breakfast was eaten. none too soon, either, for the meal had just been finished when mr. chick drove up, fretting considerably because the party were not ready to get into the vehicle instantly he arrived. half a dozen times was jack sent to make certain this door or that was fastened securely, and the owner of the wagon worked himself into a state of profuse perspiration before aunt nancy finally announced she was ready. jack thoroughly enjoyed the ride to the depot, four miles away. the odor of the flowers and grasses was heavy on the cool air; the birds sang their hymns of thanksgiving that the new day had come; and the trees whispered together of the goodness of the creator in making for his creatures such a beautiful place in which to live. "it seems almost wicked to enjoy a scene like this when there are so many poor people who never see the country from one year's end to another," aunt nancy said, as she looked around in delight; and mr. chick replied, speaking much as if he had a cold in his head,-"it's for us to take all the enjiment that comes in this world, an' leave others to bear the burdens which are put upon them." "if that is good doctrine, daniel chick, i'd like to know how you'd fancied a dose of it when you was down with the rheumatiz an' depended upon the neighbors to gather the crops?" "that was a different matter, nancy curtis." "in what way?" "well, you see--i--i--p'rhaps i can't explain it so's you an' the children can understand; but there was a difference." "only because you can't put yourself in the situation of others. the golden rule is good enough for me yet, and i don't think i'll change it for yours." this brief conversation had no effect on jack, nor would he have thought it an important matter if mr. chick had attempted to prove the little woman was wrong. his faith in aunt nancy was so great that whatever she said was to him a truth not to be disputed. on arriving at the depot it was learned they were fully an hour too early for the train, and jack mourned the fact that he might have remained at home long enough to put the barn in better order. it was a large party who intended to make the journey on this morning, and to jack's dismay he saw bill dean and his particular friends arrive about half an hour before the time for leaving. if it had been possible he would have remained out of sight; but the station was small, and aunt nancy insisted he should stand where she could keep her eyes on him, consequently it was not many moments before master dean recognized him. "oh, dear! _is_ he going? and _must_ we be in fear and trembling of him all the time we stay?" aunt nancy said pathetically as she saw the three boys approaching. "keep close to me, jack dear, and if he attempts any mischief i'll appeal for help to deacon downs." bill, however, did not intend to commit any overt act while there were so many around who would not hesitate about dealing out justice to him without delay. he contented himself by walking slowly around aunt nancy and jack, as he said to jip lewis,-"i didn't think we stood so much of a chance to have a good time at camp meetin' this year. here's hunchie with the old maid, and we'll see that they don't get lonesome." fortunately aunt nancy did not hear him, otherwise she might have said something which would have provoked further and louder threats. jack, however, could distinguish every word, and before the three tormentors finished their promenade he regretted having accompanied the little woman. "i ain't afraid they'll get very much the best of me," he said to himself; "but there isn't goin' to be a great deal of fun if i've got to keep my eyes open for them all the time." chapter xvii. camp meeting. when the train drew up at the station, jack was relieved at seeing his tormentors take their places in a car far ahead of the one he and aunt nancy occupied. he anticipated no slight amount of enjoyment from this ride behind the iron horse, and it would be sadly marred if he was forced to listen to such remarks as bill dean and his friends would probably make. aunt nancy sat by the window with louis in her arms, and jack took the seat beside her, watching everything around with the most intense interest, for it was the first time he had ever journeyed so far on the cars. the little woman would have spent considerable of the money received from the sale of the wheat in buying for her crippled escort such articles as the newsboy brought, in the hope of tempting customers; but for the fact that jack prevented her by whispering more than once,-"you've paid enough for me already in buyin' the railroad ticket, an' you must save some to get things for the summer boarders." "bless you, child, i ought to be able to take a little pleasure now and then without thinking constantly of how many pennies there are in a dollar." "but this time, aunt nancy, you are not using it for yourself. if you want any of the stuff, why, it's only right you should have it, but don't buy anything for me." then the little woman whispered as she laid her hand affectionately on his shoulder,-"it's a comfort to have you around, jack dear, for you are always thinking of others and never of yourself." "a crooked feller like me don't need as much as other folks, an' i'm sure i get more'n i deserve." "that could never be, my child," aunt nancy replied; and jack fancied she wiped a tear from her eye, but it might have been nothing more than a cinder. judging from louis's expressions of delight, he would have been pleased had the journey continued all day, and even jack was a trifle disappointed because the tenting grounds were reached so soon. the place at which they disembarked was not a village, but only a grove of pine-trees bordering the ocean, with a broad strip of shimmering white sand between the foliage and the water. it was a little settlement of canvas houses among the pines, the gleaming white showing vividly amid the sober green, and the dusty paths here and there resembling yellow ribbons laid on to complete the harmony of color. jack would have remained a long while silent and motionless gazing in delight at the scene before him, now and then raising his eyes to view the heaving emerald bosom of the sea beyond, but that aunt nancy was impatient to "settle down" before the morning services should begin. "it looks pretty, i know, jack dear, but we mustn't stand dawdling here, because there is considerable work for us to do. i'll carry the baby, and you see what can be done with the bundles." the two were literally laden to the utmost of their strength, as they stepped from the railway platform. such generous supplies had the little woman brought for their bodily comfort that quite an amount of the belongings would have been left behind but for deacon downs, who kindly offered to take charge of the remainder of the goods. in order to find mr. chick's tent it was only necessary to follow the party with whom they had travelled, and in a few moments the little woman was arranging her provisions in one corner of the huge tent which had been reserved for her use. jack hovered around helplessly. he wanted to do something toward aiding aunt nancy, but camp life was so new to him he could do nothing more than watch her bird-like movements. after pinning a towel around louis's neck to avoid the possibility of soiling his white frock, the little woman gave him a small slice of bread and butter, offering some to jack, but the latter was not hungry. "if you don't care, i'd rather go down to the beach a little while." "you shall do that later, jack dear, but the morning services will commence very soon, and i want you with me then." "will it be a reg'lar meetin' where people preach an' pray like they do in a church?" "certainly, my child; and this is a church, for don't you remember it is said 'the groves were god's first temples'?" jack didn't remember anything of the kind, for his education had been so sadly neglected he could not read any but the smallest words, therefore made no answer, and as soon as louis had satisfied his hunger the three went to the cleared space where the services were to be held. jack watched everything around him with intense interest, and, it must also be said, to such a degree that he failed to hear a single word spoken by the preacher. aunt nancy sat with a look of devotion on her face, which to jack was very beautiful. after a time the boy saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, and listened to the words from the pulpit in order to learn what had caused such apparent sorrow. the clergyman was speaking of those who keep the word, but not the spirit of god's laws, and he failed to find in the teaching anything which could distress the little woman. when the sermon was concluded and the three were walking slowly through the grove, he understood better. "it seemed as if the minister was talking directly to me, jack dear," she said with quivering lips. "i didn't hear him say anything that sounded like it, aunt nancy, an' i listened a good deal of the time." "it was the passage about obeying the word but not the spirit which applied to my case. you see i didn't _speak_ a lie to mr. pratt, and might try to comfort myself with the idea i had not disobeyed the commandment; but the meaning of it is, i shouldn't deceive in the slightest manner." "i wish we hadn't come here if you're goin' to think of that thing again." "again, jack dear? do you fancy it has ever been out of my mind?" "i thought you'd kinder got over it." "but i hadn't, and perhaps i was led to come here that i might realize even more fully what i have done." "there isn't any need of that, aunt nancy"; and jack began to look distressed. "please put it out of your thoughts for a while, an' we'll go down on the beach." "i can't, my child. you shall stroll around an hour, after which you must come back to the tent for dinner." jack hardly thought he ought to leave the little woman while she was feeling badly, but she insisted on his doing so, and he walked slowly away saying to himself,-"i never knew religion hurt anybody; but i think aunt nancy has too much of it if she's goin' to fuss so over farmer pratt. it won't do to let her feel as she does, an' the whole amount of the story is i'll have to leave louis here while i take the chances of gettin' into the poorhouse by explainin' things to him." so deeply engrossed was he in his thoughts that no attention was paid to anything around until he was brought to a standstill by hearing a disagreeably familiar voice cry,-"hold on, hunchie, we want to know where you left the old maid!" jack had halted involuntarily, and now would have moved on again in the hope of escaping from master dean and his friends, but they barred his way by closing in upon him. there was a large crowd on the grounds surging to and fro, therefore the three boys had little difficulty in forcing jack to move in this direction or that as they chose, by pretending the press was so great they could not prevent themselves from being pushed against him. "we're goin' down for a swim," bill dean said as he linked his arm in the hunchback's, "an' it'll just about break our hearts if you can't come with us." [illustration: "we're goin' down for a swim," bill dean said, as he linked his arm in the hunchback's.--page 210.] "i don't want to do anything of the kind. you know very well a crooked feller like me couldn't swim, no matter how hard he tried." "we'll show you how, so don't be frightened"; and bill motioned for sam and jip to force the intended victim along in the desired direction. jack knew perfectly well he could not struggle successfully against his tormentors, but at the same time he did not intend allowing them to take him away from the throng where he might find assistance if necessary. "i don't want to go with you, and shall ask some of these people to help me if you don't go away." "then you'd only be makin' it all the hotter for yourself, 'cause we count on stayin' here the whole week, an' you can't be tied to the old maid's apron strings every minute of the time." "i'll take my chances of that, so keep off or i'll make a disturbance." bill had good reason to believe the cripple would carry this threat into execution, and, not wishing to come in direct contact with the guardians of the peace, concluded to bring their sport to a close. "of course if you don't feel like comin' nobody's goin' to make you, so we'll say good by." as he spoke he gave a quick twist of his foot in front of jack, at the same instant jip pushed from behind, and the result was the cripple fell forward on his face, in the gravel and sand. the three boys were off like a flash, and as jack rose to his feet after some effort, with dusty clothes and a bleeding face, his heart was filled with anger. "if i was only strong enough i'd soon show them fellers what it is to pick on a fellow they thought couldn't help himself!" he had hardly said these words when a man brushed past him with the air of one who feels he has a right to considerably more than half the road, and looking up quickly jack saw farmer pratt. for an instant he thought the man was pursuing him, and would have taken refuge in flight, had not the idea occurred to his mind that mr. pratt had come to camp meeting for the same purpose as aunt nancy. "i'm foolish to think he's still chasin' after me," he said to himself, "though i s'pose he would take louis an' me with him if he saw us." without knowing why he did it, jack followed a short distance behind the farmer, as if it was necessary to retain him constantly in sight, and while doing so thought of aunt nancy's distress concerning the alleged lie. now surely would be a good time to sacrifice his own comfort in order to ease her mind by taking upon his shoulders the blame, and he ran forward intending, for an instant, to speak with the gentleman. then it occurred to him that it would be proper to consult the little woman first, and he turned back only to doubt again. it might distress aunt nancy yet more to know the farmer was on the grounds, and jack wished he knew of some one who could give him the proper advice. deacon downs was the only person he could think of, and yet he ought not to tell him of what aunt nancy had done. "i've got to settle this thing myself," he said as he turned resolutely in the direction of the tent, "and the next thing to do is to talk with aunt nancy herself. she knows more goodness than all these people put together." his mind once made up, he was eager to reach the tent, and ran at full speed, arriving just as deacon downs summoned the occupants of this particular dwelling to dinner. the little woman was acting as cook, a post of duty to which she had been elected each year because the remainder of the party knew she would perform the arduous labors without complaint. to speak with her now would be to attract the attention of all, and jack believed he should wait until a more convenient season. therefore he seated himself at the rough table around which all the others, save aunt nancy, were gathered, and tried unsuccessfully to appear as if nothing unusual had occurred. jack's face told of some trouble, however, and when the deacon had refreshed himself with a large cup of aunt nancy's mocha, he asked in a severe tone,-"master dudley, is it possible that after living with as good a woman as sister curtis, you allow your passions to tempt you into fighting? don't you remember what dr. watts says about letting 'dogs delight to bark and bite, for 'tis their nature,' et cetera?" perhaps jack might have understood the deacon's question, had it not been for the last word. what an "et cetera" was he hadn't the slightest idea, and instead of replying sat staring stupidly at his plate until aunt nancy came forward and asked,-"what is it about jack? has he been doing anything out of the way?" "by the appearance of his face i should say he had. it is strange boys will fight in such a place as this!" "why, what _has_ happened to you, jack dear?" the little woman asked anxiously as she lifted the boy's head by placing her hand under his chin. jack said nothing, and aunt nancy asked, as the crimson spots appeared on her cheeks,-"has william dean been troubling you again?" "i had rather tell you some other time," jack replied in a whisper, as he slipped down from his seat at the table and went toward the scene of the little woman's culinary operations. she followed him at once, and the good but rather inquisitive deacon craned his neck in vain to hear what passed between the two. "it was bill dean; but don't say anything about it now, for i've just seen farmer pratt," jack said in a low tone; and as aunt nancy started in surprise, a cry of distress came from deacon downs's lips. at the moment jack spoke, the little woman was in the act of removing the coffee pot from the stove, for fear its contents should boil over, when it fell to the ground. neither aunt nancy nor the hunchback paid any attention to this catastrophe; but the deacon was so angry he even threatened that jack should not be allowed near the tent again. it is doubtful if his words were heard by the two who were in such distress of mind. aunt nancy led jack to the rear of the tent, and there, where no one could overhear, he told the whole story, concluding by saying,-"you have felt so bad i had a great mind to go right up an' tell him how it happened you acted a lie." "but, jack dear, then he might drag you off to the poor farm." "i had rather do that than have you feel as you do about it. louis could stay here, an' i wouldn't tell him where you were, no matter how hard he might try to make me." "i should go to him myself and confess all," the little woman said after a pause. "then the chances are he'd get hold of both louis an' me. if it is to be done, i oughter do it." "i declare i don't know what is best"; and aunt nancy stood with clasped hands as if expecting jack would advise. "it is only right i should atone in some way for that which i did; but the flesh is indeed weak when it comes to parting with either of you." "perhaps there might be some way for me to get clear, an' you'd feel so much better that i'd be contented to stay almost anywhere." the little woman made no reply; she remained silent so long jack began to be afraid she was ill, and as he stood watching her, the notes of a song of praise to the maker rose high above the deacon's querulous tones, while mingling with it was the murmur of the surf as it rolled up on the beach, the whole forming a sort of melody which was soothing to the little hunchback. chapter xviii. a disaster. not for several moments was aunt nancy able to decide what should be done, and then, as the song died away leaving only the deacon's words to mingle with the reverberation of the surf, she said in a voice which sounded strained and harsh,-"it must be done. you shall bring him here, and i will tell the story myself. when he comes, take louis and walk down by the beach for a while." the little woman could say no more, for at that moment deacon downs asked in his blandest tones,-"do you think it would be possible to make a leetle more coffee, sister curtis?" aunt nancy had never been known to refuse a request which involved only her own discomfort or labor, and on this occasion there was no exception to the rule. "it will be ready in a few minutes, deacon," she replied in a trembling voice, at the same time keeping her face turned from the party lest they should see the tears in her eyes. jack understood there was no necessity of any further conversation, therefore walked slowly away, feeling very much like a fellow who voluntarily goes to receive unmerited punishment. he now had no fear of bill dean and his friends. the present trouble was so much greater than any they could cause him that it was as if this particular trio of boys never existed. not until he had walked to and fro for half an hour did he begin to realize it might not be possible to find the farmer amid the throng. each succeeding train brought additional worshippers or visitors to the grove, and the walks were so densely lined with people that he might have passed within ten feet of mr. pratt without seeing him. having made up his mind to that which he considered a sacrifice, he was impatient to have it finished, and walked rapidly until the afternoon was more than half spent; but all in vain. it seemed more than probable he had gone home, or at least jack so argued to himself, and returned to the tent looking as if suffering from some grievous disappointment. aunt nancy was at the flap of the canvas house with an expression of anxiety on her face, but the baby was nowhere to be seen. "where's louis?" jack asked in alarm. "mrs. hayes is taking care of him. i thought it best he shouldn't be seen when mr. pratt came. will he be here soon?" "i couldn't find him; he must have gone home." the little woman's face lighted up wonderfully as she cried,-"o jack dear, i know it is wicked to say, but i am _so_ glad! it is only right i should bear the burden i myself have caused; but the thought of losing you and the baby almost broke my heart." then she kissed him on both cheeks, and again did he feel the moisture of her tears. "well, aunt nancy, you haven't lost us yet awhile, an' if mr. pratt has gone home that settles the matter for a while." "yes, jack dear, but the sin is yet to be atoned for; it is only a postponement of the evil day." "any way there's no need of worryin' about it now. if, when we get home, you feel that he should know the truth, it won't be much of a job for me to walk over to his house, an' then," jack added with a feeble attempt at a smile, "they won't have so far to carry me when i'm taken to the poor farm." "don't talk in such a manner, my dear, for i am hoping it won't ever come to pass." jack made no reply. he felt quite confident the farmer would insist on his going to the home for paupers, but no good could be done by further distressing the little woman. "i declare i'd entirely forgotten you and i have had no dinner," she suddenly said with a nervous laugh. "i'll get some cold meat and bread, if there is any left; but it is astonishing how strong people's appetites are at the seashore, especially during camp-meeting time. we must get along without coffee, for the deacon fairly swam in that second pot i made." "i don't feel so terribly hungry," jack replied; "but i'll sit down for the sake of seeing you eat. as to the coffee, that don't trouble me; water is good enough for boys." "it is more wholesome i admit; but there's nothing good enough for a dear heart like yours." then the little woman bustled around as jack had seen her do at home, and in a few moments a most appetizing lunch was spread, the amount of food contradicting her fears that all the provisions had been consumed. the two made a hearty meal, considering all their troubles, and when it was concluded jack helped aunt nancy set the tent to rights generally, so when the remainder of the party returned from afternoon services everything was in proper order. mrs. hayes brought louis with her, and after delivering him to jack she said with a sigh of relief,-"i declare, sister curtis, it is a real pleasure to come to camp meeting with you. it takes the care off of one entirely. i only wish i had your knack at going ahead. now look at me; i'm almost worn out looking after the baby, and don't feel as if i could do a stitch toward getting supper." the other ladies in the party appeared to be in the same condition of prostration, and the little woman, tired though she was from the labor of preparing and serving dinner for so many, meekly replied that she was perfectly willing to give them a rest by performing all the work. jack heard the compliment paid by mrs. hayes, and understood that it had been given only for the purpose of getting the little woman to continue on while the others enjoyed their leisure. "i'm goin' to help you, aunt nancy," he said in a low tone as he went toward the stove where she was making ready to bake some biscuit. "it's too bad for you to do all this work while the others are havin' a good time." "oh, i don't mind it, dear, so long as i can be of service to some one. we are put in this world to help others, and it should be a pleasure." "but you're doin' all instead of helpin'. now tell me what i can do, if you're bound to wait on the whole crowd." "take care of the baby, that will be enough." "he'll stay around here all right," jack replied as he placed the little fellow on the grass, giving him some smooth stones to play with. then he set about assisting aunt nancy, working so industriously that deacon downs said in a tone of faint approbation,-"that there little hunchback seems right handy if he wants to, an' if he wasn't so given to fightin' it might be a good thing for aunt nancy to have him around; but when once a boy gets as quarrelsome as this one, it ain't much use trying to make anything out of him." the majority of the party were of the same opinion, and from that time forth it was believed, at least by those who were present when the deacon spoke, that jack was a boy who would fight under the slightest provocation. not until the bell had rung as a signal that the evening services were about to begin did jack and aunt nancy cease their labors. the other occupants of the tent had already departed, and the little woman and her assistant were so tired it seemed almost too great an exertion to walk to the auditorium. "why not go to bed?" jack asked. "i'll take care of louis until he gets sleepy, an' then bring him to you." "no, it would be wrong to remain here when so many truths will be presented, simply because i chance to be tired." "then we'll all go"; and jack lifted louis in his arms. aunt nancy enjoyed the services so much that jack was very glad she had come; but as for himself he believed the time would have been quite as profitably spent in sleeping. on the following morning at daybreak deacon downs aroused the hunchback with a harshly spoken command to build the fire and awaken aunt nancy when it was burning. "are you goin' to make her do all the work?" jack asked as he started to his feet. "don't be impudent!" the deacon said sternly, raising his cane threateningly. "learn to do as you are bidden, and in silence." jack made no reply, but felt that the little woman whom he loved so dearly was being imposed upon. as for aunt nancy, she appeared to have no such idea. jack awakened her as he had been told, and she arose from the bed of straw on which she had lain without undressing, uttering no word of protest. "i would have let you sleep till noon, but the deacon told me to, an' was kinder mad when i asked if you'd got to do all the work," jack said, his tones proving there was yet anger in his heart. "you shouldn't have said anything about it, my dear, for it is a pleasure to me." "you try to think it is, but i know it's nothin' more than hard work, while the others are enjoying a long nap." "we won't say any more about it, jack dear. don't you think you could get me some water?" "of course i can"; and jack labored with a will, relieving the tired-looking little woman whenever it was possible. the second day at camp meeting was spent by these two in much the same manner as the first, as regards work, and louis received very little attention. jack, in obedience to aunt nancy's request, looked again for mr. pratt, but with no better success than before; and after dinner he washed the dishes in order that the little woman might attend the afternoon services. it was a decided relief to him when the day came on which they were to return home. he knew aunt nancy had worked too hard, and the bustle and confusion tired him almost as much as the labor. gladly he helped gather up the empty baskets, and when the three were on the cars being whirled rapidly toward home, the little woman said with a sigh of relief,-"what a comfort it will be to find ourselves on the farm once more, jack dear! i believe i am getting too old to go to such places, and a week's rest wouldn't be too much to make me feel like myself again." "if you had gone alone, without tryin' to run a boardin'-house for them who didn't care whether you had any fun or not, it would have been different." "you don't look at the matter in the proper light, my child. they've always been accustomed to having aunt nancy go at such times, and i couldn't disappoint them as long as i was able to hold up my head." jack realized it was useless to continue this conversation, so far as convincing the little woman that she had been imposed upon was concerned, and he remained silent. never before had the farm looked so beautiful, either to jack or the little woman, as when they arrived home that night, and during the evening devotions aunt nancy's thankfulness was made apparent by the fervently spoken words. the hunchback's first care, after opening the house, was to visit the barn to assure himself old crumple-horn had been well taken care of; but he could not gain much information in the darkness. the animal was lying in her stall, and appeared to be in good condition. notwithstanding the fact that the house had been closed four days, the search for burglars was made before retiring, and then jack, after seeing louis tucked snugly in aunt nancy's bed, went to his cosey little room feeling confident he would never again have any desire to attend another camp meeting. when the morning came he went out with a light heart to milk the cow, but to his great surprise still found her lying down. all in vain did he urge her to get up; she refused to move, nor would she pay any attention to the tempting lunch of sweet clover he placed in front of her. running back to the house he summoned aunt nancy, and both spent fully an hour alternately coaxing and petting the animal. "she is very sick, jack dear, there can be no question about that," the little woman said as her eyes filled with tears. "it would grieve me if she should die, for i have owned her a long while." "how many years?" "i hardly know; but it can't be less than eighteen." "then she must be dying of old age." "i will go right over to daniel chick's and ask him to come here. he's a master hand at doctoring animals." then before jack could offer to go in her steady aunt nancy started down the lane bareheaded, which showed how deeply she felt the possible loss of her pet. in a short time mr. chick arrived with the little woman, and his verdict brought no relief to aunt nancy's heart. "all you can do is to knock her in the head, for she'll never get up again. it's kinder tough on you, i'll admit, for that cow has been a powerful help, 'specially when the summer boarders are here; but it won't do any good to fret." aunt nancy made no reply, but walked slowly to the house as if desirous of being alone. "she feels mighty bad i allow," mr. chick continued, speaking to jack. "i've said many times i didn't know how aunt nancy would get along if it wasn't for the cow, an' now i reckon she'll be eatin' her bread without butter." "what will she do when the boarders come?" "that's what i don't know"; and mr. chick walked away as if he had no further concern in the matter. jack sat down where he could watch crumple-horn and at the same time think over this disaster which had come to the little woman. while he was trying to form some plan, the poor old cow laid her head on the sweet-scented clover, gave a few short gasps, and ceased breathing as if from sheer weariness. jack stood over her a moment, and then returned to the house, arriving there just as aunt nancy was emerging with louis in her arms. "i wouldn't go out there"; and he motioned toward the barn. aunt nancy looked at him an instant, appearing to understand what he meant, for she re-entered the house, leaving jack on the doorstep in a profound study. he could hear louis's voice from the "fore-room" now and then, therefore it was not necessary to tell him the little woman had gone there to hide her grief. "i must do something" he said to himself, "an' what i first thought of seems to be the only show." then going to the door of the "fore-room" and knocking gently, he said in a low tone,-"aunt nancy, could you spare me a little while?" "where are you bound, jack?" "i'd like to run down to treat's store if you don't care." aunt nancy opened the door, and jack noticed her eyes were red from weeping. "what is your idea of going there?" she asked in surprise. "i've got some business that i'd rather not explain till i get back." "there's nothing to prevent, my child, and i can trust you not to do anything wrong." "i should hope you could," jack replied emphatically. "you shall know all about it when i come home." "don't try to walk too fast, but return as soon as your business is finished." jack promised to do so, and was hurrying up the lane when the little woman stopped him with these words:-"i wish you would call at daniel chick's and tell him what has happened. it will be necessary to bury poor old crumple-horn, and he must attend to it." "i'll ask him to come over right away"; and jack resumed his journey, wondering whether he was on the point of doing that for which aunt nancy would censure him. "it doesn't make any difference whether she does or not," he said to himself. "if i told her she wouldn't let me go, so this is the only way to fix it." chapter xix. jack's proposition. jack called at mr. chick's house, saw that gentleman and got his promise to bury old crumple-horn at once, after which he continued on past bill dean's home, fearing no trouble from him since he was yet at the camp grounds. on arriving at the store he found mr. treat alone, and was greeted with the question,-"hello! here's aunt nancy's young man! how's the old lady after her trip to the grove?" "she is well, but tired." "i'll warrant that. when folks want to go off for a good time they invite nancy curtis, reckonin' she'll do whatever work there is without grumblin', an' they ain't far out of the way, either. did the deacon get his full share of that mocha she bought?" "i don't know, sir; but i guess so, i didn't hear him findin' fault." "then you can count on his havin' been filled up; _he_ don't buy very much of that kind of coffee when it's him as has to foot the bills." jack had no interest in this subject, and changed it abruptly by saying,-"aunt nancy's cow died this mornin'." "sho! how'd that happen?" "mr. chick thought it must be old age." "well i reckon it was. that cow has been in the family quite a spell." "it'll be hard on aunt nancy not to have the milk." "i 'low you're 'bout right, sonny; it helped make up a good bit of the old woman's livin', an' she hasn't so much money but that a dollar makes a big difference." "that's true, an' i've come to see if i can't help her out in some way." "you?" and mr. treat looked up in surprise. "why, i thought you hadn't any great amount of cash on hand." "and i haven't; but i thought perhaps i might make a trade with you." "want to have a dicker of some kind, eh? well, what have you got to show up?" and mr. treat selected from a pile of pine wood a convenient stick to whittle, as he assumed a more comfortable attitude preparatory to indulging in his favorite pastime of "dickering." "i haven't got anything, sir; but thought there might be work i could do around here till i'd earned enough to buy aunt nancy another cow." jack stammered and hesitated until it was a positive pleasure both to himself and the storekeeper when the speech was finally ended. "what can you do?" mr. treat asked thoughtfully as he fashioned with infinite care the bit of wood into a toothpick. "almost anything, sir. i'd be willin' to work very hard if i could get the job." "have you got any idea what the jobs 'round here might be?" "it don't make any difference; i'm not afraid of bucklin' down to them." "how much do you count on earnin'?" "i want to get enough to buy a cow for aunt nancy." "do you know what one is worth?" "no, sir." mr. treat was silent for a moment as if revolving some very weighty matter in his mind, and said slowly,-"i've got jest sich a cow as would suit aunt nancy; she's a good one, an' i wouldn't like to part with her for nothin'. now, if you'd do the chores 'round here this summer, an' she would put in some of the money i owe for the wheat, we might strike a trade." "but i don't want her to pay anything." "thought you could do it all yourself, eh?" "i hoped so," jack replied in a tone of disappointment. "why, i don't reckon you'd earn it in a year. i'd want forty dollars at the very lowest figger for my cow, an' it would take a mighty smart boy to git that much in twelve months." jack could no longer conceal his feelings, and, seeing he was pained because of the failure of his plans, mr. treat continued in what he intended should be a soothing tone,-"i'd be willin' to allow you twenty dollars for a summer's work previdin' you'd board yourself at aunt nancy's. then she'd only be called on to pay as much more, an' have twice as good a cow as the one that's dead." "how long do you say the summer should last?" "well, i wouldn't be hard on you, an' we'd call it quits by the middle of november." "how much of that time would it be necessary for me to stay in the store?" "from five o'clock in the mornin' till nine at night, the same as is expected of other boys." it was the last blow to jack's hopes. his duty to louis would prevent him from remaining in this section of the country such a length of time, and it was essential he should assist aunt nancy in order to pay her for the food he and louis consumed. "well, what do you think of it?" mr. treat asked, as the boy stood irresolutely for a moment. "i couldn't because i can't stay here as long as that, and, besides, i must do something for aunt nancy to earn our board." "that's right, my boy. there's no harm done because we didn't make a trade; but it shows i'm willin' to help along all i can in a case like this." "i'm much obliged to you," jack replied faintly, and then he started up the road once more, walking decidedly faster than when he came. he had counted on being able to ease the sorrow in aunt nancy's mind by buying for her a cow as good as the one she had lost. he was revolving in his mind half a dozen plans by which the desired result might be attained, when a voice from the opposite side of the road caused him to halt. "how's aunt nancy by this time?" it was mr. souders who spoke, and because that gentleman had been so kind to him on the day when the sewing circle met at the little woman's house, he decided to tell him the whole story, not from any expectation of receiving assistance, but in order to relieve his mind. mr. souders listened attentively to all he had to say, and then replied,-"treat was trying to swindle you. his cow isn't worth ten dollars, to say nothing of forty, an' he wasn't over an' above anxious to give you too much for your work. let the matter drop a couple of days an' i'll see what can be done. we mustn't allow aunt nancy to suffer." there was a world of encouragement in the gentleman's tones, and jack felt as if half his troubles had already been removed. "i'm willin' to do anything i can towards earnin' the money to buy one; but louis an' i mustn't stay here till november, an' i don't want her to use her own money." "that will be all right, my lad. go home now, an' i'll see you later." jack's heart was quite light when he walked swiftly down the lane leading to the tiny house, but became heavy again when he saw the little woman's face. it was evident aunt nancy was mourning deeply the loss of her pet, and the cripple felt that as yet he had nothing tangible to assuage her grief. she looked up inquiringly as he approached, but he offered no explanation regarding his journey until the question had been asked directly, and then said hesitatingly,-"i would rather not tell you, aunt nancy. i thought i might be able to do something, but it was a failure, an' the less we say about it the better." "jack dear," and the little woman was very grave, "when a boy can't tell his friends what he has been doing it looks as if there was something of which to be ashamed." "but in this case there isn't, aunt nancy; cross my throat if there is." "i believe you, my child, but would have much preferred if there had been perfect confidence between us." jack looked up in positive alarm. the little woman's tone was so different from what he had ever heard before when she was addressing him, that he actually felt frightened. "i'll tell you all about it," he said quickly; but aunt nancy held up her hand to prevent his saying anything more. "if it is something which you wish to keep a secret from me i don't want to hear it." now jack was distressed, for there could be no question but that he had displeased his best friend. "please listen to me, aunt nancy. i did say i wasn't going to tell you, because i thought perhaps you'd think i was meddlin'. that is, you might have thought so after i failed; but if the thing had gone through all right you'd been glad." then, disregarding entirely her gestures for him to remain silent, he told all the story save that relating to his interview with mr. souders. it was yet possible old crumple-horn's place would be filled, but he believed it best not to raise any false hopes. when he concluded aunt nancy took his face in her hands, bending his head over until she could kiss his cheeks, when she said in a tremulous voice,-"jack, you are a dear, good boy, and have been a blessing to me from the hour you first came into this house; but you must not think of taking any such load upon your shoulders. i would not have permitted it even had you been able to make a satisfactory bargain with mr. treat, and that is what no person has ever done before to my knowledge. it was not right to keep from me anything you wished to do, and it is proven in this case, for if i had known what you thought of attempting, i could have explained how useless it would be." "it didn't seem so to me, aunt nancy, and i surely believed i could earn more than twenty dollars by working all summer." "not for such a man as the storekeeper. now you will be obliged to walk over to daniel chick's twice each day for milk, and that will be more labor than taking care of poor old crumple-horn." "perhaps you may get another cow, aunt nancy." "it is impossible, at least during this year. i spent more money at camp meeting than i could afford, and must now pay the penalty when the summer boarders come by being forced to buy both milk and butter. it will make a big hole in my earnings." now that there was no cow to care for, the work in jack's particular department was very light, and, as he said to aunt nancy, it seemed as if he had hardly begun before the whole was done. the walk to daniel chick's was not as pleasant as taking care of old crumple-horn, and besides, he would be forced to pass bill dean's house twice each day, a fact which caused him no little disquietude; but he said nothing regarding this to aunt nancy. the following forty-eight hours passed very quietly on the farm. the little woman was so thoroughly tired from her labors at camp meeting that she did not have the ambition to bustle around as usual, and the greater portion of her time was spent with jack in the garden. it is probable that no collection of vegetables ever received more care than was bestowed by these enthusiastic gardeners. the smallest weed was detected and instantly pulled up by aunt nancy, while jack loosened the ground around the roots of each tiny plant until it seemed certain they would be dwarfed. much to jack's discomfort, hardly an hour passed when the little woman did not make some reference to mr. pratt, and constantly bewailed the fact that she failed to see him. "but it wasn't your fault i couldn't find him, aunt nancy," jack finally said. "i suppose not; but yet it seems as if my cowardice had something to do with it." "you know that couldn't be so, aunt nancy; but if you want me to i'll walk over to his house. it ain't so terribly far." this proposition had the effect of reducing the little woman to silence, and during three or four hours louis' guardian heard nothing regarding the man whom he had every reason to consider an enemy. late on the afternoon of the third day after he had talked with mr. souders, that gentleman's wife drove up, and instead of alighting to call upon aunt nancy, said quite sharply,-"samuel wanted me to drive over here for jack." "why, what is the matter?" the little woman asked in alarm. "nothing very serious, nancy curtis, so don't begin to fret. sam always was full of whims, an' i reckon this is one of 'em." jack fancied he knew what was wanted, and his heart was very light when he clambered into the wagon. "i'll come right back," he cried, as the carriage rolled away, and aunt nancy sat looking at louis as if speechless with astonishment. "is it about the cow?" jack asked of mrs. souders, who sat stiff as a statue and quite as forbidding looking, holding the reins tightly in both hands, and paying no attention to the cripple. she nodded her head, and jack could not but wonder if she thought her breath too valuable to be wasted in words. this was the extent of the conversation during the ride of ten minutes or more, and the hunchback felt decidedly relieved when it came to an end. mrs. souders, silent and stern, was quite as disagreeable a companion as mrs. souders angry. the cause of his having thus been summoned was, as he had hoped, a cow. in the yard, with a halter on her head and a card tied to her horn, stood a meek-eyed animal which jack thought a model of her kind. mr. souders came from the shed as the hunchback alighted, and cried in his hearty, cheery voice,-"what do you think of that, lad? talk about treat's cow; why, she can't hold a candle side of this one, and there was a big difference in the price." "is it for aunt nancy?" "sartin, an' i sent for you to lead her over to the little woman." "but who's to pay for her?" "that part of the transaction has been settled already, an' all you have to do now, is to take the creater away." "but i wanted to do somethin' toward buyin' her." "so you have, my boy. can you read writin'?" "not very well." "then come here while i tell you what's on the card. i got one of daniel chick's daughters to fix it up so's it would be kerrect." then mr. souders, after wiping his glasses lest a single word should escape his attention, read the following:- "to aunt nancy curtis from jack dudley, to whom this cow was presented by sarah souders, in token of her regret for the unkind treatment which he received at her hands." "you see," mr. souders explained confidentially as he finished reading the inscription, "mother has been sorry about what happened over to aunt nancy's, jest as i said she would be, an' this is kind of a peace-offerin' to you, at the same time a good turn is done the old woman." "then no one else paid for the cow? your wife did the whole thing?" "i may have chipped in a bit; but that don't count. its mother's present to you an' aunt nancy, an' i'm right glad of the chance to help the little woman along. she'd be in mighty hard lines this summer if she had to buy butter an' milk." jack hardly knew what to do or say. he was delighted almost beyond bounds at being able to take the cow to aunt nancy, and at the same time it seemed necessary he should thank mrs. souders, but was at a loss to know how it was to be done. "where is your wife?" he asked after a pause. "in the house, an' i reckon she's locked the door. better not try to say anything to her. mother's peculiar, an' flies off dreadfully sometimes, but her heart's in the right place, my boy, which makes up for a good many faults. lead the creater home now, an' i'll venter to say you'll enjoy seein' aunt nancy dance when she knows its hers." jack would have attempted to thank mr. souders, but the gentleman prevented him by unfastening the cow's halter, and insisting that the animal be led away at once. chapter xx. bill dean. jack was a very proud boy when he came down the lane to the farmhouse leading the docile animal by the halter. he hoped to reach the door before aunt nancy should see him; but the little woman was sitting under the old oak wondering what business mr. souders had on hand which required the cripple's presence. he was half way from the main road to the house when she saw him, and cried in astonishment,-"bless my soul, jack, have you been and made a trade with mr. treat after what i said?" "indeed i haven't! jest wait till you see what's on this beauty's horn, an' then you'll know all about it." aunt nancy could not curb her curiosity until the animal was led in, but ran forward with louis in her arms, jack stopping the cow that she might read that which was written on the card. the little woman was bewildered. she could hardly realize the animal was a present until jack repeated again and again what mr. souders had said, and then it was the hunchback's turn to be bewildered, for instead of expressing her gratitude, she sat down on the grass, regardless of possible stains to her dress, and began to cry heartily. "why, i thought you'd be glad," jack said in a tone of disappointment, while louis pulled at the little woman's ringlets to show his sympathy for what seemed to be grief. "so--so--so i am--jack dear; but--but--it doesn't seem right that people should do so--so--so much for me." "it wouldn't be enough if they'd sent a thousand cows." "but for you i might never have had poor old crumple-horn replaced." "of course you would. that was wrote on the card only to make me feel better about what mrs. souders did; but she'd given you this all the same." aunt nancy refused to look at it in that light, and jack became confused at being overwhelmed with thanks. the little woman insisted on tracing the gift directly to his visit to treat's store, thus giving him nearly all the credit, until the conversation became really painful. "let's take her out to the pasture, for she must be hungry by this time," he said, as a means of putting an end to the words of gratitude which he believed were undeserved. this aroused aunt nancy to a sense of the situation as nothing else could have done, for the thought that anything around her might be suffering would always cause her to forget herself, and she followed jack, who had lifted louis to the cow's back to give him a ride. it was a sort of triumphal procession which halted at the pasture bars in order that aunt nancy might inspect more closely her new pet. "seems wrong to say anything disparaging of poor old crumple-horn after she has served me faithfully for so many years, but i must confess this cow looks as if she might be a better milker." "i'll bet she's the best in town," jack replied enthusiastically, as he pulled clover for the gentle animal to eat. "not quite that, jack dear, for deacon downs has a jersey that leads everything." "at any rate his cow can't be as kind as this one." "that may be," aunt nancy replied meditatively as she kissed the fawn colored nose. "i do really think we couldn't have found a better substitute for poor old crumple-horn." then the animal was examined critically, without a single flaw having been found, and not until half an hour was spent in this manner could she be allowed to enter the pasture. aunt nancy thought it her duty to see mrs. souders at the earliest opportunity in order to thank her for the gift, and decided to do so on the following morning when the breakfast dishes had been cleared away. jack went to clean the stall in the barn for the new cow's occupancy, and was working industriously when he fancied he heard a cry of distress coming from the direction of the duck pond. his first thought was that louis had strayed again, but on looking out, both he and the little woman were seen under the big oak, apparently as happy and contented as well could be. believing he had been deceived by his fancy, he resumed the work, but only to stop an instant later as the cries sounded more distinct. this time there could be no mistake, and he ran toward aunt nancy as he asked,-"do you hear that noise? i'm goin' to see what it means." as he went rapidly across the fields without waiting for a reply, the little woman followed him, but her pace was slow because of having the baby in her arms. the cries continued almost incessantly, and by them jack was guided to a clump of large trees standing near one end of the pond within a few yards of the spot where louis had been set adrift on the raft. it was not necessary to search long for the sufferer. lying on the ground, held firmly down by a huge limb of a tree which had fallen across his breast in such a manner that he could not use his arms, was bill dean. his face was pale, whether from pain or fear jack had no means of ascertaining, for the boy did not wait to be questioned, but cried piteously,-"o hunchie, help me outer this scrape an' i won't ever play tricks on you agin!" this promise was not necessary to enlist jack's sympathy. it was a boy in agony and not an enemy he saw before him; the only question in his mind was how the rescue could be effected. "lay still, an' i'll do the best i can; but it may hurt a little more when i try to lift the limb." kneeling that he might get his shoulder under one end of the heavy branch, jack tried to raise it, but in vain. he was making the second effort, bill moaning piteously meanwhile, when aunt nancy arrived, and she, like jack, thought only of relieving suffering. "where are you hurt, william?" she asked anxiously. "i don't know, but it seems as if the ache was all over my body." "how did the accident happen?" "i was choppin' this limb off to build a new raft, an' it fell on me." "can you lift it, jack dear?" "i'm afraid not; it's terribly heavy." "let me help you." the two strained and tugged all to no purpose, when, as he paused to regain his breath and wipe the perspiration from his face, jack said,-"i could cut away part of it if i had an axe." "mine is around here somewhere," bill said with a groan. jack soon found the tool, and, working very cautiously lest he should cause the sufferer yet more pain, chopped here and there to remove the larger twigs, while aunt nancy bathed bill's pale face with her handkerchief wetted in the pond. [illustration: "where are you hurt, william?" asked aunt nancy anxiously.--page 252.] it required nearly half an hour of the most fatiguing labor to perform the task, and then jack said as he threw down the axe,-"when i lift on this end you must try to pull him out, aunt nancy." the first attempt was a failure, but at the second the little woman succeeded, and bill was drawn from his uncomfortable position looking decidedly the worse for wear. "can you stand up?" aunt nancy asked solicitously as she brushed the dirt from bill's hands, and little louis patted his cheek to show he wished to take some part in the rescue, even though it only was to display sympathy. "i'll try," master dean said meekly, and, with the aid of aunt nancy and jack, the sorrowful looking bully arose to his feet. it was positive the bones of his legs were not broken, for he stood erect without difficulty, and, this having been ascertained, aunt nancy proceeded to make a careful examination of his arms and chest. "i do not believe you are seriously injured, william," she said with a sigh of relief. "there can be no doubt but that you will be very lame for a few days; you must bear with it, and thank your father it is no worse." "my father didn't have anything to do with it. he'd given me jesse if he knowed i was here cuttin' down the tree." "i mean your father in heaven, william, who watches over even the sparrow's fall." bill looked rather shamefaced at having made such a mistake, and said as he turned half away from his rescuers,-"i told hunchie i wouldn't bother him any more if he'd help me out, an' i'm goin' to stick to my promise." "it would have been much better if you had arrived at that conclusion before you were in need of assistance," aunt nancy replied gravely. "one should do right because it is his duty, and not as a reward to others." "what's the matter now?" bill asked in surprise. "do you want me to keep on roughin' it into him?" "certainly not, and i am glad you made the promise. what i meant was that it would have been better had you done so because you wished to." "but i didn't till now." "we won't speak of it further now. go home and ask your mother to rub the bruises with liniment. when you feel inclined i would like to have you come to see jack and me." "i ain't goin' 'round to be preached at," bill replied in his old defiant tone. "there was enough of that at camp meetin' to last a feller a month." "i did not see you at the services." "once i had to go when mother caught me jest as the bell was ringin', an' its the last time i'll get in the same box." aunt nancy shook her head sadly. she was discouraged, but not so much as to give up the struggle, for it was her intention to renew it again at a more "convenient season." "we had best go back, jack dear, and william will come to-morrow to tell us how he feels. "i ain't so sure 'bout that, if you're goin' to stuff a feller with a lot of sabbath-school talk," bill said sulkily, as he picked up the axe and started across the fields without further thanks to his kind friends. "he doesn't seem like a very good boy at heart," aunt nancy said sadly, as she raised louis in her arms; "but we must not judge by outward appearances. i almost feel condemned for saying anything when my own sin has not been atoned for. my mind would be much easier if i had seen mr. pratt at the meeting." "it won't take long to fix that," jack replied, noting with sorrow the look of pain which had come over the little woman's face. "it will do jest as well if i go there an' tell him what you wanted to say." "but then you would be where they could easily carry you to the poor farm." "well, s'posen they did, what would that 'mount to side of makin' you feel good? besides, don't you believe mr. souders could make them let me out?" "perhaps he might; i never thought of that." "i'll leave here to-morrow mornin', an' by night be there." "bless your heart, child, i would never think of letting you walk that long distance. if we should make up our minds that it was best to go, and i wish i _could_ have the strength to say it, you'd ride in the cars." "why not decide now?" "because, jack dear, it nearly breaks my heart to think there is a possibility of being obliged to give you up." "well, s'posen we go home an' talk the thing over some other time," jack said with an assumption of cheerfulness which was far from natural. he had suddenly conceived a plan by which the little woman could be relieved without the pain of deciding that it should be so, and there was no more than sufficient time to put it into execution. aunt nancy walked back to the house in a meditative mood, jack talking about the cow and kindred topics to prevent her mind from dwelling upon the dreaded subject. he at once set about doing the chores in an unusually careful manner when they arrived home. a large quantity of wood was brought into the kitchen, an extra amount of water drawn, and the cow given a generous lunch of clover after she had been driven into the stable. "why do you do so much unnecessary work, jack dear?" aunt nancy asked. "there will be nothing left for morning, and it is bad to have 'idle hands.'" "i may as well fix everything now, for you know what you said about puttin' off till to-morrow. say, aunt nancy, would you lend me a lead pencil an' a piece of paper?" "of course, my child. are you going to write a letter?" "yes, aunt nancy, an' you shall see it in the mornin'." "better sit down at the kitchen table. if writing is as much of a task for you as it is for me, you'll need every possible convenience." "i had rather do it in my room, for you see i don't know very much about such things, an' it'll come mighty hard, but you won't care if it don't look very nice, will you?" "certainly not, my child. it could only annoy me because i have not taken advantage of our leisure time to teach you the little i know." "you are always blamin' yourself, aunt nancy, an' i don't like to hear it. i wouldn't let anybody else talk that way about you." for reply the little woman patted the boy on the cheek, and then proposed the nightly search for burglars be made. after the evening devotions aunt nancy gave jack the articles he had asked for, and was considerably surprised by the warmth of the boy's good-night salute. once in his room, jack set about what was for him a formidable task, and it was late before he completed the following:- "dear aunt nancy i am goin to sea the farmer & tell him you r sorry if i dont come back u will no where i am but dont fel bad four i luv u. i carnt stop to milk jack dudley ure jack dear." when this had been done jack looked around the little room as if taking leave of all it contained, wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes, and then dressed, but with his shoes in his hands, crept softly down the stairs. the ticking of the clock sounded strangely loud and unnatural; the silence, save for this clicking noise, was oppressive, and he felt as if he was about to commit some crime against the woman who had befriended him. "it's got to be done, an' i mustn't stand here worryin' about it, or i might back out," he said to himself. it was necessary he should think of aunt nancy's self accusations and sorrow before he could nerve himself to raise the window. he took this method of departing rather than by the door, for he feared the little woman would be alarmed on learning she had remained in the house a portion of the night without every place of egress being securely fastened. once outside he gazed around several moments, taking in all the details of the place where he had spent so many pleasant days, and then, putting on his shoes, he started up the lane with a heart so heavy it seemed a positive burden. the moon shone faintly through the clouds; the night wind murmured mournfully among the trees, and before him could dimly be seen the road he believed led him to the paupers' home by way of mr. pratt's house. chapter xxi. startling information. realizing that he had a long walk before him, jack continued on at a steady pace keeping ever in mind the good he hoped to accomplish. he did not dare dwell upon the possible ending to the journey lest he should grow faint-hearted, but tried to persuade himself there would be some way by which he might escape the threatened ignominy. by starting at midnight, he expected to arrive at scarborough early in the day, and then, in case farmer pratt did not attempt to detain him, it would be possible to return to the farm before sunset. it was not believed he would meet any travellers at that hour, and the loneliness, when the shadows danced to and fro athwart the road like fairy-land monsters, was so great as to make him repent ever having attempted the undertaking. as the curtain of night was slowly removed, and the heralds of the coming morn appeared in the sky, his drooping spirits revived. he listened with interest to the sounds which proclaimed that day was awakening. the birds in their leafy homes began to discuss the propriety of going out in search of the "early worm." the frogs from the watery dwellings called to their children that it was time to be up and doing unless they wanted to remain tadpoles forever, and the wind which came "out of the sea" whispered: awake! it is the day. the leaves bowed and courtesied, the waving grasses bent yet lower their heads, the flowers brought out their sweetest perfumes, and all nature was quivering with excitement because the kindly sun was about to show himself once more. then as the first golden rays of light shot across the sky and the birds burst forth into song, jack felt a certain sense of relief. the words which he had heard aunt nancy speak so often came to his mind, and he repeated over and over again, understanding the meaning better than ever before,-"he doeth all things well." it was but a little past eight o'clock when he turned the corner which led to farmer pratt's house, and the first person he saw was none other than master tom. "hello! where'd you come from?" that young gentleman cried in surprise. "down the road a bit." "why didn't you git back before? father's been lookin' almost everywhere for you an' the baby." "is he still huntin'?" "no, he gave it up as a bad job a good while ago, for there's no chance of gettin' the reward now." "the reward?" jack asked in surprise. "yes; you see the baby's mother went away from portland, an' father don't allow there's anybody in town who cares very much about it after so long a time." "louis' mother in portland?" jack cried, rapidly growing bewildered. "of course; father went in to see her after he made up his mind you'd gone away; but she wasn't there, so he said it would pay him better to 'tend to the farm instead of runnin' 'round after you fellers." jack's eyes were opened wide with astonishment, and tom began to think the hunchback had taken leave of his senses. "what's the matter with you?" he asked sharply, and jack replied slowly,-"i can't make out how mrs. littlefield happened to be in portland when the last i saw of her was on the 'atlanta.' why, the ship was goin' to bremen!" "she come inside the breakwater after you went adrift. it's all in the papers father's got." "why didn't you tell me about it?" jack asked reproachfully. "how could i when we didn't know where you was? me an' father hunted all 'round, but couldn't find hide nor hair of either you or the baby." "was your father tryin' to send us back to mrs. littlefield?" "sure, 'cause he wanted to earn the reward." "an' i've been keepin' out of his way when i might have given louis back to his mother long ago!" jack cried in dismay. "you oughter knowed better." "how could i when he'd threatened to send us to the poor farm?" "but he didn't." "he told aunt nancy so." "who's she?" "a lady we've been livin' with. say, tom, have you got the papers that tell about mrs. littlefield huntin' for us?" "there's a whole slat of 'em down to the house. father spent more'n twenty cents buyin' whatever had anything in it about you." "will you give me one?" "of course. i know they ain't any good, for i heard him say he'd thrown away jest so much money on the pesky things." "let's go right down an' get one," jack cried excitedly as he tried to quicken tom's movements by pulling at his arm. master pratt was not a boy who could be hurried; he objected to moving quickly upon any occasion, however important, and said irritably,-"don't yank a feller 'round so; if i go back now i'm afraid father'll be there an' set me to work." "i'll help you if he does." "a feller like you wouldn't 'mount to much haulin' rock-weed," tom said scornfully. "but i'll help as much as i can. _do_ go, tom; only think what it means to louis! his mother will soon find him if i can take one of the papers back to aunt nancy." "how do you make that out?" "she'd see where to write to mrs. littlefield, an' that would settle the whole thing." "well, i'll go," master pratt said with an air such as he fancied a martyr should wear; "but it's goin' to be mighty hard if i'm set to work after gettin' so far away from home." jack hurried him along as fast as possible, which at the best was a slow pace, and, on arriving at the pratt farm, tom reconnoitred several minutes, determined not to enter the house if his father was on the premises. mr. pratt was nowhere to be seen, and tom whispered,-"you stay here while i run in an' get it. mother may be mad if she sees you hangin' 'round after father has blowed us up so much for lettin' you go away." jack hid himself behind a clump of hollyhocks, and in a few moments tom came back with two papers which showed signs of having been subjected to hard usage. "put 'em in your pocket, an' let's skip." jack was about to act upon this suggestion when it suddenly occurred to him that, in the excitement caused by learning louis' mother was searching for her child, he had forgotten the reason for his visit. "i've got to see your father before i leave," he said. "what for? he won't be very pleasant after losin' all the money the captain's wife was willin' to pay." "i can't help that. i'm here with a message from aunt nancy, an' it must be delivered." "i guess you'll find him down in the potato patch, but i ain't fool enough to go with you. hurry up, an' i'll see you on the road, for i reckon you count on goin' back to that aunt nancy." "of course, an' i must be there as soon as possible." tom pointed out the location of the field, and jack started across the ploughed land feeling very light at heart, because it now seemed probable louis would soon find his mother. farmer pratt was not aware he had a visitor until jack had approached within a couple of yards, and said in a voice which was decidedly shaky,-"good mornin', sir." "hello! it's you, eh?" "yes, sir," jack replied, as if believing the gentleman wished for an answer. "well, you young scoundrel, what have you to say for yourself after cheatin' me out of one hundred dollars? answer me that, you misshapen villain!" "i didn't cheat you, sir." "don't contradict me, you miserable cripple, or as sure's my name's nathan pratt i'll strike you with this hoe!" jack started back in alarm as the farmer raised the tool, and then, hoping to bring the interview to a speedy close, said timidly,-"i came here, sir, to tell you that aunt nancy is awful sorry she acted a lie when you were at the house huntin' for us. she can't be easy in her mind till she's confessed, an' as she couldn't walk so far i've come in her place." "is that the little woman up on the saco road with a couple of curls an' a mighty sharp tongue?" "she's got two curls." "i know her! so she lied to me, eh?" "not exactly, sir, for you didn't ask straight out if we were there; but she's awful good and thinks by not tellin' everything it was the same as a lie, so i come over here to tell you she's sorry." "so she ought to be, the vixen! the idea of a little drop of vinegar like her keepin' that baby away from his mother!" "did you know, then, that louis' mother was huntin' for him?" "of course i did, or else why would i have gone gallivantin' 'round the country lookin' for him?" "then why didn't you tell her? she'd been only too glad to hear from mrs. littlefield, but you made her believe we'd got to be took to the poor farm." the farmer glared at jack for an instant, and then it flashed across his mind that the cause of his losing the reward was the lie he told to aunt nancy. this was not a consoling thought to one who had mourned so deeply over the loss of the prospective money as had mr. pratt, and the only relief he could find was in scolding jack. the cripple listened to his angry words a few seconds, and then, knowing no good could come of waiting, said as he walked away,-"i only came over here to tell you aunt nancy was sorry, an' there's no need of stayin' any longer after you know it." "i'll have her arrested for swindlin' me outer that money!" "she didn't do anything of the kind, an' it's all your own fault you lost it," jack cried, emboldened by the knowledge that he was at a safe distance from the angry man. the farmer shook his fist at the cripple in impotent rage, and jack hurried out to the road where tom was waiting to receive him. "what was goin' on down there?" master pratt asked eagerly. "i heard him hollerin' awful." "it wasn't much. your father was kinder mad, but i guess he'll get over it pretty soon." "i hope so, for he's been scoldin' about losin' the money ever since he first saw the papers. where are you goin' now?" "home." "why don't you hold on a while an' get rested?" "it won't do to stop; aunt nancy'll be worryin' about me, an', besides, we've got to send a letter to louis' mother right away." tom insisted that after the service he had rendered it would be nothing more than a friendly act for the cripple to remain and chat a while, but jack would listen to nothing of the kind. despite his weariness he set out on the return journey at once, but with a lighter heart than when he left aunt nancy's home. it was dark when he came down the lane and found the little woman sitting under the old oak. "o jack dear!" she cried in tones of mingled joy and surprise. "it's really you, and that hard-hearted farmer didn't send you to the poor farm. but perhaps you couldn't find him," she added as the thought occurred to her. "yes i did, an' i told him you was sorry." then jack related the incidents of his journey, reserving until the last the startling news which promised to restore louis to his parents' arms. aunt nancy alternately laughed and cried when she heard the story, and at its conclusion said,-"what a lesson that should be to us, jack dear. if i hadn't acted the lie louis would have seen his mother just so much sooner, and i have been the means of making the poor woman's heart ache longer than was necessary. you thought it wasn't a sin because i didn't _speak_ the words which formed the falsehood, and yet you can now see that increased trouble has been brought about by it." "but mr. pratt told a reg'lar lie." "that doesn't excuse me in the slightest. if every person in the world spoke falsely i couldn't plead that it gave me a right to do so. but come into the house and get something to eat. you must be nearly famished as well as tired." "a slice of bread and butter wouldn't taste bad. where's louis?" "i put him to bed an hour ago," the little woman replied as she led the way in. "after i set the table i'll read the papers you brought so we can find out what's to be done to let that poor woman know where her baby is." jack insisted there was no reason why the table should be laid for him, but aunt nancy would not listen to his proposition of taking the food in his hands. she set out some of the best crockery, and in it placed as tempting a lunch as the most fastidious boy could have asked for. then as jack ate she read the accounts of the accident on board the "atlanta." "it doesn't state here where the captain lives," she said after a while, "but i think i know how we can find mrs. littlefield. i will write a letter to the editor of the paper asking for her address, or perhaps it would save time to send one to her and get him to address it." "the last plan is the best," jack said after some thought. "then i'll write at once, and you shall take it to the post office the first thing in the morning." it was late before the little woman finished what was to her a hard task, and then she thanked her father for his wondrous goodness and mercy in allowing that her sin brought forth no other evil than the delay in restoring the baby to his mother's arms. chapter xxii. the arrival. bright and early on the following morning jack set out for the post office with the letter, and mr. treat would have resumed the "dicker" for the cow immediately after his arrival, but the hunchback prevented him by saying,-"i don't want to buy one now. mrs. souders gave aunt nancy a handsome creature, and that is all she needs." "sho! you don't mean to tell me sarah souders gave one right out?" "that's what she did." "then all i can say is, it's a case of fool an' her money soon parted. why shouldn't aunt nancy pay for things the same as anybody else?" "she hadn't the money." "there's where you make a mistake, for we haven't settled for the wheat yet, an' i've quite a little sum in my hands belongin' to her." "but that must be used in gettin' ready for the summer boarders." "well," mr. treat said with a long-drawn sigh, as if pained because he had been prevented from performing a charitable act, "i can't help it if the old woman wants sich a cow as sarah souders would buy when she can get a good one from me by puttin' out a little money." then the worthy post master took the letter jack handed him, scrutinized it carefully, asked if aunt nancy was thinking of putting an advertisement in the papers for summer boarders, and, on receiving a non-committal answer, finally dropped it in the mail bag. jack had waited to see this last act performed, and when the missive disappeared he hurried home. it so chanced that he did not arrive there as soon as he had expected. while passing mr. dean's house bill came out and hailed him with,-"say, hunchie, is the old maid waitin' for me to come 'round so she can talk sunday school?" "aunt nancy doesn't do anything of the kind. if you knowed her as well as i do you'd be mighty glad to be where she was." "i ain't sayin' that isn't so, an' don't be s'prised if you see me up there pretty soon." "shall i tell her so?" "no, for it might give the old woman too much of a shock. i only thought i'd let you know so's you wouldn't get frightened when i came inter the yard," and with this remark master dean re-entered the house, probably thinking he had paved the way in a very delicate manner for a visit to the little woman whom he had so often held up to ridicule. now that the important letter had really been sent both aunt nancy and jack were in a nervously expectant frame of mind. they were unable to decide whether the editor of the newspaper or mrs. littlefield would write first, and anxiously they awaited for some tidings. jack went to the post office for every mail, and the little woman actually neglected to wipe imaginary specks of dust from the furniture during three whole days. at the expiration of this time both were startled at seeing daniel chick drive up the lane with a strange lady in his wagon. it was at the close of the afternoon, and the two were sitting under the big oak while louis nestled snugly in the little woman's arms. there was no doubt in aunt nancy's mind as to who the stranger might be when she leaped from the carriage, and, seizing the baby in her arms, covered his face with kisses and tears. "it's the dear little fellow's mother," aunt nancy whispered, as she led jack away, "and it is well to leave her alone for a while. she may be hungry, and we must get supper at once. send daniel chick off while i start the fire." it was not an easy matter to dismiss the driver of the vehicle. he had been unable to extract any information from mrs. littlefield, and wanted to know why she had come to aunt nancy's at least three weeks before the summer boarders should arrive. "it's the baby's mother, and we want to leave her alone," jack replied. "i ain't troublin' of her, am i?" and mr. chick crossed one leg over the other as he gazed at the scene. "no; but aunt nancy said you were to go away now," jack persisted, and then, seeing that the gentleman evinced no disposition to leave, he joined the little woman in the house. supper was ready and on the table before mrs. littlefield could relinquish the baby long enough to ask jack for the particulars of his adventures. then when she came to the door aunt nancy said, as her ringlets, sharing the feelings of the wearer, shook with suppressed excitement,-"i hope you will have something to eat. you must be hungry by this time, and louis shall sit with me while you are at the table." as she spoke the little woman held out her hands invitingly to the baby, and he showed every desire to go to her. "it can be plainly seen that my darling has had a good home," mrs. littlefield replied as she kissed him again and again. "he has been loved perhaps better than in a house where there were other children; but almost any one would have given him the same treatment." "i am afraid not; both he and jack have been very fortunate. now i will take a cup of tea, but had rather hold him myself." aunt nancy beckoned for jack to be seated although it was not more than two hours since he had eaten supper, and when the little woman's head was bowed in devotion she fervently thanked her father for his wondrous goodness and mercy in allowing the mother and child to meet again in this world. during the meal mrs. littlefield asked jack to tell the story of his wanderings, and he gave them in detail, not omitting an account of farmer pratt's determination to send them to the poor farm. "i shall never be able to repay you for all you have done, my boy," louis' mother said feelingly when the cripple concluded. "you are to go back with me, and i will take care that you have a good home." jack had nothing to say in regard to this. it seemed only natural he should remain with louis after all that had happened, but the idea of leaving the farm was not a pleasant one. he had known mrs. littlefield only during such time as she was on shipboard, and while she had been kind to him it was as nothing compared with what he experienced during his stay with aunt nancy. very much was said regarding the children's adventures. aunt nancy was thanked over and over again for all her kindness, and then louis' mother intimated that she would like to retire. "i wish to leave here on the first train to-morrow morning, and have travelled so long that rest seems necessary now." the little woman conducted her guest to another apartment, and then, with jack's assistance, the kitchen was made tidy once more. louis was nestling in his mother's arms in the lavender-scented bed which aunt nancy kept especially for "company," and the little woman and jack were under the big oak together for what both believed would be the last time. "you must think sometimes, jack dear, of the poor old maid who is sitting out here at this same hour wondering where in the big world her boy and baby are." "there won't come a day or evening, aunt nancy, when i sha'n't think of you, and remember you are the best friend i or any other boy ever had. you see i can't say what is in my heart, but if i could you'd know i'd never forget how good you've been to me." "the little i have done, jack dear, was only my duty, and you have paid me a thousand fold for everything. i haven't been so contented for many years as since you came here, and but for the wrong committed when mr. pratt called i should have been perfectly happy." "i'm glad you liked me," jack said half to himself, "for if you hadn't i wouldn't have known what a real home was like. it kinder seems as if i belonged here." "you _do_ act the same as own folks, and i wonder if mrs. littlefield will take as much comfort with you as i have?" "but i'm not goin' to stay at her house very long. when the captain comes home i shall get work on board the 'atlanta' again. folks won't keep me for an ornament, you know, an' i must earn my own livin'." "do you like to go to sea?" "well, there's some things about it that's pleasanter than stayin' ashore. the sailors are kinder than the boys in town, an' don't call me 'hunchie,' or names of that sort." aunt nancy remained silent, as if in deep thought, several moments, and then said abruptly,-"you certainly ought to go to school a portion of the time, jack dear." "i s'pose i had, for i don't know scarcely anything, an' never had a chance to learn." "can you read?" "if the words ain't too long; but in printin' there are so few short ones, that i don't seem to find out what the man who made it meant." "i should have taught you instead of sitting here idle; but we couldn't have accomplished a great deal since you came." "you've had enough to do without botherin' about me." "but, jack, you can do a great deal by yourself. before you go away i want to give you a little money, and with some of it you must buy a school book. then study a certain portion of it each day, until there is no difficulty in reading any ordinary print. after that will be time enough to take up other branches, and writing must come with the reading, as i shall look very anxiously for a letter in your own hand." "i'll do the best i can, aunt nancy, but i don't want you to give me any money. you haven't much to spare, and that i know." "i shall share it with you, jack dear, and you mustn't make any objection, for after you have gone i shall feel better to know you are able to buy what little you may want." then aunt nancy drew from her pocket a small black book which she handed to the boy as she said in a low tone,-"this was my father's bible, and the print is so faint that i can no longer read it even with glasses." "hadn't you rather keep it? it was your father's." "no, dear. i have one as you know, and this can be put to no better service than teaching you the right way. for my sake, jack, become a good man. shun evil company, and do unto others as you would they should do unto you. i haven't set a very good example in that way since you came here; but you have a better temper than i, and for that more is expected. don't be tempted to tell a lie, and then you'll never feel as i have since mr. pratt called." "i'll remember all you say, aunt nancy, and it would be a mighty ungrateful feller who'd do anything he thought would make you feel bad." then ensued another long interval of silence, during which the sun finished his work of painting the clouds, and had sunk behind the hills. "it'll come pretty hard not to see you at night," jack finally said thoughtfully. "will it, really?" the little woman asked eagerly. "of course," and jack looked up in surprise that such a question should have been asked. "i don't s'pose i'll ever find a home as nice as this." "and would you be willing to stay here?" "indeed i would if i could get work to pay my way." "don't you think it would be lonely when winter comes, and you would be obliged to remain a greater portion of the time in the house?" "not if you was here." "then, jack, i am going to say something i thought ought not to be spoken of for fear you might do it simply to please me. why not stay?" "but i can't find any work 'round here, aunt nancy." "you have contrived to get plenty from the first night i saw you. if this home seems pleasant there is no reason why you should leave it, and when the white winged messengers come to carry me to the father, the little i leave behind shall be yours. it isn't much, jack dear, but would keep you from want, and a delicate boy like you is not able to fight the hard world. if you were strong and well the case would be different." jack drew a long breath as if the pleasurable surprise was almost overpowering, and then asked slowly,-"do you really want me to live here?" "do i want you? if you say you will stay the pain which is now in my heart will go away in an instant, and i would be the happiest old woman in the state." "then there'll be two feelin' mighty good, aunt nancy, for i'm only too glad of the chance." the little woman kissed him tenderly, which told better than words that the invitation really came from the heart. not until a late hour that night did the tiny woman and the cripple leave the bench under the old oak. aunt nancy had many plans for the future, chief among which was giving jack an education, and he speculated upon the possibility of tilling so much of the farm during the coming season as would give him a small income. all this was so interesting that for the first time in her life aunt nancy came very near forgetting to search the house for supposed burglars. "mercy on us, jack! it must be near midnight, and we haven't looked into a single room yet. i am so excited i hardly know what i'm about." "i don't believe there would be any harm done if we didn't search the place for a week," jack said with a merry laugh; "but we'll go through the motions all the same." on the following morning there was very little opportunity for a lengthy conversation upon the change in the plans as arranged by aunt nancy and jack. when she made known the fact that the cripple would remain with her, mrs. littlefield approved heartily of it. "i am positive he couldn't have a better home," she said, "and will take it upon myself to see he is not a burden. that much i owe him, if nothing more, for all he did to make my baby happy and comfortable." "i am not a rich woman, mrs. littlefield," aunt nancy said with considerable dignity, "but i can care for the dear boy while i live." this concluded the subject, for at that moment daniel chick arrived to take the visitor to the station, and aunt nancy and jack could think of nothing save the parting with the little fellow they had learned to love so dearly. louis crowed and laughed at the prospect of a ride, and aunt nancy said sadly when he disappeared around the corner of the lane,-"it almost seems as if he was glad to go away from us, jack dear." "i reckon the farm will be kinder lonesome for a day or two, but he's with his mother, an' that's where he belongs." "yes, dear, we mustn't repine. the day will soon come for me when i go away to my father, and then you must think the same, for i shall be many times happier in the eternal city than the baby is now. it will be a lonely time for you, jack dear, but only for a short while, after which the old maid and the cripple will be in the glory and splendor of god's own light." then aunt nancy kissed jack affectionately as she drew him to the favorite seat, and, under the old oak where so many happy as well as sad hours have been spent, will we bid adieu to the hunchback and his best earthly friend. the end. a. l. burt's publications for young people by popular writers. 52-58 duarte street, new york. =bonnie prince charlie=: a tale of fontenoy and culloden. by g. a. henty. with 12 full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the adventures of the son of a scotch officer in french service. the boy, brought up by a glasgow bailie, is a arrested for aiding a jacobite agent, escapes, is wrecked on the french coast, reaches paris, and serves with the french army at dettingen. he kills his father's foe in a duel, and escaping to the coast, shares the adventures of prince charlie, but finally settles happily in scotland. "ronald, the hero, is very like the hero of 'quentin durward.' the lad's journey across france, and his hairbreadth escapes, make up as good a narrative of the kind as we have ever read. for freshness of treatment and variety of incident mr. henty has surpassed himself."--_spectator._ =with clive in india=; or, the beginnings of an empire. by g. a. henty. with 12 full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the period between the landing of clive as a young writer in india and the close of his career was critical and eventful in the extreme. at its commencement the english were traders existing on sufferance of the native princes. at its close they were masters of bengal and of the greater part of southern india. the author has given a full and accurate account of the events of that stirring time, and battles and sieges follow each other in rapid succession, while he combines with his narrative a tale of daring and adventure, which gives a lifelike interest to the volume. "he has taken a period of indian history of the most vital importance, and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of itself is deeply interesting. young people assuredly will be delighted with the volume."--_scotsman._ =the lion of the north=: a tale of gustavus adolphus and the wars of religion. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by john schã�nberg. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. in this story mr. henty gives the history of the first part of the thirty years' war. the issue had its importance, which has extended to the present day, as it established religious freedom in germany. the army of the chivalrous king of sweden was largely composed of scotchmen, and among these was the hero of the story. "the tale is a clever and instructive piece of history, and as boys may be trusted to read it conscientiously, they can hardly fail to be profited."--_times._ =the dragon and the raven;= or, the days of king alfred. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by c. j. staniland. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. in this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle between saxon and dane for supremacy in england, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. the hero, a young saxon thane, takes part in all the battles fought by king alfred. he is driven from his home, takes to the sea and resists the danes on their own element, and being pursued by them up the seine, is present at the long and desperate siege of paris. "treated in a manner most attractive to the boyish reader."--_athenã¦um._ =the young carthaginian=: a story of the times of hannibal. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by c. j. staniland, r.i. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. boys reading the history of the punic wars have seldom a keen appreciation of the merits of the contest. that it was at first a struggle for empire, and afterward for existence on the part of carthage, that hannibal was a great and skillful general, that he defeated the romans at trebia, lake trasimenus, and cannã¦, and all but took rome, represents pretty nearly the sum total of their knowledge. to let them know more about this momentous struggle for the empire of the world mr. henty has written this story, which not only gives in graphic style a brilliant description of a most interesting period of history, but is a tale of exciting adventure sure to secure the interest of the reader. "well constructed and vividly told. from first to last nothing stays the interest of the narrative. it bears us along as on a stream whose current varies in direction, but never loses its force."--_saturday review._ =in freedom's cause=: a story of wallace and bruce. by g. a. henty. with full page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. in this story the author relates the stirring tale of the scottish war of independence. the extraordinary valor and personal prowess of wallace and bruce rival the deeds of the mythical heroes of chivalry, and indeed at one time wallace was ranked with these legendary personages. the researches of modern historians have shown, however, that he was a living, breathing man--and a valiant champion. the hero of the tale fought under both wallace and bruce, and while the strictest historical accuracy has been maintained with respect to public events, the work is full of "hairbreadth 'scapes" and wild adventure. "it is written in the author's best style. full of the wildest and most remarkable achievements, it is a tale of great interest, which a boy, once he has begun it, will not willingly put on one side."--_the schoolmaster._ =with lee in virginia=: a story of the american civil war. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the story of a young virginian planter, who, after bravely proving his sympathy with the slaves of brutal masters, serves with no less courage and enthusiasm under lee and jackson through the most exciting events of the struggle. he has many hairbreadth escapes, is several times wounded and twice taken prisoner; but his courage and readiness and, in two cases, the devotion of a black servant and of a runaway slave whom he had assisted, bring him safely through all difficulties. "one of the best stories for lads which mr. henty has yet written. the picture is full of life and color, and the stirring and romantic incidents are skillfully blended with the personal interest and charm of the story."--_standard._ =by england's aid=; or, the freeing of the netherlands (1585-1604) by g.a. henty. with full-page illustrations by alfred pearse, and maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the story of two english lads who go to holland as pages in the service of one of "the fighting veres." after many adventures by sea and land, one of the lads finds himself on board a spanish ship at the time of the defeat of the armada, and escapes only to fall into the hands of the corsairs. he is successful in getting back to spain under the protection of a wealthy merchant, and regains his native country after the capture of cadiz. "it is an admirable book for youngsters. it overflows with stirring incident and exciting adventure, and the color of the era and of the scene are finely reproduced. the illustrations add to its attractiveness."--_boston gazette._ =by right of conquest=; or, with cortez in mexico. by g. a. henty. with full page illustrations by w. s. stacey, and two maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.50. the conquest of mexico by a small band of resolute men under the magnificent leadership of cortez is always rightly ranked among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. with this as the groundwork of his story mr. henty has interwoven the adventures of an english youth, roger hawkshaw, the sole survivor of the good ship swan, which had sailed from a devon port to challenge the mercantile supremacy of the spaniards in the new world. he is beset by many perils among the natives, but is saved by his own judgment and strength, and by the devotion of an aztec princess. at last by a ruse he obtains the protection of the spaniards, and after the fall of mexico he succeeds in regaining his native shore, with a fortune and a charming aztec bride. "'by right of conquest' is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful historical tale that mr. henty has yet published."--_academy._ =in the reign of terror=: the adventures of a westminster boy by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by j. schã�nberg. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. harry sandwith, a westminster boy, becomes a resident at the chateau of a french marquis, and after various adventures accompanies the family to paris at the crisis of the revolution. imprisonment and death reduce their number, and the hero finds himself beset by perils with the three young daughters of the house in his charge. after hairbreadth escapes they reach nantes. there the girls are condemned to death in the coffin-ships, but are saved by the unfailing courage of their boy protector. "harry sandwith, the westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat mr. henty's record. his adventures will delight boys by the audacity and peril they depict.... the story is one of mr. henty's best."--_saturday review._ =with wolfe in canada=; or, the winning of a continent. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. in the present volume mr. henty gives an account of the struggle between britain and france for supremacy in the north american continent. on the issue of this war depended not only the destinies of north america, but to a large extent those of the mother countries themselves. the fall of quebec decided that the anglo-saxon race should predominate in the new world; that britain, and not france, should take the lead among the nations of europe; and that english and american commerce, the english language, and english literature, should spread right round the globe. "it is not only a lesson in history as instructively as it is graphically told, but also a deeply interesting and often thrilling tale of adventure and peril by flood and field."--_illustrated london news._ =true to the old flag=: a tale of the american war of independence. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. in this story the author has gone to the accounts of officers who took part in the conflict, and lads will find that in no war in which american and british soldiers have been engaged did they behave with greater courage and good conduct. the historical portion of the book being accompanied with numerous thrilling adventures with the redskins on the shores of lake huron, a story of exciting interest is interwoven with the general narrative and carried through the book. "does justice to the pluck and determination of the british soldiers during the unfortunate struggle against american emancipation. the son of an american loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile redskins in that very huron country which has been endeared to us by the exploits of hawkeye and chingachgook."--_the times._ =the lion of st. mark=: a tale of venice in the fourteenth century. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a story of venice at a period when her strength and splendor were put to the severest tests. the hero displays a fine sense and manliness which carry him safely through an atmosphere of intrigue, crime, and bloodshed. he contributes largely to the victories of the venetians at porto d'anzo and chioggia, and finally wins the hand of the daughter of one of the chief men of venice. "every boy should read 'the lion of st. mark.' mr. henty has never produced a story more delightful, more wholesome, or more vivacious."--_saturday review._ =a final reckoning=: a tale of bush life in australia. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by w. b. wollen. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the hero, a young english lad, after rather a stormy boyhood emigrates to australia, and gets employment as an officer in the mounted police. a few years of active work on the frontier, where he has many a brush with both natives and bushrangers, gain him promotion to a captaincy, and he eventually settles down to the peaceful life of a squatter. "mr. henty has never published a more readable, a more carefully constructed, or a better written story than this."--_spectator._ =under drake's flag=: a tale of the spanish main. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a story of the days when england and spain struggled for the supremacy of the sea. the heroes sail as lads with drake in the pacific expedition, and in his great voyage of circumnavigation. the historical portion of the story is absolutely to be relied upon, but this will perhaps be less attractive than the great variety of exciting adventure through which the young heroes pass in the course of their voyages. "a book of adventure, where the hero meets with experience enough, one would think, to turn his hair gray."--_harper's monthly magazine._ =by sheer pluck=: a tale of the ashanti war. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the details of the ashanti campaign, of which he was himself a witness. his hero, after many exciting adventures in the interior, is detained a prisoner by the king just before the outbreak of the war, but escapes, and accompanies the english expedition on their march to coomassie. "mr. henty keeps up his reputation as a writer of boys' stories. 'by sheer pluck' will be eagerly read."--_athenã¦um._ =by pike and dyke=: a tale of the rise of the dutch republic. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by maynard brown, and 4 maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. in this story mr. henty traces the adventures and brave deeds of an english boy in the household of the ablest man of his age--william the silent. edward martin, the son of an english sea-captain, enters the service of the prince as a volunteer, and is employed by him in many dangerous and responsible missions, in the discharge of which he passes through the great sieges of the time. he ultimately settles down as sir edward martin. "boys with a turn for historical research will be enchanted with the book, while the rest who only care for adventure, will be students in spite of themselves."--_st. james' gazette._ =st. george for england=: a tale of cressy and poitiers. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. no portion of english history is more crowded with great events than that of the reign of edward iii. cressy and poitiers; the destruction of the spanish fleet; the plague of the black death; the jacquerie rising; these are treated by the author in "st. george for england." the hero of the story, although of good family, begins life as a london apprentice, but after countless adventures and perils becomes by valor and good conduct the squire, and at last the trusted friend of the black prince. "mr. henty has developed for himself a type of historical novel for boys which bids fair to supplement, on their behalf, the historical labors of sir walter scott in the land of fiction."--_the standard._ =captain's kidd's gold=: the true story of an adventurous sailor boy. by james franklin fitts. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. there is something fascinating to the average youth in the very idea of buried treasure. a vision arises before his eyes of swarthy portuguese and spanish rascals, with black beards and gleaming eyes--sinister-looking fellows who once on a time haunted the spanish main, sneaking out from some hidden creek in their long, low schooner, of picaroonish rake and sheer, to attack an unsuspecting trading craft. there were many famous sea rovers in their day, but none more celebrated than capt. kidd. perhaps the most fascinating tale of all is mr. fitts' true story of an adventurous american boy, who receives from his dying father an ancient bit of vellum, which the latter obtained in a curious way. the document bears obscure directions purporting to locate a certain island in the bahama group, and a considerable treasure buried there by two of kidd's crew. the hero of this book, paul jones garry, is an ambitious, persevering lad, of salt-water new england ancestry, and his efforts to reach the island and secure the money form one of the most absorbing tales for our youth that has come from the press. =captain bayley's heir=: a tale of the gold fields of california. by g.a. henty. with full-page illustrations by h. m. paget. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a frank, manly lad and his cousin are rivals in the heirship of a considerable property. the former falls into a trap laid by the latter, and while under a false accusation of theft foolishly leaves england for america. he works his passage before the mast, joins a small band of hunters, crosses a tract of country infested with indians to the californian gold diggings, and is successful both as digger and trader. "mr. henty is careful to mingle instruction with entertainment; and the humorous touches, especially in the sketch of john holl, the westminster dustman, dickens himself could hardly have excelled."--_christian leader._ =for name and fame=; or, through afghan passes. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. an interesting story of the last war in afghanistan. the hero, after being wrecked and going through many stirring adventures among the malays, finds his way to calcutta and enlists in a regiment proceeding to join the army at the afghan passes. he accompanies the force under general roberts to the peiwar kotal, is wounded, taken prisoner, carried to cabul, whence he is transferred to candahar, and takes part in the final defeat of the army of ayoub khan. "the best feature of the book--apart from the interest of its scenes of adventure--is its honest effort to do justice to the patriotism of the afghan people."--_daily news._ =captured by apes=: the wonderful adventures of a young animal trainer. by harry prentice. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. the scene of this tale is laid on an island in the malay archipelago. philip garland, a young animal collector and trainer, of new york, sets sail for eastern seas in quest of a new stock of living curiosities. the vessel is wrecked off the coast of borneo and young garland, the sole survivor of the disaster, is cast ashore on a small island, and captured by the apes that overrun the place. the lad discovers that the ruling spirit of the monkey tribe is a gigantic and vicious baboon, whom he identifies as goliah, an animal at one time in his possession and with whose instruction he had been especially diligent. the brute recognizes him, and with a kind of malignant satisfaction puts his former master through the same course of training he had himself experienced with a faithfulness of detail which shows how astonishing is monkey recollection. very novel indeed is the way by which the young man escapes death. mr. prentice has certainly worked a new vein on juvenile fiction, and the ability with which he handles a difficult subject stamps him as a writer of undoubted skill. =the bravest of the brave=; or, with peterborough in spain. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by h. m. paget. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. there are few great leaders whose lives and actions have so completely fallen into oblivion as those of the earl of peterborough. this is largely due to the fact that they were over-shadowed by the glory and successes of marlborough. his career as general extended over little more than a year, and yet, in that time, he showed a genius for warfare which has never been surpassed. "mr. henty never loses sight of the moral purpose of his work--to enforce the doctrine of courage and truth. lads will read 'the bravest of the brave' with pleasure and profit; of that we are quite sure."--_daily telegraph._ =the cat of bubastes=: a story of ancient egypt. by g. a. henty. with full page illustrations. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a story which will give young readers an unsurpassed insight into the customs of the egyptian people. amuba, a prince of the rebu nation, is carried with his charioteer jethro into slavery. they become inmates of the house of ameres, the egyptian high-priest, and are happy in his service until the priest's son accidentally kills the sacred cat of bubastes. in an outburst of popular fury ameres is killed, and it rests with jethro and amuba to secure the escape of the high-priest's son and daughter. "the story, from the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat to the perilous exodus into asia with which it closes, is very skillfully constructed and full of exciting adventures. it is admirably illustrated."--_saturday review._ =with washington at monmouth:= a story of three philadelphia boys. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. three philadelphia boys, seth graydon "whose mother conducted a boarding-house which was patronized by the british officers;" enoch ball, "son of that mrs. ball whose dancing school was situated on letitia street," and little jacob, son of "chris, the baker," serve as the principal characters. the story is laid during the winter when lord howe held possession of the city, and the lads aid the cause by assisting the american spies who make regular and frequent visits from valley forge. one reads here of home-life in the captive city when bread was scarce among the people of the lower classes, and a reckless prodigality shown by the british officers, who passed the winter in feasting and merry-making while the members of the patriot army but a few miles away were suffering from both cold and hunger. the story abounds with pictures of colonial life skillfully drawn, and the glimpses of washington's soldiers which are given show that the work has not been hastily done, or without considerable study. =for the temple=: a tale of the fall of jerusalem. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by s. j. solomon. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. mr. henty here weaves into the record of josephus an admirable and attractive story. the troubles in the district of tiberias, the march of the legions, the sieges of jotapata, of gamala, and of jerusalem, form the impressive and carefully studied historic setting to the figure of the lad who passes from the vineyard to the service of josephus, becomes the leader of a guerrilla band of patriots, fights bravely for the temple, and after a brief term of slavery at alexandria, returns to his galilean home with the favor of titus. "mr. henty's graphic prose pictures of the hopeless jewish resistance to roman sway add another leaf to his record of the famous wars of the world."--_graphic._ =facing death=; or, the hero of the vaughan pit. a tale of the coal mines. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by gordon browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "facing death" is a story with a purpose. it is intended to show that a lad who makes up his mind firmly and resolutely that he will rise in life, and who is prepared to face toil and ridicule and hardship to carry out his determination, is sure to succeed. the hero of the story is a typical british boy, dogged, earnest, generous, and though "shamefaced" to a degree, is ready to face death in the discharge of duty. "the tale is well written and well illustrated, and there is much reality in the characters. if any father, clergyman, or schoolmaster is on the lookout for a good book to give as a present to a boy who is worth his salt, this is the book we would recommend."--_standard._ =tom temple's career.= by horatio alger. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. tom temple, a bright, self-reliant lad, by the death of his father becomes a boarder at the home of nathan middleton, a penurious insurance agent. though well paid for keeping the boy, nathan and his wife endeavor to bring master tom in line with their parsimonious habits. the lad ingeniously evades their efforts and revolutionizes the household. as tom is heir to $40,000, he is regarded as a person of some importance until by an unfortunate combination of circumstances his fortune shrinks to a few hundreds. he leaves plympton village to seek work in new york, whence he undertakes an important mission to california, around which center the most exciting incidents of his young career. some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until the last page shall have been reached. the tale is written in mr. alger's most fascinating style, and is bound to please the very large class of boys who regard this popular author as a prime favorite. =maori and settler=: a story of the new zealand war. by g. a. henty. with full-page illustrations by alfred pearse. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the renshaws emigrate to new zealand during the period of the war with the natives. wilfrid, a strong, self-reliant, courageous lad, is the mainstay of the household. he has for his friend mr. atherton, a botanist and naturalist of herculean strength and unfailing nerve and humor. in the adventures among the maoris, there are many breathless moments in which the odds seem hopelessly against the party, but they succeed in establishing themselves happily in one of the pleasant new zealand valleys. "brimful of adventure, of humorous and interesting conversation, and vivid pictures of colonial life."--_schoolmaster._ =julian mortimer=: a brave boy's struggle for home and fortune. by harry castlemon. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. here is a story that will warm every boy's heart. there is mystery enough to keep any lad's imagination wound up to the highest pitch. the scene of the story lies west of the mississippi river, in the days when emigrants made their perilous way across the great plains to the land of gold. one of the startling features of the book is the attack upon the wagon train by a large party of indians. our hero is a lad of uncommon nerve and pluck, a brave young american in every sense of the word. he enlists and holds the reader's sympathy from the outset. surrounded by an unknown and constant peril, and assisted by the unswerving fidelity of a stalwart trapper, a real rough diamond, our hero achieves the most happy results. harry castlemon has written many entertaining stories for boys, and it would seem almost superfluous to say anything in his praise, for the youth of america regard him as a favorite author. ="carrots:"= just a little boy. by mrs. molesworth. with illustrations by walter crane. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "one of the cleverest and most pleasing stories it has been our good fortune to meet with for some time. carrots and his sister are delightful little beings, whom to read about is at once to become very fond of."--_examiner._ "a genuine children's book; we've seen 'em seize it, and read it greedily. children are first-rate critics, and thoroughly appreciate walter crane's illustrations."--_punch._ =mopsa the fairy.= by jean ingelow. with eight page illustrations. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "mrs. ingelow is, to our mind, the most charming of all living writers for children, and 'mopsa' alone ought to give her a kind of pre-emptive right to the love and gratitude of our young folks. it requires genius to conceive a purely imaginary work which must of necessity deal with the supernatural, without running into a mere riot of fantastic absurdity; but genius miss ingelow has and the story of 'jack' is as careless and joyous, but as delicate as a picture of childhood."--_eclectic._ =a jaunt through java=: the story of a journey to the sacred mountain. by edward s. ellis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the central interest of this story is found in the thrilling adventures of two cousins, hermon and eustace hadley, on their trip across the island of java, from samarang to the sacred mountain. in a land where the royal bengal tiger runs at large; where the rhinoceros and other fierce beasts are to be met with at unexpected moments; it is but natural that the heroes of this book should have a lively experience. hermon not only distinguishes himself by killing a full grown tiger at short range, but meets with the most startling adventure of the journey. there is much in this narrative to instruct as well as entertain the reader, and so deftly has mr. ellis used his material that there is not a dull page in the book. the two heroes are brave, manly young fellows, bubbling over with boyish independence. they cope with the many difficulties that arise during the trip in a fearless way that is bound to win the admiration of every lad who is so fortunate as to read their adventures. =wrecked on spider island=; or, how ned rogers found the treasure. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a "down-east" plucky lad who ships as cabin boy, not from love of adventure, but because it is the only course remaining by which he can gain a livelihood. while in his bunk, seasick, ned rogers hears the captain and mate discussing their plans for the willful wreck of the brig in order to gain the insurance. once it is known he is in possession of the secret the captain maroons him on spider island, explaining to the crew that the boy is afflicted with leprosy. while thus involuntarily playing the part of a crusoe, ned discovers a wreck submerged in the sand, and overhauling the timbers for the purpose of gathering material with which to build a hut finds a considerable amount of treasure. raising the wreck; a voyage to havana under sail; shipping there a crew and running for savannah; the attempt of the crew to seize the little craft after learning of the treasure on board, and, as a matter of course, the successful ending of the journey, all serve to make as entertaining a story of sea life as the most captious boy could desire. =geoff and jim=: a story of school life. by ismay thorn. illustrated by a. g. walker. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "this is a prettily told story of the life spent by two motherless bairns at a small preparatory school. both geoff and jim are very lovable characters, only jim is the more so; and the scrapes he gets into and the trials he endures will, no doubt, interest a large circle of young readers."--_church times._ "this is a capital children's story, the characters well portrayed, and the book tastefully bound and well illustrated."--_schoolmaster._ "the story can be heartily recommended as a present for boys."--_standard._ =the castaways=; or, on the florida reefs. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. this tale smacks of the salt sea. it is just the kind of story that the majority of boys yearn for. from the moment that the sea queen dispenses with the services of the tug in lower new york bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward, and feel her rise to the snow-capped waves which her sharp bow cuts into twin streaks of foam. off marquesas keys she floats in a dead calm. ben clark, the hero of the story, and jake, the cook, spy a turtle asleep upon the glassy surface of the water. they determine to capture him, and take a boat for that purpose, and just as they succeed in catching him a thick fog cuts them off from the vessel, and then their troubles begin. they take refuge on board a drifting hulk, a storm arises and they are cast ashore upon a low sandy key. their adventures from this point cannot fail to charm the reader. as a writer for young people mr. otis is a prime favorite. his style is captivating, and never for a moment does he allow the interest to flag. in "the castaways" he is at his best. =tom thatcher's fortune.= by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. like all of mr. alger's heroes, tom thatcher is a brave, ambitious, unselfish boy. he supports his mother and sister on meager wages earned as a shoe-pegger in john simpson's factory. the story begins with tom's discharge from the factory, because mr. simpson felt annoyed with the lad for interrogating him too closely about his missing father. a few days afterward tom learns that which induces him to start overland for california with the view of probing the family mystery. he meets with many adventures. ultimately he returns to his native village, bringing consternation to the soul of john simpson, who only escapes the consequences of his villainy by making full restitution to the man whose friendship he had betrayed. the story is told in that entertaining way which has made mr. alger's name a household word in so many homes. =birdie=: a tale of child life. by h. l. childe-pemberton. illustrated by h. w. rainey. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "the story is quaint and simple, but there is a freshness about it that makes one hear again the ringing laugh and the cheery shout of children at play which charmed his earlier years."--_new york express._ =popular fairy tales.= by the brothers grimm. profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "from first to last, almost without exception, these stories are delightful."--_athenã¦um._ =with lafayette at yorktown=: a story of how two boys joined the continental army. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the two boys are from portsmouth, n. h., and are introduced in august, 1781, when on the point of leaving home to enlist in col. scammell's regiment, then stationed near new york city. their method of traveling is on horseback, and the author has given an interesting account of what was expected from boys in the colonial days. the lads, after no slight amount of adventure, are sent as messengers--not soldiers--into the south to find the troops under lafayette. once with that youthful general they are given employment as spies, and enter the british camp, bringing away valuable information. the pictures of camp-life are carefully drawn, and the portrayal of lafayette's character is thoroughly well done. the story is wholesome in tone, as are all of mr. otis' works. there is no lack of exciting incident which the youthful reader craves, but it is healthful excitement brimming with facts which every boy should be familiar with, and while the reader is following the adventures of ben jaffreys and ned allen he is acquiring a fund of historical lore which will remain in his memory long after that which he has memorized from text-books has been forgotten. =lost in the canon=: sam willett's adventures on the great colorado. by alfred r. calhoun. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. this story hinges on a fortune left to sam willett, the hero, and the fact that it will pass to a disreputable relative if the lad dies before he shall have reached his majority. the vigilance committee of hurley's gulch arrest sam's father and an associate for the crime of murder. their lives depend on the production of the receipt given for money paid. this is in sam's possession at the camp on the other side of the caã±on. a messenger is dispatched to get it. he reaches the lad in the midst of a fearful storm which floods the caã±on. his father's peril urges sam to action. a raft is built on which the boy and his friends essay to cross the torrent. they fail to do so, and a desperate trip down the stream ensues. how the party finally escape from the horrors of their situation and sam reaches hurley's gulch in the very nick of time, is described in a graphic style that stamps mr. calhoun as a master of his art. =jack=: a topsy turvy story. by c. m. crawley-boevey. with upward of thirty illustrations by h. j. a. miles. 12mo, cloth, price 75 cents. "the illustrations deserve particular mention, as they add largely to the interest of this amusing volume for children. jack falls asleep with his mind full of the subject of the fishpond, and is very much surprised presently to find himself an inhabitant of waterworld, where he goes though wonderful and edifying adventures. a handsome and pleasant book."--_literary world._ =search for the silver city=: a tale of adventure in yucatan. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. two american lads, teddy wright and neal emery, embark on the steam yacht day dream for a short summer cruise to the tropics. homeward bound the yacht is destroyed by fire. all hands take to the boats, but during the night the boat is cast upon the coast of yucatan. they come across a young american named cummings, who entertains them with the story of the wonderful silver city, of the chan santa cruz indians. cummings proposes with the aid of a faithful indian ally to brave the perils of the swamp and carry off a number of the golden images from the temples. pursued with relentless vigor for days their situation is desperate. at last their escape is effected in an astonishing manner. mr. otis has built his story on an historical foundation. it is so full of exciting incidents that the reader is quite carried away with the novelty and realism of the narrative. =frank fowler, the cash boy.= by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. thrown upon his own resources frank fowler, a poor boy, bravely determines to make a living for himself and his foster-sister grace. going to new york he obtains a situation as cash boy in a dry goods store. he renders a service to a wealthy old gentleman named wharton, who takes a fancy to the lad. frank, after losing his place as cash boy, is enticed by an enemy to a lonesome part of new jersey and held a prisoner. this move recoils upon the plotter, for it leads to a clue that enables the lad to establish his real identity. mr. alger's stories are not only unusually interesting, but they convey a useful lesson of pluck and manly independence. =budd boyd's triumph=; or, the boy firm of fox island. by william p. chipman. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the scene of this story is laid on the upper part of narragansett bay, and the leading incidents have a strong salt water flavor. owing to the conviction of his father for forgery and theft, budd boyd is compelled to leave his home and strike out for himself. chance brings budd in contact with judd floyd. the two boys, being ambitious and clear sighted, form a partnership to catch and sell fish. the scheme is successfully launched, but the unexpected appearance on the scene of thomas bagsley, the man whom budd believes guilty of the crimes attributed to his father, leads to several disagreeable complications that nearly caused the lad's ruin. his pluck and good sense, however, carry him through his troubles. in following the career of the boy firm of boyd & floyd, the youthful reader will find a useful lesson--that industry and perseverance are bound to lead to ultimate success. =the errand boy=; or, how phil brent won success. by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the career of "the errand boy" embraces the city adventures of a smart country lad who at an early age was abandoned by his father. philip was brought up by a kind-hearted innkeeper named brent. the death of mrs. brent paved the way for the hero's subsequent troubles. accident introduces him to the notice of a retired merchant in new york, who not only secures him the situation of errand boy but thereafter stands as his friend. an unexpected turn of fortune's wheel, however, brings philip and his father together. in "the errand boy" philip brent is possessed of the same sterling qualities so conspicuous in all of the previous creations of this delightful writer for our youth. =the slate picker=: the story of a boy's life in the coal mines. by harry prentice. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. this is a story of a boy's life in the coal mines of pennsylvania. there are many thrilling situations, notably that of ben burton's leap into the "lion's mouth"--the yawning shute in the breakers--to escape a beating at the hands of the savage spilkins, the overseer. gracie gordon is a little angel in rags, terence o'dowd is a manly, sympathetic lad, and enoch evans, the miner-poet, is a big-hearted, honest fellow, a true friend to all whose burdens seem too heavy for them to bear. ben burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the position of chief engineer of the kohinoor coal company. =a runaway brig=; or, an accidental cruise. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "a runaway brig" is a sea tale, pure and simple, and that's where it strikes a boy's fancy. the reader can look out upon the wide shimmering sea as it flashes back the sunlight, and imagine himself afloat with harry vandyne, walter morse, jim libby and that old shell-back, bob brace, on the brig bonita, which lands on one of the bahama keys. finally three strangers steal the craft, leaving the rightful owners to shift for themselves aboard a broken-down tug. the boys discover a mysterious document which enables them to find a buried treasure, then a storm comes on and the tug is stranded. at last a yacht comes in sight and the party with the treasure is taken off the lonely key. the most exacting youth is sure to be fascinated with this entertaining story. =fairy tales and stories.= by hans christian andersen. profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "if i were asked to select a child's library i should name these three volumes 'english,' 'celtic,' and 'indian fairy tales,' with grimm and hans andersen's fairy tales."--_independent._ =the island treasure=; or, harry darrel's fortune. by frank h. converse. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. harry darrel, an orphan, having received a nautical training on a school-ship, is bent on going to sea with a boyish acquaintance named dan plunket. a runaway horse changes his prospects. harry saves dr. gregg from drowning and the doctor presents his preserver with a bit of property known as gregg's island, and makes the lad sailing-master of his sloop yacht. a piratical hoard is supposed to be hidden somewhere on the island. after much search and many thwarted plans, at last dan discovers the treasure and is the means of finding harry's father. mr. converse's stories possess a charm of their own which is appreciated by lads who delight in good healthy tales that smack of salt water. =the boy explorers=: the adventures of two boys in alaska. by harry prentice. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. two boys, raymond and spencer manning, travel from san francisco to alaska to join their father in search of their uncle, who, it is believed, was captured and detained by the inhabitants of a place called the "heart of alaska." on their arrival at sitka the boys with an indian guide set off across the mountains. the trip is fraught with perils that test the lads' courage to the utmost. reaching the yukon river they build a raft and float down the stream, entering the mysterious river, from which they barely escape with their lives, only to be captured by natives of the heart of alaska. all through their exciting adventures the lads demonstrate what can be accomplished by pluck and resolution, and their experience makes one of the most interesting tales ever written. =the treasure finders=: a boy's adventures in nicaragua. by james otis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. roy and dean coloney, with their guide tongla, leave their father's indigo plantation to visit the wonderful ruins of an ancient city. the boys eagerly explore the dismantled temples of an extinct race and discover three golden images cunningly hidden away. they escape with the greatest difficulty; by taking advantage of a festive gathering they seize a canoe and fly down the river. eventually they reach safety with their golden prizes. mr. otis is the prince of story tellers, for he handles his material with consummate skill. we doubt if he has ever written a more entertaining story than "the treasure finders." =household fairy tales.= by the brothers grimm. profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "as a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages this work ranks second to none."--_daily graphic._ =dan the newsboy.= by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the reader is introduced to dan mordaunt and his mother living in a poor tenement, and the lad is pluckily trying to make ends meet by selling papers in the streets of new york. a little heiress of six years is confided to the care of the mordaunts. at the same time the lad obtains a position in a wholesale house. he soon demonstrates how valuable he is to the firm by detecting the bookkeeper in a bold attempt to rob his employers. the child is kidnaped and dan tracks the child to the house where she is hidden, and rescues her. the wealthy aunt of the little heiress is so delighted with dan's courage and many good qualities that she adopts him as her heir, and the conclusion of the book leaves the hero on the high road to every earthly desire. =tony the hero=: a brave boy's adventure with a tramp. by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. tony, a sturdy bright-eyed boy of fourteen, is under the control of rudolph rugg, a thorough rascal, shiftless and lazy, spending his time tramping about the country. after much abuse tony runs away and gets a job as stable boy in a country hotel. tony is heir to a large estate in england, and certain persons find it necessary to produce proof of the lad's death. rudolph for a consideration hunts up tony and throws him down a deep well. of course tony escapes from the fate provided for him, and by a brave act makes a rich friend, with whom he goes to england, where he secures his rights and is prosperous. the fact that mr. alger is the author of this entertaining book will at once recommend it to all juvenile readers. =a young hero=; or, fighting to win. by edward s. ellis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. this story tells how a valuable solid silver service was stolen from the misses perkinpine, two very old and simple minded ladies. fred sheldon, the hero of this story and a friend of the old ladies, undertakes to discover the thieves and have them arrested. after much time spent in detective work, he succeeds in discovering the silver plate and winning the reward for its restoration. during the narrative a circus comes to town and a thrilling account of the escape of the lion from its cage, with its recapture, is told in mr. ellis' most fascinating style. every boy will be glad to read this delightful book. =the days of bruce=: a story from scottish history. by grace aguilar. illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "there is a delightful freshness, sincerity and vivacity about all of grace aguilar's stories which cannot fail to win the interest and admiration of every lover of good reading."--_boston beacon._ =tom the bootblack=; or, the road to success. by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a bright, enterprising lad was tom the bootblack. he was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. his guardian, old jacob morton, died, leaving him a small sum of money and a written confession that tom, instead of being of humble origin, was the son and heir of a deceased western merchant, and had been defrauded out of his just rights by an unscrupulous uncle. the lad started for cincinnati to look up his heritage. but three years passed away before he obtained his first clue. mr. grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad. the plan failed, and gilbert grey, once tom the bootblack, came into a comfortable fortune. this is one of mr. alger's best stories. =captured by zulus=: a story of trapping in africa. by harry prentice. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. this story details the adventures of two lads, dick elsworth and bob harvey, in the wilds of south africa, for the purpose of obtaining a supply of zoological curiosities. by stratagem the zulus capture dick and bob and take them to their principal kraal or village. the lads escape death by digging their way out of the prison hut by night. they are pursued, and after a rough experience the boys eventually rejoin the expedition and take part in several wild animal hunts. the zulus finally give up pursuit and the expedition arrives at the coast without further trouble. mr. prentice has a delightful method of blending fact with fiction. he tells exactly how wild-beast collectors secure specimens on their native stamping grounds, and these descriptions make very entertaining reading. =tom the ready=; or, up from the lowest. by randolph hill. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. this is a dramatic narrative of the unaided rise of a fearless, ambitious boy from the lowest round of fortune's ladder--the gate of the poorhouse--to wealth and the governorship of his native state. thomas seacomb begins life with a purpose. while yet a schoolboy he conceives and presents to the world the germ of the overland express co. at the very outset of his career jealousy and craft seek to blast his promising future. later he sets out to obtain a charter for a railroad line in connection with the express business. now he realizes what it is to match himself against capital. yet he wins and the railroad is built. only an uncommon nature like tom's could successfully oppose such a combine. how he manages to win the battle is told by mr. hill in a masterful way that thrills the reader and holds his attention and sympathy to the end. =roy gilbert's search=: a tale of the great lakes. by wm. p. chipman. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. a deep mystery hangs over the parentage of roy gilbert. he arranges with two schoolmates to make a tour of the great lakes on a steam launch. the three boys leave erie on the launch and visit many points of interest on the lakes. soon afterward the lad is conspicuous in the rescue of an elderly gentleman and a lady from a sinking yacht. later on the cruise of the launch is brought to a disastrous termination and the boys narrowly escape with their lives. the hero is a manly, self-reliant boy, whose adventures will be followed with interest. =the young scout=; the story of a west point lieutenant. by edward s. ellis. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. the crafty apache chief geronimo but a few years ago was the most terrible scourge of the southwest border. the author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the incidents of geronimo's last raid. the hero is lieutenant james decker, a recent graduate of west point. ambitious to distinguish himself so as to win well-deserved promotion, the young man takes many a desperate chance against the enemy and on more than one occasion narrowly escapes with his life. the story naturally abounds in thrilling situations, and being historically correct, it is reasonable to believe it will find great favor with the boys. in our opinion mr. ellis is the best writer of indian stories now before the public. =adrift in the wilds=: the adventures of two shipwrecked boys. by edward s. ellis. 12mo, cloth, price, $1.00. elwood brandon and howard lawrence, cousins and schoolmates, accompanied by a lively irishman called o'rooney, are en route for san francisco. off the coast of california the steamer takes fire. the two boys and their companion reach the shore with several of the passengers. while o'rooney and the lads are absent inspecting the neighborhood o'rooney has an exciting experience and young brandon becomes separated from his party. he is captured by hostile indians, but is rescued by an indian whom the lads had assisted. this is a very entertaining narrative of southern california in the days immediately preceding the construction of the pacific railroads. mr. ellis seems to be particularly happy in this line of fiction, and the present story is fully as entertaining as anything he has ever written. =the red fairy book.= edited by andrew lang. profusely illustrated, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. "a gift-book that will charm any child, and all older folk who have been fortunate enough to retain their taste for the old nursery stories."--_literary world._ =the boy cruisers=; or, paddling in florida. by st. george rathborne. 12mo, cloth, price, $1.00. boys who like an admixture of sport and adventure will find this book just to their taste. we promise them that they will not go to sleep over the rattling experiences of andrew george and roland carter, who start on a canoe trip along the gulf coast, from key west to tampa, florida. their first adventure is with a pair of rascals who steal their boats. next they run into a gale in the gulf and have a lively experience while it lasts. after that they have a lively time with alligators and divers varieties of the finny tribe. andrew gets into trouble with a band of seminole indians and gets away without having his scalp raised. after this there is no lack of fun till they reach their destination. that mr. rathborne knows just how to interest the boys is apparent at a glance, and lads who are in search of a rare treat will do well to read this entertaining story. =guy harris=: the runaway. by harry castlemon. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. guy harris lived in a small city on the shore of one of the great lakes. his head became filled with quixotic notions of going west to hunt grizzlies, in fact, indians. he is persuaded to go to sea, and gets a glimpse of the rough side of life in a sailor's boarding house. he ships on a vessel and for five months leads a hard life. he deserts his ship at san francisco and starts out to become a backwoodsman, but rough experiences soon cure him of all desire to be a hunter. at st. louis he becomes a clerk and for a time he yields to the temptations of a great city. the book will not only interest boys generally on account of its graphic style, but will put many facts before their eyes in a new light. this is one of castlemon's most attractive stories. =the train boy.= by horatio alger, jr. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. paul palmer was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother and sister by selling books and papers on one of the trains running between chicago and milwaukee. he detects a young man named luke denton in the act of picking the pocket of a young lady, and also incurs the enmity of his brother stephen, a worthless follow. luke and stephen plot to ruin paul, but their plans are frustrated. in a railway accident many passengers are killed, but paul is fortunate enough to assist a chicago merchant, who out of gratitude takes him into his employ. paul is sent to manage a mine in custer city and executes his commission with tact and judgment and is well started on the road to business prominence. this is one of mr. alger's most attractive stories and is sure to please all readers. transcriber's note: italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. punctuation has been standardised. the word assauge was changed to assuage. variations in spelling, including dialect, have been retained as in the original publication. [illustration: cover art] [frontispiece: marguerite] dimbie and i --and amelia by mabel barnes-grundy _author of_ "_hazel of heatherland._" new york grosset & dunlap publishers _copyright_, 1906 by the baker & taylor company _copyright_, 1907 by the baker & taylor company published, march, 1907 contents chapter i which introduces dimbie chapter ii nanty discourses on the writing of books chapter iii on amelia, flues, and drain-bamboos chapter iv dimbie's birthday chapter v a letter from miss fairbrother chapter vi sorrow overtakes me chapter vii dr. renton breaks some news to me chapter viii dimbie comforts me chapter ix amelia expresses her opinion of me chapter x i discover that dr. renton is in love chapter xi my first caller chapter xii nanty cheers me up chapter xiii under the apple tree chapter xiv mother and peter arrive on a visit chapter xv amelia gives me notice chapter xvi forebodings chapter xvii my worst fears are realised chapter xviii dimbie rolls a great load from my heart chapter xix we inherit a fortune chapter xx professor leighrail pays us a call chapter xxi jane fairbrother's impending visit chapter xxii a literary lady honours me with a visit chapter xxiii i surprise dr. renton's secret chapter xxiv musings on autumn and the arrival of jane chapter xxv an engagement, and i tell jane my story chapter xxvi dimbie takes peter and amelia in hand chapter xxvii a discussion about a wedding gown chapter xxviii preparations for a wedding chapter xxix jane's wedding chapter xxx the death of a little black chicken an afterword illustrations marguerite . . . . . . . . . _frontispiece_ peter has spent his spare time building canoes professor leighrail this is how he began marguerite, i don't want to frighten you your will will always be mine, marguerite dimbie and i--and amelia chapter i which introduces dimbie outside, the world is bathed in sunshine, beautiful, warm, life-giving spring sunshine. other worlds than mine may be shivering in a march wind, but my own little corner is simply basking. the chestnut in the frog-pond field at the bottom of the garden is holding forth eager arms, crowned with little sticky, swelling buds, to the white, warm light. the snowdrops and crocuses have raised their pretty faces for a caress, and a chaffinch perched in the apple tree is, in its customary persistent fashion, endeavouring to outsing a thrush who keeps informing his lady-love that she may be clever enough to lay four speckled eggs, but her voice, well--without wishing to be too personal--would bear about the same relation to his as the croak of those silly frogs in the field would bear to the note of his esteemed friend mr. nightingale, who was still wintering in the south. yes, there is sunshine out of doors and sunshine in my heart. so much sunshine, that in my exuberance i have only just refrained from embracing amelia, in spite of her down-at-heel, squeaky shoes, rakish cap, and one-and-three-ha'penny pearl necklace. you will surmise i have had a fortune left me by my great-uncle. i don't possess a great-uncle. that i have been the recipient of a new paris hat. wrong. that someone has said i am the prettiest girl in the county. bosh! that peter has ceased to bully mother. that will happen when the millennium arrives. oh, foolish conjecturer! you will never guess. it is something far more delightful than any of these things. i will whisper it to you. "dimbie is coming home this evening." you smile while i ecstatically hug jumbles. "dimbie's a dog?" you hazard. "a white, pink-eyed, objectionable maltese terrier." i chuckle at your being so very wrong. you are not brilliant; in fact, you are stupid. dimbie's a husband. _my_ husband. and he's been away for three days at the bedside of his sick aunt letitia, who lives in yorkshire. i think it is most unreasonable for any aunt to live in yorkshire and be ill when we live in surrey. it is so far away. anyhow, dimbie shall never go away again to aunt letitia, sick or well, without taking me with him. for i find i cannot get on at all without him. when i turn a retrospective eye upon the years without dimbie, it seems to me that i did not know the meaning of the word happiness. i was foolish enough to say this to peter just before i was married, and he sniffed in the objectionable way which mother and i have always so specially disliked. it sounds undutiful to speak of father thus, but he does sniff. and i might as well remark in passing that i am very far from being attached to peter, as i always call him behind his back, being less like a father than anyone i have ever met. i am sorry that this should be so, but i didn't choose him for a parent. parents have a say in their children's existence, but you can't select your own progenitors. were this within your power, general peter macintosh and i would only be on distant bowing terms at the moment, certainly not parent and child. and yet mother would be lonely without me, although i have left her. poor, darling mother! that is my one trouble, the fly in the ointment; her loneliness, her defencelessness. i do not mean that peter kicks her with clogs, or throws lamps at her head. but he worries her, nags at her. now dimbie never nags. i think it was his utter unlikeness to peter that first attracted me. peter is small and narrow in his views; dimbie is large in every sense of the word. peter has green eyes; dimbie has blue. peter has a straight, chiselled nose--the macintosh nose he calls it: dimbie has a dear crooked one--an accident at football. peter has--- but i think i'll just keep to dimbie's "points" without referring to general macintosh any further--well, because dimbie is incomparable. i met him first in an oil-shop in dorking. i was ordering some varnish for one of peter's canoes. since peter "retired," which, unfortunately for mother and me, was many years ago--he having married late in life--he has spent his spare time in a workshop at the bottom of the garden building canoes which, up to the present, he has never succeeded in getting to float. but that is a mere detail. no one has ever expressed a wish to float in them, so what matters? the point is that this arduous work kept him shut up in his workshop for many hours away from mother and me. it was then we breathed and played and laughed, and miss fairbrother, my governess, read us entrancing stories and taught me how to slide down the staircase on a tea-tray and do other delightful things, while mother kept a sharp look-out for the advance of the enemy. [illustration: peter has spent his spare time building canoes] well, dimbie and i got to know each other in this little oil-shop. i, or my muslin frock, became entangled in some wire-netting, which really had no business to be anywhere but at an ironmonger's, and dimbie disentangled me, there being no one else present to perform this kindly act, the shopman being up aloft searching for his best copal varnish. we were not engaged till quite six weeks had elapsed after this, because peter would not sanction such a proceeding. he said i must behave as a general's daughter, and not as a tradesman's; and when i pointed out that royalties frequently became engaged after seeing each other about half a dozen times, and that publicly, he just shouted at me. for years mother and i have been trying to persuade peter that we are not soldiers, but he doesn't appear to believe us. he only gave his consent in the end to our engagement because he was tired and gouty and wanted to be let alone. dimbie was like the importunate widow, and he importuned in season and out of season, from break of day till set of sun. he neglected his business, took rooms in dorking, would fly up to the city for a couple of hours each day, and spent the rest of his time on our doorstep when he wasn't allowed inside the house. peter tried threats, bribery, shouting, drill language of the most fearful description; but dimbie stuck manfully to his guns, and at last peter was bound to admit that dimbie must have come of some good fighting stock. dimbie admitted most cheerfully that he had, that his great-great-grandfather had stormed the heights of abraham and wolfe. at which peter laid down his arms and briefly said, "take her!" and dimbie did so at the very earliest opportunity, which was during the christmas holidays. and so i am his greatly-loving and much-loved wife. much loved i know i am by the very way he looks at me, strokes my hair, whispers my name, stares angrily at amelia when upon some pretext she lingers in the room after bringing in coffee and won't leave us alone. ah, that being alone! how delightful it is. we have enjoyed that best of all. we had so few opportunities before we were married, peter appearing to think it was our duty to play whist each evening, with most cheerful countenances; and were i, out of sheer desperation, to trump his best card, he would scream with annoyance. but i'm not getting on with dimbie's points. i think his dearest friend, or even his wife or mother, would be over-stepping the strict boundary-line of truth were they to describe him as handsome. he's not handsome. for which nanty, mother's old schoolfellow, says i should be deeply grateful. handsome men, she tells me, have no time to admire their own wives, so taken up are they with their own graces, which is a pity for the wives. in addition to the crooked nose i mentioned dimbie has also a crooked mouth, giving him the most humorous, comical, and at the same time the most kindly expression. i wouldn't have dimbie's mouth straight for the world. it droops at the left corner. he opines that he was born that way, that it must be a family mouth, at which his mother is extremely indignant. she asserts that the mouths in her family at any rate were quite perfect, and that this droop is the result of a horrid pipe which was never out of the corner of his mouth, alight or dead, throughout his college days. dimbie laughs at this, and says shall he grow a moustache to cover up the defect, and i say no, he shan't. the crook of his mouth and nose happen to be in opposite directions, so even when he's depressed he looks quite happy and amused. nature, trying to balance things up a little, then gave him jolly, blue, twinkling eyes, and crisp brown hair with little kinks in it. he will be thirty-one on the second of next month. his mother, whom i have only once seen and that was at our wedding, doesn't approve of his telling his age to any casual inquirer in his usual direct manner, for it naturally gives her own age away. mrs. westover, nanty says, imagines she would pass for under forty when the wind is in the west. "why west?" mother and i had cried together. "a soft damp west wind will make a woman look ten years younger," said nanty sagely. "it is a north wind which works such havoc with her complexion." mother and i have learnt a great deal from nanty one way or another, and the funny part of it is that the information which doesn't matter always seems to stick in my memory, while important things go, which dimbie says is the way of the world. dimbie is "on" the stock exchange. peter calls it a sink of iniquity and its denizens liars and thieves. one of the liars and thieves married me on the strength of a good deal in rio tintos. rio tintos must be beautiful things to have been the means of giving us so much happiness. dimbie says they are not, that they are just plain copper mines in spain. dimbie is mistaken. copper is one of the most beautiful of metals with its red-gold, warm colour. it is the most romantic of metals. a tin mine in cornwall would never have done for us what rio tintos have done, i feel convinced. the dictionary says copper was perhaps the first metal employed by man, which makes it doubly interesting to me. each day i scan the financial column of the paper to see if rio tintos are up or down. dimbie says he has no interest in them now, and smiles at my eagerness, but it makes no difference. the words stand to me for happiness, and i shall search for them always. chapter ii nanty discourses on the writing of books when i casually mentioned to nanty--yesterday afternoon over our tea--that i had begun to write a book i was unprepared for her opposition, which almost amounted to a command that i should do nothing of the kind. but then she misunderstood me from the very beginning, which was only natural now i come to reflect upon it, added to which she has a disconcerting habit of jumping to conclusions. at the outset of our conversation her manner was depressed as she looked into the fire. "ah, well," she said at length, "it can't be helped! i suppose you mean a first-person, diary, daily-round sort of book?" i nodded, pleased at her acumen. "it is the worst and most tiresome kind, but perhaps it will be best for your poor husband." "my poor husband!" i echoed. "yes." "will you kindly explain?" "it will be difficult, but i'll try." she settled herself in her chair more comfortably. "it appears to me that women, dear marguerite, write books from several motives, the principal being that, unknown to herself, a woman will get rid in this way of her own self-consciousness. it is hard on the public; it is a blessing in disguise to her friends." "nanty!" "i don't say you are of that sort. why, i believe the child's eyes are actually full of tears!" she added in consternation. "go on," i said. "but you're going to be hurt." i shook my head. "well, i will add at once that i should not expect to find in the pages of your book as much self-consciousness as is customary in a young girl of your years. general macintosh is not a person to encourage illusions about oneself. to live with him must be an education, painful but liberal." i smiled faintly. "some women write books because they are lonely. an absorbing occupation, even if badly performed, helps to pass the time, and they yearn to see themselves in print. in fact, all writers yearn to see themselves in print--a most natural desire on their part, but one to be discouraged in this age of over-publication. other women write because they say they '_love_ it.' i am not sure that this type isn't the worst of the lot. they imagine because they love it that they must necessarily do it well. not at all, the deduction is a poor one. i love bridge, but rarely pull off a 'no trumper.' "and a few, a _very_ few, write because they have really something to say, something to tell. something new--no, not new, there is nothing new under the sun, but a fresh way of telling an old story. a burning force, something stronger than themselves, which is another name for genius, compels them to speak, to give their message, and the world is the gainer. now why do you want to write? which of these four impulses is yours?" she rose and drew on her gloves. "a burning force stronger than myself, which is another name for genius." she laughed. "you're not offended with me?" she asked as i conducted her to the gate. "just a teeny bit, nanty." "well, you mustn't be." she took my two hands in both of hers. "i couldn't dream of permitting you to sulk with me, little marguerite. i've known you since the days when you wore a pinafore and had to be slapped for washing some snails in the best toilet ware in my spare room before throwing them to the ducks--nasty child. it seems hard to discourage you, to talk to you thus, but whatever in the name of fortune has put such a dreadful idea into your head?" "do you think it so dreadful?" "terribly dreadful!" she returned. "i knew an authoress--i beg her pardon, i mean an author--who after a small success with her first book--nasty, miry sort of book it was too--left her husband, quite a decent man as men go, with red hair and freckles (they lived in the country), and went to london to see life as she called it, which meant sitting on the top of a penny omnibus and eating rolls and butter at an a.b.c. she wore her hair _à la_ sarah bernhardt, and expected to have an intrigue, which never came off, the lady being past forty and plain at that. when her second edition money--i think it got into a second edition--was finished she was very glad and thankful to creep back to her husband, who in a big, magnanimous way took her in, which i wouldn't have done. then i knew another author--successful fifth edition this was--whose head became so swelled that some cows in a field--she was lying in a ditch composing--took it for a mangel-wurzel one day and ate it." "do you expect me to laugh here?" i asked. "not at all," she reassured me. "i only want to impress you before it is too late. i have one more case. a poor girl wrote a book called _awakenings_, or some such title. a reviewer on an ultra-superior, provincial paper, the _damchester guardian_ i think it was, cut it to pieces with the cleverness, cruelty and ruthlessness of extreme youth. the critic must have been young, for only youth is really hard. there was not a good word for it; it was described as maudlin, sentimental twaddle. the girl--she was a fool of course, but we can't all be born clever--committed suicide. this was a bit of rare good luck for her publisher, for he got an advertisement for nothing, and sold forty thousand copies of the book in three months." nanty paused for breath. john, the coachman, looked respectfully ahead and pretended he didn't mind waiting; and i called her attention to our bank of crocuses. "don't like crocuses," she said. i laughed. "still obstinate?" "no," i replied, "i gave up my book over my second cup of tea." "dear marguerite," she said, kissing me. "i am sure you will make your husband very happy." "i hope so." "you're bound to, if you are as earnest as all that about it. your face looks like--like--a toadstool!" "thank you," i laughed. "i'm not going to say pretty things to you. you get quite enough from that silly dimbie of yours. but now tell me before i go, just to satisfy my curiosity, what is your reason for wishing to write this book? i always thought you such a simple child." i closed the carriage door and looked away. she leaned forward and turned my face round. "why, she's actually blushing!" she ejaculated. "home," i said to john, wresting my face away. "but it's not home," she contradicted, "and won't be home till you tell me why you are blushing like a peony." "nanty," i cried, "you are too bad." "marguerite, why are you looking so guilty and ashamed?" "i'm not," i said stoutly. "you are." "why should i look ashamed?" "that's what i want to get at. i ask you the simplest question, upon which your countenance becomes that of a criminal run to earth." "pictorial exaggeration," i said lightly. "and, nanty, i'm catching cold. remember it is only march." "take this rug," she replied coolly. "i shall not let you go till you give me your reason for wishing to appear in print." "but i don't," i said with heat. "you said you did." "never. you imagined that. i simply said i was writing a book--a daily-round sort of journal, as you described it. i never referred to publication." nanty turned up her veil and stared at me for some seconds. "well, well, well!" she said at length. "i wonder you didn't say so sooner." "you never gave me an opportunity. at my first words you were off at a tangent, and then i became interested in your awful experiences." she sat back and laughed. "the impudence of the child drawing me like this. if you don't want your books published write fifty of them. it will keep you well out of mischief and do nobody any harm." then she fell into a brown study, and i prepared to tiptoe softly through the gate, when she cried suddenly-"wait! you have still not told me why you are doing this scribbling. i should have thought you would have found plenty to do without writing. there is your house--your sewing----" "you will laugh." "i won't." "promise." "i promise." "well," i began, "i----" nanty was looking at the sunset. "i want to write, i must write," i went on more firmly, "because i am so--happy. it sounds silly, ridiculous, i know, and you won't understand, but----" i paused. nanty was still looking at the sunset. "you see, i was never very happy before i was married because of peter--father, i mean. you have visited us often, so you know. you know how he worries poor mother. it was impossible to be happy. but now it is all so different, so wonderful, so tranquil, that i sometimes feel almost sick with happiness. it is too good to last, it cannot last. i am sometimes frightened. and i cannot let dimbie know how i feel. once you told me not to let the man i loved be too sure of it. the moment in which a man knows he has gained your love he ceases to value it." "did i say that?" "yes, you said that to me the day i was married. so what am i to do? i can't tell amelia; i can't write it to mother, for peter would sneer. i must have an outlet for my feelings, or they will overwhelm me. when i have sung and danced and rushed round the garden after jumbles i can fly to my book. i can enter, 'dimbie is a dear,' 'dimbie is _my_ husband, and he will be home in half an hour.' 'one tree cottage is the sweetest spot on earth, and i, marguerite westover, am the happiest girl in the world.' when the last half hour before his homecoming hangs heavily i can enter all the events of the day. it will pass the time. in the years to come, when i am an old, old woman, i can turn back the pages and read again of my first wonderful year. it will be a book only for myself, only for my eyes. that which dimbie could not understand i can put between its covers. a man, i imagine, cannot always understand the way a woman feels about things that touch her deeply, like--well, like when dimbie and i say our prayers together. and the song of a bird, a thrush woke us the other morning. it was perched on a bough in a shaft of warm sunlight, and was pouring out its little heart just as though it were breaking with happiness. my eyes were full of tears, and dimbie saw them. he said--well, he didn't understand. he thought i was sad, and i couldn't explain even to him that my tears were of joy. and amelia--she looks at me so when six o'clock comes and i cannot keep my feet still. i brush up the hearth and put dimbie's slippers to warm, and cut the magazines, and place our two chairs side by side, very close together, and put a daffodil in my hair, and go to the window, and wander to the kitchen, and go to the front door, and back to the kitchen to see how the meat is doing, and----" i broke off, for nanty had held up her hands for me to cease, and when she turned to me her eyes were full of tears. "write your book, marguerite," she whispered. "write your book." then she stooped and kissed me, and then she gave a laugh, but there was a little sob in it. i looked at her wonderingly. "you say i told you to hide your love from the man you have married. i take the words back. better too much love than too little between husband and wife, for theirs is a union dependent on much affection and sacrifice if they would be happy. and god forbid that sorrow, disillusionment shall ever enter into your life. god forbid that you shall ever be lonely, stretch out a hand at night and find emptiness, pour out your troubles and find a deaf ear turned to you, offer a caress which is met with a curse." her voice was so low i could hardly catch the bitterness of her words. "but can such things ever be?" i cried. she laughed a little dry laugh. "i have known of them. it would seem that some marriages were not made in heaven." i thought of peter and mother. had nanty's marriage been unhappy too? she had been alone ever since i could remember. the mistress of a handsome house, lovely garden... nanty broke in---"and when you write your book, don't let it all be of dimbie. some women haven't got a dimbie, and women are the principal readers of women's books. enter as well all the little worries and cares which are bound to crop up sooner or later, so that the contrast between your life and the life of some lonely, unloved woman may not be too cruel. she will laugh at amelia's smashing the best china, enjoy your misfortunes, cheer up when dimbie is down with typhoid and not expected to live." "but you forget my book will only be for myself. i don't know enough to write one for other people. dimbie says i am very ignorant." "oh, of course! and that after all is the best sort of book, the one you write for yourself. some publisher will be saved endless care and worry. your friends will be saved the necessity of turning down side streets when they see you coming along--they have barely four-and-six for one of the classics, or a book they really want, let alone yours." i laughed. "you are not polite." "no, marguerite; i love you, and i want to save you from your friends. but perhaps some day when it is finished, when your year is over, when you are too busy, like so many modern girls, to do anything but play golf and bridge, or there may be another interest in your life, you might let me have a look at it. a manuscript written out of sheer happiness might be interesting, though a trifle tiresome. there has been _the sorrows of werther_. why not _the joys of marguerite_? besides, your grammar and punctuation might require some correction." "nanty," i said, "you are making fun of me, and i'm very cold." "marguerite," she commanded, "give me another kiss, and then i'll go. i have enjoyed my afternoon with the little bride." "i hear the whistle of dimbie's train." "what an astonishing thing!" she remarked sarcastically. "i mean, won't you stay and see him?" "no, i won't. i'm going home." "john must have been interested in our conversation." "john grows deafer each day," she said as she drove away. i wandered down the lane to meet dimbie, and presently he turned the corner. chapter iii on amelia, flues, and drain-bamboos "put down your worries," said nanty, so i must perforce enter amelia and the kitchen boiler. the boiler won't yield hot water, and amelia says that isn't her fault, that she wasn't the plumber who put it there, and she can't be expected to get a flue-brush into a hole the size of a threepenny-bit. when i said i thought she put it up the chimney she asked me what for. "to clean the flue, of course," i retorted, a little irritably; and she replied with fine scorn that flues didn't grow up chimneys, but at the backs of fire-grates and other un-get-at-able places. ever since amelia came to us her object appears to have been the sounding the depths of my ignorance, with the idea of putting us in our proper positions. i don't mean that she wishes to be the mistress exactly, and sit with dimbie in the drawing-room while i peel potatoes in the back kitchen; but she wishes me to understand that she knows i am a silly sort of creature, and she will do the best she can for me, seeing that she is one of the "old-fashioned sort" who still take a kindly and benevolent interest in their master and mistress. not that amelia is old-fashioned really, with flat caps and elastic-sided cloth boots, such as mother's servants wear. she is an entirely modern product. she knows how to do the cake-walk, and wears two-strapped patent slippers, with high louis heels which turn over at a most dangerous angle, looking more like two leaning towers of pisa than decorous, respectable "general's" heels. but she is old-fashioned in the sense that she appears to have our interests most tremendously at heart, is quite painfully economical, is forever scrubbing and cleaning, and calls me "mum" instead of "madam" when she isn't calling me "miss." just now she invited me to go and see how far she had got the brush up the flue. she was hurt because dimbie had said _he_ should have to get up early and see what he could do about the hot water. in fact, she had laughed derisively behind the roller-towel. she thinks no more of dimbie's capabilities than of mine. i went, and was much impressed by the length of the flue-brush and its pliability. amelia had raked out the fire, and, with sleeves rolled back, showed me what she could do with flues. it was like being at a conjuring entertainment. the brush flashed about like lightning, got into impossible places, curved, wriggled, and once i thought that amelia herself was about to disappear up the chimney. i clutched at her legs and brought her down. her face was glowing and black in places. "now, mum," she panted, "if there's no hot water, is it my fault? if amelia cockles can't get no hot water, no livin' mortal can, includin' the master hisself. i'll show him to-night." "oh, don't, amelia! don't do it again! it's so difficult and dangerous, you might get stuck," i pleaded. "we'll have a new boiler." "it's not the boiler," she pronounced; "it's where it's been put." "well, we'll have it moved. where would you like it?" she was guarded in her answer. "i'm not sure as you can move boilers about like furniture. we must think it over." she drew the brush from the flue, and i now saw it in its entire length. "wherever did you get it from?" i knew dimbie and i hadn't bought it when we furnished. "from the ironmonger's, of course." "was it expensive?" i asked carelessly. i wondered if it were a present from amelia to us. "sixpence ha'penny. i sold some bottles and rubbish to the donkey-stone man." "all that for sixpence halfpenny?" i ejaculated, ignoring the donkey-stone man, of whom i had never heard before. amelia eyed me a little pityingly. "would you care to see the drain-bamboo, mum? _that cost fourpence._" "the drain-bamboo?" "the thing we push down the drains to keep 'em clean and save bad smells." "yes, please." amelia produced it. it was tied up in coils, and as she cut the string it shot across the kitchen floor and narrowly escaped my ankles. i didn't like the drain-bamboo at all, it was a nasty, sinuous thing, and i asked amelia to remove it at once. "have you any further contrivances, i mean unusual ones, concealed about the premises?" i inquired. "them are not unusual. i can't think where you was brought up if you haven't seen a flue-brush before, mum." "i was born in westmoreland first and then dorking." amelia looked at me. "i mean i was born in westmoreland and then removed to dorking." amelia flurries me so at times i hardly know what i am saying. "i never went into the kitchen much," i added apologetically. "p'r'aps your ma helped the general?" "oh, no, we hadn't a general." "no servant?" in great astonishment. "we had a servant, but not a general." "a help?" "no, we'd four servants. you see, my father suffers from gout, and he requires a lot----" "cook, kitchen-maid, housemaid, parlour-maid?" interrupted amelia, ignoring my explanation. "that was it." amelia put some coal on the fire, which she had relit, with a considerable amount of noise. "no wonder you're hignorant, mum." amelia never leaves an "h" out, but in moments of stress occasionally puts one in. on the whole she speaks well for a cockney born, and educated in the mile end road. of course all her "a's" are "i's," but i find it difficult to transcribe them. "i tell dimbie i know i shall pick up the vernacular as i am peculiarly imitative; and he says he hopes i won't, as it is not pretty." "beggin' your pardon for sayin' such a thing, but it's evidently not your fault, and p'r'aps you'll improve as time goes on. you've time to learn." i tried to feel cheered at the hopes amelia held out to me, and prepared to leave the kitchen, feeling a little annoyed with mother for neglecting my education so far as flue-brushes and drain-bamboos were concerned. "how old are you, mum? you'll hexcuse me askin' you." i hesitated. were amelia to know that i was two years her senior would she despise me more than ever? "never mind, mum. no ladies likes to tell their ages. in my last place--tompkinses'--the oldest daughter, miss julia, used to begin a chatterin' to the canary for all she was worth when anybody so much as mentions how old they was, and the way time was passin'. new year's eve was the worst, when the bells was tollin'. i've known her wake that poor canary up, when it had gone to bed, and say, 'dicky, dicky, pretty dick,' and it thought the incandescent light was the sun, and had its bath straight away." "oh, i'm not so bad as that," i laughed, "i'm twenty-three!" amelia blacked her face more than ever in her surprise. "bless my soul! who'd have thought it? in that white dress you wears at night you looks like a bit of a thing who has just got out of pinifores. twenty-three! you're older than me, and never seed a flue-brush before." "perhaps you have always been brought up with them?" i suggested. "i could handle one at six, or my mother would have let me know what for." she swelled with pride at the retrospection of her infant capabilities. "you were evidently most clever. perhaps you were born grown up. some people are." she considered this. "i was always smart for my years." "and i wasn't. i think i must have developed slowly, amelia. when you were cleaning flues i was nursing dolls. perhaps it was my parents' fault. i was the only child." "and i'm the eldest of fourteen." "dear me!" i said. "and are they all expert flue cleaners?" "eight of 'em is in heaven." she sounded as sure of this point as the exasperating little cottage girl. "you'd better get on with your work; i'm interrupting you," i said, as i walked to the door. about every third day i make this remark to amelia with the faint hope of impressing upon her that _i_ am the mistress of the establishment. then i carefully close the kitchen door behind me, barricade myself in the diningor drawing-room, and sit down and think about her. i am sure amelia has not the slightest idea of how her figure looms in my mental horizon. i don't want to think about her. dimbie or mother or nanty are much pleasanter subjects, but i can't help it; she is the sort of person you _must_ think about. nanty found her for me. she said, "you and dimbie will require someone extremely capable. amelia cockles exactly answers to this description." now what worries me is whether to sit down quietly and let amelia manage us and be happy, or whether to endeavour to uphold our dignity and be uncomfortable. were i to put such a question to dimbie he would say, "let's be happy." but this happiness is qualified when she gives us roly-poly pudding more than once every ten days. it is a pudding for which i have always had a peculiar dislike. i will order, i mean suggest, that we shall have a thatched house pudding for dinner. i mention my liking for brown thatch, not straw-coloured thatch. i sit with an expectant appetite, and a roly-poly appears, white, flabby, and bursting at its ends with raspberry jam. reproachfully i look at amelia, but her return gaze is as innocent and ingenuous as a little child's. she would have me believe that i never even so much as mentioned a thatched house pudding. dimbie sends up his plate for a second helping. while amelia goes for the cheese course i say, "do you think you could like roly-poly a little less, only a _little_ less?" and dimbie, passing up his plate for a third helping, says he will try, but it will be difficult, as amelia makes such ripping ones, and of course she enters the room at the moment and hears him. she hears everything. i think she must fly between the kitchen and dining-room when she waits at dinner, or have spring boots concealed beneath the hall table. i happened to mention the roly-poly to nanty, and she said, "be thankful she can make a pudding at all, or you might have to make it yourself." there was an assumption in her manner that i couldn't, and i didn't argue the point. it is useless arguing with nanty. there is another point in amelia's disfavour to put against her admitted capability--she squeaks. her shoes squeak and her corsets creak, and her breathing is conducted in a series of gasps--long ones when she sweeps a room, short ones when she hands the potatoes at dinner. she seems to want oiling at every point of vantage, like a bicycle. sometimes i lie awake at night and discuss or try to discuss with dimbie the possibilities of stopping the squeaking. "tell her to wear cloth boots like your mother." "mother doesn't wear cloth boots," i contradict. "i thought you said she did," he murmurs sleepily. "no, our servants wear them." "well, tell amelia to do the same." "she won't." "then i give it up." "dimbie," i say coaxingly, "before you go quite, quite off, couldn't you suggest a remedy for squeaking? oil would spoil the carpets." "fill 'em with corn," comes the amazing suggestion. "you put corn in wet shoes, dear donkey," i shout, trying to clutch him back from that beautiful land of oblivion to which all of us, happy or unhappy, healthy or sick, young or old, are so glad to go, when like little children we are just tired. but he had gone. nothing short of a thunderbolt would bring him back till the morrow. and when that morrow came i suggested to amelia that she should dip the shoes into water. "why not boil 'em, mum, with a little washing powder?" her face was stolid, but there was a hint of irony in her voice. with dignity i walked from the kitchen, barricaded myself, and once again sat down to think about her. the squeaking was unendurable; the creaking of the corsets was nearly as bad. for these two things i could not give her notice; besides, i should never dare to give anybody notice. a little later on i caught her in the hall in an old pair of wool-work slippers embroidered with tea-roses which had belonged to dimbie, but which i had surreptitiously banished to the boxroom. she was in the midst of a cake-walk; her chest was stuck out like a pouter pigeon's, and one tea-rose was poised high in the air. "_amelia!_" i shouted, scandalised, "what are you dreaming of? have you taken leave of your senses?" she brought the tea-rose to earth with a bang, and stood like a soldier at attention. "beg pardon, mum. didn't know you was there, or i wouldn't have done it. but i was so happy at thinkin' how pleased you would be in seein' me in these here shoes, as you have took such a dislike to the others." "but i'm not pleased," i rejoined. "i could not think of permit--of approving of your wearing wool-work slippers for answering the front-door bell." "it never rings, mum." "it will when callers begin to arrive; and when you receive your next month's wages i shall be glad, amelia, if you will buy a pair of cloth flat-heeled boots or shoes. kid are expensive, but cloth is beautifully cheap." "you mentioned them before, mum. p'r'aps you'll remember. i never have and never could wear black cloth shoes. it would be like walkin' about with a pair of funerals on your feet. they'd depress a nigger minstrel. anything else to meet you. white tennis shoes? they're soft and don't squeak." "no, amelia," i said wearily, "white tennis shoes would be worse than the wool-work. we'll dismiss the subject. it is said that a man can get accustomed even to being hanged. i may learn to like your shoes in time, and even regard their noisiness as music." and i went back to the drawing-room and closed the door. the subject was finished, and so amelia continues to squeak. chapter iv dimbie's birthday i find, in accordance with nanty's advice, that i kept dimbie well out of the last chapter; but he's bound to figure pretty largely in this, for he's had a birthday. a birthday cannot very well be touched upon without referring to the person interested, and dimbie was extremely interested because of the omelet amelia made him for breakfast. on the morning previous i said to amelia-"to-morrow is the master's birthday. now what shall we give him for breakfast? it must be something very nice." "pigs' feet." "pigs' feet?" i ejaculated. "yes, mum. pigs' feet boiled till juicy and tender, and red cabbage." "but it's for breakfast," i repeated. "yes, mum. you mentioned that." "but you can't eat pigs' feet for breakfast." "mr. tompkins' brother-in-law, mr. münchen, was dead nuts on it." her attitude was unshaken. "but wasn't he german, amelia?" "p'r'aps he was," she admitted. "ah," i said triumphantly, "that makes all the difference." "what about brawn or sausages, or black puddings or ham, mum?" "you see they're all--pig," i said hesitatingly. "well, you're not jews, mum. tompkinses had a friend who----" "i want something novel," i cut in, leaving the friend till another time. "i want something we have not had before." she thought a moment. then her countenance brightened. "i know, mum, savoury duck." "don't be ridiculous," i commanded. "we're wasting time." "it isn't a duck really, mum. p'r'aps you thought it was?" "when you say a duck, i naturally think you mean a duck." i was getting tired. "but i don't. it's made of the insides of animals mixed with onions. you buy them at tripe-shops, and they're real good." i felt myself turning sick. "amelia," i said, trying to be patient, "will you remember it's breakfast we are discussing. i've called your attention to the fact several times. i think it will have to end in an omelet--a nice, light omelet. do you know how to make one?" now amelia will never allow that she doesn't know everything in the world, so her reply was guarded. "it's made of eggs." "of course," i rejoined. "and milk and butter----" the milk might be right, but i wasn't so sure about the butter. amelia pounced on my hesitation. "why, i believe you don't know how to make one yourself, mum." i was bound to confess that i didn't. "my opportunities to cook have been few," i explained. "the little i know was learned at a cookery class." amelia sniffed derisively. "and a lot you'd learn there, mum--hentries and hoary doves, i suppose?" "hoary doves!" i repeated wonderingly, and vaguely thinking of a very ancient white-haired dove. "yes, them silly things rich folks begins their dinners with--anchovies and holives." "you mean _hors-d'oeuvres_?" that i suppressed a smile should go to my good account, i think. "that's it, only my tongue won't twist round it like yours." "and where have you met them?" i inquired with interest. "at tompkinses'!" "and did they have them every night?" "no, just at dinner parties." she spoke in an airy, careless fashion. "i see," i said, greatly impressed. amelia had been accustomed to _hors-d'oeuvres_ at dinner parties, and yet she condescended to live with us. i looked with unusual interest at her closely-curled fringe, her sharp, eager features, and her shamrock brooch. i listened to her squeaking; it was the corsets this time. sometimes a bone cracks in them like the report of a small pistol, and i think to myself, "well, there is one less to break." but the number never seems to diminish. i fancy she must have a horde of bones, a sort of nest-egg of bones, put by, and as soon as one cracks it is promptly replaced by a sound one. occasionally one bores through her print bodice, and then she puts a patch on the place, a new print patch, which rarely matches the rest of her dress. i counted four one day. she will look like a patchwork quilt soon, and i feel a little depressed at the prospect. i roused myself with an effort to dimbie's birthday and the breakfast. amelia had produced the cookery book, and was rapidly reading out loud various recipes for every variety of omelet. "stop," i said, "i'm getting muddled." it ended in our selecting a savoury parsley omelet. "i hope it will be nice," i said anxiously. "of course it will be nice. you leave it to me, mum. i've got a hand _that_ light the master will be wishin' he had a birthday every day of his life." the birthday morning dawned clear and beautiful. my first thought was of the omelet. i rose softly, dressed quickly, and went out into the garden with the hope of finding a few flowers to put at the side of dimbie's plate. a fresh, springy scent met me everywhere--damp earth, moist trees, sun-kissed, opening, baby leaves. i inspected our apple tree, which stands in the middle of the lawn, with close attention. it is the only tree we possess. i looked for a promise of blossom. "perhaps ... yes, in a month's time," i said. i wandered down the garden to the fence which divides us from the frog-pond field. a garden set at the edge of a field is a most cunning device, especially when the field contains well-grown trees (which hang over the fence, dipping and swaying and holding converse of the friendliest description with your own denizens of the garden) and a frog-pond into the bargain. the croaking of frogs may not be musical, but it may be welcomed as one of the surest notifications of the advent of spring. mr. frog is courting miss frog. he says, "listen to my voice," on which he emits a harsh, rasping sound, somewhat resembling the note of the corncrake. miss frog is probably very impressed. so are dimbie and i. "so countrified," says dimbie, drawing a long, deep breath of the sweet, pure air. "so far from the madding crowd," say i. "who ever hears a frog near the big, noisy towns?" by and by we shall see little black eggs, embedded in a gelatinous substance, floating about the surface of the water. later on there will be tadpoles, and then more frogs. the beech tree, i think, is the most kindly disposed of all the brethren to us dwellers of the garden. a lime nods to the apple tree, which is exactly in its line of vision, but the beech leans and leans over the fence, craning its neck, holding out long, beautiful branches, which so soon will be decorated with a delicate lace-work of the most exquisitely tender of all the spring greens. the beech is a long time in unfolding her treasures--the sycamore and chestnut can give her many days; but when she does consent to open out her leaves, what a wealth of beauty! on this morning i thought i could almost see them uncurling in the sunshine, hear them laughing at their old friend the lime. i could have dallied with them, anxious to hear what they had to say, what sort of a winter had been theirs, but dimbie and breakfast must be waiting for me. i sped into the house, just in time to see dimbie removing the dish cover. i paused in the doorway to witness his smile of pleasure at finding an omelet--a savoury parsley omelet--before him, but no smile came. in its place was a blank look of inquiry. "what's the matter?" i asked. "what's this?" he returned. "an omelet." i walked quickly to the table. "oh, is it?" he said quite politely. we stood together and looked at the thing, was very small and thin, and hard and spotty. "i thought it was veal stuffing." he was grave and still quite courteous. "it looks like a bit of old blanket," i observed. "it doesn't look wholesome, do you think so?" "i think it looks most unwholesome." i put my hand on the bell. "wait," he said, "amelia might be hurt: let's give it to jumbles." but jumbles was a wise cat. he smelt it, stood up his hair on end, and walked away. and so we burnt it. when i ordered some bacon to be cooked amelia asked me how we had enjoyed the omelet. "it was a little small," i said evasively. "just a little small," said dimbie cheerfully. "that must be the fault of the egg-powder, there was no eggs in the house," she said as she bustled out of the room. dimbie peeped at me and i peeped at dimbie, and we both broke into suppressed laughter. "i always said she was the most resourceful girl i had ever met." "she is," i groaned; "and i thought it would be such a beautiful surprise to you." "it was, dearest," he assured me; "never was so surprised at anything in my life." i handed him my present and looked at him anxiously. would this too be a disappointment? he had talked of pipe-racks so frequently--of the foolish construction of the ordinary rack, which, supporting the bowl of the pipe at the top, naturally encourages the evil-tasting nicotine to flow down the stem. this i had had made specially for him of the most beautiful fumed oak. the bowls of his pipes could now rest sensibly, the stems pointing skywards. his pleasure was unfeigned. he left his breakfast to hang it up and kiss me. "how clever you are, marg," he said. "how did you know?" "you have sometimes mentioned it." he laughed. "i have derived a considerable amount of useful information from you one way or another. i may even become capable in the end." "there's no knowing," he agreed. then we fell to making our plans for the day. it was not often that dimbie took a holiday, we must make the most of it. we would cycle to some pine woods at oxshott which we knew well and loved greatly. we would lunch there by the side of a little pool set in a hollow--sleepy hollow we called it. it would be warm there and sunny, for the trees had withdrawn to the right and left, and it was open to the sun and rain and wind of heaven. when we had rested we would go to a dingle where i knew primrose roots were to be found. what corner and nook and hidden by-way and bridle-path in our beautiful surrey were unknown to me? i had flown to them from peter. i had spent long days in the fields, on the commons, in the pine woods away from peter. my bicycle was a friend in need. peter couldn't cycle. nothing short of a motor-car could catch me on my bicycle. peter hadn't a motor-car. motor-cars, bicycles, and truant girls were an invention of the devil. i would laugh in my sleeve, while peter swore. i am introducing dimbie to a lot of my old haunts. two on their travels are better than one. amelia packed our lunch and asked when we would be home. "it is impossible to say," i told her. "when one rides away into the country or into a sunset or into a moonrise one may never return." and amelia stared as she does sometimes when i cannot keep the laughter and happiness out of my voice. "there's the steak," she said. "cook it when we come in," i called as i followed dimbie through the wooden gate--which is such a joy to me, as it might have been iron--and down the lane. how glorious it was as we spun along the smooth, red roads, and felt the sun and wind on our faces, and breathed spring--for spring was everywhere! "go on in front, marg," commanded dimbie. "i want to look at the sun on your hair. it's like pure gold." i humoured his fancy. "i want to feel it," he called, "to stroke it, it looks quite hot. let's stop for a rest." we dismounted, and sat down on a bank. "you won't ruffle it?" i said. "no," he replied, "i'll be awfully careful." then he stroked the back of my head the wrong way, the dear old way he has always stroked it. "i _do_ love you, sweetheart," he murmured, kissing the nape of my neck. "there never was a marguerite like mine." it is at such moments that the tears come unbidden, tears of intense happiness. will dimbie ever realise how much i love him? my words are few. i remember what nanty said, although she has now recalled her advice. i don't seem to be able to let dimbie know what he is to me. human language is not sufficient, speech is so bald. sometimes in the night, when he is asleep, i press my lips to his kinky hair, but i'm always afraid he will awake and find me out, and i whisper, "god, i thank thee for dimbie." a lark was singing rapturously above us far away out of sight, a thrush was breathing forth liquid notes of silver, and a little golden gorse bush was giving of its best and sweetest to the inmates of the grassy lane. what a beautiful thing is a lane in which the grass runs softly riotous. a street of pure gold, as it were transparent glass, was what st. john saw in his vision. to me such a street, hard and metallic, would be a disappointment. i want in my heaven cool, grassy lanes, soothing and comforting to tired feet. "what a birthday!" said dimbie. "i want always to stop at thirty-one, and sit on a bank with you and look at your hair in the sun, sweetheart." "you'd get tired of it." "never," he vowed. "what a lucky thing it was for me your getting mixed up in that wire netting. girls are very helpless." "but they manage somehow to get out of their difficulties," i laughed, and we sat a little closer. "marguerite," he said suddenly, "would you like a--child?" i felt the colour rise to my cheeks as i shook my head. he stooped and kissed me. "i'm so glad," he whispered. "i wouldn't either. we don't want anyone but each other, do we?" "perhaps--some day," i faltered. "well, perhaps _some_ day," he assented a little reluctantly. "people with children seem so beastly selfish to everybody _but_ the children. they've no thought for anybody else, no interest. you say to 'em, 'my house was burnt down last night.' they look a little vague and reply, 'how unfortunate. johnny has contracted measles.' really anxious to impress them, you go on to tell them that your mother has just died from heart failure, and they say, 'how distressing. mary has passed her matric.' you want to curse mary, but you daren't. they represent all that is holy, all that is extraordinary (in their own eyes), all that is happiness; they are parents. you stand outside the door of the holy of holies. you know not the meaning of the words life, joy, fatherhood, motherhood. the sun and the moon only shine for them. the stars twinkle, and the flowers bloom, only for the children." he paused and sighed deeply. i laughed, and patted his hand. "how do you know all this?" "i have a married sister, remember. when she went abroad with gladys and maxwell i was unfeignedly relieved. they were getting on my nerves, father included." "but this is the age of children, remember, the golden age. before they were kept in the background, now----" "they are never off the foreground," said dimbie gloomily. "they are in the drawing-room monopolising the entire attention of the guests. if the guests don't want 'em the mothers are pained. you are a heartless brute, selfish and self-centred. it never seems to strike them _they_ are the ones who are self-centred." "but that is not the poor children's fault," i said. "children are dears when they are properly trained." "no, perhaps not. the children _might_ be jolly, simple, unself-conscious little beggars if they got the chance, but they don't. as it is, most of 'em are detestable." "but"--i began. "come on, marg," he said, helping me up. "you can't make out a good case for the modern parents however hard you try. let us be getting on." we made straight for sleepy hollow and our pool when we arrived at the woods, and set our cloth at the edge of its banks. such a quiet pool, it might be fast asleep. no insects hum o'er its unruffed surface. no birds twitter in the tall sedges which hug it on three sides. no fish rise, for what would be the use when there are no insects or flies. away in every direction the pine trees stretch, filling the air with their clean, resinous odour. we spread our mackintoshes in the very sunniest spot, and dimbie threw himself on his back, while i sat cross-legged in tailor fashion. "don't you want any lunch?" i asked presently. "rather," he returned, sitting up. "what have you got--omelets?" "that," i said, "is disagreeable of you. amelia's efforts were well meant." "hope she won't have any more," he said, with his mouth full of pie. "amelia will never cease to surprise us as long as she lives with us. she is a curious mixture of extreme cleverness and astonishing simplicity. and i believe her heart's in the right place, though it is difficult to tell, so surrounded is it by bones and patches." i fell to thinking of her, and forgot dimbie and the lunch. amelia will have much to answer for, for displacement of my thoughts. before i only thought of dimbie; now amelia edges in, try as i will to keep her out. why should my mind be taken up with a cockney girl educated in the mile end road? i object. dimbie took me away from her. "by jove, isn't it stunning here! the sun is as hot as in june. i want a series of birthdays in which to ride away with you farther and farther till we reach the sea. then we can sit upon the sands and tell glad stories of our love. and you must always wear that blue serge frock and let the sun wander through your hair as it is doing now." "are you quite sure there is nothing more you want?" i inquired. "yes, i want to kiss you--that little spot on your right cheek which is pink and sunburnt." "well, you can't," i replied. "if you move you will upset the claret and glasses." "don't care," he said, and as he kissed me a man appeared from among the pine trees. "oh!" we both ejaculated, shooting back our heads. he stood and looked at us with an amused expression. "don't mind me," he said quite politely, seating himself on the stump of a tree pretty close to us. "but i am afraid we do," dimbie said equally politely. "i've seen that sort of thing dozens of times," he continued in a detached sort of manner. we sat and eyed him indignantly. "in fact, i rather like it," he went on imperturbably. "oh, do you?" dimbie's sarcasm was sharp as a knife. "yes, i find it refreshing after my work. i am a balloonist, and have done considerable research work in aerial flight. i built an aerodrome once, a steam-driven flying machine. it went about a quarter of a mile and killed my mother on the way." "oh!" i said, shocked. dimbie was staring at the sky. "yes; sad, wasn't it? but she was eighty-seven. and i am sure, could she have had the choice, she would have preferred a sudden, practically painless death to a long, lingering illness." "so did you build this aerodrome on purpose to finish her off?" i inquired with interest. dimbie smothered a laugh, and the man looked at me thoughtfully, but didn't seem offended. "well, no," he replied, "i can hardly say that. i merely meant that it was just a bit of luck for my mother. i hope, by the way, i am not disturbing you." "not very much," i answered, before dimbie could speak. "that's right. i don't like being _de trop_, or in the way; get yourself disliked." there seemed to be nothing to say to this, and dimbie and i peeped at one another and endeavoured not to laugh. [illustration: professor leighrail] the stranger looked at us thoughtfully, benevolently almost. his face was extremely thin and worn, his hands delicate, and his boots too large for him. there was a refinement about his whole personality above the ordinary, and i liked him. "have some lunch?" dimbie said, beginning to unbend. "there isn't any pie left, but there's lots of bread and cheese and some fruit." "no, thank you. i have some lunch in my pocket, so with your permission i will eat it with you." he produced an envelope, and taking out a brown lozenge began to suck it. when he had finished this he extracted a second, and then a third. then from his coat pocket he produced a tin cup, dipped it into a stream which feeds the pool, drank, returned it to his pocket, and leant back in a finished way. "is that all you are going to have?" i couldn't resist asking in astonishment. "yes," he said. "being a balloonist, i am obliged to eat sparingly, so take my meat in a concentrated form. i'm one of the thinnest men in great britain, and usually wear two coats to hide my lean appearance. would you like to feel my ribs?" he asked this simple though somewhat unusual question in exactly the same way as a man might ask you to see his velasquez. "no, thank you," we both said together. "they're worth feeling," he said, a little disappointed. we assured him of our belief in his veracity. "a bit prudish, eh?" he turned towards me. "not in the least," i replied indignantly; "but to be quite candid, i'm not very interested in your ribs. you see, we don't know you very well yet," i added, to soften the blow. "where do you live?" he asked. we told him in guarded language. "within two miles of leith hill. pretty country?" we nodded. "what's the name of your house?" was his next question. "have you taken a great fancy to us?" dimbie inquired sweetly. "very," he said. "don't remember taking a greater fancy to anybody. you seem so ridiculously happy and young." dimbie's and my face, i fear, wore the expression of happiness fleeting. "i'm going now," he said rising. "if you had favoured me with the name of your house i might have dropped in on you some day from my balloon." this sounded rather interesting. "one tree cottage," we said together. he laughed. "might have known it would be a cottage. you both look so exactly like a cottage--lattice windows, roses and honeysuckle thrown in. quite common-place, if you only knew it." "good afternoon, sir," said dimbie in an extinguishing voice. the stranger smiled good-humouredly. "now you're going to get offended with me," said he, "and i am sorry. but you take my word for it, there are scores of young couples in lattice-windowed cottages--or would like to be in lattice-windowed cottages--with honeysuckle and roses and a baby. it's the craze now to live in a cottage. we avoided them as you would the plague in my young days--insanitary, stuffy, no gas, no hot water, floors with hills in them, walls with mould in them, skirtings with rats in them. yours is like that, i expect." we vouchsafed no reply. "and your drains--i expect they're all wrong. most cottage drains are abominable." "we have a drain-bamboo," i said eagerly. "amelia uses it regularly." "amelia sounds a sensible young person. i should like to see her and the cottage. i'm interested in young people. i was young myself once, though you mightn't think it." "perhaps it was some time ago," i observed. "yes, it's a long time." his eyes became reminiscent. "i jumped into an old man the day my wife died, very old. then i took up ballooning. i thought that might prove the surest method of ending myself--short of suicide. don't like suicide--unpleasant and dramatic." he still spoke with cheerful detachment. "and are you a professional balloonist--ascend from the crystal palace and that sort of thing?" i asked. he looked at me with amused surprise, i imagined, for an instant; in fact, he laughed. "oh, no, i am not a professional. i am engaged on various work. generally pretty busy. ballooning is my hobby. if you've plenty to do you can't be lonely." "we shall be very glad to see you," i said, suddenly feeling very sorry for this eccentric person. a shadow had crept across his face as he had spoken. how dreadful to be lonely, i thought. "our village is pine tree valley. we searched about till we found a place set among the pines. i love them so. perhaps you will dine with us one evening?" "it is very kind of you," he said quickly, "but i never dine with people. they invariably eat fattening, indigestible things. if i went out to dinner i shouldn't have ribs like knife blades." he spoke quite proudly. "but i should like to call and see the baby." "there isn't a baby." dimbie's voice was irritable, and my cheeks were scarlet. "i'm sorry," he said. "we hadn't one either." "and did you mind?" i asked. "not a bit while amabella was alive. but when she died i was a great deal alone, and the house seemed big and empty. i think it is a mistake not to have children." he looked at me a trifle severely. "we've only been married a little over three months," dimbie explained apologetically. "ah, well, that makes a difference, of course. you've got plenty of time. good-bye, and may i give you my card?" he fished one out of the pocket which contained the tin mug. it was a little soiled and wet. "it is unnecessary to give me one of yours," he said with a smile. "i don't want to know your name. i shall just ask for mr. and mrs. smilingface, who live in a tiresome, typhoid-inviting, creeper-covered cottage. good-bye," and before we could speak he had gone. with interest we examined the card:- mr. montgomery leighrail, the grey house, esher. dimbie sat down and opened his blue eyes so wide that the crook in his nose moved in sympathy. "what's the matter?" i asked. "marg," he said solemnly, "do you know what you have done?" "no," i replied; "hurry up and tell me." "you have refused to feel the ribs of one of the greatest scientists of the world. that was professor leighrail." "well, he ought to have known better than to have asked me," i said, refusing to be impressed. at which dimbie fell back and chuckled softly for some minutes. chapter v a letter from miss fairbrother beyond the fact that i have received a letter from miss fairbrother, there seems to be nothing of any real importance to-day to enter in my "daily-round." i call my journal my "daily-round," though it isn't anything of the kind, for i only scribble in it when i have nothing else to do, and when i am waiting for dimbie to come home. i always seem to be waiting for dimbie to come home, and yet i don't always write in my "daily-round"; i wait for moods. dimbie calls it my recipe book. he says it looks like one, with its ruled lines and mottled brawn stiff covers. he wants to read it, but this i won't permit. i say, "dimbie, within those covers are the meanderings of a new wife, i mean a newly-made wife. it could be of no interest to you to read: 'i have ordered two pounds of steak for dinner. amelia is unusually squeaky to-day,' but they are of vital interest to me." journals can only be of interest to the people who write them. there are, of course, exceptions, such as pepys and evelyn--i have not read either of them, but they may have made notes of really important events. i don't, for i have none to note. besides, i never know the date. properly constructed journals have dates. i only know the month we are in. i have an idea whether it is the beginning or the end, but if anyone were to say to me, "what is the day of the month?" i should be extremely flurried. i always find, too, that people who ask you the date know it much better themselves. if you say it is the sixteenth they flatly contradict you and say they are sure it is the seventeenth. peter was always like that. he would sit down at the writing-table in the library with a calendar hanging right in front of his nose, and would suddenly pounce upon poor mother with, "what is the date?" mother, not knowing any more about dates than i, would gently refer him to the calendar. peter would not be referred to calendars. mother should know dates the same as other sensible people. then there would be ructions. peter would show mother and me what could be done with an ordinary pair of lungs. i used to think what splendid bellows peter's lungs would make. one day i ventured upon this to him, i asked him to blow up the fire. i shall never forget the result. his facial contortions and the noise he made were out of the common. i am wondering if he makes those noises now. mother was always a little gentler and more yielding to him than i, so perhaps the house is quieter since i left. i don't see them very much. not possessing a carriage, and the journey by train being a little cross country, we do not exchange many visits. peter won't allow mother to come alone, and of course when he comes everything is spoilt. he does not believe in private confidential talks between women. he says that most of it is ill-natured gossip, and i have never heard mother say an unkind word of anybody in her life. i did not mean to write of peter this morning. my head was full of miss fairbrother. such a delightful letter from her. dimbie was as much interested in it as i. she says-"'i am thirty-five to-day. yes, i have reached half the allotted age of man. the psalmist was a little mean and skimpy, i think, to limit one's years to threescore and ten. probably he was old for his age, having crowded a good deal into his life. and all those wives and sons of his were enough to make any man feel tired.'" i looked up and laughed. "go on," said dimbie. "'thirty-five will appear to twenty-three a great and mysterious age--mysterious in the way that death is mysterious; a state at which to arrive at some dim and future period--very dim, very far off when you are but twenty-three. "'and yet my years sit lightly upon me. i can still run, though not so swiftly as of old. i can still laugh, though india is very hot and very sad in some of its aspects. i still wear cotton frocks--perhaps the last foolishly; but what is one to do in an indian climate, and when one has to count up the pennies in readiness for the old age which _must_ come? muslin i eschew as being too airy and girlish for one of rounded proportions, but mercerised cotton is my salvation. praised be the lancashire cotton mills! do you happen to have met with mercerised cotton? it is deceitful, for it tries to cheat you into believing that when you don it you straightway have a silken appearance. it may deceive _you_, but it certainly does not deceive the other women of the station. you read in their uplifted glance "six-three," which means sixpence three farthings. you don't care dreadfully, for are you not cool and most suitably attired as a governess? "'you ask me, dear marguerite, what i am doing. i am still existing in a pink bungalow endeavouring to teach two poor, hot, sticky children. of course it is cool now, but the hot weather will return once more, and then they are going home to that cool, green garden whose other name is england, and my work will be finished. this makes the fourth batch of children who have left me during the years i have been here. and now that garden is calling me, calling me with a voice not to be resisted, and i too am "going home." "'you, little old pupil, will be one of the first persons upon whom i shall leave cards. marguerite married is a person of importance now. her two fair pigtails went "up" long ago, but she will always remain the little old pupil to me. "'then, too, i badly want to see this wonderful husband of yours. he won't be nice to me. a young husband, i think, is rarely devoted to his wife's old friends. but i shan't mind. i shan't resent it. i shall understand.'" i stopped again to laugh up at dimbie, who was leaning over me. "she seems a very sensible woman," he remarked. "there never was anyone quite so sensible as miss fairbrother," i returned. "she could even manage peter in a fashion, and mother was devoted to her. one of the very cleverest things mother ever did was to find miss fairbrother." "please finish," said dimbie, "or i shall miss my train." "'your charming present, for which many thanks, has already raised me some inches in the eyes of the women out here. for long they have been trying to persuade me into wearing a hair-frame. you will probably know the thing i mean--a round, evil-looking, hairy bolster, over which unpleasantness you comb your own hair, hoping to delude mankind into the belief that you have come of parentage of samsonian characteristics. now this beautiful jewelled comb of yours adds somewhat to my stature when, with an attempt--somewhat feeble, i fear--at high coiffured hair, i swim, like meredith's heroines, or try to swim, into dinner. they almost pardon my lack of a bolster when their eyes rest upon such modishness. a little less spinster-governess, they think. and i translate their thought and smile. "'always your most affectionate, "'egoist.'" "egoist, indeed!" i said musingly, as i folded the letter and took a photograph out of my desk--a photograph of a strong, smiling face, with low, broad forehead, over which the hair was parted on one side, clear, unflinching eyes, and large mobile mouth. "why don't you put her into a frame somewhere about the room?" asked dimbie. "it is a fine face." "because i promised her she should never be on view. she imagined she was plain. i think clever people are as sensitive about their looks as stupid." "perhaps so," said dimbie, with a fine disregard of all trains. "was she very clever?" i was pleased at his interest in my much-loved governess. "i don't know," i replied. "i am not clever enough to know. but whatever she said seemed to me intensely interesting. mother and even peter were inclined to hang on her words. she was so witty, so gay; she had such a sense of humour. you see, she was only twenty-eight when she left. she came to us when she was twenty, just after taking a most fearful degree. mother says peter most strongly objected to this degree; that he said women should only take things like measles and scarlet fever, and be feminine, remembering their place in nature, and not try to be clever; and that if only miss fairbrother would do her hair properly and wear white-lace petticoats, she even might get married--there was no telling. and mother argued that she did not wish miss fairbrother to be married till she had thoroughly grounded me and prepared me for that high-class boarding school, lynton house. "and i recollect peter snorted at this, and said that if miss fairbrother could just manage to knock a little writing, reading, and arithmetic into my head and teach me to sew and knit, he, for one, would be satisfied. and he forbade anyone--man or woman--to instruct me in the art of painting flowers, afterwards to be framed and stuck on his walls. i cannot convey to you the scorn in his voice as he shouted the words 'painting flowers.'" "i think he was right there," said dimbie. "so do i," i laughed; "but peter had forgotten that the painting of still life was a product of a bygone age. to imagine miss fairbrother teaching me such an art would be to imagine her teaching me how to embroider wool-work pictures. granny worked two fierce cats with spreading, startled whiskers, in berlin wool. they adorn my old nursery walls to this day. miss fairbrother made up lovely, exciting tales about them and their habits, and for some little time, till i grew older, i was under the impression they left their frames at night and sported on the tiles. we called them mr. chamberlain and mr. balfour." "i must go," said dimbie. "the cats are most interesting, and so is miss fairbrother, but i have our living to make. what do you say to asking her to visit us for a bit when she arrives?" he spoke in a nonchalant way, and i looked up quickly. he had said he shouldn't have anyone to stay with us under twelve months. his back was turned to me, so i couldn't see his face. "do you want her?" i asked. "_i_ want her? certainly not. but you sound so keen on her, and--_she_ sounds lonely." "dear dimbie," i said, "you are a pet. i appreciate your unselfishness, but----" "well, write and ask her before i change my mind. i dare say she'll have the sense to clear off and leave us alone in the evenings." "but shall you care dreadfully?" i queried. he laughed. "well, not dreadfully. no man hankers after a strange woman in the house, especially when he's already got a dear one like you. but i want you to be happy, marg." his voice became very tender. "i don't want you to be lonely. i want your days to be a perpetual delight." he crossed the room and stroked the back of my head. "and so they are," i replied, laying my cheek on his sleeve. "one long delight. sometimes i wonder why god has given _me_ so much happiness. i don't deserve it any more than anyone else. peter, all my worries are behind me; in front of me is joy. i seem to have stepped on to a little green island of content, set in the midst of a sun-kissed ocean. the waves lap the shores lovingly; the breezes linger in our hair with a caress. you and i are alone, dimbie." and he laid his lips on mine for a moment, and then he left me. chapter vi sorrow overtakes me i take up my writing again, or rather my book is propped up in front of me, and i wonder how long ago was that. it tires my head to think. my dates are more confused than ever. i know it is may, but what part of may? i look out of my window--the bed has been wheeled into the window--and i see the chestnut is crowned with its white lights, and the broom bush near the gate is a mass of golden blossom. it is the end of may; it must be nearly june, for they tell me the season is late, that there has been much cold and rain. i am almost glad to have missed that. i like my may to be smiling and gladsome, not frowning and petulant. but to-day she has put on her best bib and tucker, and with the conceit of a frail human being i weave the pleasant fancy that it is done in my honour. "they are giving me a welcome, nurse," i say. "the apple tree is rosy pink with pleasure at my greeting blown to it through the window." and nurse, putting on her bonnet and cloak to go out, tells me to hush and not talk so much. they have been telling me to hush for so long it seems; but now i am tired of hushing, tired of being good. i told dr. renton this yesterday, and he smiled and said it showed i was getting better. "not getting, got," i returned. "when may i get up?" and he said he would come and tell me on wednesday; and this is monday, three o'clock in the afternoon, and i have forty-eight long hours to get through before i know. nurse is just a trifle cross with my impatience. she becomes irritable when i talk about getting up. she says how would i like to lie for some months; and i reply not at all--that it would be quite impossible for dimbie to get along without my being ever at his elbow, and that it would be still more impossible for me to remain in a recumbent position when an upright one is possible. i was glad of this "lying down" when i was in pain. pain! there was a time when i had not known the meaning of the word. it had passed me by, left me alone. i had seen it on a few people's faces; then i thought it was discontent, now i know it was pain. how do people bear it--always? keep their reason? does god try them till they are just at breaking-point, and then gently remove them? or send them the blessing of unconsciousness? they say i lay for hours away in a world of my own. i did not flinch when they touched me, moved me, laid me on my bed, left me in the hands of the doctors. and yet i would have stayed if i could--kept my brain unclouded to help dimbie when he picked me up, disentangled me (he always seems to be disentangling me from something) from the wrecked bicycle, and laid me away from that terrible wall. i did so want to help him. his white, set face recalled me a moment from the haze of unconsciousness which was settling upon me, and i whispered, "dimbie, dear!" but i never heard his answer. the mist became an impenetrable fog, and i left him alone with his difficulties. i don't know now what i wanted to say. he teazes me with lips that won't keep steady, and says i wished to know if my hat were straight. "dear goose," i protest, "it was something to do with the black chicken my wheel caught against in my headlong flight down the hill. i tried to dodge it--it was such a nice, wee black chicken, but it dodged too, and--i couldn't help it." and the tears tremble in my eyes--just from weakness. "i think i wanted you to go back up the hill and help it, for we were both in a very sorry plight." and dimbie, to my surprise, turns away to the window and says we shall have rain. if it had rained every time dimbie has predicted it during my illness we should have been obliged to take refuge in an ark and float about the surface of the waters. i am very cheerful now. i am getting better. what joy, what hope those words contain for those who have been sick and sorry. i wiped away the last tear this morning when mother went. peter's letters had become so tiresome that i told her she had better go. and as i threw a kiss to the back of her pretty bonnet as she disappeared through the gate the tear was for her and not for myself. "i would like to cut peter for life, and i would but for your sake, poor dear little mother," i murmured savagely. and nurse, who entered the room at that moment, said, "you've moved." "yes," i replied, a little guiltily; "but as the pain has almost gone, i thought it could not do any harm just to sit up for a moment and watch mother go." "you've sat up?" she cried in dismay. "yes." i snuggled my head down on the pillow. "i think i'll have a little sleep now, nurse." "i shall tell dr. renton and mr. westover." her voice was relentless. "if you do i shall sit up again, and refuse to take my beef-tea," i asseverated. "besides, it is sneaky to tell tales." her lips twitched as she poured some beef-tea into my feeder. "if you sit up again i shall give up the case." her voice reminded me of the stone wall i had smashed against, and i told her so; but she was not to be moved. "will you give me your faithful promise that you will not sit up again? i am responsible to dr. renton and mr. rovell. i have nursed mr. rovell's cases for years, and i do not wish to lose his work." she stood over me like an angel with a flaming sword. "i promise, nursey, dear," i said meekly. "but you won't take my manuscript book from me? i can write quite easily lying down. you see, it has stiff covers." "you can keep that," she conceded. "are you doing french exercises?" "no," i said gravely. "at present i am writing what you might call 'patience exercises.' when i am at work i forget how long it is before mr. westover will be home. i forget my back. i forget general macintosh and my other worries. i am so absorbed in keeping my spelling and grammar in order that i have no time for other matters. you see, if i were to di--go before my husband, he might wish to see these exercises, and i should not like him to smile at my mistakes." "you are not going before mr. westover," she said briskly. "all my patients think they are going to die. i am not altogether sorry, as they are so sorry for themselves that it keeps them absorbed and out of mischief. were they not taken up in picturing their husbands flinging themselves on to their graves in a frenzy of grief they might be picking their bandages off." i giggled and choked into my beef-tea. "i hate beef-tea," i said when i had recovered. "besides, it is only a stimulant, and not a food." "how do you know that?" she asked. "i saw it in mother's medical book." i spoke carelessly. "where is it?" her voice was sharp. "down the bed." she dived gently but firmly under the clothes and removed the book which i had had such trouble in purloining from mother by bribing amelia. "is there anything else you have read in it?" "no," i said, "i've not had time. i was just running through the index when my eye caught the word beef-tea." "what were you going to look for?" "spines," i returned promptly. "as mine has gone a bit wrong i thought i would like a little information about it." "and i'm just glad i caught you in time," she said sternly. "that is why i like nursing men so much better than women. men are too scared about themselves to go poking their noses into medical books, but women are so curious about their own cases that there is no holding them in. they look at their charts--i have seen them doing it in hospital when the nurses' backs were turned. they take their own temperatures, feel their own pulses, and ask a thousand questions which no sensible nurse would dream of answering." "i have not asked silly questions," i argued. "no, because up to now you have been far too poorly. what is it you want to know?" "when i may get up," i said eagerly. "well, you won't find that in a medical book. did you expect to do so?" "oh, no. i wanted to find out of what spines are made; the diseases to which they are subject," i said rather lamely. "yours isn't a disease, but an accident. dr. renton will tell you fast enough when you may get up." she put the book into a drawer. "it seems so long to wednesday." "he is not coming till next week." "not till next week," i said blankly, "and this is only monday. he said he would come on wednesday." "no, he didn't. you assumed that he would." "well, i call it most neglectful." "there is nothing to come for now," she said soothingly. "it is a good way from dorking to pine tree valley, and of course, as he said, there is no good in running up a long bill." "i don't believe he said that," i cried heatedly. "perhaps he didn't," she admitted; "but you mustn't excite yourself. i am going to lower the blinds. you said you were sleepy." "i never was so wide awake in all my life," i almost sobbed. "i think it is mean of dr. renton. i did so want to get up this week and smell the wallflowers before they were quite over. i think they were late in flowering for my sake. i put them in and they waited for me, and now i shall miss them." "i will bring some in for you to smell." "it won't be the same," i cried petulantly. "you don't understand, nurse. to enjoy wallflowers to the full the sun must be shining upon them, and you must stand a little away from the bed, and the west wind must come along gently, bearing in its arms the scent--just a breath of warm fragrance, and--well, that is the way to enjoy wallflowers, and--oh, nurse, i do so want to bury my face in them." i tailed off to a wail. she walked to the window and lowered the blind. "if you carry on in this way you will never smell wallflowers again." she was cross. "i shall leave you now, and perhaps you'll be calmer when i come back." "oh, nurse," i said penitently, "don't go. i will be good. and i want you to read me _peggy and other tales_. you read it so beautifully." _peggy_ is a dear black book which belonged to mother when she was a little girl. it was my especial favourite when i was seven, and it has been quite the most suitable form of literature for a weak, fractious invalid with a hazy brain and wobbly emotions. nurse laughed as she picked up the book. "are you not tired of it?" "no," i replied. "_peggy_ comforts me very much. and when you have finished her, you might read me something out of _ecclesiastes_. it is not that i am feeling religious or think i am going to die, but the language is so musical and grand: '_or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern._' it is the repetition of the word 'broken' i like. now had i been writing the verse i should have searched about for another verb--smashed, cracked--and straightway the beauty of the lines would have been spoiled. but solomon was so sure of himself. he knew the word 'broken' was just the right word even if used three times and so he used it." nurse sat and looked at me with surprise chasing across her face. "dear me," she said, "i never notice things like that when i am reading." "what do _you_ notice?" i inquired. "oh, i don't think i notice anything. i just want to hurry on to where the man proposes." "but men don't often propose in the bible, with the exception of jacob," i said laughing. "i didn't refer to the bible. i was thinking of books generally." "you mean you never notice how a book is written. you just want to get on with the plot." "that's it," she agreed. "i hate descriptions. they tire me to death, especially as to how the characters feel inside about things. heroines are the worst of all. they commune with themselves for hours over the merest trifles." "do you mean as to whether they will get a new dress, or engage a man to put a new washer on the bathroom tap which drips?" "oh, no," she said, a little impatiently, "i can't explain; it is not over things like that they worry themselves. but you look tired. you are talking too much. i will read you to sleep." she spoke with finality, and picked up the book. as she read aloud in a somewhat sonorous voice i lay and watched the tree-tops. "next week," i thought, "i shall be out of doors once more. i shall visit the frog-pond with dimbie. i shall wander through the fields with him. his arm will clasp mine, as i shall be weak, and we shall sit and rest under a white hawthorn hedge. the scent will be heavy on the still evening air. the fields of clover and wheat will----" and at this point i left _peggy_ and nurse, and fell asleep. chapter vii dr. renton breaks some news to me the week has passed at last--in the daytime on leaden feet, on wings of gold in the evening when, as the clock has struck six, dimbie and happiness have entered my room hand in hand. "only four more days, dear one," dimbie has said hopefully. "only three more days. nurse must begin to air your tea-gown." "only two more. i am putting bamboo poles through the small wicker chair. you may not be able to walk at first, and nurse and i will carry you. i could manage you alone, you are only a feather in weight, but i might hurt you--such a frail marguerite my little wife looks." "is it the drain-bamboo you are using?" i ask demurely. "for amelia might object." and dimbie laughs like a happy boy. "only one more day. to-morrow you will meet me at the door. nurse will help you there, and then she will go away, and--we shall be alone." his voice vibrates with happiness and my cheeks glow. "have you missed me, dimbie?" i whisper. "have you enjoyed pouring out your own tea and finding your slippers and working in the garden alone?" and he smiles tenderly and says he hasn't missed me one little bit, and can't i see it in his face? and nurse who comes into the room says "ahem!" her throat often seems a little troublesome. and now to-morrow has come. dr. renton may walk in at any minute, and i press my finger to my wrist to try to hush the beating. nurse has put me into my best blue silk jacket, and my hair has been done--well, not in the very latest parisian mode, but its two plaits are tied with new blue ribbons. she has propped me up so that i may see the lane and know the exact moment in which dr. renton may drive down it. i persuaded her to go for her walk as soon as lunch was over. i told her dr. renton never came, as she herself knew, much before half-past three, and that i felt unusually well. and as soon as ever i heard the click of the gate and knew she had gone i rang the tortoise--the bell which always lives on the other pillow--for amelia. she appeared, very dirty. "why, you're not dressed," i said. "did you ring to tell me that, mum? because i knewed it." her attitude was not that of impertinence, but of inquiry. "oh, no," i replied quickly. "i want you to bring me up one of the volumes of the encyclopædia. i don't know the number, but it will have spi on the back." i spoke nervously, for i felt guilty. i was about to embark upon an act of deception. would amelia detect me? but, for a wonder, she left the room without a comment. in a minute she was back. "there is no volume with spi on it," she announced. "there is one with sib and szo on it, mum." "that will do," i said eagerly. "it will be in that." she brought it with a running accompaniment of squeaks and gasps. "three at a time, mum." "three at a time! what?" i inquired. "stairs, mum." "well, then," i said, "it is very foolish of you, amelia. your breathing resembles a gramophone when you wind it up. i shan't require anything further, thank you; but please get dressed. i should like you to be neat when dr. renton arrives, and he will probably have tea with me. i don't know how it is you are so late." "i do, mum." "why?" my question was answered by another. "have you any idea what i do after lunch, mum? do you think i am skipping or playing marbles?" "oh, no," i said hastily, "i am sure you are not, amelia." "well, then, i'll tell you what i do, so as you won't be wonderin' why i'm not dressed by half-past two." she spoke volubly. "i washes up the lunch things--nurse's now as well; she's too grand to so much as put a kettle on. then i sweeps up the kitchen, sides up the hearth, brushes the kettle, cleans the handle----" "what do you do that for?" i asked with interest. "for fun, of course." "_amelia!_" i said rebukingly. "beggin' your pardon, mum, but it seemed such a foolish question--meanin' no offence to you. i cleans the handle, which is copper here--it was brass at tompkinses'--to get the dirt and smoke off. you never got your hands black in lifting _my_ kettle, did you now?" "i don't think i have ever lifted it," i rejoined. "oh, well," she said in a superior way, "of course you can't know; but people who knows anything at all about a house knows that generals' kettles are mostly black. then i scrubs the table, dusts the kitchen, feeds the canary, and waters the geranium, which is looking that sickly-like i'm ashamed of the tradespeople seeing it. the butcher only says to me yesterday, 'i see you are a bit of a horticulturist, miss.'" she stopped, breathless. "you certainly are very busy," i said. "busy isn't the word. i'm like a fire-escape from morning till night." i think she meant fire-engine, and i was not sorry when she departed, for i was anxious to get to my encyclopædia. i turned the pages rapidly--sphygmograph, spice islands, spider, spikenard, spinach, spinal cord. "ah, here we are!" i said delightedly. in a moment my spirits drooped. "see physiology, vol. xix. p. 34. for diseases affecting the spinal cord, see ataxy (locomotor), paralysis, pathology, and surgery." i gave a deep sigh. i always have disliked the _encyclopædia britannica_. from the moment dimbie introduced it to our happy home i have had a feeling of unrest. it appears to think you have nothing to do with your time beyond playing "hunt the slipper" with it. you wish to look up a subject like dog. with a certain amount of faith and hope you approach your encyclopædia. dog refers you to canine. you check your impatience. canine refers you to faithfulness. a bad word, if you were a man, would then be used; but you are not a man, so you only stamp your foot. faithfulness refers you to gelert, and you hurt yourself rather badly as you replace the volume. you give up dog. you would prefer your pet dying before your very eyes to searching any more heavy volumes. when dimbie first saw the _encyclopædia britannica_ advertised in the daily mail he became very enthusiastic, and after talking about it for some time commented upon my lack of interest in the subject. "why, marg, they are giving it away!" he cried. "oh," i said, rousing myself, "that is quite a different thing. i like people who give books away. when will they arrive?" "when i said, 'giving it away,'" dimbie explained, hedging, "i meant that the payments would be by such easy instalments that we couldn't possibly miss them. and a fumed oak bookcase will be thrown in free." i became interested in the bookcase, and when it arrived i wasn't, for it was black and varnishy and sticky, and very far removed from fumed oak as i knew it. i gave it to amelia for her pans, and we ordered another from the joiner, who charged us £4 for it, money down, as we were strangers. we don't find the payment of the instalment each month in the least easy. in fact, we almost go without fire and food to meet it. i rang the tortoise sharply. the encyclopædia should be made to divulge that which i wished to know. i would not be hoodwinked. "please bring me volumes phy, loc, par, pat, and sur," i said to amelia, who was buttoning her black bodice all wrong. "and where's your cap?" "in my pocket, mum." she produced it, fastening it on wrong end foremost with two hair-pins which once might have been black. "it is an unsuitable place to keep it," i pronounced. "and where are your cuffs?" amelia smiled. "they've melted, mum. i forgot they was india-rubber, and i put them into the oven after washing them, and when i went for them they was just drippin'." i sighed deeply. "well, bring me the volumes. do you remember which i mentioned?" "no, mum." "i will write them down for you." "why not have the whole forty, mum?" she said, as she took the slip of paper. "those five will be sufficient, thank you," i said coldly. her panting was naturally excessive as she laid the volumes on the bed. "they are rather heavy for me to lift, amelia," i said. "please open phy for me and turn over the leaves till you come to physiology, and then go and see about some tea. i don't feel i can wait till four o'clock to-day." "would you like some drippin' toast, mum? i've got some lovely beef drippin' from the last sirloin which master carved all wrong. he cut it just like ribs--i mean the under-cut--instead of across. he'd have catched it if he'd been mrs. tompkins' husband." "but he isn't, you see." my manner was extinguishing. "you're a bit cross, mum?" she suggested. "no, amelia, i'm not, only tired--tired of waiting for dr. renton--tired, sick to death of lying here. do you know how long i have lain here?" "seven weeks come wednesday," she replied promptly. "no, amelia. you have miscalculated. you have minimised the period of time. i have lain here," and i stretched my arms wide, "a thousand days and nights, a million days and nights; and each day and night has stretched away to eternity." "lawks, mum!" her corsets cracked. "lawks! doesn't express it, amelia. go now and put on the kettle with the clean copper handle. no dripping toast, thank you. i am sure nurse would disapprove. she has a tiresome habit of disapproving of most things. besides, i don't feel like common fare. i want something to take me out of myself and to uplift me. something delicate, subtle, ambrosial. do you know what ambrosial means? no? ambrosia means food for the gods. i want food for the gods--iced rose leaves, a decoction of potpourri to assuage my thirst. go, amelia, and make speed to do my bidding." and amelia, with bulging eyes, has gone. i could hear her muttering to the landing furniture, "just a bit dotty in the head like ned wemp, the village softy. poor thing, no wonder she's queer at times. she _did_ bump her head." and i am laughing weakly. i feel, after all, unequal to tackling the encyclopædia. i feel faint with waiting and watching for dr. renton. it is half-past three. i heard nurse come in a few minutes ago. i hear amelia rattling the tea-cups. but the sound doesn't cheer me. somehow, why i cannot say, fear has gripped me at the heart. and i cannot laugh it away. why is dr. renton so long in coming? "'he cometh not,' she said; she said, 'i am aweary, aweary, i would that i were dead!'" * * * * * dr. renton has been here. and i have sent nurse away so that i may fight it out alone before dimbie comes home. i broke down a little before dr. renton, but i mustn't cry before dimbie. i must always try to remember that. he has quite enough worries of his own. i must never cry before dimbie. dr. renton's words keep slowly repeating themselves in my brain: "to lie for twelve months is hard, but--supposing it had been life-long crippledom, that would be harder." "supposing it had been life-long crippledom!" i must go on saying it over and over again till i feel patient, till i feel grateful for only being asked to bear the lighter burden. but, oh, how long it seems! how very long! to think that i must lie quite still. and this was to have been my first year of happiness, the first year in which i was free to roam at my will, free to stretch my wings away from peter's cramping influence. it seems a little hard. "but supposing it had been life-long crippledom!" i must learn to be patient. * * * * * i think i might have helped dr. renton, made it less difficult for him to tell. but i was selfish. instinctively i knew what was coming--his rugged face was more rugged than usual--and yet i clasped my hands and cried, "how long you have been. when may i get up? oh, say to-day. i _do_ so want to go to the door to meet dimbie. i ache to go and meet him. i hear the latch of the garden gate, his footstep on the gravel; then my spirit like a bird flies to meet his, and--amelia meets him. speak, dr. renton. say it quickly. say i may get up." and all the answer he made was to pick up one of the volumes of the encyclopædia and walk to the window. there was silence for a moment, and that silence told me all. "but my pulse is steady, doctor, dear," i cried with a sob in my voice. "my temperature is normal. my eyes are clear. my colour is good. i am _quite_ well again." "i wish to god you were!" he said almost savagely. "what is the matter with me?" i spoke more quietly. his evident emotion frightened me into a momentary calmness. i might as well know the worst or best and get it over. my heart beat thickly, and i closed my eyes. i had known dr. renton long enough to feel sure that whatever he told me would be the truth. and the truth was that i was to be on my back for a whole year; to be lifted from my bed to a couch, and from the couch back again to bed; that i might be wheeled from one room to another on the ground floor, but must never walk. never walk! as one in a dream i heard his words. dully and with unseeing eyes i stared through the window. by and by i should get used to the idea, used to being still. _what would dimbie say_? i turned to the doctor quickly. "does my husband know?" "no," he replied. "why haven't you told him?" "i wanted to make sure." "and you are sure now? there is no other way--treatment, massage?" i spoke breathlessly. "there is no other way. but a year will pass quickly. you must be brave." "but i didn't want it to pass quickly," i cried bitterly. "don't you understand this was to have been my year--my wonderful year?" "there will be other years," he began gently. "you are young, marguerite. all your life is before you. there will be next year----" "but next year will not be the same as this. go, doctor renton; leave me. i am going to cry, and you will be angry. you hate tears. but i must cry before dimbie comes home, and the time is passing. unless i cry i--i shall break in two." the tears were raining down my face as i spoke, and dr. renton swore lustily, as he has always done when upset. "good-bye," i said, smiling through my tears. "your language will deprave jumbles." he held my hand between his. "you know i am sorry. i am a poor hand at expressing what i feel." "i know," i replied. "no girl ever had a kinder doctor." "i shook you when you were a little girl with measles for running barefoot about the passages." he was patting my hand. "do you mean you want to shake me now?" i asked. "yes, if you cry any more," he said a little grimly, but the expression in his eyes was very kind. "i'll try not to," i whispered tremulously. "that's a brave girl," he said. "good-bye, keep up your heart, and we'll get you well." and i lay and cried for half an hour. chapter viii dimbie comforts me dimbie went very white when i told him. he walked to the window and stared for some time at the gathering darkness. i had chosen this hour, knowing my face would be in shadow. it is so much easier to control one's voice than one's features. jumbles rubbed his face against my shoulder. i could hear amelia singing, "her golden hair is hanging down her back." she sounded cheerful and happy. nurse had gone to the village to post a letter. she would be back soon to "settle" me for the night. why didn't dimbie speak--say something? i wanted to be comforted as only dimbie could comfort me. a little sigh broke from me, and in a second his arms were round me and i was held very closely. "my poor little girl," he murmured. "i _am_ sorry for her." "oh, dimbie," i whispered, clinging to him, "can you bear with me if i have a little grumble? i meant to be so brave to you, to put on such a bright face, not to let you hear _one_ word of repining; but i want to let it all out, oh, so badly. you only can understand how i feel, because you know and love me best. and after to-night i will try never to speak of it again." for answer he pillowed my head on his shoulder and kissed my eyes and hair and lips. "you see," i said, looking across the garden, which was shadowy and mysterious, to the frog-pond field, "i don't think i should have felt it quite so much if it had been next year. we should have been an old married couple by then, and have got used to everything--to all the wonderfulness of being together alone, i mean without mother and peter." "i shall never get used to that," said dimbie with emphasis. "yes, you will," and i assumed an old married woman's air. "it seems incredible now, when we have been husband and wife for only five months. how do you feel when you say, 'my wife'?" "thrill all over." "so do i," i laughed, "when i say, 'my husband.' i feel quite shy, and imagine people must be laughing at me. but--have you ever seen peter getting excited over those two words, 'my wife'?" "never," said dimbie. "but," indignantly, "you are not surely going to compare me with peter?" "i am not going to compare you with anyone. but just think of all the couples you know who have been married, say--longer than two years." "shan't." i laughed and kissed his ear. then i became grave. "now listen to my words of wisdom. i am going to speak for some time, tell you all my thoughts, and you mustn't interrupt. you and i love each other very much, and we are always going to love each other very much--at least we hope so. but this would have been our one wonderful year. this would have been the year when we should have walked upon the heights very close to the sun and stars. this would have been our year of enchantment, when the weeds on the wayside would have blossomed as the rose, and the twitter of every common sparrow would have been to us as the liquid note of the nightingale. this would have been the year when we should have wandered down dewy lanes, and, looking into each other's eyes, would have found a something there which would have caused our hearts to swell and our pulses to beat. "on june evenings we should have gathered little wild roses and plunged our faces into fragrant meadow-sweet, and laughed at the croaking of the frogs in the pond and had supper in the garden under the apple tree, loth to leave the sweetness of a summer night. in july we should have sat in the bay or gathered moon daisies; and i, forgetting i was marguerite married, would have whispered, 'he loves me, he loves me not;' and you, flinging down, your hat on to the grass, would have knelt in front of me and behaved in a manner most foolish and yet most delightful. in august we should have had our first holiday together. what scanning of maps and reading of guide-books! cromer, we would settle--poppy land. we would laze on the heather at pretty corner and look at the blue sea. too many people we would remember, and fix on the austrian tyrol. baedekers would be bought, trains looked up, only to find that when we had paid amelia's wages and the poor rate our bank balance was very small. and finally we should have found our way to some old-world cornish fishing village, where we should have bathed and walked, and fished from an old boat. in september we should have cycled along beautiful autumn-scented lanes, dismounting at oxshott, and wading ankle-deep through the pine woods, would have silently thanked cod for the flaming beauty of the birches silhouetted against the quiet sky. in november we should have tidied up our garden and planted our bulbs for the spring--crocuses and daffodils, especially daffodils, for do we not love them best of all the spring flowers? and then xmas would have come, with its merry-making and festivities, and our beautiful year would have ended on a night when with clasped hands and full hearts we should have listened to the tolling of the bell for its passing--the dear, kind old year which had brought us such joy, such complete contentment." i finished with a break in my voice, and, forgetting all my brave resolutions, two big tears dropped on to dimbie's hand which held my own. "poor little sweetheart! my own dear wife," he said, "i am sorry for you, so sorry i cannot express it. but why shouldn't such a year as you picture be ours when you are strong and well once more? this first year of our marriage shall be an indoor year. you shall be marguerite-sit-by-the-fire, knitting and making fine embroidery, and later on you shall be my marguerite of the fresh air, of the sun and the wind, and we will still have our wonderful year." i shook my head. "it could never be the same," i replied. "i may sound sentimental, dimbie, but i am a woman and know. men are very ignorant about love, only women know. men imagine that romance will last beyond the first year as well as love, but women know better. besides, men don't care about its lasting, it tires them, bores them; but women care, oh, so much. they can't help it, they are born that way. men are tremendously keen on gaining the object of their affection, and when they have got it they regard it calmly, affectionately, unemotionally. it is a possession: they are glad for it to be there, and almost annoyed when it is absent--not exactly because they miss the possession's companionship, but it has no right to be anywhere but at its own fireside. men go to golf, tennis, race meetings, fishing on their saturdays, sundays and holidays. they are quite surprised at the possession being a little sorry and hurt at first at their not wanting to go about with her as they did in that first wonderful year. the possession is unreasonable, exacting; she wants to tie her husband to her apron strings. she has no right to be lonely--there are the children, and if there are no children she must make interests of her own; or--she might even take to golf so long as she isn't extravagant and ambitious, and expect to play with haskells or her own husband. "all these are platitudes, you will say; but there never were truer platitudes. ah, if husbands would only realise and accept the fact that woman is the other half of man, but diverse, how much happiness there would be. diverse! he loved her for her feminine attributes before marriage--for her weaknesses if you like to call them such. why doesn't he after? a true, good woman doesn't want a great deal. a gentle word, a caress, a look of love and understanding from the man she loves are far more to her than coronets. a woman likes to be wanted, and i don't think it is vanity. watch her smile if her husband marks her out of a large crowd for a little attention. the other women there may be young and beautiful; she is little and old and faded, and wears a shabby gown--but her husband _wants_ her. women are never happier than when they are wanted. and how quick they are, how instantly they divine when an act of courtesy is performed for them from duty only and not from affection. i once heard a man curse when his wife asked him to hold her umbrella on a wet night when she was struggling with the train of her gown and her slippers. they were dining out, and couldn't afford cabs. she was frail, and he was big and strong. she just caught at her breath. through the years she had learnt wisdom, a greater wisdom than solomon could ever teach. she realised that this man would stand by her in a tight place, and with that she must be content. it was unreasonable of her to hanker after the little words of love and kindness which make life so sweet. he was faithful to her, he didn't drink or gamble or go to clubs. he gave her £25 a year for her clothes, and he 'kept' her. what more could she possibly want? and if he swore at her, and told her she looked old, and why couldn't she dress like other women, it was only his little way, and didn't mean anything." i paused. "and so, and so that is why i am grieved at the loss of our first year." dimbie sat in silence for a moment, and when he moved and gently placed my head on the pillow i was startled by the expression of his face. "you speak from your experience of the manner in which your father has treated your mother," he said at length slowly, "and that is a little hard on other men. do you think i shall ever cease to want you, marguerite?" "i don't know," i replied. "yes, you do." his voice was stern. "i cannot answer for the future." "you have no faith in me?" "you see, i shall be a helpless log, a useless invalid for twelve months or even longer," i said. "it will be a great strain on your love." he dropped my hand and made to go away. "don't go," i cried. "do you think my love would stand the test of your being an invalid for even twenty years?" i did not answer. "do you?" he said, dropping on to his knees and looking into my eyes. "do you, marguerite, wife?" "yes," i whispered. "thank god for that!" he said. "i was beginning to think--i was afraid you did not understand me; that you were fearful at having given yourself to me; that you did not love me, in fact, as i love you, for where there is love there is no fear." he laid his cheek to mine, murmuring, "marguerite! marguerite!" and so we sat till the darkness fell and nurse came in. chapter ix amelia expresses her opinion of me and so i have settled down to my year of inactivity, of schooling my temper, of a constant looking for and waiting for dimbie, and of a perpetual wrestling with amelia. when i told the last-named of my misfortune she just stood and stared at me. i thought she could not have understood, or surely there would be a word of sympathy. she was kind at heart i knew. "twelve whole months on my back," i repeated plaintively. "and never have a bath, mum?" "don't be silly," i said irritably. "of course arrangements will be made for my baths. and all the rooms are to be rearranged. the doctor wishes me to be carried downstairs. the dining-room is to be turned into my bedroom, then i can be wheeled across to the drawing-room each day; and the smoke-room will be used for meals. "the smoke-room is full of bicycles and photographic rubbish," she said argumentatively. "well, they can be moved. don't throw stumbling-blocks in the way of every suggestion. are you not sorry for me?" i said. "very, mum," she assured me with warmth. "i knows how you will take on. no one is never satisfied with anythink in this world. now here, i would give my very heyes to be a grand lady reclinin' on a couch in a beautiful tea-gown, readin' novels, and drinkin' egg and sherry twice a day." "you would get very tired of it," i sighed. "well, you'll have to have a settled hoccupation, mum--makin' wool mats like the work'us people, though i must say as they don't like it. my uncle says they used to be quite peaceful and happy till them brabazon ladies came along and taught 'em how to make wool mats and rush baskets. they worried about the patterns of them mats till the old men was drove fairly silly. p'r'aps you could write poetry. you has a bit of a look sometimes of a person--i mean a lady who _could_ write poetry. there was a poet as visited tompkinses'--a sickly-looking gent with hair like a door-mat and a complexion like leeks which has been boiled without soda. tompkinses was very proud of knowing him, and the heldest miss tompkins used to wear her canary-coloured satin blouse when he came to dinner. when the wine was offered him he always said, 'no, thanks,' in a habstracted way, but when it went round the table again, as wine does, he'd fill a tumbler, and frown at the ceiling, and pretend he didn't know what he was doing." "and do i look like a leek that has been boiled without soda?" i asked faintly. "oh, no, mum," amelia replied with comforting haste, "not quite so bad yet. you've looked more like a love-lies-bleeding just lately since you had your accident--though the master seems satisfied. everybody's tastes is different. love-lies-bleeding is not my fancy. i like something handsome and straight up like a sunflower or pee-ony. writin' poetry would help to pass the time, and you has some of the tricks this poet had. he'd stand and stare at the moon, when he was in the garden with miss tompkins, and mutter to it like someone gone daft. he fairly skeered me; and he'd take on at catchin' sight of a vi'let as though he'd met a cockroach." "well?" i asked, trying to see the connection. "well, mum, i catched you carryin' on in just the same way in the garden on master's birthday. you was starin' up at the sky at a lark--i was going to the ashpit--and i heard you say softly to yourself, 'bird, thou never wert.' i couldn't help hearing you, and i wondered whether you thought it was a kitten or a spider." i laughed, though i didn't want to do so. i was hideously depressed at the thought of that glorious spring morning and now--but amelia was so very ridiculous. i watched her dusting, which was vigorous and thorough, and wished she would put ruth, a picture above the mantelshelf, at a more decorous angle. "i have been thinking that you won't be able to manage the housework alone without my assistance, amelia," i observed, when she had finished brandishing the duster about and had stopped squeaking. "we shall have to engage a charwoman to help you a couple of days a week. we can't afford another servant, i am sorry, but a charwoman will be very helpful. then if i sent all the washing out i think you could manage. oh, and i will have a window cleaner," i added encouragingly. i thought she would be pleased. i imagined servants loved charwomen. i know i should were i a servant--so nice to have someone to talk to, and into whose willing ear to pour tales about the mistress. but amelia snorted so violently she made me jump. "charwoman!" it would be difficult to convey the scorn in her voice. "charwoman helpful?" "aren't they?" i inquired. amelia flung herself towards the door. "you'd never seen a flue-brush, mum, and now you asks if a charwoman is helpful." i remained silent, overwhelmed by my own ignorance. amelia fetched a piece of wet, soapy flannel, and applied it to some of her own finger-marks on the white door. i felt glad she was working off her feelings in this way. "what do they go out for?" i said at length. "just to rob the silly folks who engages 'em," she replied laconically. "are they all like that?" "everyone as i met. it took me best part of a day to clean up after her as came to tompkinses'. she swilled herself in beer and tea, had meat three times a day, and hung tea and butter round her waist under her skirt just like a bustle when she went away in the evening." "but surely she was an exception?" i commented. "no, mum, they're all like that, every one of 'em," she replied firmly. "but how are you going to manage now i am laid up?" she hesitated for a moment, perhaps out of consideration for my feelings, but her own got the better of her. "i shall manage all right," said she briskly. "in fact, i shall get along much better. your helping hindered me terribly, mum. i hope as i'm not hurtin' your feelin's. you see," she added kindly, "you 'adn't been used to work, not with four servants; and when you did anythink i always had to be runnin' after you to wipe up the mess. you said you'd fill the lamps; well, you did when you wasn't putting the paraffin on the table--there was that to scrub, and your gloves and scissors to put away. and the day as you said you'd make a puddin', well--the sultanas was lying about like blackbeetles, mum, and flour all over the place just like a snowstorm. and it was, 'amelia, put the pan on, please,' and 'amelia, take it off,' and 'amelia, put some coal on the fire, the puddin' water's stopped boilin',' and 'amelia, the puddin's boiled dry.'" she stopped for breath, and i looked drearily through the window. "hope you're not offended, mum, but i wanted you to hunderstand as how i could manage all right." "i quite understand," i replied. "no, i am not offended. i am afraid i am not of much use in the world, amelia," and i sighed. "but the master doesn't seem to want you any different, mum," she said comfortingly. "he sits and looks at you as though you had won a prize at a show. mr. tompkins used to stare at his black prize minorca just in the same hidentical way." "his black minorca?" i repeated vaguely. "yes, mum. one of his hens as got a first prize, and was a rare layer." "oh!" i murmured. "i must go now," she said, "and put the potatoes on for your lunch. and don't you fret about the work, mum. as soon as ever nurse has gone, who makes a power of mess, i shall have plenty of time and to spare, and can put a patch on my pink body." "what, another?" i almost shouted. "that will make the seventh." she regarded me with uplifted brows. "you don't want the bones of my stays to come through, mum?" "oh, no," i assured her quickly. "but is it necessary to have quite so many bones? i have only about six altogether." she looked me up and down with an eye devoid of any admiration. "of course, i don't wear corsets at all now," i hastened to explain. "my figger has always been my strong point, mum, and i'm not goin' to let myself go. of course, you're thin, mum, so it doesn't matter so much. but people who lets themselves go always has big waists, like the statues in picture galleries. i once went to a show in whitechapel, and i says to the girl who went along with me 'i'd be downright ashamed if i couldn't show a smaller waist than that venus.' i expect yours will be pretty big when you gets about again," with which comforting prediction she retired to the lower regions and left me with this pleasing prospect and my own thoughts, which were not of the most cheerful description. it is hard to be told that one is of no use in the world, and to be compared with a black prize minorca, however good a layer! chapter x i discover that dr. renton is in love nurse has gone, and i am not overwhelmed with grief. i could quite see that within another week the kitchen would have been turned into a pugilistic ring, and she and amelia would have settled their grievances in a fight. amelia has said, with her nose in the air, "seems to think i am just here to wait on her, mum. nurses halways imagines they're duchesses, and just took to nursin' out of pilanthropy." and nurse has said kindly, "i don't want to worry you, mrs. westover, but probably _that_ girl is here just as a temporary, or i shouldn't speak; but really her impertinence is----" "she is _quite_ permanent," i have hastened to assure her, at which she too has stuck her nose in the air; and so they have gone about as though the law of gravitation was reversed, and their noses permanently drawn heavenwards. i am downstairs in the drawing-room. i found awaiting me an invalid couch--an ilkley--low and luxurious, with soft down cushions cased in silk of a lovely golden hue--a couch contrived to ease the weariness of tired people. they have pushed it into the window, and from here i can see all my friends of the garden--the apple tree best loved of all, for is it not our very _own_ tree, growing on our domain? one has a peculiar affection for one's own possessions. not that i am anything but grateful to the beech in the frog-pond field for casting its cool shadow across the lawn; but it belongs to somebody else--perhaps some farmer who hardly knows of its existence. my descent from the upper regions was somewhat perilous. we--amelia, nurse, and i--wanted to take dimbie by surprise, so nurse said she would superintend my removal. as a matter of fact, she did nothing of the kind, for amelia superintended it. first of all she made me put up my hair. she said i could not "boss the show" with it hanging down in two plaits. i reflected that were i to dress it as high as the eiffel tower i should not be able to boss _her_, but i did not mention this. next she picked up _her_ end of the chair and fairly ran with me down the stairs, nurse being bound to follow. i closed my eyes and held my breath, and when i opened them again i found myself staring at two gorgeous yellow flags decorated with portraits of the king and queen. they had certainly not been there on the last occasion of my being in the drawing-room. the king wore a top-hat and carelessly held a cigar in his kid-gloved hand. the queen, poor thing, was extremely _decolletée_, and wore mauve roses in her hair. the king, in morning dress, seemed out of place to me by the side of such grandeur on the part of his spouse. amelia broke into my musings. "thought we would have a bit of decoration, like the jubilee, mum, in your honour, so i got them flags in the village." she looked at me expectantly, and nurse sniffed. the sniff annoyed me. "it was extremely kind of you, amelia," i said warmly. "thank you very much." "and the hilkley, mum? the master got that, and we smuggled it into the house without your hearing anythink that was going on. and he's been wheeling it about hever since, trying to get the best persition, where the sun wouldn't catch your eyes, and where you could see the garden and the happle tree." "i think it is lovely. please lift me on to it, nurse. _you_ will have to lift me to-morrow, amelia," i said soothingly. she watched the proceeding carefully, and with gentle hand arranged the cushions. the hand was rough and coarsened by hard work, but i felt that it would ever be ready to do my service. i told them to leave me, as i wanted to be alone. i wanted to think. now that i was downstairs i wished to review my position. the familiar aspect of the room, the furniture--which amelia had pushed against the walls with an undesirable effort at neatness--conjured up a thousand pleasant memories. it had been on a snowy winter afternoon when dimbie and i had first come home. how peaceful, how delicious the warm, fire-lit room had seemed after the rush of hotel life! we sat in the gloaming talking, planning out our lives, what we would do, where we would go; and now--ah! when should i cease to chafe at lying still? i thought of all the people who had had to lie so much--mrs. browning, stevenson, and they had seemed so patient over years of ill-health--and my inactivity was but for one year, and yet i was not patient. * * * * * doctor renton came into the room, bearing in his arms a great bunch of roses. "from your mother," he said; "she came round with them this morning. she wanted to come with me." "and why didn't she?" i felt my eyes kindle. "you know," he replied with a shrug. "peter is a beast!" i said. he smiled. "you are evidently better. i am glad to find you downstairs. how did you manage the removal?" i described it fully, and he laughed. "that girl of yours is a brick. i should keep her." "she wouldn't go," i said. "she will help you not to be lonely. have you made any friends here yet?" "no," i returned. "i believe some people called when i was ill. but i don't want anybody." "you only want your husband?" i nodded. "you seem uncommonly fond of one another." "of course," i said. to my surprise he sighed and walked to the window. i noticed his figure was a little bent and his hair grey. i had known dr. renton all my life, but for the first time it came to me that he was lonely. "why have you never married?" i asked suddenly. he surely wanted a wife. he started, and then smiled. "all young married people want to know that of their friends," he said evasively. "i think you would have made an awfully nice husband, and--it seems such a pity that you should be alone." he picked up one of the roses which i had untied and held it to his face. "how do you mean, a pity?" "why, that you should be in that great big house at dorking by yourself when there are so many women in the world. they seem to overflow. i don't know what is to be done with them all." "so you want to marry me for the sake of reducing the number of spinsters?" he laughed. "well, not exactly," i replied. "but i feel you have lost so much--you and the woman you ought to have married." "how do you know there was one?" he asked sharply. i smiled. "i guessed," i said. "i am quite brilliant at times. where is she?" "in india." he stopped abruptly on the word, and from his attitude i realised he would have given much to recall it. i felt i had been impertinent. "forgive me----" i began. "not at all," he said. "i don't mind. it's rather a relief to speak of it. you--you are still in love, and will understand. once there was a time when i looked forward to being married. i looked forward greatly. i thought of it morning, noon, and night." "well?" i said gently. "she went abroad." "but why? didn't she return your love?" "i--i don't know." "you don't know?" i raised my voice. "no." "didn't you tell her?" "you see, she went off so quickly. she was in such a deuce of a hurry to get abroad." "what do you call a hurry?" dr. renton shuffled. "perhaps you knew her for three months?" "i knew her for two years." "and you call two years a hurry?" i endeavoured to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "of course, i didn't know if she cared anything about me." "did you expect her to propose to you?" "oh, no, certainly not." "i see, you dangled about her for two years. in fact, you almost compromised her. then you were astonished at the poor woman running away. year after year you played fast and loose with her----" "i don't call two years year after year," he interrupted meekly. "i do," i said severely. "dimbie was only six weeks." he laughed. "we are not all made of the same stuff as dimbie." he spoke so humbly, so unlike his usual decided self, that i began to feel sorry for him. "and do you think this woman will ever come back?" "i wish to god she would," he said, with an intensity that startled me. "why, i do believe you still care for her," i said. "of course i do," he returned with asperity. "i thought i mentioned that." "no, you didn't. you simply said you had driven a woman to india. poor thing, my heart bleeds for her. i expect her tears have made a sort of railway cutting down her cheeks, and she will be prematurely aged." dr. renton grunted. "if you still care for her, may i ask why you don't follow her, or write to her?" "that is what i have asked myself a thousand times a day," he cried, walking up and down the room. "for years i have been asking myself." "years!" i said in dismay. "is it years?" he nodded. "then i am afraid you are too late." i sighed. "of course i am. i've been a fool. now it is too late." "i'm very sorry." he held out his hand. "good-bye." "can nothing be done?" i wondered. "i'm afraid not, marguerite." "but you would be so happy married." "do you think all married people are happy?" "no, according to nanty few of them are. but i think _you_ would have been, and i am sure of your wife. you are so strong and kind. i always think of you in the same way as i think of miss fairbrother." "oh!" he said, turning his face away. "yes, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary and thirsty land. you are both such comforting people. do you remember miss fairbrother, my old governess?" "yes," he said, and he walked quickly to the door and went out. chapter xi my first caller yesterday morning dimbie said to me-"have any of those beastly women called yet?" "what women?" i asked in surprise. "why, the women who live round here, of course. i suppose there are one or two knocking about? i saw a lady with thick ankles and a wellington nose come out of the old grange." "no, she's not been," i said laughing. "we've only been here six months, and we're poor. if they came in a hurry it would look as though they wanted to know us." "and i'm jolly sure we don't want to know them." dimbie was heated. "of course we don't, dear; but they won't realise that." "still, it would be rather nice if somebody dropped in occasionally to have a chat with you and discuss amelia," he said. "i don't want to discuss amelia," i retorted. "i wish nanty would come a bit oftener." "it is a long way for her to drive. why do you wish to cram the house with women?" i said plaintively. "i have quite enough to do with my reading, mending, sewing, and writing without being inundated by a lot of strange females." his dear face brightened. "so long as you don't feel lonely and the days long, that's all right." he stroked my head the wrong way. "i'm not a bit lonely," i said. "no one could be lonely or dull who had an amelia; and now the weather is so warm and lovely i lie for hours under the apple tree. june herself is more than a companion. i think i am going to read; i cut the magazines, take out a new novel, and then i lie with eyes half closed looking at the gifts june has lavished with prodigal hand, listening to the whisperings of leaves and grass and flowers." "what a patient, plucky little girl," he whispered. "patient!" i cried, when he had gone, and the click of the gate told me another long day had to be lived through alone. "patient!" but how glad i am he doesn't know. the little lazy insects seem so happy to be doing nothing. they spread their wings in the warm sun, and rub their little legs together from sheer contentment at just being alive. they regard with ill-concealed scorn the aggressive busyness of the bees in the syringa bush, who, like all working things, are kicking up a tremendous fuss about their efforts. "laziness, doing nothing," the insects say, "breed peace and contentment." "but what about enforced laziness--lying still on a couch?" i cry. oxshott woods are calling me. i want to lie on the warm, scented pine-needles, with the sun filtering through the branches of the sad, stately trees on to my face; i want my senses to be lulled into that beatific repose which only nature sounds can achieve. one thinks that woods--pine woods--on a calm day are still; but lie and listen carefully, and one will marvel at the multitude of sounds, at the little hoppings and twitterings, and scurryings and crawlings and peckings. you are far too lazy to turn your head, but you are conscious that little bright eyes have you well in focus, that a movement on your part will cause fear and confusion in the settlement, so--you don't turn your head. you like to know that they are there, and presently you fall asleep, and who knows what they do then? and i am to miss all this. the woods may call, but i must lie still. the wild-rose hedges may send messages to me on the soft south wind, invitations to view their loveliness, but i must refuse them all. i must wait for another year. amelia is anxious to wheel me into the lane. dimbie is more anxious, but i say "no." who that is injured is not sensitive? i dread the encountering of curious eyes, of eyes that even might be pitying. i want to be left alone in the garden with the birds and insects. they don't allude to my misfortune, they don't pity me. they always say the right thing. * * * * * as though in direct answer to dimbie's inquiry, the woman with the thick ankles from the old grange has called. i must have fallen asleep, for i was dreaming most foolishly and beautifully that dimbie and i were in a meadow making daisy-chains, when i was rudely brought back to my own drawing-room--amelia had wheeled me into the house as the sun had gone--by hearing her say, "a lady to see you, mum." a little irritably--for i didn't want to leave the daisy-chains--i looked round for the lady, but she wasn't there. "she's on the doorstep, mum. will you see her?" "of course," i said. "you must never leave people on the doorstep; it is very rude." "what about old clothes women, mum?" i ignored her question, which seemed to me unusually foolish, and asked her what she meant by wearing the tea-rose slippers, which i had expressly forbidden. "go and change them." i commanded, "when you have announced the lady." her "announcing" was unusual. "the lady, mum. sit down, please." at which she pushed a chair behind my visitor's legs with so much force that she simply fell on to it. "you must excuse my servant," i said apologetically when amelia had vanished. "she is utterly untrained but invaluable." i held out my hand as i spoke, which the lady touched coldly. "my name is mrs. cobbold, and i live at the old grange," she announced with a trumpet note. "oh, of course, amelia forgot to mention it," i said politely. "she didn't know it." she was aggrieved now. "she could hardly mention it then," i said smiling, wishing to cheer her up. but this simple and natural comment appeared to have the opposite effect, for her brow lowered, and the jet butterfly in her bonnet quivered ominously. "i have called because i heard you were a--an invalid, mrs. westover--that you were confined to your couch." her deportment dared me to contradict her. "it is very kind of you," i said pacifically. "not kindness, but duty." "which makes your effort all the more praise-worthy," i said gently. she looked at me sharply--through her pince-nez which gripped her nose very tightly--suspiciously almost, but she misunderstood me. i had not intended to be sarcastic. i was really touched at the sacrifice she was evidently making on my behalf. i felt she was a district visitor--probably the right hand of the vicar of the parish. she must need refreshment. she wore the look of one whose tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. i rang the tortoise, and requested amelia to bring tea. "no tea for me, thank you," mrs. cobbold quickly interposed. "i'm sorry," i said. "perhaps you won't object to my having a cup?" "certainly not, but i never take anything between meals." she seemed quite proud about this. "really!" i murmured interestedly. "but tea is a meal with me." there was a pause. i could hear amelia singing, "now we shan't be long," which meant she was reaching out the best tea-things. the best tea-things appear to uplift her in a curious way. perhaps by using them she feels we are gradually rising to the social status of the tompkinses, who had an "at home" day with netted d'oyleys, and tea handed round by amelia herself on a silver salver. i wondered if mrs. cobbold could hear her singing. i felt sure she would strongly disapprove of any maid indulging in such vocal flights, and in spite of myself i laughed. our eyes met: hers were green and hard, and in their depths i discovered that she disapproved of the mistress more than of the singing maid. i smiled again--i couldn't help it; and then i racked my brain for something interesting and polite to say. mrs. cobbold forestalled me. "when is it expected? if i may venture to ask you." "in about ten minutes." "gracious goodness!" she ejaculated, springing heavily to her feet. "whatever's the matter?" i cried, nearly falling off the couch. "i thought--i was led to understand that----" she stammered and broke off. "well?" i said, gazing at her in unconcealed astonishment. "that--that--you will pardon my mentioning it, but--i am a mother myself. and i was quite interested in hearing that the population of pine tree valley was about to be increased. but i did not imagine it would be so soon." i lay and stared at her. she had reseated herself, and again wore the district visitor air. was she mad or--suddenly, in a flash, the drift of her remarks became clear to me. i strangled a laugh. "the increase in the population of pine tree valley has nothing to do with me," i said, a little coldly. she looked disappointed. "i am suffering from an accident." "oh," she said grudgingly. "i am afraid you are disappointed." "the vicar's wife has misinformed me." "perhaps she has been gifted with a vivid imagination," i suggested. "it is unfortunate, as it might get her into trouble." mrs. cobbold looked or rather glared at me over the top of her glasses. i was relieved when amelia appeared with tea. i even forgave her for her tea-rose slippers, which in her excitement she had omitted to change. casually i inspected the three-decker bread and butter and cake-stand. i felt sure that amelia would have upheld the honour and glory of the family by "doing" the thing nicely. the first plate was beyond reproach, nicely-cut bread and butter reposing on best netted d'oyley. mrs. cobbold's parlour-maid could have done no better. but the second plate made me pause. what was it? i rubbed my eyes. did i see a lonely macaroon garnished by a ring of radishes--pointed red, fibrous radishes, with long green tops--arranged with a mathematical precision, or did i not? i leaned forward for a closer inspection--perhaps they were chocolate radishes or almond radishes. my breath came quickly, and a jet butterfly smote me on the forehead--mrs. cobbold had also leaned forward. the butterfly hurt me. _that_ i didn't mind. what i _did_ object to was mrs. cobbold's impertinent curiosity. if we chose to garnish a macaroon with radishes it was none of her business. "won't you change your mind and have some tea?" i said, recovering myself. "macaroons and radishes are _so_ nice together--a german tea delicacy." i nibbled the end of one of the radishes as i spoke, and found it so hot my eyes watered. "no, thank you," she almost snorted. "are you german?" "oh, no," i replied, "i am quite english with just a few foreign tastes." i covertly dropped the radish down the side of the couch as i spoke. "where were you born?" "i was born in dorking, i mean westmoreland," i said wanderingly. i was debating as to what had come over amelia. "so you are north-country really?" her voice was patronising. "yes," i returned, "isn't it interesting?" she again regarded me with suspicion. "north-country people are becoming quite rare. perhaps you have noticed it? everybody comes from the south." she did not speak. "and you," i inquired gently, "are you a native of pine tree valley?" "no," she replied shortly, "but i have lived here ever since i was a girl." "so long?" i said thoughtlessly. and she rose and offered me her hand, which felt like a non-committal bath oliver. "it has been so kind of you to come to see me," i said, shaking the biscuit up and down. she unbent a little. "i will try to come again, but won't promise. my days are so full. do you know any of the people here?" "no," i admitted. "the honourable mrs. parkin-dervis not called?" "no." she looked perplexed and annoyed. "but she told me she was coming. she heard that you were confined to the house." "she's not been," i said. "i am sorry. i suppose she always leads the way in the question of calling upon new people. but you needn't feel you have committed yourself. you see, i shan't be able to return your call, so please don't feel you must come again unless you want to." "it's not that," she said; "but, you see, my days are so full." "of course they are," i agreed warmly. "i shall quite understand, mrs. cobbold. i'm so sorry amelia is not here to show you out, but were i to ring the tortoise for ten minutes she wouldn't come. she is chopping wood--perhaps you hear her. amelia never takes the slightest notice of anybody when she is chopping wood--they are hudson's dry soap boxes--the more one rings the louder she chops." "if she were my maid," said mrs. cobbold, "i'd make her----" "no, you wouldn't," i interrupted. "you think you would, but you wouldn't. we thought the same when she first came to us, but now we don't. good-bye." through an unfortunate accident the tortoise rang loudly as i spoke. i caught my sleeve in its tail, and it sounded as though i were cheering mrs. cobbold's departure. she left the house with a flounce and a flourish. we may meet again in another world, but i am certainly not on mrs. cobbold's visiting list in this. when i heard the garden gate bang i rang for amelia. "i am never at home to that lady," i said. amelia stared. "where will you be, mum?" "i shall be here, of course. don't you understand, i shall not see her." "am i to say that?" "you're to say, 'not at home.'" "i can't say that if you are." her face was stolid. "amelia," i cried, "return to your soap boxes quickly, or i might fling the tortoise at you." "but----" "_go!_" i said, and with a loud crack of a bone she departed, filled with amazement. chapter xii nanty cheers me up a day has come when it is gusty and wet. last night the sun, which has been so kind to us of late, disappeared red and angry, leaving behind it a sky of flaming glory. i said to dimbie that perhaps we had not been sufficiently grateful to his majesty, that we had begun to take him for granted, and that we should never make the sun feel cheap. and so to-day the little forget-me-nots and velvety, sweet-faced pansies have laid their heads on mother earth, driven there by squalls of angry wind and rain, and the long branches of the beech tree in the frog-pond field are waving and bending and shaking out their wealth of still tender green leaves with fine abandon. i am solicitous for the sweet-peas. dimbie has been late in putting in the sticks for them to climb up, and their hold is slight and wavering. two long hedges of eckfords and tennants and burpees, and that loveliest of all sweet-peas, countess cadogan, flank the lawn on either side. in a few days they will all be out, and i shall lie in the midst of a many-hued, blossoming sweetness. so much have i to be thankful for. a cripple in town would stare at brick walls, yet to-day only discontent sits at my side. i am cold--rain in summer makes the inside of a creeper-covered cottage very chilly. the water drips from the leaves of the clematis--drips, drips. i want to be up and doing. the rain on my cheek in the woods and lanes would be gracious and sweet-scented. the raindrops lying in the heart of the honeysuckle would be as nectar for the gods. but a rainy world when one is a prisoner within four walls is truly depressing, and there will be no dimbie to-night. dimbie, dear, do you know how much i miss you? the heart of your marguerite calls for you, calls for you. you say you will be back soon, but you don't know. little old ladies take a long time to die. the flame flickers and flares up and flickers and gutters, and is so long in going out. what am i saying? dimbie, forgive me, dear. i don't want aunt letitia to die. i am praying for her to get better. ill or well, she needs you, or she would not have sent for you, for her message was: "i know your wife wants you, but i want you more; and it will only be for a few days, and then you may return to her. i would much like to have seen marguerite, but----" what does that "but" mean i wonder? does she know that the journey is nearly over? and dimbie says that that journey has been one of great loneliness, borne with a great patience and cheerfulness. i think god will create a separate heaven for very lonely women. he will give them little children and a love that passeth all understanding. the love that has been withheld from them in this world will be given to them a thousandfold in the new jerusalem. i am always sorry for lonely women. * * * * * nanty came in breezy and fresh and wet, and my loneliness vanished. "i have told john to put up in the village, and i can stay with you for a couple of hours," she announced, removing her cloak. "and you have been crying." i shook my head. "well, there are two tears at the back of your eyes ready to fall." "not now," i said. "what's been the matter?" "dimbie's away." "dear me!" she said with comical gravity. "been away long?" "he went this morning." she laughed outright. "what did you have for lunch?" "fish." "what sort of fish?' "a whiting." she sniffed. "a cold, thin whiting with its tail in its mouth, devoid of any taste and depressing in its appearance?" "that exactly describes it," i said laughingly. "did you eat it?" "no, amelia is going to make it into a fish pie for to-morrow's lunch." "amelia seems to be of an economical turn of mind." "painfully so," i agreed. nanty rose and rang the bell. "bring tea at once, please," she said when amelia appeared, "and a lightly-boiled egg for your mistress with some hot, buttered toast, and light the fire." amelia's eyes bulged. "we've been doing some summer cleaning, the fire'll make dirt." "light the fire at once, please, your mistress is cold, the dirt is of no importance; her comfort should be considered before anything else." "but it's summer----" "matches!" said nanty sternly, and amelia produced a box like lightning. nanty knelt down and removed the fire-screen. amelia stood and watched her. "that is not getting tea and toast," said nanty, without looking round. "i'm not dressed, mum----" began amelia argumentatively. "tea and toast!" thundered nanty, and amelia fled. "how brave you are," i said. she laughed. "i'm certainly not going to be bossed by a young person like amelia cockles. how does she suit you?" "i've never thought of how she suits us, but i think we suit her, although we are not grand like the tompkinses." "who are the tompkinses?" asked nanty, settling herself comfortably in an arm-chair. "don't you remember the people she lived with before she came to us? they knew a poet, and gave dinner parties and had _entrées_ and _hors-d'oeuvres_--hoary doves she calls them." "but does she look after you well?" "yes," i said, "so long as i don't interfere with her cleaning. she is a great cleaner, that is her weakest point. economy is another; she is too careful. because i told her we were not rich she seems to think we must live on potato parings. then she wears squeaky, high-heeled shoes, a pearl necklace, and puts on to her print bodies--as she calls them--innumerable patches. against these bad qualities we must set her honesty, early rising, and devotion to me. she has taken me in hand since the day she entered the house. she thinks, deep down in her heart, that i am one of the poorest creatures she has met. she has compared me on different occasions to a love-lies-bleeding and a black prize minorca hen. yet i know she would go through fire and water for me. she dresses me in the morning with a gentleness and patience unsurpassed by any nurse, and the tenderness with which she lifts me from the bed to the couch has caused me to marvel. you ask me how she suits us. now i come to think about it, i wouldn't be without amelia cockles for the world." she entered as i finished speaking, and placed the tea-tray in front of me, eyeing nanty with undisguised hostility. nanty returned the look with placidity. "i s'pose you think i have been starving her?" "no," said nanty cheerfully, "i am sure you would do nothing of the kind. your mistress has just been telling me how good you are to her." amelia's face softened. "no one could help being good to a lady like her--she _is_ a lady," and she flounced out of the room. nanty smiled. "you cannot be very dull so long as that young person is in the house." she pushed my couch nearer the fire, broke the top off my egg, and ordered me to begin to eat. "it is lovely having you here," i said, "i was just beginning to be dull. what made you come this wet day?" "your husband wired for me." "so you knew he was away?" "yes," she returned, "and i went straight away to see if i could persuade peter to let your mother come and stay with you during your husband's absence." "and----" i cried. "your father had just succeeded in getting a canoe to float on the duck-pond--personally i think it was on the bottom, but i did not suggest that--and in the flush of victory he said she could come the day after to-morrow. ah, that's better," she finished as the blood rushed into my cheeks. "you looked as white as a ghost when i came in." "you _are_ clever," i said. "yes," she agreed, "in some things." a smile hovered round her mouth. "i wonder if you had been peter's wife----" "god forbid!" she broke in. i laughed. "it will be delightful having mother." "do you find the days long?" "when it's wet." "do you still find vent for your happiness in the pages of a manuscript book?" i nodded. she looked at me with incredulous eyes. "you still find your year--what was it you called it--wonderful?" "i have dimbie." "and an aching back." "that would be worse if i hadn't dimbie." "no man is worth such love from a woman." "mine is," i said indignantly. "well, don't flash out at me like that. he must be an exception." "of course he is." "and all women think the same when they are first married." "nanty, you are a pessimist." "optimists are tiresome and always boring." "they add to the cheerfulness of the world." "they depress me and always put me in a bad temper. you say it is horribly cold, and they remind you that frost keeps away disease. you say it is windy, and they reply that it is bracing. you have lost your pet dog, and they suggest that you might have lost your favourite horse. people who always say, 'never mind, cheer up!' are aggravating in the extreme. i like people to weep when i weep and laugh when i laugh. i don't like my friends to make light of my troubles and practically suggest that i am a coward." she poked the fire with vigour. "so you would like me much better if i were to howl about my accident."' "exactly, it would be much more natural and human." "but what about dimbie?" "oh, of course if you bring dimbie into everything it will be impossible for you to behave in a rational way." i laughed gently, and nanty frowned at the fire. "if i were to howl dimbie's year would be spoiled." "i don't believe in wives being unselfish to their husbands; it spoils them. men are quite selfish enough as it is." "how down upon men you are, nanty. have you not met any nice ones?" i asked. "dimbie is not bad as men go. but give him a few years; he will be as disagreeable as the rest." "i met a very nice man the other day," i said, refusing to be annoyed. "it was just before my accident--a professor leighrail." "professor leighrail!" a great astonishment lay in nanty's eyes. "a very thin man?" "yes, he invited us to look at his ribs. his wife, amabella, is dead." "amabella dead?" she repeated. i nodded. "he took up ballooning, as he thought it would be the quickest way of ending himself." nanty started, and then poured herself out another cup of tea. "do you know him?" "i knew him some years ago." "he once asked you to be his wife." nanty dropped her spoon with a clatter. "did he tell you?" "of course not," i laughed, and hugged jumbles who lay on the couch beside me. "i knew by your face, nanty, dear. why didn't you accept him?" "because i was a fool." she spoke bitterly. "i should have been happy with that man. as it was, he--grew fond of amabella. didn't he?" she turned on me with a pounce. "i--i think so," i stammered; "but i don't suppose he ever loved her as much as he loved you. i should fancy from her name she was a bit--pussy-catty." nanty smiled a little grimly. "men like domestic, sit-by-the-hearth women. i feel sure amabella mended his socks regularly and brushed his clothes." "they wanted brushing the other day," i said reflectively, "and his boots were miles too big for him--they were like canoes." and i went on to relate where we had met him, what he had had for his dinner, and how he was coming to call upon us in his balloon. "it is a dangerous game," said nanty crossly as she rose to go. "but he is lonely and unhappy," i protested. "so are lots of people," she snapped. "i have been lonely for twenty years, and i get stouter every day." "his ribs are like knife blades," i observed. "he was always thin. i have not seen him since i was a girl, but i have followed his career. i knew he would make a name for himself. he was always dabbling in some mess--ruined his mother's bed-quilts--and wore badly-fitting clothes. it's strange you should meet him," she finished musingly. "would you like his address?" i asked quietly. "no, i wouldn't, thanks, but--i shouldn't mind meeting him here some day. it would be pleasant to have a chat about old times." "rather dangerous, i should say." "you always were an impertinent child," she said as she stooped to kiss me. the love affairs of my friends are multiplying, i thought, when she had gone--dr. renton's and now nanty's. chapter xiii under the apple thee i am under the apple tree trying to be busy. in front of me lies a waif and stray garment--a flannel petticoat. there is no house mending to do--everything is new and holeless. dimbie had a trousseau as well as i. occasionally he will wear a small hole in one of his socks, the mending of which will take me half an hour, then my work is finished. so i have taken to waif and stray garments and deep-sea fishermen's knitting in self-defence. were i not engaged on this i should be making wool-work mats like the old men in the workhouse--i can see it in the tail of amelia's eye; so i keep a garment well to the front, ready to pick up at the sound of her first footstep, which, being squeaky, fortunately warns me of the advance of the enemy. now but for amelia i should be only too content to laze through the summer--just staring at the sky and the soft, white, fleecy clouds through the breaks in the foliage of the apple tree; for though i do nothing i am tired, always tired. perhaps it is the warmth of the summer, for the rain and cold are gone. by and by i am going to be very energetic, and do little things for amelia, whether she considers it helpful or otherwise. i shall peel apples in the autumn when the weather is cooler, and stone the plums for jam, and skin the mushrooms. but now i want to be idle. i just want to watch the bird and insect life of the garden. much to my delight, a colony of ants has settled at the base of the apple tree. i get amelia to wheel the couch close to their head-quarters, and i lean over and gently drop little things in front of the openings to their tunnels. sometimes a tiny bit of twig lies across their front door, or a cherry-stone bars the cellar entrance; and then what excitement and confusion reign, what a twinkling of a myriad tiny legs! nine strong, able-bodied men are requisitioned to tackle the cherry-stone. i smile and chuckle as i picture one excited ant--who is not eager to tell the news?--rushing off to inform the others that he has discovered a thunderbolt lying at their cellar-door, and they must marshal their forces for an attack. and then what a straining and pushing and levering there is! first six men arrive; they look like policemen. presently one rushes away and brings back three more. they then sort of take their bearings, trotting in and out of the front door and eyeing with indignation the obstacle that lies in their path. "hurrah!" i cry as they lever the cherry-stone the fraction of an inch; and amelia, appearing at the front door, says-"i beg your pardon, mum." amelia certainly has a most tiresome habit of cropping up at the tense moments of life. should i call, gently at first, "a-me-li-a," and then louder, "a-me-li-a!" and then in stentorian tones, "a-me-li-a!" finally degenerating into cat-calls and war-whoops, she wouldn't dream of hearing me; but when i apostrophise the thrush which comes to sing in the apple tree of an evening, or encourage the ants in their labours, or laugh at the ridiculous wagtails bobbing up and down the lawn, she appears suddenly and stands and stares at me. just now i said, "you shouldn't stare at me"; and when she replied, "you're so pretty, mum," i felt hers was the gentleness of the dove and the cunning of the serpent combined. i had been trying to persuade her not to whiten the front-door step, which is of cool grey stone. she appears to regard it in the same light as a kitchen-hearth bestowed by a bountiful providence. she smears it with wet donkey-stone, and when dry it gleams and scintillates in the hot sun with dazzling intensity. then she attacks the scraper, which she polishes with a black-lead brush till it resembles the kitchen kettle after "siding up." you cannot prevent amelia from "siding up." every now and again she "sides up" me. she says my hair is untidy and approaches me with a brush. she suggests that the wearing of a pearl necklace round my throat, the collar of which is cut low for comfort, would smarten me up. she picks up my slippers, which i have kicked on to the grass, and compels me to put them on in case i have callers. she constantly threatens me with these callers. she dangles them in front of me when i am idling with _the vicar of wakefield_, and offers to bring me my best hat, as "that liberty garden thing is shabby and old-fashioned." she thinks the vicar may call. he has been laid up for some weeks; but he is better, and it is his _bounded_ duty to call to see a poor sick lady. i gently bring her back to the discussion of the step, and after some stubbornness on her part she asks if i would like it done like the tompkinses'. knowing that the tompkinses are superior people, indulging in "hoary doves" at their dinner, i say "yes" without any further parley, trusting to their good taste. mother is coming to-morrow, and i know just how she is feeling about me. she will be thinking if ever her daughter marguerite wanted her it will be now--now, when she is lonely and tired and without dimbie. her dear face will be brimful of joy at being wanted by anyone, and at the prospect of getting away from peter. she would not own up to the last. if ever there was a loyal, patient soul in this world it is mother. she won't allow herself to believe that peter is selfish and domineering. he is her husband, and with a wavering curve of her sweet lips she pronounces him as just tiresome. and, best of all, i know she will like being here without dimbie. she likes him, she admires him, but she is secretly jealous of him. i believe i should be too if i had a daughter married. when a child gives herself into somebody else's keeping the mother is dethroned; the child--always a child in the mother's eyes--takes her joys and sorrows to her husband. he bandages the little cut leg, figuratively speaking, kisses the crushed fingers, wipes away the tears of sorrow. the mother has to take a back seat, and her heart is sore. when dimbie and i, in the short days of our engagement, would try to slip away to another room, to be by ourselves, i have seen mother close her eyes and heard her give a little gasping sigh. she would smile bravely when her eyes caught mine, but i had heard the sigh, and though my heart ached at the thought of leaving her alone with peter, i was unable to keep the happiness away from my own eyes and voice. poor little mother! it is hard, but it was ever thus. you left your mother, and i in turn have left you. it is one of nature's edicts--cruel it may seem, but not to be resisted. were dimbie to call, i should follow him to the end of the world, i know. but during the days mother is with me i mean to let her have it all her own way. i shall pretend that dimbie is dethroned. i shall not talk of him; at least, i shall try with unusual strength not to speak of him, beyond mentioning the bare fact that he is well and ministering to the wants of aunt letitia. and we shall also not talk of peter more than we can possibly help. long ago we decided that peter must be a tabooed subject between us. "we might be led into saying things about your father which we ought not to say," mother had implied without putting it into so many words, and i had nodded. "besides, he might--he might have been so much worse." i fear i looked doubtful about this point, for she added quickly, "he doesn't steal." "no," i admitted, "he is certainly not a thief." "and he doesn't drink." "no." "and he doesn't gamble." "no," i conceded somewhat grudgingly. "and----" she hesitated. "he doesn't go off with other men's wives, you want to say." "that's it. your father is--is quite moral." "it's a pity he is," i said laughing. "if only he would run away with someone you could get a divorce." dear mother looked terribly shocked, and glanced fearfully at the door. "it's all right," i reassured her; "he's resting in the library, overcome by your insubordination. he's not used to it. he lunged at me with his stick because he detected me in a smile, but i dodged him." i remember mother smiled faintly, and told me i ought not to dodge him. this conversation took place after an unusually violent outburst on peter's part because he had lost his best gold collar stud, which he accused mother of having taken. and when she tremblingly said that she had never in her life worn anything around her neck but a lace tucker, which did not necessitate the wearing of a gold stud, he said lace tuckers were foolish fripperies, and that she ought to wear a linen collar the same as other sensible women. and when mother protested that her neck was not long enough, he replied snappily: "then stretch it till it is. you are a woman without any resources." i smile as i conjure up dear mother's expression of countenance when he said this. she usually, with unquestioning obedience to biblical commands, turned her other cheek to him for a smite, but on this occasion she didn't do anything of the kind. she simply turned her back on him, drew herself up to her full height of five feet nothing, and pranced out of the room. i say pranced, because she did prance, just like a thoroughbred horse chafing at the bearing rein. peter watched this prancing with unconcealed astonishment; in fact, he put up his monocle and stared at the closed door. now if mother had only pranced a little oftener. peter might have been a much better behaved person. but mother is not of the stuff of which people like amelia and napoleon are composed. she is not a ruler, and she is not a fighter. she cannot stand up for herself, and so peter has taken advantage of her sitting position--which sounds as though i were referring to a hen, and not to mother at all. i find on turning back the pages that i said mother was rarely disloyal to peter, that she pronounced his selfishness and bad temper as "just tiresomeness." still, the worm _will_ turn sometimes, and on this occasion she did turn. to-morrow she will probably ignore him altogether--glad to get away from an unpleasant subject. i am full of delightful anticipations of the peaceful time she and i will spend together under the apple tree. at first she will lean forward when i speak to her as though she had been deafened by a storm. to live with peter is to live in a succession of storms, and when mother reaches the calmer spaces of the world she wears an almost dazed expression. i must speak very slowly and gently till she becomes accustomed to being in a quiet haven. we will chat in the mornings and doze in the warm afternoons and discuss amelia in the evenings. i know i shall be unable to resist discussing amelia with mother. she will be so interested in her not wearing cloth boots. she will be so surprised at my having given in. she gives in herself over every question in life, great or small. but she is quite surprised if other people do the same, especially her own daughter. she imagines i have inherited some of peter's characteristics, which heaven forbid. she thinks his bullying is strength of character. ah, little mother, i am not strong, if you only knew it. i am as weak as water towards people i love. you, dimbie and nanty could do anything with me. amelia has been to tell me that we are out of shinio, and shall she run to the village. she didn't call it shinio, but shiny. she has quite an extraordinary affection for the evil-smelling stuff, and is always "requiring" it. "but you won't be cleaning anything this afternoon," i said. "you are dressed, and it must be nearly five o'clock." "it's for the brasses to-morrow morning," she answered in a tired voice, as though she were weary of explaining things to me. "it's kitchen-day, and i do my steels and brasses before breakfast." "oh, of course," i murmured hastily while looking for my purse, which i can never find, and which she unearthed with lightning rapidity from under the tortoise. i handed her sixpence, but she didn't go. "anything further?" i asked pleasantly. "no, mum; but i was just considerin' if we couldn't alter your pocket--put it in front of your tea-gown, a sort of flap-pocket right-hand side, like motorists and golfists and cyclists has." "put a flap-pocket on my right-hand side," i repeated. "but i don't motor or golf or cycle." "no, mum, but it might help you not to lose your purse so frequently, and save you and me a lot of trouble. i expect you lies on your pocket mostly?" "i do nothing of the kind," i replied coldly, "for i haven't got one." "there!" she said triumphantly, "i might have knowed it. i'll fix you one up in two shakes. i'm a good hand at sewing. have you a bit of white serge like your gown, mum?" "no, i haven't; and i forbid your putting a pocket on me anywhere." she looked surprised at my warmth. "all right, mum; i won't if you don't wish it. i only thought it would save time. you see, when the purse isn't lost the tortis is. the tortis is a beggar for gettin' away. see now, it's slippin' down the hilkley at this minute." she caught it by the tail and placed it on the little table which always stands at the side of my couch. "the creature might be alive," she finished, shaking her fist at it. "don't be ridiculous, amelia," i commanded, endeavouring not to laugh. "i will try and not lose it so often, but things _do_ disappear." "yes, mum, they do," she responded gravely. "if nothing was ever lost, like hair-pins, the world wouldn't hold 'em." with which oracular remark she swept down the garden path to the gate, her two heels leaning over at a more dangerous angle than usual. i drew dimbie's letter--he writes every day, sometimes twice--from beneath the cushions, and read it over for--well, i won't say how many times, but one passage i already knew off by heart:-"dear one, i am glad that you miss me--very glad, isn't that cruel? if you want me, how much more do i want you, my poor little girl. i long to put my arms round you and kiss your big, wistful eyes--kiss away the wistfulness, which only came with your suffering, and i will do it when i come home. "aunt letitia is slowly sinking. she is not suffering, and her mind is quite clear. she has asked a great many questions about you, and has even laughed feebly at amelia and her household arrangements--i mean _your_ household arrangements. for the squeaking and cracking of bones and wearing of unsuitable slippers she has no suggestions to offer. she says there is always _something_. with old ann it has been a misfit in artificial teeth. they have moved horribly, and the gums have gaped at her, but she has not considered this of sufficient importance to give ann notice. "i wired to nanty to know how you were. you don't tell me in your letters, bad girl. i shall scold and slap you when i get home, as well as kiss you." i glanced carefully round to see that neither amelia nor jumbles were watching me, and holding the letter to my lips, i kissed it over and over again. chapter xiv mother and peter arrive on a visit i said that mother and i were going to have a peaceful and happy time together--that we should chat in the mornings, doze in the afternoons, and discuss amelia in the evenings. we are doing none of these things. we are expending our entire energies, and mine are very feeble, in soothing peter and trying to keep him in a good temper, for peter arrived with mother a couple of days ago on a visit to one tree cottage. i _will_ say that it wasn't dear mother's fault. she even stooped to equivocation, or, to put it plainly, lying to keep him away. she told him that she didn't know by which train she was coming, when she knew perfectly well. she told him our spare-room bed would only hold one. oh, mother! and she told him that there had been burglaries in the neighbourhood of dorking, and it would be unsafe to leave the house to servants. to all of which he said, "pooh!" from what i can gather he lay in waiting at the station like a detective in plain clothes, and pounced upon mother just as she was saying to mary, the parlourmaid, "good-bye; you will take great care of the master, and give him kidneys with his bacon twice a week." "no, she won't," he said sardonically as he limped into the carriage, "for she won't get the chance. i am coming with you, emma. i refuse to be left to the mercy of servants when my gout is so troublesome. it is most selfish and unreasonable of you to suggest such a thing. i am as much to be considered as marguerite," at which he planked himself firmly on to the seat opposite to mother and glowered at her. at the moment he is seated in the sun with his feet on amelia's fair white step, which is now covered with a sort of egyptian hieroglyphic--_à la_ the tompkinses'. when she wheeled me in the other evening after a long day in the garden, and i caught sight of the step, i was filled with a great amazement, for i was unaware that amelia understood the ancient egyptian language. a series of curves and dots, and flourishes and symbolic signs met my gaze. i leaned forward and translated with fluency [symbol: water-line]--a water-line, [symbol: sun]--the sun, [symbol: reed]--a reed, [symbol: night]--night, [symbol: hilly country]--hilly country, [symbol: egg]--egg. father was a bit of an egyptologist, and i had picked up the meaning of a few of the symbols from him: [symbol: star]--star, [symbol: tooth]--tooth, [symbol: serpent]--serpent. amelia opened her mouth and stared at me, and then shot me into the house. it is on such occasions that she regards me as "dotty," and quickly puts me to bed. peter is now scraping his boots on the step after carefully dirtying them in the gooseberry-bed. amelia is hissing at him through the front door; she objects to her hieroglyphics being defaced. peter is not accustomed to being hissed at, and he will presently come and tell me what he thinks of amelia. i persuaded mother a little time back to wheel me under the apple tree and sit with me. the grass is still dew-laden, and peter will not dare, on account of his gout, to join us till the lawn is dry, hence his position on the doorstep. peter's gout has been the one bit of luck in mother's life since she was married. being the more active of the two, she can, when the pressure becomes very great, walk away from him--in fact, run. i cannot help rejoicing at dimbie's being away while peter is here, for i am convinced that long ere this dimbie would have thrown my father out of the house; and for mother's sake i should not care for such an ignominious thing to happen to her husband. besides, he would make such a mess on the step while he danced about, his customary habit being, when extra annoyed, to dance a kind of war dance. when he and mother arrived amelia rushed into the drawing-room and in great excitement whispered, "a red-nosed gent has come with your mother!" in an instant my mind flew to peter, but i remained sufficiently controlled to correct amelia for saying '"your mother." "is she your step, mum?" she murmured cautiously. "certainly not,"' i said. "but it is not polite. you must speak of her as mrs. macintosh. where have you left them? why don't they come in?" "the gentleman is having a row with the cabby. don't you hear him?" she grinned with enjoyment. "he has just called the cabby a grasping, white-livered jew. it seems as though he knowed how to take care of himself." i did not speak. "who is he, mum?" i pretended not to hear. "is he your uncle?" "he's--my father." i closed my eyes, signifying that the conversation was finished. "never knew you had a father, mum," came in a succession of gasps and squeaks. "of course i have a father," i said excessively crossly. "how do you suppose i came into the world. kindly show them in here and go and unstrap the luggage." when they appeared, and i had embraced them both, giving mother an extra squeeze, i said-"dear father, whatever has been the matter?" "that impudent shark has been trying to rob me," he replied, picking up a vase from the mantelshelf and returning it with a bang. "what did he charge you?" "two shillings." "well, that is the right fare, and dimbie gives an extra sixpence if he has a portmanteau. what did you give him for the luggage?" "a piece of my mind, and threatened him with the police for his impudence." "oh, father," i cried, "i am sorry you have made a disturbance. up to now we--dimbie and i--have been respected in the village." "have you been to church?" he smiled sardonically. "n--o." "who respects you--the vicar?" "the villagers have a great respect for us. i--i am sure they have." "that's all right. they'll respect your father now. they'll know i'm a man not to be trifled with. how are you?" he shot this last at me as though he were at bisley competing for the king's prize. "i'm pretty well, thank you." "well, you don't look it. you're as thin as a rat. but it's rather improved you than otherwise, made you look less defiant and assertive." "oh, peter," mother broke in, "marguerite never looked assertive. i remember dimbie saying to me that he had never seen a sweeter face." "of course, that is exactly the sort of thing dumbarton _would_ say," he jeered; "but then dumbarton's an ass." "look here, father," i said steadily, "once and for all i wish you to remember that i will not allow you to call my husband an ass. yes, _allow_, i repeat the word." i shivered all over as i spoke. never, never had i dared to speak to peter in such a manner, but my blood was up. "dimbie was a brave man to have married into such a family. his courage was immense there." i clutched the tortoise as i spoke--clutched it for support, but i kept my head well up, looking at him defiantly and waiting for the storm. but it never burst. to my everlasting astonishment peter remained mute and just stared at me, stared at me for a full minute, then putting his hands in his pockets, he said, "well, well!" and stumped out of the room. "there!" i said, "that is the way you should have treated peter--_always_." but mother sat with her hands locked and remained speechless for some seconds. "how dared you do it?" she breathed at length. "oh, it was quite easy," i replied airily. "was it?" "well, perhaps not _quite_ easy," i corrected myself, "but fairly easy when you once get started." "i never dare start," she said plaintively. "as soon as i open my mouth i----" "shut it again," i said. "but don't in future, keep it well open. begin to-night, and i'll help you. make a firm stand like horatius." "what did he do?" she asked with interest. "he stood alone and--and looked after a gate." "oh, i could do that. if your father were a gate----" she began eagerly. "what would you do?" inquired peter, walking into the room and surveying her from head to foot. "i--i----" she stammered. "don't forget horatius," i signalled. "i--i should sit on you!" with which terrific exhibition of courage she took to her heels and fled. "i mustn't laugh," i told myself, "or everything will be spoiled." peter stood in the middle of the room, staring at the closed door. "i believe your mother is trying to be funny," he remarked when he had got his breath. "mother is often funny," i murmured. "i have noticed she has been a bit strange lately." "oh?" "very secretive." "indeed?" "in fact, deceitful." "mother deceitful?" "yes, said she didn't know what train she was coming by." he was beginning to raise his voice. "trains don't always start at the time mentioned in bradshaw. look at the south eastern." "this was the south western," he snapped. "i must give her a dose of medicine." "a dose of medicine!" i repeated in surprise. "yes, calomel. it's her liver, i expect. she has been like this before. how soon will dinner be ready?" "when amelia feels inclined to give it to us." "is amelia the forward young person with the pearl necklace who came to the door?" "that is an excellent description of amelia, but i thought you had seen her before." "and does she arrange the hour you are to dine?" "she arranges the hour in which the potatoes are dried, the meat dished, the gravy made, and the cabbage chopped. you see, as she does it all, she naturally knows when it will be ready." "god bless my soul!" he ejaculated. "what is the matter?" "i had no idea you ran your servants in such a shocking manner." "servant," i corrected; "and i don't run her, she runs me." "i wouldn't have believed it." "you would if you had an amelia." "i'd sack her." "she wouldn't go if i did." "i'd lock her out." "she'd break a window and climb through it." he began to march about the room. "i'd manage that girl in ten minutes." "she would hold you in the hollow of her hand in less than five," i said. he spluttered. "what do you take me for?" "i never know. i've often thought about it," i said gently. he stopped marching and stared at me. "i wonder what mother is doing," i said, averting my eyes. "your mother," he shouted, rushing towards the door, "is the slowest woman on god's earth. she'll be doing her hair. _i'll_ bring her down." and he went to take out of her what, by right, he should have taken out of me. "poor mother!" i sighed. i much fear we are going to have ructions--peter and i. a strange and tremendous courage has come to me. is it that i know i shall have a staunch ally in amelia? one amelia is surely worth two peters. and yet i don't know. peter has been accustomed to fighting and bloodshed, and managing his men and out-manoeuvring the enemy most of his life; and amelia is only used to managing her mistresses and charwomen. as a tactician amelia may be weak. one cannot tell. i am hoping for the best. chapter xv amelia gives me notice it is said that the young look forward and the old look backward. i am still young enough, i suppose, to live chiefly in the future--a beautiful future, with dimbie ever as the central figure. but should i live to be an old woman, and send my thoughts backward through the years, a smile will rise to my lips unbidden at the memory of a certain dinner at which peter and amelia played prominent parts. i have to put down my manuscript book for a moment while i laugh. amelia is, i know, watching me through the pantry window. she will be considering that this is one of my "dotty" moments. for anyone to lie under an apple tree and apparently laugh at nothing at all is to amelia a strange and sad sight. wait a while, amelia, you may see stranger things yet. life contains infinite possibilities for those who have even the smallest sense of humour. at present that sense with you is lacking. let us hope that it is not altogether void, but in an embryo stage waiting for development. to you the dinner last evening was not in the least amusing. in fact, the tears you shed later on were very bitter. of course, lookers-on always see most of the game, and had i been in your place i admit i should have been very angry; for peter is capable of arousing in the human breast passions which are anything but christian. let me relate the story as it sounded to my ears from the drawing-room. it is a source of regret to me that i cannot be present at meals, for the bicycle-room is not large enough to hold both the dining-table and my ilkley couch. still, with both doors set wide apart i can hear most of what is going on. peter's voice carried better than amelia's; he is used to drilling. mother's sounded like punctuation marks--notes of exclamation and interrogation, gentle little apostrophes, and full stops. but peter was not to be stopped. this is how he began to annoy amelia:-[illustration: this is how he began] "what's this?" a stab of a fork. "don't you know, sir?" "no, i don't." "not seen lamb before?" "do you call this burnt cinder lamb?" mother, gently, "i think it looks beautifully cooked, just nicely browned." "of course you do. you can eat anything. some people have the digestion of an ostrich." amelia, breaking in, "please don't carve it that way, sir. we eats the bottom side first--that was tompkinses' way--and next day when it's turned over it looks as though it had never been touched, quite respectable like." peter: "am _i_ carving this cinder or are you?" amelia (calmly, but as i knew ominously): "neither of us, sir, at this partickler minute. but p'r'aps you will be startin' before it's cold." sounds of splashings of gravy, and hurried exit of amelia (i guessed to fetch a cloth). "it's the best table-cloth, sir, double damux, and has to last a fortnight." "a _what_?" "a week for dinner, and followin' week for breakfast." "a piggish habit!" "a what, sir?" "a piggish habit. are there no laundries or washerwomen about here?" "plenty, sir, but we don't want to over-work 'em. will you give me a bit of the knuckle for the mistress, she likes knuckle. it's not often she gets meat for her dinner, only beef and lamb and mutton, no pork or veal or beefsteak pie. that's the knuckle, sir, the other end." splutterings and drill language from peter. "and what does she have then?" asked mother. "a whitin', mum, mostly." "she looks like it." "and you'd look like it too, sir, if you was to lie still, flat on your back, day after day." arrival of amelia with my tray. confidential whispering. the meat will have to be hashed to-morrow, as it's been carved so disgracefully. i cheer her up to the best of my ability. return of amelia to dining-room. "what's this vegetable supposed to be--seakale or asparagus?" "neither, sir" (chuckling). "it's salsify. thought you wouldn't know it, as you don't seem to be up in the names of things." i bury my face in my serviette and hold on to the tortoise. "it's like stewed sawdust." "is it, sir? the cookery book says it's like vegetable hoyster." "vegetable _what_?" "vegetable _hoyster_." "i don't understand you" (thunderingly). "speak plainly, girl." "do you know what gentlefolks buys off stalls at the seaside and eats with lemon and cyenne?" (an apparent effort to keep calm.) peter (shouting): "winkles!" amelia (with fine scorn): "my friends don't buy winkles; it's only _common_ folks as does that. my friends buy hoysters." "oh, oy--sters!" "yes, hoy--sters." "you can bring in the next course, angelina." "amelia, sir. you're _that_ bad in your memory----" rest of sentence finished in hall and kitchen. gentle murmur from mother. "i shall!" (loudly). "it's a treat to speak to a girl with a bit of sense, though she is an impudent hussy, after our sleek-tongued fools--yes, fools, every one of them!" clattering of saucepans in kitchen and stamping of amelia across the hall with the pudding. i could not remember what i had ord--suggested in the way of pudding, and i hoped it would meet with peter's approval. "is this a pudding?" "yes, sir." "i thought puddings stood up straight?" "not all of 'em, sir. some is a bit weak-kneed in the joints." was she poking fun at peter's gouty legs? "what's inside it?" "here's a knife and fork, sir. you'll soon find out." "what's inside it?" "p'r'aps it's a spoon you are wantin' as well." "i don't eat red-currant pudding." "sorry, sir. just keep quiet till the next course, sir. "keep quiet!" (yells.) "what do you mean?" "the mistress's nerves gets upset with a bit of noise." "your mistress seems to get upset with the slightest provocation." "she does, sir. i saw her cryin' not so long ago over a bunch of honeysuckle. she was took reg'lar bad--red eyes and nose." "well, of course she'll miss gathering it this year. the deuce knows why women like picking things full of d--ahem! abominable insects. but they're born that way--born stupid." i surprised a gentle note almost in the first part of his sentence which filled me with wonder. was peter really sorry for me? and as though he were ashamed of his unwonted softness his next remark made amelia skip. i could distinctly hear her skip, and it made me laugh. few people can make her run, let alone skip. "this pudding makes me sick, girl. it smells of suet, reeks of suet. remove it _at once_!" he thundered. she stood her ground for a moment. "but the mistress hasn't had any." "remove that pudding!" "but supposin' mrs. macintosh wants another helpin'" (waveringly). "mrs. macintosh _won't_ require any more pudding. mrs. macintosh is going to take a liver pill. too much pudding would be bad for her." "but----" "take out this pudding!" the windows rattled, and amelia bolted--not into the kitchen but into here, and after planking the pudding down on to dimbie's arm-chair, said-"if you please, mum, i must leave." "leave?" i echoed in astonishment. "yes, mum. i could not stop another minute--not for a thousand pounds down--with that gentle--i mean man in the house. either he must go or me." before i could check myself i had smiled, for had not amelia called peter a gentle, the offspring of a meat-fly--the horrible creature with which i had fished as a little girl? and--amelia took instant offence at my smile. not being able to follow my train of thought, she imagined i was laughing at her. "to-night," she said. "to-night!" i cried, not wishing to echo her words, but surprise bereft me of an original mode of speech. "i must leave you to-night." i lay back and looked at amelia--at her leaning, high-heeled shoes, at her pearl necklace, at her befrilled apron, at her perky cap, at her tightly-curled fringe. could all these things be leaving me to-night, leaving me forever? i should miss them, i knew, so accustomed does one become to familiar objects. i wondered where they would go, how long it would be before amelia stitched the right-hand string to her apron instead of pinning it there? my eyes rose slowly from the apron, upon which they had been resting, to her necklace. whose gaze, instead of mine, would rest upon those pearls? then i reached amelia's face--her soap-shone, eager face. this brought me to the girl herself. she, amelia, who had seemed so devoted, she was going to leave me---"to-night!" broke in amelia sternly. "yes, yes," i said quickly. she stood and looked at me defiantly. i don't know why, for i wasn't speaking. "how soon shall you start?" i asked for want or something to say. she did not reply. "perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me a little pudding before you go," i said. "it's getting cold. you put it over there on the chair." and to my immense surprise she burst into tears. "whatever's the matter?" i asked in consternation. "don't cry, amelia, don't cry." i patted the tortoise as amelia wasn't near enough to pat. "i--i don't want to go," she sobbed. "no? well, don't go," i said soothingly. "but you want me to." "i want you to go?" "yes." "whatever makes you think that?" "you didn't say as i wasn't to go when i said i was, and i would too." this was a little involved, but i disentangled it. "i never thought of saying you were not to go. you seemed to have so completely made up your mind." "i wish everybody was all like you," she said, somewhat inconsequently. "all cripples," i laughed. she went on sobbing. "i wonder why you are crying?" i said at length gently. "because i don't know where to go at this time of night. it's past eight, and the roads are full of tramps." "well, don't go. your bedroom is surely comfortable. you've always said how much you like the pink roses on the wall-paper." "i couldn't sleep in the same house as that man who calls himself a gentleman, beggin' your pardon, mum. the same roof shall never cover us again. and to think he's your father--you're flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone." for a moment i wondered whether she would consent to sleep in the shed with the canoe and jumbles if we rigged up a hammock. or could i persuade peter to return home if i explained how matters stood? but on reflection i knew neither of these things could be. amelia was still repeating "bone of his bone" in an automatic fashion, when i broke in, "i can't help that, amelia. i can't help his being my father." then perhaps i behaved foolishly, unfilially, for i took her into my confidence. but what else was i to do? i am not a diplomatist. i am not a talleyrand. amelia must be kept at any price. the thought of mother and peter struggling to light the kitchen fire on the morrow made me shudder. "amelia"----i began. she took her apron from her eyes, and i became nervous. "i--i would like some pudding, please, however cold it may be. and--and what are they doing in the other room?" "i don't know," she replied, with a gesture indicating, as i took it, that she didn't care if they were descending the bottomless pit. "shut the door," i breathed. she did so. "amelia----" i began again. "yes, mum." "_i_ have felt like that." "like what?" "like--that i couldn't sleep in the same house as pet--general macintosh." her eyes became round. "yes, i have," i repeated. she nodded her head and came closer. "you see, he is a little difficult, a little difficult, amelia. perhaps his tem--peculiarity has been caused by his gout. he has suffered a great deal. the servants at home and mother--well, they all stay on. they don't leave. do you understand?" she nodded with complete comprehension. i now realised how very clever amelia was. "i am not well," i went on plaintively, "and mother isn't very strong and capable, and i don't quite know what i shall do without you. i'm--i'm afraid i shall die if you leave me. in fact, i'm sure i shall die----" and my voice tailed off into a moan as i finished. amelia twisted her apron into tight rolls, then untwisted them, and then leaned on her high heels towards the couch. "of course, i don't want you to die, mum." "no?" i said. "i shouldn't like it to be said as how i finished you off." "i am sure you wouldn't," i agreed with warmth. "well, then, i will stop." there was an uplifted, heroic expression on amelia's face. "i'll stop. i'll never leave you, mum--not till the breath goes out of my body, not till i'm a corpse in my coffin, not even for the butcher's young man, who was only a-sayin' yesterday as how i had the finest figger he'd ever come across. i'll work for you till i drops. i'll just ignore your father, mum. oh, mum, if everybody was as gentle and perlite and soft spoken as you i'd die for 'em." and flinging herself upon her knees, she wept against the liberty sofa blanket, while i surreptitiously stroked her cap, there being no hair visible to stroke. chapter xvi forebodings i am very weary. in the old days, before my accident, it was my boast that i was never tired. perhaps the exertion of conciliating peter, of trying to keep the peace between him and amelia, has been too much for me these sultry days. i know not. but i do know that i am always tired. the sort of tiredness which makes me say, "go away, amelia," when she brings my hot water, and lays my tea-gown and brush and comb on the bed, and the long arduous task of being dressed lies before me. "leave me for another hour, please." and of course she argues and says the water will go cold; and i tell her i prefer it so, closing my eyes wearily to show that the discussion is finished. she surveys me, i know, in surprise. how can i be tired when i do absolutely nothing but lie still, when she is quite fresh after doing the whole work of the universe? "amelia, there is a weariness of the spirit which is greater than that of the flesh. you cannot understand this. a weariness which leads you to no other desire but that of lying quite still with your eyes closed, which makes you regard the simple act of combing out your own hair as tantamount to one of the herculean labours. you would almost prefer its being tangled to going through the exertion of getting it straight. that you would like to disentangle it for me, i know, but i shudder at the very thought. you are kind, but you don't understand how very tired i am. i want to rest a little longer." even the prospect of being under the apple tree, in the proximity of my friends the ants, doesn't tempt me. the dressing has to be got through first. it hurts--the lifting from the bed to the couch--though amelia is very tender. it jars--that being wheeled from the hall on to the step. i want to be without steps and doors, and corners and turnings and sudden descents. i want to be on a gentle, inclined plane--on a soft, billowy cloud, on wings of thistledown. i am tired of my body. it is troublesome and aching. i would gladly have done with it to-day. oh, that i could step out of it and into a new, whole, strong body--radiant and beautiful--for dimbie's sake. it is hard that these bodies have to get so tired before we have done with them. god sends this weariness, i suppose, to make the passing easier. i am thinking of aunt letitia now. she has gone, she has done with the world, she knows what is behind the veil. dimbie says she just slept herself away. she was conscious almost to the last, but was too tired even to eat a grape. then she fell asleep. dimbie will be coming home now, but--not for four days. four days seem a long time in which to bury a very tired, little, old lady. what am i saying? am i growing selfish? "forgive me, aunt letitia. i will _not_ grudge dimbie to you at the last, when you have done so much for him." and the time will pass, for mother and peter are still here, and one cannot be dull when peter is in the neighbourhood. i hear amelia's footsteps. she enters the room and tells me i _must_ get up. it is useless asking her to permit me to have "a little slumber, a little sleep, a little folding of the hands to sleep," for she tells me that it is dining-room day, which means that she must clean it, and cannot waste any more time on an idle, troublesome girl. i ask her if i may lie in nature's own garments under the apple tree, with just a soft, silken coverlet thrown over me; and she is scandalised, and says most probably mr. brook, the vicar, or mrs. cobbold may call. "amelia," i say, "i am tired of your threatening me with mr. brook. we have lived here for six months, and he does not seem to be dreaming of calling upon us. as for mrs. cobbold--well, she will never call again." "mr. brook has been ill," she argues. "mrs. brook might have called." "she has been too busy nursing him." "poor woman! she must be quite glad of an excuse, then, not to call," i said. "i have the truest sympathy for clergymen's wives, always going to see stupid parishioners because it is considered their duty. i only hope she will not call." "we never use the best china," said amelia sadly. "use it while mother is here," i said cheeringly; "it will be a good opportunity." she shook her head. "it's too good for common use. mrs. macintosh might stay a fortnight, and _he_ might smash it." ("_he_" is peter.) i ask her what they are doing with themselves, and she says peter is scrattlin' his feet about on the doorstep like an old hen. she attacks me with a brush, and i implore her to permit my hair to hang loose to-day. i explain that it is all in a tangle, and perhaps a passing breeze might disentangle it, so saving us much trouble. she regards me severely, and says no breeze will think of knocking about, that it is about 80 degrees in the shade, and that if i wish mr. brook to see me, of course-"put it up," i cry; "and if you dangle mr. brook in front of my eyes _once_ again i will throw something at you." she tells me to calm myself, and, picking me up, lays me on the couch and trundles me out of the front door. and here i lie refusing to do anything but gaze at the soft, white, eider-down clouds which seem to be trying to tuck up the blue. amelia has tried to make me eat. i have refused. mother has tried to engage me in a conversation about dimbie--artful mother! i have refused. peter has tried to draw me into a quarrel. i have still refused. and now they have all gone away and left me. praised be the gods! * * * * * as the shadows began to lengthen upon the lawn i fell asleep, and when i opened my eyes, very slowly, for i did not want to return to a world without dimbie, i found dr. renton sitting at the side of my couch watching me intently. i fancied that he had been there for some time, and i felt vaguely uneasy. "may i smoke?" was his first question. "of course," i said. "have you been here long?" "about half an hour." he struck a match. "why didn't you wake me?" "you had a bad night?" i nodded. "it was the heat." "where's your husband? it's time he was home, isn't it?" he took out his watch. "he's away." "away! well, he's no right to be away when you are so--feeling the heat. what's he doing?" "my husband was obliged to go to an aunt of his who was dying," i said with dignity. "what does she mean by dying now?" he said with asperity. "she's not, she's dead." "ah, that's better!" he observed in a most shameless manner. "he will be returning to-day?" "not for four days. he must wait for the funeral. this aunt practically brought him up." "well, she's not bringing him up now," he said, marching about the lawn. "his duty lies at home." "dimbie knows his duty as well as any man," i said stiffly. dr. renton laughed. "i beg your pardon, but----" "you think i am fretting for him?" "yes, i do. your face is like a bit of white notepaper." "the heat," i said. "are you eating properly?" "who could eat in this weather?" "are you sleeping well?" "dr. renton, i don't want to talk of myself." "but we must. what's the matter with you?" "nothing." "are you tired?" "i have just been to sleep." "look here, marguerite," he said sternly, sitting down and staring into my face, "answer my questions properly--i am your medical adviser--or i will call in mr. rovell; in fact, i am going to persuade rovell to have a look at you in any case." "call in mr. rovell?" i said blankly. he nodded. "candidly, i am not satisfied with your appearance. you are much thinner." "mr. rovell can't make me fatter." "i shall bring him this week--say thursday." i stared at him, dismayed and frightened. "i don't see the sense of making dimbie fork out another big fee," i quavered, "and i'm--i'm quite well." "are you? how's the back?" "it's quite--well, thanks." "i thought you were truthful." "well, it's pretty well." "marguerite," he said gently, holding my hand, "i don't want to frighten you. as you say, your white, rose-leaf face and hands may be the result of the great heat, but--i think it well to have another opinion. it cannot do you any harm, it may do you good, and at any rate it will satisfy me." [illustration: marguerite, i don't want to frighten you] "very well," i said, laying my face on his hand for a moment, "but i--_am_ frightened." "i know," he replied. "i have seen fear, sickening anxiety, written on the faces of many of my patients when the great specialist--the man who will pronounce their doom or otherwise--has entered the room, only to be followed by a great joy. we must hope and pray that this joy will be yours. it must be," he said almost savagely, getting up and kicking over his chair. "you are too young always to lie still." the last words were muttered to himself but i caught them, and a momentary darkness rose before my eyes, but i brushed it away as something tangible. "you--but you do think it will be well with me, dr. renton?" and the bitter entreaty of my cry startled my own ears. voices came across the garden, and mother and peter appeared through the gate. dr. renton hesitated a moment, and then went to meet them. my question remained unanswered. chapter xvii my worst fears are realised the day has come at last on which dimbie is to return, and--i am not glad. that i, his wife, should ever write such words seems almost unbelievable. but, oh--i am not ready for him! i am not yet brave enough to smile. i shrink from the thought of meeting the look of happiness in his blue eyes, of hearing the joyous ring of his voice, of seeing the whimsical, crooked smile on his lips. for how can i return the look, how smile back at him when my heart is wellnigh breaking, and every fibre of my being will be concentrated in keeping my lips steady, my eyes undimmed? and yet i must smile--somehow. it matters not that my happiness is marred so long as dimbie never knows it--if my tears fall in the darkness when he is asleep; if my spirit cries out in its anguish, and only god hears. god will not mind as dimbie would mind, for dimbie loves me. it is hard to believe that god loves me, or why give me such happiness just for a little while only to wrest it from me? it is he who has crippled me for life; he who gave me strong young limbs, only to strike them helpless; he who filled me with a passionate love for nature, only to shut me away from her forever within four walls. and yet christian people tell us that he is a god of love. love? i smile, it seems so strange that they should believe this. and they will come along and say very kindly, very gently, "you loved dimbie too much, you made an idol of him. god has sent you this trial to bring you to him. he must always come first." and you wonder at their lack of understanding. do they not know that you come closest to god in your moments of supreme happiness? it is then you want to creep away to a quiet spot and thank him, on your knees, for giving you such happiness. it is then you look upon all the wonders of the world with understanding eyes. it is then you try to help those who suffer and are sick. oh, dear religious people, it is you who don't understand! it is not sorrow which brings men and women to god, it is joy. it would seem to me a poor sort of thing to go to god when you are down on your luck--to make him a substitute for husband, home, friends; in fact, to call upon him when everything else has failed. that sort of religion does not appeal to me! i was grateful to him, too, for my happiness, for giving me dimbie. in my contentment i think i tried to lead a better life, to be more tender-hearted, more charitable, less down upon other people's shortcomings; and now--god has forgotten me. o god, were you not a little sorry for me when they--the doctors had gone, stepped out into the beautiful wide world, and left me alone a helpless, stricken creature? did you not feel a little twinge of pity when, not believing them, i struggled to stand, gripped the head of the bed, held out vague, wandering hands to anything that might help me to raise myself, only to fall in a huddled, unconscious heap on the floor? or perhaps you said, "poor, foolish little child, she is rebellious now; but a day will come when her spirit will be broken, broken upon the wheel of suffering." ah! what am i saying? forgive me, o lord. i am weak and sorrowful and lonely. i cannot understand it yet; i cannot see the reason why. i am as a little child groping in the darkness. the darkness stretches away to an eternity, and i can see no daylight. but help me to smile, help me to smile when dimbie comes home. the afternoon is hot and long and very silent. mother and peter are gone. instinctively mother knew i wanted to be alone to meet dimbie. how wise mothers are! she strained me to her breast, and the hot tears fell upon my face as she said "good-bye." "a word from you," she whispered, "will always bring me, even from the very end of the earth." "and what about peter, little mother?" i asked tremulously. "peter must remain at home." "but i think _even he is_ a little sorry for me," i said gently. she turned away, trying to get her face and lips still. "in the night i heard him say, 'my little marguerite, my poor little girl!'" she whispered. "don't, mother!" a great sob burst from me. "don't tell me things like that. don't sympathise with me, for i cannot bear it--yet. just take your broken girl as a matter of course. try to pretend that i have always been helpless, crippled. imagine me as a little baby once more, needing all your love and tenderness, but not your sympathy. it is sympathy that will make me break down, it is sympathy that will make me weep. and i am trying to keep all my strength for dimbie. if i cry i shall become weak, and then i shan't be able to smile when he comes through the garden-gate. don't give me sympathy, mother." * * * * * it is five o'clock. in an hour's time dimbie will be here. the day has passed desperately slowly, and yet all too quickly, for i am not ready for him yet. my smile is still trembly. i feel my lips quiver as i practise it. amelia looks at me out of the corner of her eye. how can she know what i am doing--that i am engaged in smiling exercises? a new feature of my curious mental condition, she thinks. but amelia is very gentle and patient with me now. she does not want me to know that there is any difference in her method of treating me. she is still firm and managing, but an unwonted softness creeps into her voice and manner when she addresses me. she has not referred to my trouble, and i understand why. she is cheating herself into believing that the doctors have made a mistake, and she thinks she is cheating me into the same belief. in an off-hand way she will refer to mr. tompkins having been told by a famous specialist that he was suffering from "hangina pectorate," and how it was nothing of the kind, but simply indigestion through eating welsh rabbit six nights out of seven; and how the second miss tompkins was told unless she had an operation she would be dead in a week, and how she ran away from the nursing home to which she had been taken and so saved her life, as she never had it done. amelia's recitations help to pass the time. just now i pretended i wanted tea, hoping to decoy her into staying with me a while when she came to remove the tray, but she said she was busy. "busy!" i ejaculated, "on a sultry afternoon like this. what can you be doing?" and she asked me if i imagined the work got done itself. and if i thought an oven never wanted washing out with quicklime. "what do you do that for?" i said eagerly. from certain well-known signs i thought amelia was preparing for a gossip, but i was disappointed, for she picked up the tray and moved towards the house. "why do you quicklime the oven?" i called after her desperately. i could not face another long half-hour alone. she put the tray down on to the step and walked slowly back. "do you really want to know, mum?" "of course," i said. "well, to sweeten it." "oh! doesn't the lime burn you?" "it would if i got it on to my hands, but i don't." "where do you get it from?" "i got a big lump out of a field." "do you--do you find lime in fields?" she eyed me with pity. "a house was being built there," she said laconically, as she began to walk away. "wait a minute," i called. "there's no hurry. where was the field?" she stood and stared at me. "you see, i--i am very interested in quicklime and ovens." i spoke rapidly. "did the tompkinses quicklime their oven?" amelia fell into the trap like a mouse. "they didn't till i taught 'em. they didn't do anythink like that till i showed 'em how. when i went there first, the oven was like that tex in the bible." "which text?" i asked with relief, for she had seated herself upon the grass. "'it stank in your nostrils.'" "dear me," i said, "how unpleasant." "heverythink tasted of ovens. you know the taste, mum?" "i'm not sure that i do." "it's like bad hot fat." "oh, then, i'm sure i don't. and so you cleaned it." "it came off in cakes. i had to take a knife to it." "the lime?" she eyed me sadly. "i'm afraid you're not listenin', mum?" "why?" "i'm just tellin' you as how i put the lime on, and you asks me if i took it off. it's the dirt--the fat i'm speaking of now." "oh, of course. it's the dirt you are speaking of--the fat that stank in your nostrils." i added this last to show how very sure i was of my ground. but this didn't appease her. she was in a contrary mood, and rose. "don't go," i cried. "wait, i have something important to ask you. i--" feverishly i cudgelled my brains--"i want to know the name of the poet who used to go to the tompkinses', and looked like a garden leek. was it by any chance"--i picked up a book--"william watson?" "no, mum, william potts." "a poet named potts? you must be mistaken. a poet could not be named potts." amelia set her lips doggedly. "this one was." "perhaps he was a tinker really, or you are mistaken in the name, as i said before. poets have musical-sounding names, such as wordsworth, tennyson, byron." amelia was evidently trying to keep her temper. "this man was named potts, i know it for a fact, for i always remembered it by thinking of kettles." "oh!" i said. "yes, whenever i wants to remember a name i think of somethink else like it, _that_ helps me. when that stout lady called on you i thought of a cobbler." "oh, mrs. cobbold," i said brightly, pleased at being able to follow her meaning. she cheered up a little. "now, when your father, general macintosh, came, i just thinks quickly of your waterproof hangin' in the hall." "i see." "don't you think it's a good plan, mum?" "most brilliant," i replied. "when you want to remember to feed the canary you say to yourself the word 'sparrows.'" there was a pause. i was not looking at amelia. i was, therefore, unprepared for the blinding sarcasm which followed. "that's it, mum. when i wants to remember to boil some pertaters i straightway puts on a cabbage. when i'm trying to recollect to clean the master's patent boots i washes his golf stockin's. you've got it quite right, mum. you've understood my meanin'. i'm not blamin' you. folks can't help the hinterlecks as god gives 'em, and i'm not blamin' you," and picking herself up she marched into the house. i laughed weakly for some minutes after she had gone. she might have been watching me through the pantry window--i care not. "bless you, amelia, for living with me and looking after me and amusing me. i know the kindness of your heart as well as the sharpness of your tongue. i know with what infinite tact you keep away from the subject of my infirmity, and i am grateful to you." presently she was out again. i was lying with my eyes closed. "you're tired, mum?" "a little," i said. "shall i get a flower to put in your gown before the master comes? it will freshen you up a bit." "how do i look?" she carefully selected a beautiful red rose. "there are two spots the colour of this rose in the middle of your cheeks." "i look well, then?" i asked eagerly. she sniffed a little. "i've seen folks as looked better." "bring me a hand-glass." she went slowly to the house. "i didn't know as you was vain, mum," she observed, as she put it into my hand. "you can go back to your oven now, amelia," i said a little frigidly. i waited till she had gone, and then raised the glass. two great, dark, burning eyes looked into mine. my cheeks were wasted, and my hair lay in a damp cloud on my forehead. all the gold which dimbie loved so much seemed to have gone out of it. in the relentless light of day, fascinated, i gazed at my strangely-altered countenance. "and once dimbie thought that face beautiful!" the words burst from me in a sob, but no tears came. my aching eyes turned to the roses and lupins which were drooping in the hot afternoon sunshine, to the hedge of wondrous-tinted sweet-peas, to the cool, green limes and beech tree leaning over the fence. "how lovely to be inanimate!" i cried passionately. "to be without a soul, without a memory, without a future. to be a soft, fragrant rose wrapped round by the sun and the wind and summer rain, sending forth a sweetness to gladden the heart of man, and then falling petal by petal to the cool, kind embrace of mother earth." why should humans suffer so? why should all this pain be? animals and birds and fish and insects prey upon one another. they drink to the dregs the cup of physical suffering, but they are spared the anguish of mental pain. will dimbie's love stand? ah, that is what is torturing me day and night! will dimbie remain faithful? he is but young. life is before him. he still lives in the present and future, only the old live in the past. to be tied forever to a helpless wife, to a creature wedded to a couch, to a stricken, maimed woman. oh, how i hate myself! i despise my own weakness and impotence. once i was a strong girl, who could run and dance and scale high mountains. dimbie said my eyes were as bright as stars in the frosty heavens, my hair as gold as the setting sun, my cheeks--ah, he flattered me! and now, god help--but no, there is no one to help me. god has forgotten me! bring a brush, amelia, and try to weave into my dull hair a little of the bright sunshine. pin the red rose you gathered into my gown. twine around your finger the damp tendrils which lie on my forehead, and make them curl as of old. tell me a funny story of the tompkinses to straighten up the droop of my mouth. for dimbie is coming down the lane--i hear his footstep eager and fast--and i want to look like the marguerite he married. a bird has broken into song in the apple tree--a golden melody. is he singing for the coming of dimbie? or is he a harbinger of hope? does he mean that dimbie's love _will_ stand--last throughout the ages? oh, that it might be so! i would rather be a cripple with dimbie's love than whole and strong without it. chapter xviii dimbie rolls a great load from my heart in the crises of life--the tremendous moments of fear, hope, and expectation--what a curious calmness overtakes us. maud's poor lover, after killing her brother in the duel, says- "why am i sitting here so stunn'd and still, plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill?" and later on, when he sits on the breton strand, he says- "strange that the mind when fraught with a passion so intense one would think that it well might drown all life in the eye,- that it should, by being so over-wrought, suddenly strike on a sharper sense for a shell, or a flower, little things which else would have been passed by." and so it was with me, i "suddenly struck on a sharper sense" as dimbie came through the gate, and i had nothing to say in the first moment of greeting but to tell him that a button was missing from one of his boots and his coat was very dusty. his look of utter astonishment expelled my apathy, and when his arms were round me and he was showering kisses upon my face and hair, and whispering, "marguerite, marguerite, have you nothing else to say?" in an overwhelming torrent it came to me what i _had_ to say, what i had to tell him. the reality of it suffocated me, i felt as though i were drowning. i could only cling to him murmuring his name. "dear love," he whispered at length, "say that you love me!" "love you!" i cried, finding speech. "love you! ah, dimbie, it is not for you to ask such a question. it is _i_ who must put it to you. do you love me? can you always love me--forever and ever, whatever happens to me? whatever i am----" i broke off. "whatever i am," i repeated mechanically. again he looked at me, held my face away from his, and surprise and bewilderment chased across his countenance. i could not meet the look in his eyes, and my own fell. he took my hands in his and held them to his lips very tenderly. "love you as you are, whatever you are! why of course, that is why i shall love you always, because you are marguerite. you may grow blind and deaf, and old and feeble, but you will always be my marguerite. that is the beautiful part, we shall always have each other--to the end. aunt letitia's was a lonely life and a lonely death. only old ann and i with her. no husband nor children, nor brothers nor sisters, no one very closely related; only i, a nephew, and an old servant." he settled himself on the grass at the side of the couch and leant his head against my knee. "but you and i will have each other for ever. but i am not going to talk of sad things--not that aunt letitia's death in itself was sad, for it was very peaceful and beautiful--but i want to talk of the delights of being home again, of sitting in our jolly little garden with my own dear wife, and of the said wife's stroking her husband's head." he raised his blue eyes to mine and pulled my hand down to his hair, and perforce i had to stroke it. "i cannot tell him yet," i cried to myself. "we must have this beautiful hour together. later on--perhaps when the dusk has fallen." he sighed contentedly as my hand passed over his crisp, kinky hair, and took jumbles, who was purring and arching his back, on to his knee. "now tell me the news, wife," he commanded. "first of all, how are you? has renton been to see you?" "yes," i replied after a pause, "he came the other day." "and what does he think?" "he thinks"--i caught at my breath--"that i am thinner and--not quite so well." dimbie turned round quickly and gave me a prolonged scrutiny. then he threw jumbles off his knee and got up. "you are decidedly thinner, marg. let me feel your arms." "my arms," i said, trying to smile, "were always so abominably fat that it is an improvement their being thinner." dimbie felt me carefully, then his mouth set in a hard, straight line. "we must get you away from here," he said, "to the sea, or somewhere bracing. by the time you are ready to walk about there will be nothing left of you to walk." "by the time you are ready to walk about," i started. amelia was coming across the lawn, and heard dimbie's words. her lips parted. she was going to tell him. "amelia," i cried, "come here quickly. the--the tortoise is slipping down the couch." "and that won't be the first time, mum," she returned, diving after it. "and you won't have a pocket, mum." "shake up my cushions, please, and--" i whispered in her ear as she leaned over me, "don't tell the master yet." "what are you two up to?" asked dimbie. "amelia is bringing you some tea, and we are going to have supper in the garden. i always have supper under the apple tree when it's fine," i said quickly. "isn't it a bit earwiggy?" "it is; but to make up for that there is the night-scented stock, and a corncrake in the field. peter got very angry with the corncrake and the frogs." "by the way, where are peter and your mother? it is very decent of them to have gone out and left us alone for a bit." "they are gone home," i replied. "a seismic movement of the earth's crust is now taking place at dorking." dimbie laughed. "not very polite to me to clear off just as i was returning." "i think peter feared you might quarrel with him." "a nice way of putting it. how did he and amelia get on?" "they didn't get on at all. amelia gave me notice to leave, and peter flung dinner plates on to the floor. i think he had been reading about savage landor's pitching crockery about when he was a little annoyed." "i'd have pitched him out of the house." "yes," i said, "that was why i felt glad you were not at home." amelia appeared with the tray. "how did you like general macintosh, amelia?" asked dimbie. she sniffed and tilted her head. "i gave him his half-sovereign back when he went this morning; that will show you how much i liked him, sir. he nearly wore the mistress and me out. i managed him though in the end." "what did you do?" "well, sir, i peppered him and keatinged him just as though he was a house-moth." we both stared at her. "readin' a book made me think of it; it was about a duchess and a baby, and the baby kept sneezin'. 'this will do for him,' says i to myself. so i buys a quarter of a pound of pepper and a tin of keating's moth powder, and i sprinkles his pillow and hairbrushes, and handkerchiefs and pyjamas, and shaving-brush and his clothes, and the sneezin' which took place after that was somethin' dreadful. his eyes and nose was runnin', and he says he had a dreadful attack of influenza. don't you remember, mum?" she looked at me, but i made no answer. he was, after all, my father, and i must not sympathise with amelia in her depravity. "go on," said dimbie encouragingly, helping himself to a large supply of strawberry jam. "well, he came and danced about my kitchen like a hathlete at the circus. couldn't have believed pepper could have made anythink so active, and with his gout, sir. i couldn't get him out of the kitchen for hever so long." "and what did you do?" "oh, i just fetched the pepper-pot and shook it at him, one shake and he fairly raced. and jumbles began a-sneezin' too, and rushed off to the roof of the shed; there was legs flying in all directions." dimbie tilted back his chair and roared with laughter. "and was he polite to you after that?" "pretty well, sir. he had to be. every time he was going to break out i just casual-like referred to the pepper. i would ask mrs. macintosh if there was enough of it in her soup, or if the curry was too hot." "you are a strategist, amelia," said dimbie. "yes, sir," she replied, without comprehension. "do you know what i mean?" "no, sir." "you can outwit the enemy." "yes, sir." she moved towards the house. she was wearing the tea-rose slippers again. dimbie caught sight of them. "why are you wearing my slippers? how dare you, amelia!" she stood nonplussed for a moment, then, "the mistress won't allow _you_ to wear them, sir, and i thought it was a pity for them to be wasted," and she disappeared into the house. we looked at each other and laughed. "she is a good girl, and looks after you well, doesn't she?" "excellently." "but i think we will get another maid--one who is more used to invalids." "no one but amelia shall look after me; besides, we can't afford," i said decidedly. "oh, we can afford right enough, marg. wouldn't you like one, dear?" "no, i wouldn't." he smiled. "well, don't get so heated about it, you shan't if you don't like. you shan't do anything or have anything contrary to your wishes." "you are very good to me, dimbie, dear;" and tears trembled in my eyes. "whatever's the matter?" he said in alarm. "i'm only tired. i have been so excited about your coming." "poor darling!" he murmured softly. "it's this hot weather that is making you so weary. i'm going to read you to sleep, and you must sleep till supper. what shall it be?" he picked up one or two of the books from the table. "_omar_?" "no, i'm tired of _omar_." _"the garden of allah_?" "no, beautiful but sad." "what, then?" i lay and thought. dimbie had a musical voice; he read well. i wanted something to suit his voice. "_pilgrim's progress_," i said. "it's on the drawing-room table." he fetched it, and turned the pages. "what part do you fancy?" "anywhere, so long as i can see you while you read." he stooped and kissed me, and holding one of my hands in his he began. very little of the beautiful language did i hear, for i was thinking and pondering upon what i should say to him later. how should i tell him? how break my news? the shock would be so great; i must choose my words carefully. "help me to say the right thing," i prayed i know not to whom. "help me to choose the right words, and let him go on loving me." * * * * * and dimbie himself made it all quite easy for me, for before i spoke or told him his own words rolled a great load from my heart. we had finished supper, the darkness had fallen, and a moon swam in a sky of the deepest blue. heavy on the warm night air lay the perfume of the roses, the night-scented stock, and the flowering lime, in which a thousand and one bees had been humming throughout the day. now they were asleep, and the lime was at rest. dimbie, with his arm around me, was telling me of aunt letitia's death, and how glad she was to go; how quietly and simply she had talked of her business affairs, of the disposal of her money, of her legacies. she had left her house in order, and with the faith of a little child had set out on the long, unknown journey fearless and with a great trust in the mercy of god. "at the last she said to me, 'from what you have told me i quite seem to know marguerite, and i should have loved her i am sure. i feel she is good. some good women are very unlovable; they are hard on the frailties of others. in their unsmirched purity they cannot understand the meaning of the words temptation, sin; but i do not think marguerite is one of these. i should imagine she would be very tender towards those who are weak, for she understands and knows the mercy of god.'" "the mercy of god." the words rang in my ears--dinned and hammered and beat. "_i_ understand the mercy of god! dimbie, dimbie, aunt letitia is wrong. i don't, i don't. i'm wicked, i'm rebellious, i----" my words broke off in a bitter cry, and i clung to him with both hands. "hush, hush, my dear one," he said, holding me closely. "if you are wicked it is a poor lookout for the rest of humanity. why, to myself, i always call you my white marguerite. i--" he paused, and i could hear the beating of his heart--"i want to tell you now what you have made of me, of my manhood. i have wanted to tell you ever since i first met you, but--it is difficult to lay your heart bare, even to the woman you love, but--i think i'm a better man now, marguerite. i was a careless, selfish sort of beggar before, i only thought of myself. the down-on-their-luck fellows were down through their own fault i supposed. the women on the streets disgusted me; the sick and suffering i shunned as something repulsive; the poor and hungry bored me with their whining. then i met you. you gave me something priceless--your love. i knew i was not worthy of it, but you married me. then came your accident and illness. will you think me cruel when i tell you i was almost glad? now i could do something for you, wait on you, take care of you, cherish you, i thought, try to make myself worthy of your love. and your first question was, would my love stand the strain of your illness? ah, marguerite, how those words hurt, how they cut me to the heart. 'she doesn't understand me,' i cried, 'she has no faith in me.' and have you still no faith in me? do you not trust me? marguerite, wife, were you to be stricken for life, always tied down to your couch, always a helpless invalid, i should feel that you were a sacred trust given to me by god to love and cherish. and--so long as you gave me your love i should be more than content. do you still doubt me, fear that my affection would waver? tell me that you trust me. speak, marguerite." and i spoke, very slowly at first. the words came haltingly, brokenly. i was trying to keep the tears back--tears not of sorrow now, but of joy. as my husband was speaking sorrow left me, and my soul was irradiated with a great and wondrous happiness. i forgot my tired body, it seemed to fade away, dissolve, and only my spirit was left behind singing a _te deum_. my doubts, my fears had gone. dimbie would _always_ love me. i believed him as truly as i believed that the sun would rise on the morrow. "dimbie, dear," i said simply, "i _do_ believe you, and i do trust you. your words to-night have made that which i have to tell you quite easy. i--shall never walk again." my arm stole round his neck and i drew his cheek to mine. "no, don't speak till i have finished. i want to tell you all about it now--everything. then we will accept it as the inevitable and never speak of it again. you say that i am patient, good. when the doctors had left me--dr. renton had broken it to me--i railed against god. i cried out in my agony, 'this cross is greater than i can bear!' i beat the pillows, tried to tear the sheets, struck my head against the bed. i longed to die. i prayed to die. i struggled to rise, only to fall in unconsciousness on the floor. this unconsciousness, i think, saved my reason. and, oh, the tears i shed, the bitter tears! i was glad you were not there, dimbie. in the darkness of the night, even as job, i cried out, 'let the day perish wherein i was born!' never to walk again--the words rang in my ears. always to lie still. the wind and sea would call me, but i must lie still. spring and summer would call me, but i must lie still, always still. never stretch my limbs in the sunshine or feel the mountain air upon my face. never hear the wind in the corn, or listen to the soft falling of the pine-needles in the woods. dimbie, that night has left its mark upon my brow, i fear. i felt as though i had been seared with a hot iron. i quivered when they touched me--peter, mother, amelia--they all came to me, and i cried, 'leave me, leave me!'" with a passionate movement dimbie made to speak, but i laid my fingers on his lips. "wait," i said. "hush, dear. i don't feel unhappy now, that has all gone, you have sent it away. for above all my grief there was a sorrow which was a thousand-fold more keen, more bitter. i doubted you. i doubted your love, and i did not in my mind reproach you, dimbie. 'he is young and strong,' i cried, 'and i am a cripple. he cannot spend the remainder of his life with a hopeless invalid. nature demands a healthy mate. i cannot expect him to be faithful to me.' "but, oh, i felt i could not give you up! i loved you so. you were _my_ husband. no other woman should have you. and--i looked at my face. it is a little pitiful when a woman comes to look at her face, i think. is it the men's fault, i wonder? ah, and what the mirror told me! i put it from me, and i laughed mirthlessly. 'that will never hold him,' i said, and so i drew nearer and nearer to my gethsemane and my cup was wellnigh full. and--then you came, and i woke as from a hideous nightmare; my sorrow and pain and anxiety fell from me like an old worn-out cloak. dimbie, dimbie, do you know how you smiled? in that dear crooked, whimsical, and most loving smile lay a woman's heaven--a heaven upon earth--and without you she wants no other paradise." dimbie's arms were around me as i finished. his tears fell upon my face, but he did not speak. in each other's arms we lay, wrapped around by the still, warm, scented night, and the silence was more beautiful than words. later on, when he carried me to bed, he knelt down and said-"i thank thee for my most precious wife, o lord, so much more precious now that she is--she is--brok----" he paused, and, getting up, went quietly out of the room. chapter xix we inherit a fortune i have done with sadness forever. who could be sad on an afternoon such as this? is the witchery of spring with us once more? we ask; for it has rained for a week, and now every faded green thing--leaf and grass and hedges--are chortling with pride over their fresh, bright raiment. they are as maidens of fifteen mincing in their new frocks. the roses are holding up their heads and inviting you to bury your face in the heart of their sweetness where some raindrops still remain. you gladly do as you are bidden, and amelia, who has brought them to you, thinks you are an eccentric creature to go sighing and sniffing and kissing their wet petals in such sentimental fashion. "the sweetest flower that blows," you sing, and she says they are nothing of the kind, that "vi'lets take the cake." "the master will be home at half-past four," you tell her, and she says you have mentioned this fact at least half a dozen times. "only twice, amelia," i say. "you should learn to speak the truth." and she steps deliberately on to the tortoise, which lies on the grass, in order to teach me that i may allow it to stray once too often. i tell her i am sorry, and she suggests that i should tie it round my neck suspended from a ribbon, and people might take it for an enlarged miniature of one of my relations. i ignore her remark, and watch a thrush who is having a succulent feast of worms after the rain. i wonder at the worms being so easily deceived as to imagine that the stamping of the thrush's small feet is an earthquake, bringing them out of their burrows with a run. "miniatures are fashionable," she continues. i am still engrossed in the thrush. "that one of you in the drawing-room is not bad, but a bit flattering." "miniature of me?" i say lazily, refusing to be interested in amelia's conversation. "i have never had a miniature painted in my life. the one to which you are referring is the master's great-aunt, painted when she was a girl." she walks on high, sloping heels to the house with her head well up. in about two minutes she returns with ill-concealed triumph written on her face, and places a portrait of myself on my knees. in surprise i pick it up and examine it closely. yes, it is i, and--my heart contracts painfully as i look at it. have i that expression in my eyes--now? surely not. i put it down hastily, as amelia is watching me. "don't you like it, mum? i shouldn't be disappointed if it was my portrait. not but what i thinks it flatters you. the master was starin' at it for half an hour this morning--never touched his breakfast, and it was a fried sole, too." i picked up a book. "it's not bad," i say carelessly. "will you go to the village, amelia, and bring me some bull's-eyes--hot, pepperminty ones. the master is very fond of bull's-eyes, and so am i." i evaded her glance and searched for my purse. "it's in your pocket, mum. i stitched one in last night after you had gone to bed. second seam, right-hand side. the house was being that neglected while i was lookin' for things--purses and tortises--that i took the liberty, mum." now i own to feeling excessively annoyed with amelia. i had particularly requested her not to stitch a pocket on to me--anywhere, and she had disobeyed me. i had wondered what the hard, knobly thing i was lying upon could be. it was my own purse. i should not search the second right-hand seam. amelia must be shown that she could not disobey my commands with impunity. i read my book carefully, and turned its pages assiduously. "i am waiting for the money, mum." this in an injured voice. "there is some in the jewel drawer in my dressing-table," i said distantly. "and bring me my _crêpe de chine_ gown, and kindly remove the pocket from this one to-night." amelia's prolonged stare almost broke down my gravity. "why, you're holding your book upside down!" "and what if i am?" i retorted. "if i choose to read a book upside down that is no concern of yours. kindly go." i smiled as she walked slowly to the house. she was a very good girl, but must be kept in her place. she was back in a minute. "here's your money, mum, and did you mean your grand new lavender gown which your moth--i mean mrs. macintosh--sent you?" "that is what i meant," i said. "but it's like a bit of spider's web." she held it at arm's-length. "it's that delikit and lovely, you'll crush it to pieces." "that is your fault," i said quietly. "you have debarred me from wearing the other till the pocket is removed. now help me, please." with dexterous hands she got me out of one gown and into the other, but i was tired and spent when she had finished. "you look like a pichir with your gold hair, mum, though it's not so bright as it was. lavender wouldn't suit me, now, scarlet's my colour, but----" she broke off with a cry. "whatever's the matter now?" i asked. "there's a pocket in _this_ one, mum," she gasped, pointing to a gaping seam. i looked and said nothing. "dressmakers is but human, mum. 'ow was they to know that you had a prejudice against----" "amelia, _will_ you hush," i almost shouted. "i am so tired of your talking so much. go and buy the bull's-eyes." "will you have this gown off first?" she asked placidly. "no, i won't. i am not a load of hay to be pitched about from pillar to post. and my gowns are not legion." "there's the white serge, and the black heolian, and----" "amelia," i said, "if you don't go away i shall ring the tortoise for help--help from a stranger passing down the lane. i am a pestered, servant-driven creature, and i require as much help as a drowning man." and she went without another word to me, but muttering softly to herself, of which i caught a word or two: "moidered with the heat! poor thing, i have known as sunstroke----" &c., &c. she disappeared round the broom bush, and i laughed more than i have done for many days. * * * * * dimbie brought great news with him. he flung himself down upon the grass, tilted back his hat, wiped his brow, and said-"i have retired from business, marg." "well, that doesn't make sitting upon the damp grass an act to be commended," i said severely. an amused giggle came from behind me. it was amelia crossing the lawn with a lettuce in her hand. "i thought you were getting tea." "so i am, mum. this here lettuce is for it, and i just catched what the master said, 'retired from business!'" she put her hands to her hips. "i'm thinkin' there'll be a power more work to do now two for lunch and two for tea hevery day. and the master, beggin' his pardon, will be makin' more mess with his tobacco ash than ever. it lies about the carpets like bone manure on a flower-bed." she continued her walk to the house, brandishing the lettuce and squeaking with emotion, without giving us time to reply. "amelia is like a jack-in-the-box. she seems to spring from nowhere," said dimbie depressedly. "well, never mind. go on with what you were saying, and get up from the grass, it's very damp, and you are sitting on a multitude of worm-hills." "give me the end of the couch, then. tuck up your toes. did you hear what i said? i have retired from business. i have done with the stock exchange forever, marg." "this then, i suppose, will be our last meal. we have no private means." "i will feed you on oysters and champagne!" "bread-fruit and yams, more likely, on a desert island, where you can obtain food for nothing." "marg, i am worth £3,000 a year," he said gravely, and with suppressed eagerness. i looked at him anxiously. "sunstroke too," i murmured. "do you hear? i am worth £3,000 a year. i can give you everything you want." he raised his voice excitedly. and of course amelia, who was bringing tea, tipped the hot-water jug over, and in endeavouring to catch it dropped the tray, and then sat down among the ruins and began to weep. "don't be a fool!" said dimbie. "get up! it doesn't matter." but amelia remained rooted to the ground, sobbing her heart out. "i shan't leave, i _shan't_ go," she wailed at length, looking at me as though i were contradicting her. "of course you won't," i agreed. "it's not the best china. it doesn't matter the least little bit in the world, amelia." "oh, i don't mean that, mum. i mean that if the master's got £3,000 a year--i couldn't help hearin'--there'll be no room for amelia cockles. you won't want me. you'll keep cook, kitchenmaid, housemaid, parlour-maid, butler, boots, and have hentries, hoary-doves, cheese-straws, low dresses, and dessert every day of the week." she reeled this off without apparently drawing breath, and i too was breathless at the contemplation of such a truly awful prospect. "never!" i said. she looked incredulous. "never!" i repeated. she sat up on her heels and began to collect the broken pieces and pick up the bread and butter. "and were i ever to indulge--i mean saddle myself with the retinue of servants you mention--there would always be room for you, amelia." "thank you, mum," she sobbed, while eating a piece of sandy cake in complete unconsciousness. "you could be mistress of the robes," said dimbie cheeringly. her sniffs became less frequent. "you could be lady's maid," i said. "but no pockets, amelia. you understand." she gave a watery smile. "i could find the tortis and brush your hair all day long, mum." "thank you," i said; "and would you let me wear plaits?" she hesitated, and then, like the boy who stood on the burning deck, remained faithful to duty. "people might call." "and if they did?" "plaits is only proper for little girls and in bedrooms--i don't like them there,--but if the master doesn't mind _i_ don't." dimbie broke into roars. "go and get some more tea," i commanded, "and make haste." "she's a good, faithful soul," said dimbie when she had gone, "and we won't part with her." "part with her!" i repeated in astonishment. "i should think not indeed. why, if amelia were to go i should be lost; and i should not only lose myself, but the tortoise, my purse--everything i possess. she is my guide, my comforter, my solace in my lonely hours, and tells me entrancing stories about the tompkinses. i could not do without amelia." "and yet i don't know how she would agree with other servants." "dimbie, dear," i said petulantly, "don't joke any longer. i don't feel like joking and amelia dropping trays; they upset my silly nerves." "i am not joking," he returned slowly. "aunt letitia has left me all her money. she has lived simply, almost niggardly, the last few years, poor old lady. the money has been accumulating at compound interest, and we shall have an income of £3,000 a year and a house in yorkshire. what do you think of that, marguerite?" he put an arm around me and laughed like a happy schoolboy. "we shall be able to buy you everything you want. we will take a house by the sea, in the mountains, in the heart of one of your dearly-loved pine woods--wherever you wish it, my princess. you've only to hold up your little finger and your desire shall be gratified. we'll bring the roses back to your pale cheeks in a more bracing climate. you might even--get well--nearly well. this garden is too small and hot. now isn't it?" "i love it better than any other spot in the world," i said earnestly. he looked at me with disappointment chasing across his face. quickly i said, "dimbie, dear, i am delighted at your good luck. it will be too beautiful to have plenty of money. i can hardly believe it yet. it seems too good to be true. and i think you deserve every little bit of it. you have been to aunt letitia more than a son. but--you won't take me away from here just yet. i--i don't want to go." "you don't want to go to a jolly big house with nice grounds and smooth lawns?" "what lawn could be smoother than ours? it is like velvet." he smiled. "but it's only the size of a----" "it's big enough to hold the apple tree and me," i interrupted. "you shall have grand chestnuts, wind-torn oaks, and sit under a weeping willow in our new garden." "i want to sit under my own apple tree," i said querulously. he surveyed it disdainfully. "it is so beautifully gnarled and old." i disregarded the look. "and you see it has seven apples on it, and i believe they are going to be red." "we shall be able to use them for cider, perhaps." his voice was mocking. "and i don't want to leave the ants; they're so interesting." "i suppose no other garden contains ants?" "and look at the roses! have you ever seen trees bloom more freely?" "roses--in england--are, of course, extremely rare." "dimbie," i said, "if you mock me again i shall----" "kiss me, sweetheart," and he held his face to mine. "i shall not kiss you until you promise faithfully you will not transplant me to another garden. i--i don't want to go yet awhile, dimbie." "but what shall we do with our money? there is nothing to spend it on here," he argued. "oh, i could soon run through it, given the opportunity. i should first of all buy new shoes for amelia--lovely, respectable, black, kid shoes, with neat bows and low heels." "would they cost seven and sixpence?" he asked ironically. "quite," i returned gravely. he walked up and down the lawn impatiently. "but tell me why," he said after a time, standing still in front of me, "why, marguerite, my poor white daisy, you are so anxious to remain here?" "because----" i paused. ah, no, i must not tell him _yet_; it is not time. besides, after all, it may only be my foolish fancy. "because," i continued, "to take me away from the garden that i love, from our pretty cottage, would be to tear out my heart-strings. perhaps you will think it sentiment, dimbie, but i want to finish our year here--our wonderful year. into the branches and green lace-work of the trees, into the dewy grass, into the sweet-peas and roses, into the beech--which is always so kind and friendly--into the frog-pond, and, above all, into our much-loved apple tree, are woven a thousand beautiful associations and memories. the memories, you will say, will remain with us, be with us wherever we go; but they are not yet complete. this is only august. we have four months left to finish our year. into those four months may be crowded much happiness, much simple, quiet joy, and the storehouse of our 'looking back' will be full to the brim and running over. let us finish our year here--you and i and amelia--and then----" i turned away to hide my face. "and then----?" "why then," i said softly, "i will do whatever is required of me." he sat down beside me. "your will will always be mine, marguerite." [illustration: your will will always be mine, marguerite.] i shook my head. "you and everybody will turn me into the most selfish creature that ever breathed if i let you have your way." "and why not? there is not very much left to you now." his voice was a little bitter, and a shadow crept across his face. "hush!" i said. "i have nearly everything a girl could possibly want--husband, home, friends, and now riches. why," i continued, trying to divert his thoughts, "why didn't you tell me your most important news on the day you returned home? didn't you know?" "yes, i knew. the will was read after the funeral. i was going to tell you. i kept it as a _bonne-bouche_ till the night fell, and then there was your news----" he broke off and did not finish. "afterwards," he said a little later, "i waited till my right to the money was confirmed. my mother was inclined to dispute it. she was aunt letitia's only sister, and considered she had the first claim, though she had not been to see her for years. yorkshire was too dull for her after the gaieties of london. still, she seemed to think the money was hers by right." he slowly dissected a sweet-pea. "i hope never again to see such a look on any woman's face as was on my mother's when the will was being read. it was very ugly and--sad. poor mother, she has missed the best things of life." he sighed deeply. amelia's voice singing "i wouldn't leave my little wooden hut" came through the pantry window. "she too is evidently of the same opinion as i," i said, smiling. "she doesn't want to leave." "you are in collusion, that is quite clear. two women are too much for any one man, especially when one of the women is an amelia. we will stay here and see the old year out, marg. your wishes are but commands. what is your desire now, my princess--to be wheeled nearer the sweet-peas?" he stroked my cheek lovingly. "was there ever a husband like mine?" i asked myself. and aloud, "go and tell amelia to sing less loudly, and inquire of her the size in shoes she takes." chapter xx professor leighrail pays us a call the afternoon was waning, and dimbie and i were beginning to wake up and trying to ignore the fact that amelia was watching us through the ever useful point of vantage, the pantry window, when professor leighrail drifted through the gate, round the broom bush, and stood staring at the cottage. that he hadn't seen us in the profound shade cast by the apple tree was evident from his not too polite remark addressed to the cottage-"worse than i imagined--an overgrown pest-house!" we laughed aloud, and he walked to us with outstretched hands. his dress attracted my immediate attention, as it was a little unusual--black cloth trousers, white linen coat, large, badly-fitting, brown shoes with different coloured laces, and a top hat. the last he removed with a flourish, and his first observation seemed characteristic of the little i knew of him. "guessed i should find you like this, still playing at romeo and juliet, and you look," he put on a pair of spectacles, "you look, seated against that background of gnarled old branches, just as foolishly sentimental and happy as any young couple _could_ look." he did not wait for any reply, but rattled on. "i found you without the slightest trouble. i knew i should." "pine tree valley is not a large--" "certainly not," he interrupted, "but had it been a town and not a village, i should have found you just as easily. i said to a villager--man in corduroys--'where is the residence of a lady and gentleman who smile, who live on sunshine and walk on air?'" "and did he understand you?" we asked, determined _not_ to smile. "certainly, i spoke quite clearly. he reflected for a moment, scratched his head, and said, 'first turning to the right, one tree cottage.' 'that is correct,' i said. 'one tree cottage is the foolish and fantastic name they mentioned to me, now i come to think of it.' so you see here i am, and i must say that you and your cottage are worse than i anticipated." "worse!" dimbie ejaculated. "yes, you and your wife are still at it, the love-making. i thought you would be getting over it by now. and your cottage--isn't it below the sea level? it looks to me as though it might have been built on drained marsh land, originally a swamp." he spoke in the same cheerful, detached manner as when he first scraped acquaintance with us in the wood. "we are two hundred feet above the level of the sea," said dimbie with as much pride as if he had had a hand in the manufacture of the earth's surface. "a valley does not necessarily mean below the sea level, as you must know." the professor laughed. "but isn't it extremely damp and insanitary, covered over with that weed?" "that weed is clematis." "oh!" said the professor. "i should root it up, all the same." "but marg--my wife and i almost took the cottage on the strength of it." "a foolish reason. did you look into your drains, young man?" "amelia does that," i broke in. "you know she has a drain-bamboo." "of course, i remember. very sensible of amelia, most sensible. where is she?" "on the pantry table." "a curious place to sit." "she has the best view of us from there." he smiled. "i like servants to be interested in their master and mistress." "she is _very_ interested in us," i said. "i should like to see this young person, and i should like to see your drains. are they trapped?" we both remained silent. "i will have a look at them, if you don't mind." dimbie rose. "no, i want mrs. smiling face. women ought to know more about the arrangements of their homes than men." he offered me his hand. i looked helplessly at dimbie. it was so difficult to speak, to tell him. my voice still had an annoying habit of breaking when i was trying my hardest to refer to my--sorrow in a cheerful, careless fashion. the tears did not come, but--there was always the break. i would be telling amelia she might have my waterproof, as i should never require it again. i would start quite bravely, then would come the catch. will it always be so, i wonder? shall i never become quite calm and indifferent? it is eleven days since dimbie came home--a rich man--full of his good news. eleven days he has spent with me, and never once have we spoken of the cross we are called upon to bear, for it is dimbie's cross as much as mine. are we wise to put it behind us thus? should we not feel it less if we bravely discussed it? and yet it is my doing. it is i who willed it so, i who bade dimbie never to speak of it, and now i am almost sorry. somehow it seems as though the silence makes it harder to bear. our skeleton becomes more of a skeleton. perhaps if we were to discuss it freely, frankly, we should begin to regard it in the same way as one regards a smoky chimney--as tiresome, annoying, but bearable if the windows are kept open to let in the fresh air. our windows left wide would let in a great deal of happiness--love, comradeship, the pleasure of friends, the interest of books, the everlasting joy of nature. i must ask dimbie what he thinks. dimbie always knows what is right. in a few brief words he explained to professor leighrail that i was a prisoner to my couch, and that _he_ must conduct him to the house. the professor started as though to offer me words of sympathy, and then stopped. simply taking my hand in his he pressed it gently, and then followed dimbie into the house. "that was nice of him," i thought. "i wish nanty was here that they might renew their old friendship. perhaps they--but no," i laughed, "they are a little old, and--nanty hates men." amelia bore down upon me with intense excitement. "that gentleman has got his coat off, and he's poking about the drains with _my_ bamboo." "it just shows how prepared you were for any emergency, amelia," i said sympathetically. she looked at me out of the corner of her eye. i never knew anyone's eyes capable of turning back so far. "like a halibut's," i murmured. they instantly became straight. "what did you say, mum?" "nothing," i replied gently. "i sometimes think aloud." "yes," she said, in a tone which suggested she wished i wouldn't. "is he a sanitary inspector, mum?" "who?" "the gentleman who's doin' the drains." "no, certainly not. he's one of the greatest and cleverest men in england, and--he killed his mother." amelia looked incredulous. "he'd have been hung if he'd done that, mum--hung by the neck till he was dead." my servant is painfully dramatic on occasions. "it was an accident," i hastened to explain. i was afraid she might lock the professor in the cistern-room, or some other dark and unholy place. "he was driving an aerodrome. an aerodrome is----" but amelia was not in the least interested in my explanation. "what's he examining the drains for?" "he is afraid we shall be down with typhoid." amelia jumped into the air and dropped with a thud on to her now decently flat-heeled shoes. "tompkinses' grandfather died of typhus." "on the maternal side?" i asked affably. she took no notice of my question. "he lay for twelve weeks." "well, that was better than standing," i said. she resumed her halibut-eyed expression, and--left me. presently i heard her in strident-voiced conversation with the professor. i could not hear what they said, but they appeared to be very much in earnest. dimbie came out smiling. "one is seated on the back kitchen table, and the other is working away at the sink with the bamboo. it seems a nasty job, but they appear to be very happy." "which is doing the work?" "amelia. the professor wanted to, but she snatched the implement from him." "well, are we to be down with typhoid, or is there any chance of our escaping?" dimbie sat down. "he doesn't know yet, but he is hoping for the best. he's a queer old cock, but i like him immensely." "so do i," i agreed. "i wish nanty would come." it very rarely happens that one's wishes are instantly granted, but in this particular case my fairy godmother was in a generous mood, for as i spoke nanty's carriage drew up at the gate, and she swept down the path and across the lawn just as the professor emerged from the house brandishing in his right hand the drain-bamboo. now that nanty should, after a lapse of nearly thirty years, meet her old friend professor leighrail armed with a drain-bamboo would appear to be a situation very far removed from romance. but to me it seemed a most delightful and natural proceeding, for nanty would no doubt remember that her one time lover was, to say the least of it, a little eccentric in his habits. and professor leighrail would equally remember that nanty with her broad outlook on life was not easily shocked. did i say "broad outlook"? i withdraw it, for nanty with her hard and narrow views of the genus man is anything but broad in one respect. even her more intimate knowledge of dimbie has not converted her, and peter pronounces her as "pig-headed." anyway, her meeting with the professor left her quite calm and unruffled, while he, poor man, because he _was_ a man, mopped his brow and dropped the bamboo on to the grass as though it had been a live snake. i had omitted to tell dimbie of their former relationship, and he now stood and stared at them in the same way that amelia stares at me when i am gone, as she terms it, "a bit dotty." nanty dropped gracefully into a wicker basket-chair, and settled her mauve taffeta gown comfortably and elegantly. the professor with his big shoes and linen coat cut a poor figure beside her. "nanty and professor leighrail used to know one another," i explained to dimbie. "it was a very long time ago, when we were young. i won't say how long, because the professor might not like it," said nanty calmly. here was an opening for the professor to say something gallant, "that _she_ was not altered in the least, that only _he_ had grown old," but he did not take it. the professor is not a party man. he stared at the bamboo and said nothing. was he thinking of the days when nanty stood to him for everything adorable in woman, or was he thinking of his lost amabella? can the woman you have married entirely efface your memory of the other woman you wished to marry? and nanty. she had started and seemed distressed when i told her of the professor's loneliness, of his unkempt appearance. she was downright cross when i mentioned his ballooning, she had said it was a dangerous game. she had also said she had been a fool not to marry him, and she supposed that he had grown very fond of amabella. now she sat sphinx-like, with a little smile on her lips and her hands folded on her lap. the professor might have been a casual acquaintance she had met the day before. i longed for strength to get up and shake her. dimbie recognised that the professor was in trouble. his embarrassment and awkwardness, not to mention silence, were only too evident. manlike he came to the help of man. he plied him with questions about the drains. he did not understand why the professor _should_ be awkward and embarrassed, though vaguely he felt it had something to do with the presence of nanty; but whatever the cause, he knew that the professor required gentle assistance, and to give this assistance he must get him on one of his own pet subjects, either drains, over-eating, or balloons. he selected drains. he picked up the bamboo to attract the professor's attention, and asked him how long he gave us. "give you?" said the professor, looking a little dazed. "before we are down with typhoid." dimbie was quite grave. "oh, that depends on how much or how little you flush your drains." the professor was equally grave. "what do you recommend us to use?" "condy's fluid, or any other good disinfectant." the professor was now becoming interested. "chloride of lime is cheapest," chipped in amelia excitedly. under the pretext of rescuing her drain-bamboo she had joined the party, and when i tried to catch her eye to inform her that her services were not required her eye steadily refused to be caught. "quite right," said the professor, "chloride of lime _is_ the cheapest." "tompkinses always used it; their drains was always beautiful, that sweet and fresh you could have eaten your dinner in 'em." dimbie now tried to catch her eye, but she still wouldn't be caught. "amelia," i said gently. she became deaf as well as blind. "the tompkinses set a good example which all householders might follow with great advantage to themselves. it is simply suicidal"--the professor had now quite forgotten nanty--"it is simply suicidal the manner in which they neglect their drains, ignore their drains. and their ignorance on drains is usually colossal, only exceeded by the ignorance and stupidity of the men who lay them. i quite expected to find your main drain running beneath your drawing-room. "you almost seem disappointed that it isn't," i said. he smiled. "do you know where it is?" "no--o." "do you know where your gas-meter is?" "we haven't one, we use lamps and candles." "ah, well, you wouldn't know if you had. women never know these things." he spoke despondently. "i am not overwhelmed at our ignorance," i said laughing. "i don't see why we should know. surely the knowledge of gas and water is a man's business?" "i do not agree with you at all." he spoke with extreme rapidity. "women use them as much as men, they should therefore understand something of their working." "do you know where the pearl buttons for your flannel shirt are kept?" i asked quietly. dimbie suppressed a chuckle. "i didn't know i used them." "how do you suppose your shirt remains fastened? at the present moment the button on your left wrist-band is cracked across the centre. you must replace it with a new one on your return home." the professor laughed good-humouredly. "you had me there," he said. "they always have us," quoth dimbie. "haven't you found it so?" the professor stole a sly glance at nanty. "not always," he said softly. he was evidently recovering from his embarrassment by leaps and bounds. a smile flickered across nanty's lips. she did not return the look, but she unbent ever so little. "what do _you_ think of women, professor? you have told us what you think about drains and creeper-covered cottages, let us have your opinion of the fair sex." dimbie looked wicked. with unusual perspicacity he smelt a rat, and now he meant to run it to earth. "what do i think of women! i--i--" (the professor was now undoubtedly flurried) "i don't think anything of them." "that is a little rude and unkind of you," i said. "eh, what?" "that you should not think anything of them. are they so very unworthy?" the poor man looked worried. "i--i think i must go now." "no, don't go," i pleaded. "do stay to supper. we do so want to hear your views upon women. we so often hear them upon men" (i glanced at nanty) "that it will be quite refreshing to have a change." "and--what are the views you hear upon men?" he also looked at nanty. "that they are all bad." he laughed. "and--_i_ think women are all good," at which he bolted across the garden, called a good-bye, raised his hat, and disappeared through the gate. "that is the thinnest man i have ever seen," said nanty somewhat unromantically. "i don't think he gets enough to eat." she started. "housekeepers are poor sort of creatures--selfish, thoughtless, heartless," i generalised, not having known one. nanty looked at the sweet-peas. "i am sure he is often hungry." she started again, and getting up from her seat walked across the lawn and back to me. "where does he live?" she asked abruptly. "the grey house, esher. why do you want to know?" "oh--just curiosity." "perhaps you might ask him to tea?" i suggested. "i don't ask men to tea," she said crossly, picking up a newspaper and beginning to read. "visitors don't usually read." "humph!" "while you read i'll think," and i fell into a reverie, weaving many pleasant fancies, in which, strange to say, nanty and the professor were always the central figures. by and by she looked up. "of what are you thinking and smiling?" "of--marriage and love." "a foolish thought, and you cannot put the two together." "no?" "_no_!" said nanty decisively. chapter xxi jane fairbrother's impending visit "all's right with the world." the long-looked-for letter from miss fairbrother has arrived, and she is coming to stay with us. i read out the good news to dimbie exultantly and most happily:-"'little old pupil,--shall i be glad to come to you? why my pulses quicken at the very thought, and my heart sings when i contemplate the quiet joy of sitting in an english garden--a little green garden under an apple tree with marguerite westover. kipling says: "o the oont, o the oont, o the gawd-forsaken oont!" but i cry, "o the heat, o the heat, o the hellish, burning heat!" and i conjure up before my sun-tired eyes a vision of wondrous golden cornfields, ripening blackberries, leaves turning to crimson and russet, dewy, hazy mornings and over all the soft, mellow september sunshine--for it will be september, that sweetest of english months, when i arrive. "'everything i have to say to you must wait till i am at one tree cottage. of your accident and suffering i cannot write, but you will know--knowing me a little--what i feel for you. but take heart. twelve months will not pass quickly at your age. time tarries only for the young it would seem, when for the old--who would have it linger--it flies all too quickly. but the months _will_ pass. think, marguerite, if it had been for life!' (this i did not read to dimbie, i feared my voice, for it still breaks.) 'as it is, you will get stronger each month. and then a day will come when i shall take you for your first walk, if i am anywhere near you, through the stately pine trees you loved so much as a child. do you still love them? but, ah, i forgot--mr. dimbie will be there to take you. there will always be a husband now, tiresome man! forgive me, but i want to step back to the dear old days when i had my little pupil all to myself. "till the fifteenth of september good-bye. i shall, on reaching london, travel straight to pine tree valley. it is so good of you to ask me, and much _gooder_ of your husband. "'always your affectionate, "'jane fairbrother.'" i smiled up at dimbie, who was leaning over me, but there was no response. on his face there was an expression i had never seen before. he avoided my eyes and walked across to the window. "she seems a silly, sentimental woman," he pronounced curtly. "i can't bear people who gush." and he marched out of the room and shut the door with a bang. for a moment i wondered whatever was the matter. then it dawned upon me that he was jealous, and i laughed softly to myself. "dear dimbie, goose, that you should be jealous of anyone, when i'm--i'm--no use now, makes me absurdly happy, ridiculously puffed up with pride and----" dimbie was back. "will that woman have meals with us?" "where else could she have them?" i asked. "couldn't she have them in the kitchen with amelia?" "with amelia? miss fairbrother is the daughter of----" "i don't care if she is the daughter of an archbishop," he interrupted with extreme gloom. "i am not going to have her always messing round." "she won't mess round. miss fairbrother is not that sort of person." "you are prejudiced. you see her through the rose-coloured spectacles of time. it is eight years since you met. probably she has degenerated into a prig." he threw himself on to the bottom of the bed. "should i be mistaken in my estimation of miss fairbrother, and she prove to be a prig, she shall leave within a week. i promise you that." "how are you going to get rid of her?" he spoke eagerly. "why, i _do_ believe you hope she will be one." "oh, i don't say that!" "but you'll want her to go all the same?" "yes," he returned brazenly, "i shall. she'll go and spoil everything, i know. i was a fool to suggest her coming; but you seemed such dead nuts on her. our pleasant afternoons in the garden will be spoiled. all our jolly talks and reading aloud and suppers under the apple tree will be at an end----" "but she can have talks and supper under the apple tree with us. there'll be plenty of room for three," i interrupted. "and that's just what there won't be. i'll see to that," almost shouted dimbie in a manner very similar to peter, i am ashamed to say. "are you going to be rude to miss fairbrother?" "yes, very rude." "very well, then, i'll cable to stop her." "where are you going to cable--she sailed more than a month ago--why she'll be here this week!" springing up. "of course," i returned. "have you only just found that out? amelia is already airing the best drawn-thread linen sheets." "then what did you mean by saying you'd cable?" "i meant i would wire on her arrival." "but she said she was coming straight here. you can't wire." he groaned. "oh, marg, marg, what _shall_ we do?" "do?" i cried impatiently. "you talk as though miss fairbrother were a perfect gorgon, instead of the sweetest and best woman in the world." "that's just it." he wiped his forehead. "i don't like best women; i like 'em ordinary. in fact, i don't like them at all--no one but you." "that is exactly the way peter talks." "i don't care. there are worse people in the world than peter. look what we're going to have planked on to us for weeks--months even." "hand me my desk!" i commanded in a patient voice. "what do you want it for?" "to write a telegram form for amelia to take at once. it will be given to miss fairbrother on the boat when it arrives, i should imagine. anyway, i will try it. she must be stopped from coming at any price." "it's no good wiring till the boat is due." "i don't know when it is due. please pass me my desk." "we'd better go through with it." "hand me my desk." "shan't! let the infernal woman come and be done with it!" with which exceedingly ungallant remark my husband again stumped out of the room, and again i lay and laughed and kissed the ugliest photo' of him in my possession, for which i have an unaccountable liking. and so to-day i have lived more or less under a cloud--a cloud in the shape of a lowering frown on dimbie's face. but i care not. i know most assuredly that it will disappear as jane fairbrother walks through the gate. he will like miss fairbrother, or jane, as i always think of her now. he will not be able to help it. and into our days jane will bring outside interests, a fresh, breezy atmosphere, new thoughts, new ideas, which i know will be good for both of us. most fearful am i of becoming a self-centred invalid, thinking of myself only, of my ailments, of my weariness, of my sometimes suffering. and if i am afraid for myself, still more desperately afraid am i of the _invalid_ atmosphere for dimbie. "it is not natural," my heart cries out, "that a man young and strong should be the silent witness of everlasting helplessness and weariness." when i am pretty well and able to be interested in all that goes on around me, and can smile and be happy, it matters not for him; but, oh, the days when i am too tired to do anything but lie with my eyes closed! and the nights, the long, long nights, when i am too restless to do anything but keep them wide open; when my head tosses and moves restlessly from one side of the pillow to the other, and when i long with an unspeakable longing to be able to move my helpless body in unison! that is not good for dimbie to see; it cannot be good. he will stretch out strong, cool hands and gently lift me on to my side, or turn my pillow, or hold a cooling drink to my thirsty lips. he will speak cheerfully, he will even try to find a joking word; but, oh, the heartache that must be his, the weary heartache! and some day--as yet perhaps the burden is not too heavy, the yoke not too galling, because out of his great love for me he has learnt a great patience; but will not the day come when the burden _will_ be too heavy, when he will falter or faint by the wayside? "o god, take me before that," i whisper out of the darkness, "take me before he gets tired of me!" and so i look for the coming of jane with a great thankfulness. the days in the garden, which i have feared will become long and monotonous to dimbie, will be shared by one who, as i remember her with her vivid personality, was always engaging and interesting. i have searched the papers for the shipping intelligence, and for the date upon which the good steamship _irrawaddy_ is due. i have looked up every possible train by which she could come down to pine tree valley. the spare room, amelia tells me, is fit for the habitation of the queen of england. and it _is_ a pretty room, with its indian matting floor coverings, soft green walls and rugs, wide, old-fashioned windows through which a white rose peeps, and airy, silken casement curtains. it seems a long time since i was in that room. some day, perhaps, if i should get stronger, i will persuade dimbie and amelia to carry me upstairs, and it will be like exploring a long-forgotten country. that amelia has flattened every piece of furniture (as much as you _can_ flatten washstands and wardrobes) against the walls i feel pretty certain. she objects to corners and pretty angles disturbing her visual horizon. she likes furniture to be neat and orderly and placed like soldiers in a row. she looks at my bed, which i insist upon having in the window, and sighs heavily. i can see her fingers itching to bang me up against the wall. she suggests that i shall feel draughts and get a stiff neck, be bitten by earwigs taking a walk from the clematis which endeavours to climb through the window, be sun-struck in the morning, moon-struck at night, and be blown out of bed by the first gale which comes along. to all of which i say, "i don't care, amelia"; and she, figuratively speaking, washes her hands of me, as sensible people do wash their hands of silly, contrary creatures who won't listen to reason. amelia really is no more pleased at the prospect of jane's visit than dimbie, although she has so thoroughly cleansed the spare room. she talks to me in this strain-"miss fairbrother's not going to dress you, mum?" "of course not." "and she won't be wanting to order the dinners?" "i am sure she won't. besides," with a sly smile, "i thought _i_ ordered the dinners." amelia considered this, and with the wisdom of a diplomatist said-"of course you do, mum." "i thought so," i agreed. amelia looked at me--one of the halibut looks--and continued, "and i won't have her messing about the kitchen." had she overheard dimbie's remark? "miss fairbrother would not dream of messing about the kitchen. miss fairbrother is not used to kitchens and flue-brushes and 'sweetening' ovens with lime." "oh, of course, if she's a grand lady!" amelia's nose tilted in the air. "she's not a grand lady; but her work in life has lain in channels otherwise than kitchens. she teaches, she used to teach me." "oh----!" i took up the paper. "she can't know much, then!" now i am sure amelia had no intention of being in the least rude. "that depends upon what you mean by much," i said. she began to walk away. unaccountably i yearned to know her definition of knowledge. "what do you think constitutes 'knowing much'?" she looked at me without understanding. "what do you mean by saying miss fairbrother won't know much?" "well, she won't." "granted that," i was becoming impatient, "but what sort of things won't she know?" "she'll know nothing useful." "amelia," i said despairingly, "if anyone can walk round and round a circle you can." she batted her eyes and regarded the ceiling in complete vacancy. once again i tried. "will you tell me the things you consider not useful?" "lessons and maps and 'broidery work." "maps?" "we was made to do maps in mile end road." "what sort of maps?" "heurope in red paint." "don't you mean the british possessions?" "that was it--america and----" "but america doesn't belong to us," i interrupted. she closed her eyes in intense boredom, but i was not to be snubbed. "what do you call useful?" "gettin' bailiffs out of a house when they thinks they's settled in." "oh!" i said. "i've got two lots out." "was it at the tompkinses'?" i whispered. "tompkinses was as respectable as you, mum," she said, mildly indignant. "oh, i beg your--i mean the tompkinses' pardon." "they had salmon--lots of it." "the bailiffs?" i knew i had been stupid the moment the words were uttered, but it was too late. "i'm speaking of tompkinses, mum." "of course you are." "why did you say bailiffs then?" "a slip of the tongue." amelia with her eyes dared me to any more "slips." "the tompkinses had salmon twice a week and manase once." "did it agree with them?" "of course it did. _we_ might afford salmon a bit oftener now as we's rich before it goes out." "goes out where?" "goes out of season, of course," and this time she left my presence with a most distinct snort. human nature is very much alike. dimbie is cross about miss fairbrother's coming because he thinks his nose with its dear crook will be put farther out of joint. amelia is cross because she thinks _her_ nose will be put out of joint. and i am sufficiently human and feminine to derive considerable joy and satisfaction from their anxiety about the putting out of their said noses. chapter xxii a literary lady honours me with a visit on several different occasions of late has amelia had the pleasure of reaching out the best china to a shrill accompaniment of "now we shan't be long," for the few select residents of pine tree valley have begun to call. six months have elapsed since we came to live here. now it will not look like "rushing at us." most of them are kindly, amiable, well-meaning matrons, who seem sincerely sorry for me, who have sent me books and magazines, and who take an unfeigned interest in amelia, her management, and her singing. "at any rate, she has nice, respectable shoes now," i say to myself with secret satisfaction. and _she_ is enjoying the callers; she feels we are getting on. she has hinted at an "at home" day; she says i must buy japanese paper serviettes to lay on the ladies' laps; and that rolled bread and butter is more correct than flat, every-day bread and butter. of all my visitors only two stand out in my memory with any distinctness: mr. brook, the vicar of the parish, because he was a man, and mrs. winderby, because she was literary. as mr. brook walked through the gate amelia simultaneously flew out of the front door, and put my slippers on to my feet with a smart action, rescued the tortoise, and generally put me in order. on reflection, i have decided that amelia must take up her position at the pantry window each afternoon to lie in wait for callers. mr. brook's eyes twinkled as he watched amelia's efforts, and i liked him for the twinkle. i remember more of mrs. winderby's conversation than i do of that of mr. brook, for the latter was not literary or nervous, or highly strung or jumpy, he was just a plain clergyman. i don't mean plain-looking, but a man without frills or nonsense, a kindly, breezy, broad-minded christian gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a cultured voice. he was apologetic for having been so long in calling, he had been more or less ill for some months, and his wife did not make calls without him; she was at the seaside just now enjoying a well-earned rest. he was extremely sorry to hear of my illness; he hoped i should soon be better; he had seen my husband at church; and he consumed two muffins and four cucumber sandwiches with his tea. tennyson's bad and unpoetical line in which he burlesqued wordsworth jumped into my mind: "a mr. wilkinson, a clerygman." that, i thought, exactly described mr. brook; but i felt he would be a good friend to those who were down on their luck. i cannot dismiss mrs. winderby thus briefly, for she still keeps edging into my thoughts in exactly the same way as amelia used to edge. mrs. winderby wore, as amelia describes it, a bed-gown, and her words were well chosen, for it _was_ a bed-gown. the bed-gown was fashioned of green velvet cut in a low square at the throat. it was supposed to hang in full, graceful folds, but it didn't do any thing of the kind, for mrs. winderby was of rounded, uncorseted, somewhat stout proportions, so the poor bed-gown was tight and strained. around mrs. winderby's throat was a string of amber beads; and her hair, which was red and towsly, was surmounted by a green, untidy, floppy, liberty hat. she sank on to the low wicker chair, and said-"i have simply ached to know you ever since you came to pine tree valley." "oh!" i returned, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. "of course, i know you have been here some time; but, you see, i am always so _frantically_ busy." "are people ever busy here?" i asked. "if they like to be," she pronounced; "it depends on the people. people who have resources of their own are always busy. _you_ have resources." she pointed her parasol at me. "oh, have i?" i said, surprised. "for you have a temperament." now i knew i had a temperature, but i didn't exactly know what she meant by the other thing; so i just laughed carelessly. had she said, "you are of a sanguine or pessimistic temperament," i should have quite understood; but to say in that decided manner, "you have a temperament," simply nonplussed me. and as she evidently knew more about it than i, i didn't contradict her. "i can see it in the colour of your gown, in the books on your table--dear, darling _omar_--in the way you dress your hair." she trod on jumbles as she spoke. involuntarily i put my hand to my head, but it felt all right. "and this is such a sweet garden. you live the simple life, i suppose?" "i live the life of an invalid," i replied; "it is bound to be simple." "of course, of course. i was told that you were a sufferer--most distressing." she spoke hurriedly, as though anxious to get away from a painful subject. did she think that i should dilate on my affliction to her? god forbid! "i had been so hoping that you would have been one of us." i looked at her, puzzled. "that you and your husband would have been kindred spirits. i thought i saw your husband as i came through the gate?" "yes, that was my husband," i said steadily. she looked about the garden, as though dimbie were concealed behind the sweet-pea hedge or hidden among the rhubarb, and i had difficulty in suppressing my laughter. "even if _you_ are a prisoner--poor thing--perhaps your husband would join our little coterie. what is his bent? what line does he take?" her conversation was mysterious, but here was a plain, simple question easily understood. "the south-western he used to take," i said; "but now----" she eyed me a little coldly. "i was not referring to railway lines," she interrupted. "i meant in what movement, art, thought, work, is he specially interested?" "oh," i said in confusion, "i beg your pardon. i don't think there is anything very special. my husband is rather a lazy man. he enjoys walking, and, oh," i added with inspiration, "he likes gardening." "gardening has been overdone," she said firmly. "charming subject, communing with nature and all that sort of thing; but we have had elizabeth, alfred austin, mrs. earle, dean hole, and a host of others." "my husband does not commune with nature, he kills slugs," i retorted. "besides, none of the people you have mentioned have gardened for us. elizabeth may fall into ecstasies of astonishment at the unique sight of a crocus in bloom in february, alfred austin may converse most charmingly with his verbenas and lavender, but they don't know where dimbie has planted our celery." she made a gesture of impatience. "you don't seem to understand me, but i will endeavour to explain. you see, a few of us here have formed ourselves into a little band of----" "musicians," i said pleasantly. i was listening to amelia's rendering of "now we shan't be long," and had not quite followed the gist of mrs. winderby's conversation. "i was not going to say 'musicians,'" she contradicted, "though musical people _are_ members of our club. we are literary--_i_ am literary" (a pause)--"artistic, scientific. we have formed ourselves into a club, and meet at each other's houses once a week." "it sounds most interesting and improving," i observed. "i know a scientific man. he invented an aerodrome which killed his mother, and he goes about in a balloon, and----" "we only have gentlemen in our club." "but he _is_ a gentleman. he is the great----" she leaned forward and stared at me intently. "what's the matter?" i asked, "an insect crawling over me?" "more than that." "more than that!" i cried, nervously clutching at my gown. "is it a wasp?" "don't get excited." she murmured, leaning still farther towards me. "it is most interesting. you have a cleft under your nose between your two nostrils; it denotes extraordinary artistic sensibility." "oh, no," i said, "you are mistaken. that mark is the result of falling against a sharp-edged fender as a child. i thought it was practically imperceptible. my husband calls it a dimple. i am afraid i am not artistic in the sense you mean. my husband and i are not very interesting. we are just every-day, ordinary people." "and you are all the happier for that," she said, lifting the hair from her forehead as if it were too heavy. "you ordinary people, as you call yourselves, have the pull over us nervous, highly-strung, thinking mortals. oh, the thoughts that burn in my brain! sometimes i lie with my face pressed to dear mother earth--i put my lips to the grass, i murmur to her, i become one with her, and she soothes and comforts me as a mother soothes a tired child." involuntarily i pictured mr. winderby finding his rather portly spouse in her green velvet bed-gown rolling on the ground, and i smiled. i pretended that i was smiling at amelia, who appeared with an advance guard of japanese serviettes, but mrs. winderby detected my deceit. she frowned and rose. at once i felt conscience-stricken. mrs. winderby was trying to entertain me, she had taken me into her confidence, and here was i, a supercilious invalid, laughing at her. i felt really sorry. "don't go, mrs. winderby," i said pleadingly. "tea is coming, and i should like you to meet my husband." "master's in the cock-loft," said amelia, carrying the three-decker cake-stand and placing it in front of mrs. winderby. "in the where?" i asked. "in the cock-loft." "wherever's that?" "the cistern-room. he's doin' photigraphs in the dark." now i felt that dimbie was acting very basely. he had seen mrs. winderby coming through the gate. he had rapidly taken his bearings, and was now in hiding in a cock-loft. "will you tell the master tea is ready, and that i am anxious to introduce him to mrs. winderby," i said to amelia. "yes, mum." mrs. winderby sat down again appeased. she graciously accepted a cup of tea, which she said must be just milk and water on account of her nerves, and she skilfully brought round the conversation to a man with a name which sounded like a sneeze, whom i knew nothing about. she talked of him, quoted him, raved about him. "he was a dear, naughty philosopher, and his philosophy drove him mad," she finished, and i covertly made a note on the fly-leaf of a book which lay beside me: "niet or ntiez, man who went mad." i intended looking him up in the encyclopædia. mrs. winderby might call and talk of this sneezy philosopher again, and i must know something about him. she detected me in my note-making. "what are you doing?" she inquired. "i was only jotting something down." "your commonplace book? i presume. was it something i said? my friends do put down bits of my conversation ready for copy." she smoothed out her velvet gown with a plump, white hand. "copy books?" i murmured. "certainly not," she retorted snappily. "copy means matter for books--anything interesting or amusing, that you hear and see. have you not met any literary people?" "no," i returned humbly. "but amelia--amelia is my maid--knew a poet in her last place; he visited the tompkinses." "how interesting! i wonder if she remembers his name, and what he was like." "i know what he was like," i said, delighted to have interested her. "amelia described him to me. he was like a garden leek that had been boiled without soda--yellowish looking i suppose she meant. and a great friend of mine once knew an authoress--a fifth edition, marie corelli sort of writer--whose head was like a mangel-wurzel." i began to feel more on an equality with mrs. winderby. nanty's and amelia's reflected glory was raising my spirits. "i am afraid i don't understand you," my visitor said. "oh, because it was so----" i stopped abruptly. suddenly i remembered that mrs. winderby was literary. she looked at me coldly, she did not help me. she saw my agitation, she watched the beads rise on my forehead, and the only word i could think of was "swelled." i could not say swelled--it was impossible to say swelled. i hugged the tortoise, and my slippers fell off. "i am afraid i don't understand. i cannot see the connection between a mangel-wurzel and a successful author," she repeated. "why because," i laughed feebly, "i--i--they----" and dimbie appeared from the cock-loft and saved me. "because they are both so nice," he said affably, offering a hand to mrs. winderby and drawing up a chair close to hers. the situation was saved. dimbie was covered with cobwebs. his hands were dirty, but his manners were irresistible; and that mrs. winderby fell in love with him straight away gave me no qualms of jealousy. "it is so kind of you to come and call upon my wife," he was saying. "she is delighted to see any of the residents of pine tree valley." oh, dimbie, dimbie! mrs. winderby gracefully crossed one velvet-clad leg over the other. she was prepared to prolong her visit indefinitely now that dimbie had appeared. jumbles, giving her foot a wide berth, crept on to the couch and snuggled down beside me. "i have been telling mrs. westover how much i had been hoping that you would have been one of us. we are wanting new members." "oh!" said dimbie politely. "we call ourselves the sesameites." it sounded so like a tribe of israel that i wanted to laugh, but dimbie's face checked me. "we are a little club for self-improvement. we exchange views, opinions, thoughts. we help each other like the----" "buffaloes," came a voice from the neighbourhood of the couch, but it was certainly not mine. it belonged to amelia, who stood behind me regarding mrs. winderby with parted lips. "_amelia!_" i said. "_amelia!_" echoed dimbie. "my brother's a buffalo," she said defiantly, while turning a little red. "i though p'r'aps he belonged to the same club as this lady, as she says it's to help one another. you put in so much money a week, and then when you's ill you----" "that will do," i said when i could get a word in. "you can remove the tray." she walked unwillingly to the house, and we turned apologetically to our guest. "you were saying?" said dimbie. "i am afraid i have lost the thread," she returned gloomily. "perhaps it will come to you," he said hopefully. "you were talking about the simeonites." "sesameites," she corrected. i pinched the tortoise quietly under the sofa blanket. "oh, yes, a sort of debating and literary society?" "exactly. _i_ started it. it was uphill work at first, but i persevered. and now we have an extremely interesting number of members. some of them are quite celebrities; for instance, it was i who wrote _winged white moths_." "really?" said dimbie. "yes," she said, dropping her eyelids. "it took a great deal out of me--i felt it all so intensely. i was quite exhausted when i had finished." "how many editions?" i asked pleasantly. she did not reply, perhaps she did not hear me, anyway she did not reply. she drew on her gloves and said "good-bye." dimbie conducted her to the gate. i could hear him entreating her to come again, and she sounded a little more cheerful as she went away. when he came back he threw himself into a chair and frowned at me. i returned it with an engaging smile, but he continued to frown. "it doesn't suit you because of your dear crooks," i said. "we shall never have any friends, marg, if you behave like----" "do you want friends like that?" i interposed. "_i_ don't, but i'm thinking of you." "well, don't," i said. "i don't want any friends like mrs. winderby. i like clever, _really_ clever people, because they are usually unaffected and quite simple, and can be interested in you and your doings as well as in their own. but mrs. winderby is artificial, and she poses. i don't like people who pose. i would infinitely prefer unclever, natural women than posy ones. wouldn't you?" "she was a bit of an affected ass, certainly." "some of the women who have called are very nice--not violently interesting any more than i am, but just kind and simple and straightforward. i like to know them, but i don't want to know mrs. winderby." "and you shan't," said dimbie, lighting his pipe. "the next time she comes i'll throw her out of the gate if you like." "dear dimbie," i said, "one of your most engaging qualities is that you so often see things from my point of view. now some husbands would have forced their wives to know that woman." he laughed, then a tender expression crept into his face. "you see, you are not like most wives." "i am not able to run away from disagreeable people, you mean?" "no, i did not mean that." a shadow now superseded the tenderness. "i meant that you were so much more reasonable in your wishes than most women." i blew him a kiss. "dimbie, you are prejudiced. what about my selfishness in insisting upon remaining here when you are aching to spend your money upon some large establishment. you are penned in, i know. when i think that if we were away from here you might get some shooting, riding, golf this autumn, i am ashamed of my own selfishness. but--it won't be for long, that comforts me a little. not for very long now." "and then you are willing to go?" he said eagerly, kneeling at the side of my couch. "and then i shall be ready to go," i said gently, hiding my face on his breast. "dear sweetheart!" he murmured, kissing my hair. "dear god," i said in my heart, "once again i thank thee for dimbie!" chapter xxiii i surprise doctor renton's secret very blind, very dense, and downright stupid have i been; and being of the gender called feminine, and presumably supposed to possess the gift of scenting a love affair of even the most embryo growth, i am all the more annoyed at my own density. besides, dr. renton helped me. the scent was hot. he mentioned india; he said she had lived at dorking, or am i imagining he said that? anyway, the trail was good, and it was only at five o'clock this afternoon that i discovered that my medical adviser, dr. renton, has been in love with my old governess, jane fairbrother, for over ten years. and my discovery was only made by accident. had i been staring at dimbie, as is my customary fashion, instead of at dr. renton, when i announced from the open telegram in my hand that jane would arrive on the morrow, i should not have seen the red colour dye the doctor's bronzed cheeks, and i should still be wondering most probably who was his long-loved and long-lost woman. "oh!" i said, blinded for the moment by my sudden illumination. "oh!" our eyes met. he smiled, and i knew that he understood. "yes," he said, nodding quietly. dimbie was balancing a piece of cake on jumble's nose. "i'm so glad." "thank you," he said simply. "what are you glad about?" asked dimbie, looking around. "that the sun is coming out for jane and dr. renton after the long, long gloom." dimbie gazed at me. "i don't see why you should be specially glad for them. i think we require the sun much more than they, as we are lazy people who lie about and do nothing. besides, it has only been dull for three or four days. you can't expect this wonderful summer to go on forever. you've become exacting, captious." "it has been more or less dull for eight years," i remarked sententiously; and dimbie, after again staring at me, returned to jumbles, as though cats were easier to understand than women. the doctor and i smiled. "i should wear grey flannel and a soft, grey hat--grey goes so well with hair of the same colour," i observed. "it's not very bad," he protested, putting his hand to his hair. "pretty bad," i laughed; "there's a little brown left, but it's mostly tinged with grey." "and my tie?" he asked, with a funny and almost resigned expression upon his face. i put my head on one side to consider. "lavender would be--too bridal. i think grey or black and white." "whatever are you two talking about?" asked dimbie. "colours. we were just considering what would best suit a man with iron-grey hair." "but i'm not grey," said dimbie. "no, dear." "well, what do you mean?" "i was just considering another man for the moment. another man's appearance for an occasion on which he is anxious to look unusually well and young." "he must be a conceited ass!" quoth dimbie, getting up and strolling after jumbles, who with arched back and stately tread marched away, refusing to be turned into a common performing clown at any man's bidding. we laughed outright. "may i--may i talk to you about it?" i asked. he nodded. "when would you like to see her?" "to-morrow evening if you'll let me." i considered this. "say the day after." "why?" "because if--if she says 'yes' she'll cease to take any further interest in me. i've grown selfish, and i should so like to have her all to myself for the first evening." "very well," he agreed somewhat grudgingly. "you see, after waiting for eight years one day----" "will seem longer than the whole lot put together," he said despondently. "well, come late to-morrow night, after supper." "no, i'll try to hold out." he smiled a little. "if she--well, if she refuses me, i shall have had all the longer blissful looking forward to meeting her again. and if she should say 'no' it will serve me right." "i somehow don't think she'll refuse you, though, as you say, it would certainly serve you right." "yes, i know it would." in his eyes lay an anxious, almost wistful look, which touched me. his rugged face had softened to a semblance of youth, his voice was less gruff. "women don't forget easily. if she ever cared for you----" i began. dimbie was returning. "dimbie," i called, "you might climb over into the frog-pond field and bring me some marguerites." "aren't they over?" "if they are bring me some loosestrife and, scabious and anything you can find. i long for some wild-flowers." lazily he threw a leg over the fence and disappeared. "he'll be away some time now. dimbie never does anything quickly; he is slow and thorough, and he will endeavour to find the largest daisies in the field." "i suppose when i--if i were ever married my wife"--he stumbled over the words--"might ask me to pick daisies for her?" "perhaps. but a great deal depends upon the man. i cannot imagine my father picking flowers for mother; he would more likely throw them at her." dr. renton smiled. he had known peter as long as i. "i wonder whether you will find miss fairbrother much changed? she is eight years older, you know." "of course," he said placidly. "women age as well as men." "naturally." "you don't care?" "how do you mean?" "you don't mind if she looks older?" "certainly not. no man _wants_ his wife to look old, but if she does he loves her none the less. i have not been married, but i know this is so. i have seen the most beautiful affection between quite old men and women. it is not passion, but a love that has been tried in the fire and emerged triumphant." i gave a sigh of relief. "besides, i know jane's is a face that will have become more beautiful with the years." "why?" "you will remember that her mouth was firm, almost hard? her clear eyes honest, but almost defiant?" i shook my head. "well, they were. perhaps i studied her features more carefully than you." "possibly," i said, a little dryly. "she had had to fight her own battles. she had had to stand up for herself against the world. her childhood had been sad--an invalid mother, a drunken father----" "no?" i said. "yes. once she told me all about it. we were alone, and she gave me her confidence. and--i was fool enough to let that moment pass, though every bit of my being cried out to me to speak to her, tell of my love. but i thought she wasn't ready, and then she went away. but, as i was saying, i know she will be more beautiful now, hers was a large nature. the years will have brought her a tenderness and sympathy which will have written themselves on the lines of her face. some lined faces, with their experience, are infinitely more attractive than the fresh, smooth faces of youth. don't you think so?" i nodded. for the first time in my life i was learning that the doctor had another side to his character. he had thrown aside his cloak of reserve, his professional manner, and i feared lest a chance word of mine might cause him to withdraw into his shell. "in some faces you will see written the history of their owners' lives, dispositions, characters, if you look carefully. note the little lines around the eyes that star away in all directions. they mean that the person who possesses them has smiled much, laughed at misfortune, helped the world to be the brighter and better for his or her presence. i expect to see those lines around jane's eyes, and if they are not there i shall almost be disappointed." he fell into a reverie, and i looked at him thoughtfully. he would make jane very happy. "oh, i hope she'll have him, i hope she'll have him!" i whispered again and again to myself. dimbie appeared over the fence. "will those do?" he asked, putting into my hand an enormous bunch of wild-flowers. i buried my face in their fresh sweetness. "we will put them in jane's room; she loves flowers." "you will not put them in jane's room," contradicted dimbie crossly. "i don't gather flowers for every strange woman from india, please understand that, marguerite." dr. renton looked up in surprise. "yes, i have to speak like that. marguerite will make a perfect fool of miss fairbrother if i let her have her way. it's miss fairbrother this and miss fairbrother that. i'm sick of the very name of the woman. i'll take jolly good care that she is out of this house in less than a fortnight. marguerite asked her for an _in_definite period, but it happens to be very definite in my mind." with which he flung himself across the lawn and into the house. the doctor opened his mouth. "don't take any notice," i said quickly, for i knew dimbie was watching us through the drawing-room window, "it's only jealousy, nothing more; he'll be all right when she comes." "i'll marry her at once," the doctor pronounced, getting up from his chair. "you forget that she may not accept you." he blushed a little. "good-bye," he said gruffly. "good-bye," i laughed; "but you might tell me before you go whether you think i am any better or worse. you'll remember you came over to see me--perhaps?" he couldn't help laughing too. "i'm awfully sorry. you see, the telegram came just after my arrival." "you needn't be, there's nothing fresh to report." "still tired?" he asked very gently. "still tired and waiting for a fresh breeze to blow. i think i shall be better then, doctor." "god grant that it may be so." he raised my hand to his lips. "you are a staunch friend, marguerite." "take care," i said, my eyes suddenly filling, "dimbie is watching, and he is in a bit of a temper. you will be coming on thursday, and good luck to you." when he had driven away dimbie sauntered across the grass. "what is that man kissing you for?" "dimbie," i said, "you are too comical for words, and i will return your question with another. what is the matter with you?" "i don't know." he lay down on the grass and leaned his head against my couch. "i'm cross, i think, marg." "yes," i returned, running my fingers through his wavy hair, "you're very cross. how long do you think you will continue to be so?" "till miss fairbrother has gone. marg, i don't want to be a surly beast, but, oh, i do wish i had never consented to that indian woman's coming." "if i tell you something will you promise to keep it secret--either till the day after to-morrow, thursday, or forever?" "there's rather a wide difference between the two periods of time." "yes, but there is a reason for it. will you promise?" "all right." "i mean a faithful promise. you have a rather trying habit of slipping things out. this must be an on-my-oath promise." "on-my-oath, world-without-end promise," repeated dimbie. "dr. renton wishes to marry jane fairbrother." "the deuce he does!" "yes," i said, enjoying his astonishment. "but he doesn't know her." "he has known her for years. he knew her when she lived with us, but she went to india before he could make up his mind to speak to her. now he is coming on thursday." "and he will take her away just when she is going to be useful to us, selfish beast!" i smiled behind my hand. "dear dimbie," i said, "i always thought men the most _contrary_ creatures, having lived under peter's roof for some years, but never _quite_ so contrary as i now find them to be." "what do you mean?" "i mean that here you have been making yourself extremely disagreeable about miss fairbrother's visit, and the moment someone comes along and says he will remove the incubus you turn equally nasty." "i don't want _you_ to be disappointed. for myself, i am only too jolly thankful that she won't be here long." "but she may. i am not sure that she will accept dr. renton." "i am." "why?" "most women accept the first man who asks 'em." i swelled with indignation, and i rang the tortoise to emphasise my righteous anger. "the conversation is finished," i said. "no, it isn't," contradicted dimbie. "i repeat that it is." i shut my eyes. "you've beautiful eyelashes--look like a fringe on your cheeks, and they all curl up at the ends, marg." an interval of silence. "i didn't say _you_ would rush at a man. i meant most women." more silence. "don't you think i'm right?" "your ignorance of women is only equalled by your colossal conceit. the conversation, i again repeat, is at an end." "and once again i assert that it isn't. i wish to discuss the matrimonial prospects of dr. renton and miss fairbrother." "you must discuss them with yourself." "can't." "you must take back what you said." "shan't." i closed my eyes tightly. "i shall go and talk about them to amelia." he got up. "you dare!" "i shall." "you promised. you can't break your word." "it would be quite easy." "dimbie, i never thought you _could_ descend to such meanness." "you see how little you knew me." "women are always deceived." "it's funny how they rush at marriage." "oh," i cried, "you are too dreadful! go away at once." he laughed and croodled closer to the couch. "this is our last afternoon," he said ingratiatingly, looking up into my face. "what do you mean?" "before the she-dragon comes. be nice to me, wife." i looked away. it is hard to resist the plead in dimbie's eyes and the crook of his mouth. his hand stole into mine. i took no notice. the other hand stroked my hair the wrong way, and--then, after the manner of fond, foolish woman, i forgave him and was nice. chapter xxiv musings on autumn and the arrival of jane one of those september days is with us in which the world, like rip van winkle, is very fast asleep. a great stillness broods o'er our little garden. no blade of grass or leaf of tree moves or rustles to disturb the silence. jumbles lies curled upon the warm front doorstep; dimbie lies asleep in a low hammock chair. the birds and insects, and even the ants, have joined in the general siesta; and i, generally having more time than the others in which to indulge in flights to the land of nod, am keeping awake to take care of all my friends of the garden. i have to keep removing a fly from dimbie's nose; to see that jumbles doesn't wake up suddenly and pounce upon a drowsy, unwary bird in the neighbourhood of the broom bush; and to turn an eye upon a butterfly which appears to have fallen asleep in the heart of a single dahlia. over all broods a haze, gossamer and fairy-light, but still a haze which ever follows in the footsteps of sweet september--september so quiet, so peaceful, so mellow and rounded. september is to may as mature and still beautiful womanhood is to the freshness of girlhood, not so radiant, but so complete, so satisfyingly lovely. spring somehow, i know not why, gives me an ache at the heart, creates within me a yearning for something. autumn does not affect me thus. there may be a regret, a glance of retrospection at the months which are gone--the beautiful, bountiful summer months--but the ache has vanished, the yearning has departed. is it that september, herself the most peaceful of all the months, bears in her arms a gift for nature's truly loving and understanding children--the gift of peace, a peace which passeth all understanding? lately it has come to me, this peace, and i smile happily, hugging it to my heart. all the anguish of the last weeks--the bitter tears, the pining for movement, the unutterable yearning to be out in the wind, by the sea, on the mountains--has left me. i am content to lie in my little garden, to be still, to commune with myself, and to know that dimbie is there. and--i am reading a book, one that i read as a child, as a girl, and now as a woman. i am a woman now, for i know the meaning of the word suffering. in the old days i read this book as one reads a lesson--dull, uninteresting, i thought it. i chafed at the chapter which miss fairbrother obliged me to read each day. some parts struck me as being duller than others. there was the tiresome description of the building of the temple, and the bells and pomegranates--pomygranates i used to call them--and the fourscore cubit this and the fourscore cubit that. miss fairbrother would endeavour to make it interesting, but i was unmistakably bored. but now---it seems curious that i should have ever thought it dull. i read it with deep intensity. i know as i turn the pages what is coming, but yet it is all new to me, a new meaning falls upon my understanding. and there are three words from this book which of late have continually danced before my eyes. i have seen them written on the sky, on the grass, on the pages of my book. i have heard the wind whisper them, the flowers repeat them, the leaves pass on the refrain to the waving corn, and yet i alone have been unable to say or believe them. the words have stuck in my throat, my dry lips have refused to form them. and then a night came when i saw them written on dimbie's face. he had been depressed, and had taken his sorrow to the pine woods, and when he returned a gladness irradiated his countenance, and on his forehead, as it seemed to me, were the words, written in letters of gold, "god is love! god is love!" i repeated them mechanically to myself over and over again; and suddenly the mists cleared away, the fog dispersed, and i too cried, with a great sincerity and gladness, "god is love!" * * * * * jane came softly down the walk and with finger to lip bade me be silent. "i want to love and kiss you, little old pupil, without any jealous eye to mar my happiness. and i also want to have a good look at your husband." dimbie lay with head thrown back, giving to the garden a music that was not of the sweetest. "he is not at his best," i whispered; "his mouth isn't always like that." jane made a comical little _moue_ and kissed me again. "the same old marguerite," and she framed my face in her hands. "with a difference," i said quietly. "with a beautiful difference. i don't wonder at your husband's falling----" "hush!" i said, "i am going to wake him." jane sat down and watched with interest. "dimbie! dimbie, dear, would you mind waking up?" "he doesn't always sleep quite so heavily as this," i explained apologetically. "it has been such a warm, enervating day." "_dimbie_, will you stop snoring." still no answer. loudly i rang the tortoise, and he was on his feet in an instant, blinkingly staring at jane. "it's not a fire or an accident," i said; "it's miss fairbrother." with the first of jane's wholesome, heartsome smiles i knew that his conquest had begun. they shook hands, and he apologised for being caught in such an attitude. "it enabled me to have a good look at marguerite's husband, of whom i have heard so much," said jane frankly. "and what do you think of him?" dimbie asked with a twinkle. "i must reserve my judgment till later. it may be a case of cruelty, desertion, and wife beating. appearances are so deceitful. and no faith should be placed in a young wife's estimate of her husband." he pushed his hammock chair towards her. "won't you take this; it is more comfortable. and were marg's letters very tiresome?" "well, she didn't say much about you." jane wore an air of "may god forgive me!" "but what little she did write of you was mostly to the good." dimbie laughed, and began to enjoy himself. "before you begin to talk," i said, "would you like a wash or have tea first?" "tea, please." i rang the bell. "i'm quite anxious to see the young person with the tea-rose slippers," observed jane, removing her hat and running her fingers through her soft, luxuriant hair, which was parted on one side. "she doesn't wear them now. we have had a lot of money left us," i said, studying the expressive face in front of me, which had changed so little. "does she run about barefoot?" "oh, no! what i mean is that we can afford now to give her nice, kid slippers." i struggled to keep my mind on amelia, and not on jane's pretty, cool, grey linen gown which was inset with beautiful, irish crochet lace. "it isn't mercerised cotton," i thought aloud. "it's one of my best frocks," said jane, following my eyes. "do you think it suitable for my years, marguerite?" "i should wear it to-morrow," i said impulsively, and then stopped awkwardly. "why to-morrow?" she asked in surprise. "are you having a party?" "only marg's medical m----" "dimbie," i shouted, "will you go and see if tea is ready? i can't think what amelia can be doing." i looked at him feverishly. he sat open-mouthed for a moment, and then he remembered, nodded his head, and set off to the house with a run. i could see from jane's expression that she thought we were very odd people. "what--what do you think of the sunflowers?" i asked jerkily. "i think they appear to be very handsome, self-respecting sunflowers," she replied. there was an interval of silence. "what's the matter, marguerite?" she asked at length. "the atmosphere is charged with a mysterious something which i cannot understand." "i will tell you on thursday." "on thursday?" "yes. oh, here is amelia with tea! this is amelia." jane gave her a smile, showing her even, white teeth. this was returned by a look of hostility. amelia was not to be won by any smile. she was not a weak man, and she prided herself on her even balance. "good afternoon," said jane. "good afternoon," said amelia in a tone of "go to perdition with you!" but jane had no intention of doing so, at any rate, till she had had some tea. she handed some money to amelia. "will you be good enough to give this to the man who is bringing my trunks along?" "were there no cabs? most people takes cabs." now she was being distinctly impertinent. i felt very angry with her. "please do as you are told," i said wrathfully, "and without comment." she was, for the first time since she had been in my service, impressed by my anger, and at once she changed her tactics. "the day would be hot i was thinkin' for miss fairbrother to walk." "you were thinking nothing of the kind. stick to the truth." and to my consternation she immediately did as she was told and stuck to it. "i don't want no visitors." "_amelia!_" jane laughed unconcernedly. "i shouldn't either," she said, looking at amelia in a most friendly manner. "i quite sympathise with you. you think i am going to meddle and interfere?" "yes." "you think i am going to poke into the kitchen and do things for your mistress that you have been in the habit of doing?" "yes," said amelia, surprised at jane's intuition. "well, you may make your mind quite easy on that score. to begin with, i am far too lazy to interfere. i like people to work for me if they will. and i think it would be a mean thing to do when you have served mrs. westover so faithfully and lovingly. i shall not usurp your place." jane's voice was most gentle now, full of sympathy and kindliness. "but if you will allow me, i will help you with my bed and dust my room. i shall make a little extra work, of course, and i am sure you must have a great deal to do." amelia wavered, rocked about with indecision for a moment, and was won. "thank you, miss, it's very good of you," was all she seemed able to say. and as a relief to her feelings she slapped the tortoise, picked up jane's gloves from the ground and returned to her kitchen. "tea is going cold," said dimbie. "first game of the rubber to miss fairbrother." "you don't say the rubber, i notice," observed jane. "i know amelia." "i fancy though, without any undue conceit, that i shall win. i like that girl." "so do we, but that doesn't give us the power of managing her." "i don't want to manage her. my simple desire is that she shouldn't manage me, and will permit me to remain with you for a short time." "you shall certainly do that," said dimbie. "marg has been counting the days to your coming." "and you?" she asked slyly. "i--i have been doing likewise," said my husband brazenly. she laughed, a merry, incredulous laugh. "and yet i fancied i had two rubbers to play and hoped to win." "really?" said dimbie. "only one as far as i know, and the first game is already yours." "you are very kind," she said simply. "i understand, and am grateful. i did so want to see marguerite again." "you could not be more grateful than i am for your coming," he returned earnestly. "the thanks are on our side." and i knew he meant it. "a rubber and a half for jane," i whispered to the tortoise. and i stretched out a hand and held dimbie's closely in mine. chapter xxv an engagement, and i tell jane my story the two of them came down the garden path hand in hand. the sun caressed jane's small, dark head. she wore the pretty, cool, grey gown, and in her belt was tucked a red rose no redder than her cheeks. they stopped in front of the couch, and i held out my hands to them. "i know," i said. "you needn't tell me. i'm so glad. you two dear things. it is beautiful, and--i like your suit, dr. renton; my sartorial instinct is good, i think." "i don't think it was the suit--altogether, but perhaps i'm vain." he looked gravely at jane. she was a little mystified. "i was telling dr. renton the other day that i considered grey flannel was very becoming to men with grey hair." "oh," she said, "i didn't notice what he was wearing." "there!" said the doctor. "i don't feel abashed. unconsciously she would take in the general effect." jane wandered to the sweet-pea hedge and hummed a little tune. "i don't like a conversation conducted in asides," she called. "when you two have finished tell me." dr. renton regarded her with pride and love written on every line of his face. "you see, she has grown beautiful!" he said. "do you think so?" "certainly. don't you?" "well, no. i haven't thought so; but i will look more closely. are the lines there?" "a few, but not so many as----" "you had expected?" "as i had hoped," he finished with a smile. "jane," i called, "the doctor is disappointed not to find you wrinkled." "did he wish me to keep him in countenance?" "jane, you must learn to be respectful. the doctor is older than you." "i cannot learn such a lesson at my time of life. my pupils have respected _me_." "i shall be your master, not your pupil." "these are early days to adopt such a tone, sir." "you might both be in your teens," i observed. and they laughed as happily as though they were. a hammering at the drawing-room window attracted our attention. "it's dimbie," i explained. "you see, he is a little cross. he went to look up something for me in the encyclopædia, and i told amelia to lock him in. i was afraid he might worry you, and perhaps follow you about." "do you mean to say he knew----" jane broke off, turning a vivid scarlet. what was i to say? here was a pretty dilemma. "i let it out the other day," said the doctor bravely. "did you know when you invited me here?" her eyes were full of fire, but her voice was quiet. "no," i said triumphantly, "not a word. and dr. renton didn't exactly tell me; i found out. he was here when your telegram came." "mr. westover will certainly break the window," she said, somewhat inconsequently. he was waving and war-whooping like an indian. amelia came to the door. "shall i let him out now, mum?" she asked. "at _once_." when he appeared i said-"dimbie, you should try to be more controlled." "well, of all the cheek----" "it wasn't cheek, but common sense," i interposed gently. "i told amelia to do it." "but why? you may be the mistress of one tree cottage, but _i_----" "come here, and i will whisper to you." i pulled his sunburnt face down to mine. "your hair tickles!" he was still a little cross. i pushed it back. "i was afraid you might follow those two about and stare at them, and i wanted them to get engaged and----" dimbie raised his head. (jane, followed by the doctor, had strolled away.) light broke across his face. "and they've done it?" "it is not an elegant way of putting it." "they've been jolly sharp." "dr. renton has been here over half an hour." "and where have i been?" "studying the encyclopædia. don't you remember i asked you to find me the sneezy man? who was he?" "nietzsche, a bally german who didn't know what he wanted." he crossed the lawn, and i noticed that the grip he gave the doctor's hand was pretty severe. to jane i heard him say: "it's made marg awfully happy. her eyes are shining, and she thinks she has brought it all about--a regular match-maker!" i could not catch jane's reply, but presently they returned to me. "you will be wanting to walk and wander down the lanes, as dimbie and--as all lovers want to wander, and you shall go at once. the evening is lovely. there is a cornfield in the lane after you have passed the four cross-roads. dimbie has told me of it. the sun is setting--sun on a golden cornfield is a thing of beauty--and later there will be a moon. please remember that supper is at eight o'clock." they laughed, and jane without any more ado put on her hat. "it seems to me," observed dimbie, as our eyes followed them round the broom bush and through the gate, "that they are a little old for the game." "that is so like a man who never knows or understands anything." "oh!" he settled himself in a deck-chair and lighted his pipe. "you see, the hearts of jane and the doctor are still quite fresh and young." "indeed?" "yes," i said, "love has kept them so. as they walk down the lane they are back in their 'twenties.' the years have slipped away. what matters if their faces are tired, if some of the brightness has gone out of their eyes, if some of the freshness has left their voices? they are beautiful to each other, that is sufficient." "you sound very wise, little wife." i nodded. "i am wiser than you in a few things because i am a girl. only women understand that which pertaineth to love. men are very ignorant." dimbie smiled and smoked for a while in silence, while i thought of the happiness of jane. we had had a long and intimate talk the previous evening. dimbie had left us and gone to the fields in search of mushrooms at my special request. mushrooms, i had felt, were the one thing needed to complete our evening in the garden, for we were to sup under the apple tree; and dimbie on his return was to hang out our chinese lanterns and dot fairy lights about the lawn. "you only want to get rid of me," he had laughed. "i am convinced that there will not be a single mushroom in surrey after the long, dry summer." "if i want to get rid of you," i returned, "it will be for the very first and last time in my life; but i want to talk to jane for a little while--just by ourselves." he looked at me for a moment jealously and suspiciously. "you don't mind just for once, dear." "no, not very much, though i don't approve of secrets between women." "good-bye," i said, patting his cheek, "and bring plenty of mushrooms." jane sat on a low chair with her arms pillowed behind her head. "now," she said, "tell me all, tell me your story from the very beginning. you have suffered much, i can see it in your face, but you are happy. tell me where you met your husband. i may say at once that i like him tremendously." "jane," i said, "my heart goes out to you at your words. to like dimbie shows that you possess a fine discrimination." she smiled and said, "i am waiting." and so in the gentle hush of evening, in the fading light, in the sweet fragrance of the garden, i told her all. of dimbie's and my first meeting, of our engagement, of our marriage, of my great happiness--i lingered on that. the pain which had been mine when i recalled those radiant days had gone. i could speak of them now calmly and without any break in my voice. those were days pulsating with joy, these were days of a great peace. then briefly i touched upon my accident and suffering, of our hopes only to be dashed to the ground, of my subsequent despair, of my doubts as to the steadfastness of dimbie's love, followed by the radiance of complete faith and understanding. i told her of aunt letitia's money, of my desire to remain at our cottage till the end of the year because--- should i tell her why? should i tell her that which i had even withheld from dimbie? jane was so sensible, so--- and out of the gathering darkness it came to me that she was crying silently, despairingly. "why, jane," i whispered, "you are crying. you must not do that, dimbie might come, and it would distress him. listen, i am not unhappy now. do not think i am sorry for myself, for--perhaps i cannot make it clear to you, words are so futile, but--one morning just lately, one wonderful dawn when god himself took out his palette and brush and touched the clouds with softest grey and pearl, and pink and rose, when the first note of a still sleepy bird broke the silence, when the flowers shook the dew from their fresh morning faces, something came to my room on footsteps light as thistledown, something came to my bed on which i had spent a long, weary, sleepless night, and laid a gentle, healing hand on my aching brow, and sorrow and pain and the fear of death fell from me, and i was comforted. you will say i was fanciful, imaginative, that my mind was overwrought from fatigue; but no, i was calm and clear-eyed, and i knew that it was peace that had come to me. i opened my arms wide and held it closely, never to let go. 'dear comforter,' i whispered, 'you shall never leave me, for now i know a happiness which is not of this world, but is of a life which is eternal.' "i lay very still thinking about it. i must tell you that during my weeks of suffering i had lost my faith, i had lost god. i felt that he had treated me too cruelly. 'he is not a god of love,' i had cried. 'i cannot believe that. i have done with him.' so as i lay watching the dawn, waiting for the sun, i wondered and wondered again: 'has god forgiven me--forgiven my rebellion, taken pity on my loneliness?' for when dimbie has said his prayers at night with his hand in mine, and entered into his presence, i have felt so lonely and cried in my heart, 'lord, let me find thee again, for where dimbie is there i want to be.' "'perhaps he has forgiven me, and wants me--_even_ me,' i said to myself. with my eyes on the glowing east i waited and watched for the sun. at last he appeared, and, as though looking for me, sent a warm shaft of light across my body. and from me came the words, 'god is good! allah is great!' and i laughed aloud, and dimbie stirred and woke. 'what is it, girl?' he asked. 'have you had a good night?' "'a bad, bad night, but such a dawn. look! here from my corner i can see all the beauty of the world--shell-pink softness, the red glory of sunrise, a distant cornfield touched with gold, dewdrops on gossamer web. "'o world as god has made it, all is beauty; and knowing this is love, and love is duty. what further may be sought for----' and dimbie put a gentle arm around me and drew my head on to his shoulder. 'and have you no further need to ask for, sweetheart?' he inquired. "'not one,' i whispered. 'i am beginning to understand things--just a little, and i am at peace.'" i stopped. night had fallen, my story was finished. jane got up--i could not see her face--and she walked across the lawn to the sweet-pea hedge. no sound broke the stillness of the garden. presently she returned and knelt in front of me. "little old pupil." "yes," i said. "i want to say something to you. most people say things when it is too late. i don't want to be too late. i want to tell you, now, that you have given me all the happiness i have had for the last eight years. an indian station is a dreary place for a plain, unattached, working woman. i should have become hard, dull, apathetic but for your love, little marguerite, but for your admiration of my poor qualities. your bright, loving letters came each month as a draught of fresh water to a tired, thirsty traveller. your faithfulness cheered me on my way. your symp----" "i don't want to hear any more, jane," i broke in. "and but for you i should never have returned to england." "and you would have missed happiness, the crown of your life." she paused and looked up into my face. "happiness!" she said a little bitterly, "the crown of my life! i don't know what you mean. i only know that you suffer; i have just heard your story." "ah, don't speak of that! there are other things. there is love." "love and i passed each other long years ago," she said. "love mocked me, laughed at me, left me alone." "but he may return." "it is unlikely. i am not young. but i don't want to talk of myself. i want only to speak of you. a little while back you said--you said that the fear of death fell from you. what did you mean?" "just what i said," and i bent my head and kissed her. "i think i hear dimbie." he came down the lane whistling, through the white gate--a dark, mysterious figure. "three mushrooms!" he called gaily. "one for each of us. now i must light up. you are all in the dark." "we are all in the dark," said jane hopelessly. "and the light is coming," said i. chapter xxvi dimbie takes peter and amelia in hand peter and mother are here again, and jane has been transferred to the bachelor's room. peter is gouty, irritable, chilly--for october is with us and giving us sharp little frosts--and sulphurous in his language. amelia wears a patient, stand-by-me-o-lord air; and dimbie is crossly resigned to the inevitable. he came to me this morning. "i am going to kick peter." "yes," i agreed, drawing my blue nightingale, which mother has made me, more closely round my shoulders. "i am going to pitch him out of the front door." i nodded. "you have no objection?" "well, choose a flower-bed for his descent." "but i want to hurt him." "i quite sympathise with you in your desire, which is most reasonable. but were he to alight on the gravel path he might break his leg, and then we should be obliged to have him here for weeks." "then i shall certainly not choose the path," said dimbie decisively. "that is right. what has he been doing?" "everything he shouldn't do. your mother is reduced to tears, and amelia is flinging the saucepans and kettles at the kitchen-range." "she is certainly making a noise." dimbie sat down on the bed and knit his brows. "i am sorry, dear," i said sympathetically. "i couldn't help his coming; i didn't invite him." "i know. naturally your mother wanted to see you." "yes. poor mother! to live for three months without any respite upon the edge of a crater subject at any moment to volcanic eruptions is naturally wearing, and she must have an occasional change in order to keep her reason." dimbie nursed his leg, and his mouth was a little more crooked than usual. i lay and watched him. how unselfish and forbearing he was! he put up with peter for mother's sake, he put up with mother for my sake, he put up with jane for her own and the doctor's sake. here he was yearning to be alone, to be by ourselves; and the house was full up with parents, friends, and doctors. and i, to add to his worries, have been obliged to keep my room for the last week owing to a feverish cold and general poorliness. "but they will all go soon," i said, trying to comfort him. "peter and mother are returning home after the wedding, and jane is to be married next month." "november is an idiotic month for a wedding," he said irritably. "why?" "she mightn't have been in such a deuce of a hurry." "but it isn't she, it's the doctor." "then he ought to have learnt patience at his age." i smiled. "you've grown fond of jane?" "oh, i like her all right, but it's you i'm thinking of. she seems to know how to look after you and make you comfortable. i'm rough and amelia's stupid, and it's amazing how she knows exactly what you want. and amelia has taken to her, she's a perfect lamb in her presence." "i wish peter would be a lamb, too. how are they getting on at meals?" and dimbie gave me a most vivid description of how they _were_ getting on at meals, which left me weak with laughter. "and really, sweet," he concluded, "i am rather glad you are fast here, though the drawing-room without you seems like a barren wilderness. your old corner looks lonely and empty." "i'll soon be there to fill it," i said. "do you think you are better?" he furrowed his brow. "i wonder how many times a day you ask me that, dear one. don't i look better?" he regarded me anxiously. "when we get to our new house----" "ah, yes!" he said, brightening at once. "it is change you want. as soon as ever we have cleared out this rabbit warren we'll begin our plans. we'll be our own architects--master builders, eh?" "do you mean by the rabbit warren mother and peter?" "yes," he laughed. "and when the endless discussion of frocks and jane's wedding is over we'll set to work hard. i want the house to be ready by the summer." a little pain settled at my heart. he was so bent upon building this new home for us--a home after our own hearts, a house with south-west windows to catch every bit of sunshine for me, with a verandah in which i could lie, with an old-world garden--we must find a plot of land with well-grown, stately trees--with extensive views, with distant, pine-clad hills, and smiling, fertile valleys. perhaps a river might be included too, a babbling stream which would cheer me with its happy laughter. his eyes glisten as he paints his picture, develops his foreground, sketches in his distances. "they must be blue distances," he said to-day. "they might be grey, swept by clouds, wrapped in mist." "even then they would be beautiful," he argued. "yes," i agreed, "most distances are beautiful; look at the frog-pond." he laughed. "still attached to our little home?" "oh, so attached! i love it more each day. it is so cosy, and we are so comfortable. now that amelia has permitted us to have daily help there is nothing we want, is there?" a cloud passed over his face. "i am sorry that you still do not wish to leave, marg. i know it would be so much better for you, and renton insists upon it. he says in bracing air you will be so much stronger, and--i am disappointed that you are not interested." "he does not know----" the words broke from me. and then, "i _am_ interested. i want to do what you want. your picture is entrancing. let us begin at once. i will draw a plan of the garden, and you shall draw a plan of the house, and then we'll compare notes." i spoke rapidly. why should we not begin, as he was so eager? it would give him occupation during the long days. it would make him happy, feeling that it was being done for me and my comfort. he brightened at once. "where shall we have it?" i went on. "shall it be on the top of leith hill, or at hind head, farndon, frensham, or dorking?" "it must be where there are pine trees and heather for you, and in the neighbourhood of shooting for me. it must be high up, and yet not too cold, and we must pitch the house southwest for the sun." "and there must be a river," i continued gravely, "and blue distances, a wide, extensive view, grand forest trees in our own garden, and lawns that have been rolled and 'mowd' for a thousand years. and god will specially create it all for us." "now you are being impertinent." he smiled happily. "i will fetch paper and pencils." but he didn't, for peter arrived at the moment and forced an entrance. his nose was a trifle blue, and his eyes glistened as a warrior's who has recently tasted blood. he pecked me on the forehead and asked me how i was. i informed him that i was only very middling, and dimbie added that rest and quiet were most essential for my well-being. peter ignored dimbie and seated himself in front of the fire, to which he held out a gouty leg, and remarked that amelia was a brazen minx. dimbie and i not replying, he repeated it again. dimbie and i admired the view from the window, and peter for the third time repeated the same uninteresting remark, but this time with a yell. dimbie said politely and firmly that if the yell was repeated peter must leave the room, as my nerves were not in a state to stand cat-calls. peter glared but didn't repeat the yell, at which i marvelled. mother popped her head in at the door, and seeing peter, popped it out with extreme activity. jane did the same. amelia popped hers in, but kept it there, and then advanced. she sort of arched her back as she looked at peter, and bristled and figuratively spat. "what is it, amelia?" i asked, before they got at each other. "the butcher, mum." "how often the butcher seems to call," i said wearily. "does he live very near to us?" "he lives in the village, mum, and he's killed a home-fed pig." "poor thing! just when there's an abundance of acorns." amelia ignored my sympathy. "a nice loin of pork with sage and onion stuffing would be a change, mum." "i don't eat sage and onion," growled peter. "a nice loin of pork with sage and onion stuffing would be a change," repeated amelia steadily. "and i've got oysters and a partridge for you, mum." "i don't want both. general macintosh could have the partridge," i said pacifically. "there'll be soup, pork, charlotte _ruce_, and savoury eggs for the dining-room." when amelia adopted that tone it was unwise to argue. "do _you_ know how to make charlotte russe?" amelia creaked, and a bone snapped, the result of an extraordinary veracity. "i have an idea how it's made, but miss fairbrother does the sweets now. she's gettin' her hand in before she's married. she's goin' to spoil the doctor. most ladies spoils their husbands." she fixed a baleful eye upon dimbie and peter. peter seized the poker and thumped the fire into a blaze. i was glad, for the room was chilly. "is that all, amelia?" "no, mum. i wants to speak about the bathroom. it's fair swimmin' with water. you could float the canoe in it." "dear me, has the cistern overflowed?" asked dimbie. "no, sir, it's general macintosh. when he takes his bath in the mornin' he thinks he's suddenly turned into an alligator. the splashin's dreadful, and when he's tired of that he just bales the water on to the floor. it's like the bay of biscay when i go in, and i shall be glad if you'll kindly speak to him about it, sir." peter put his gouty leg carefully and firmly on to the floor, and, as golfers say, got a good stance. then he opened his mouth, but before he could utter a word dimbie had gently but forcibly taken him by the shoulders and put him out of the room. amelia was triumph personified, but her victory was short lived, for when dimbie returned he was very angry with her. "understand now, amelia, that no such tales are brought to the mistress. i will _not_ have her worried with trivial household matters. i thought you were capable and clever enough to manage for yourself; you keep telling us that you are, and the first thing that goes wrong you fly to her. understand too that your manner of speaking to general macintosh is little short of downright impertinence, and if it should occur again, if there are any more scenes, not only he goes out of the house, but you also. yes, _you_ go, understand that. you are a good girl, but there are plenty of other good girls in the world. your mistress is poorly, weak and nervous, and she is _not_ to be worried. now go! not a word. _go!_" dimbie stopped for breath, and weeping, humiliated, and very unhappy, amelia went. whether she straightway fisted peter, whether she peppered him from every point of vantage, we have not inquired; but during the last six hours there has been a marked improvement in the behaviour of both. peter is not bearing dimbie any grudge for his ejectment, which seems to me remarkable, but which dimbie says isn't. "bully a bully and he becomes an angel." "he is hardly that yet," i objected. "he passed the hot buttered toast to us at tea and didn't have any himself." "hot buttered toast doesn't agree with him," i said. "it has always lain heavily upon his stomach." dimbie laughed, and peter entered in the middle of it. "your mother and i are going for a stroll. do you want anything from the village?" my stare was rude, i fear. it was certainly the first time i had ever heard peter ask if anybody wanted anything. "thank you," i began, "it is very good of you." i cast round in my mind for some requirement--soap, candles, shinio, oatmeal, pearl barley, gelatine, potatoes, all the various things amelia spent her life in requiring--but we were not "out" of any of them. peter was waiting; his kindly intention must not be nipped in the bud at any cost. "chips!" i cried with illumination. "chips?" "firewood. hudson's dry soap boxes." peter clutched at his understanding. "amelia chops them up," i explained. "he can't carry soap boxes home," whispered dimbie. "couldn't you want darning wool?" of course, darning wool was one of the most useful things in the world. "please bring me two cards of darning wool," i said aloud. "you will get them at the candle shop." peter rubbed his head. "wool at a candle shop?" "yes, it keeps everything--sweets, oil, candles and haberdashery." he went out of the room. "well, i'm blessed!" ejaculated dimbie. "so am i. he looked quite docile, and he's really wonderfully handsome for a man of his age." peter was back. "what colour your mother wishes to know?" "colour? oh, anything!" "brown," said dimbie hastily, turning a reproachful eye upon me. "you really are stupid, marg," he said when peter had gone. "i admit it," i said ruefully, "and we haven't a brown thing in the house. why couldn't you have said black while you were about it?" and dimbie didn't know why he hadn't said black. but it is sufficient for me to know that peter is trying to be good, and that amelia has ceased to throw saucepans about the house, as the noise was a little trying. peter may yet go to heaven. chapter xxvii a discussion about a wedding-gown the discussion about jane's wedding-gown began in that pleasant hour between tea and dinner on the soft edge of the dusk, when the refreshing influence of tea still pervades one, when the fire seems to burn its brightest, when the clock ticks its softest, when the little shadows begin to creep into the corners of the room, and the familiar furniture and ornaments become a soft, rounded blur. nanty had been persuaded into staying for a real long evening; and john had been persuaded, against his better judgment, into putting up his horses at the "ring o' bells," and was in the kitchen saying pleasant and pacifying things to amelia, no doubt. "we shall be held up by highwaymen. john will be gagged and thrown into a ditch, and my pockets will be rifled and my jewellery stolen." nanty said this resignedly, nay almost cheerfully, as though a change from the ordinary routine of life would not be unacceptable to her. and mother gazed at her in fearful admiration. heroism in any form appeals strongly to mother, though she herself is the bravest of the brave. to have lived with peter for twenty-five years denotes some courage. nanty's pleasure on hearing of jane's engagement was cloaked by a pretence at surprise and pity; but of course we all know nanty. she had been very kind to jane when she lived with us. "above the ruck of ordinary governesses," she had pronounced. "not always on the look-out for slights and snubs; a most sensible young person!" now the sensible young person was anxious to tell her herself of the happiness which had come into her life, and had requested mother and me to keep silent on the subject "if we _could_." she had, however, conceded to our earnest request that the announcement should be made in our presence after the men had gone out. we knew that nanty's observations would be amusing, and we looked forward to a pleasant half-hour. when tea had been removed peter seemed inclined to linger, notwithstanding the unnecessary number of women around him. the arm-chair which he had annexed--(dimbie's)--was luxurious, the fire was warm, his temper was mild. dimbie seemed still more inclined to linger. the rug on which he was stretched was curly and soft, his hand sought mine, he liked and was always entertained by nanty. mother and i looked at one another and looked at jane, and curbed our impatience. mother glanced at peter and opened her mouth and shut it again. the courage of horatius was not within her this day. i did the same at dimbie. "what is it, dear?" he asked. "aren't you comfy? shall i alter your pillow?" i assured him that i was perfectly comfortable, and at the same time ventured to suggest that it was a lovely evening on which to take a walk. jane's approaching marriage could not be discussed before two men when one of them was peter; for nanty was never talkative before peter, she said he always roused her temper to such a pitch that she could scarcely get her breath. dimbie agreed with my view of the evening's attractiveness, and stretched his legs luxuriously towards the fire. i mentioned that the birch trees in the spinny would be at their best, dressed out in all their autumn glory. he again agreed with me, and remarked that their grey boles was what peculiarly appealed to him--grey with the vivid splashes of orange and red leaves above. the others began to look bored. i mentioned that the squirrels would be busy gathering and storing acorns for the winter. he said he thought it was within the range of possibility, and he put more coal on the fire. mother folded her hands and looked resigned, and jane took some needlework from her basket. "why don't you say what you want?" said nanty suddenly. "men don't understand hints and beating about the bush. they are simple-minded creatures--some of them. do you want your husband to fetch you some chocolate from the village?" dimbie looked at me inquiringly. "i want you to go for a walk for an hour, and take father with you and show him the beauties of the spinny. and you might take a basket and get some blackberries." mother's startled and amazed countenance at the idea of peter's going blackberrying made me laugh, and dimbie's reproachful face moved me to pity. "well, peter might go blackberrying alone and you to see the squirrels," i said confusedly. and now nanty laughed outright, and mother sat horror-stricken, gazing at peter. but he by a merciful dispensation of providence, was dozing which was a lucky thing for me. dimbie got up slowly and stretched himself. "come on, general macintosh," he said resignedly, but peter dozed on. dimbie patted his leg, unfortunately the gouty one, and peter started up swearing loudly. "we've got to go for a walk," said dimbie apologetically. "who's got to go for a walk?" demanded peter fiercely. "you and i. we have to go blackberrying and see the squirrels." the look which peter gave to dimbie obliged me to press my mouth against the tortoise's back to keep from screaming. peter sat down heavily. "i don't know whether you think you are being funny, sir, but i don't. to wake a man up from a much-needed sleep to talk about da--ahem, squirrels and blackberries seems to me to be about the most deucedly idiotic thing--" "hsh, father!" i said. "dimbie wants you to go for a walk with him to the spinny. it's a lovely evening, and you might just happen to come across some squirrels and blackberries." "but i don't _want_ to see any squirrels or bl----" dimbie took him by the arm and began gently to drag him towards the door. "come on," he said coaxingly, "we've got to go somewhere, general. they want to get rid of us. women are----" and peter was so interested in hearing what dimbie thought of the senseless creatures, that he actually followed him into the hall, allowed himself to be put into his top coat, and led through the door, down the path and out of the gate. "you can take a breath, mother, dear," i said, "or you will suffocate. and now, jane, tell your news, they won't be back under an hour." she drew a thread from the linen tea-cloth she was making with unswerving fingers, but the colour crept into her cheeks. "she looks as though she were making bottom drawer things," remarked nanty dryly. "and that's exactly what she is doing." "oh! for herself?" "well, she'd hardly bother to make them for other people." "i disagree with you. miss fairbrother is exactly the sort of kind person who would like to see a friend's drawer filled with a lot of feminine frippery." "this is for her own," i returned. "go on, jane." she put down her work. "you seem to be telling, so you had better finish, marguerite." "you mean you are too shy. well, nanty, jane is to be married next month. guess to whom. you shall have three tries." nanty sniffed superciliously. "i should have thought she would have had more sense. to an indian rajah who lives in a gilded palace?" "wrong." "to a man in the service with a small pension, an enlarged liver, residing at brighton and requiring a kind nurse?" "wrong again." "to a widower--perhaps the father of the two sticky children you mentioned to me?" "the mother is alive and extremely healthy," said jane. nanty leaned back in her chair. "i only hope the man is as nice as can be expected or hoped for. miss fairbrother has the appearance of a woman who would throw herself away upon a rake, hoping to reform his morals and save his soul." jane smiled. "do you think that dr. renton's soul is in danger?" nanty checked a gasp of surprise. "i have always felt that he was a man with a hidden--something. i have wondered about it," she said, recovering herself. "most women wonder at single men, and they wonder still more when they are married," said mother. "who," i asked, laughing, "the women or the men?" "oh, the women!" she spoke with an earnestness that recalled peter and his blackberrying to my mind, and i laughed again. "men," said nanty, "are necessary for the continuation of the race. i cannot see that they are of any other use in the world." "now i am waiting for your opinion, marguerite," said jane with a twinkle. "i should like to have no illusions about man before i marry him." "i am not to be drawn," i returned. "there are men and men. the two looking for squirrels at the moment are extreme types. perhaps there is something half-way between, and you may be fairly fortunate." jane smiled with a satisfied air. "you have not congratulated me," she said to nanty. "it is usual, i think." "i don't congratulate people on marriage." "you are a cynic." "no, but my eyes are open; there was a time when they were closed like yours." "it is a pity," said jane softly. "i hope mine will always remain shut." "let us hope so," returned nanty a little bitterly. "i thought we were to discuss jane's wedding gown," said mother plaintively, bringing us back to actualities. she fetched two big bundles of patterns from a side-table and handed them to jane. "before we begin," said the latter, turning again to nanty, "won't you change your mind and congratulate me?" "i'll congratulate dr. renton, if that will satisfy you." "but it won't. i think i am quite as much, if not more, to be congratulated than he." "now you are being humble," said nanty whimsically, "and i don't like humility in a woman. a woman should always remember that she is quite good enough for any man living." and with that jane had to be satisfied. and what a discussion followed as to the gown jane should wear on the great day. we might have been schoolgirls. and the trouble was that no two of us agreed on any single point--colour, material, or fashion of making. when mother had soared away to silver gauze posed on chiffon, jane said-"kindly remember my age, and that i am going to a wedding and not to a ball." when nanty even, roused to enthusiasm, had completed a dream of a princess gown of softest pastel-blue, chiffon velvet, jane said-"kindly remember that i am small and dumpy." and when i extolled the virtue of palest mauve taffeta, jane simply laughed outright and asked me to look at her colouring. "i'm looking," i said. "you've brown hair and bright red cheeks." but she ignored all our suggestions. "i shall be married in silver-grey poplin," she pronounced. "exactly like a servant." nanty closed her eyes. "they always wear silver-grey. i had three parlour-maids in succession who had selected it for their wedding-gowns." "but alpaca, surely! mine will be silk poplin of a good quality." but nanty and mother refused to take any further interest in the subject, and nanty picked up a paper. "what about grey cloth, then--pale dove-grey?" jane waived the silver poplin with an apparent effort. nanty put down the paper. "grey cloth with chinchilla is rather nice," she admitted grudgingly. "i did not mention chinchilla," said jane meekly. "_i_ will give the chinchilla as a wedding present if you don't mind. grey cloth alone would be most uninteresting." "the coat must be a bolero," said mother firmly, "lined with white satin." "you are all evidently going to run me into a lot of money. i am not accustomed to satin linings. i thought of having italian cloth." "what?" shouted mother and nanty. "italian cloth," repeated jane firmly. "i hope to do the whole thing for about five pounds." "_impossible!_" said nanty. "fifteen would be mean and skimpy." jane set her mouth good-humouredly. "then i can't get married." "no, you evidently can't," agreed nanty. "it would be unfair to the man." "it's a pity," observed jane, "because i rather wanted to." "a foolish desire on your part which should be checked at once." mother began to look worried. with a desire to cheer her up i casually inquired of nanty if she had seen anything more of professor leighrail. i was unprepared for her dropping the patterns about like chaff in a wind. "professor leighrail!" said mother, with widely-open eyes. "anastasia's old lover?" "exactly," i replied. "he's a friend of ours, and nanty met him here the other day. have you seen him again?" i asked. she did not reply. "it is a pity when deafness overtakes people--the first sign of old age." "she is not deaf," said mother, "and is only fifty-one." i laughed. "kiss me, mother, dear," i said, "you are so practical at times. and yet some people of your age are quite romantic and sentimental." "la, la, la, la!" sang nanty. she leaned over my couch. "marguerite," she said, "i should slap you if you were strong and well." "but i'm not," i said, "so kiss me." and she did so, while whispering that the professor _had_ been to tea with her. "it's not proper," i said, and nanty laughed. chapter xxviii preparations for a wedding the house is very quiet. jane and dimbie are out in the woods gathering sprays of red-tinted brambles, briony, traveller's joy, bracken, which though fading is of that golden tinge which is almost more beautiful than the green, hips and haws shining and scarlet, and clusters of berries of the mountain-ash. this collection of autumnal loveliness is for the decoration of the cottage, for is not jane to be married to-morrow? mother and peter have gone for a stroll as peter calls it, or for a gallop as mother terms it, for peter can get up as much speed, in spite of his gouty leg, as amelia can with my ilkley couch. amelia has "run" to the village for innumerable things forgotten this morning when the grocer's boy clamoured for orders. and the help i should imagine, from the quiet of the house, has fallen asleep over the kitchen fire. the help, from what amelia tells me, is very stupid and is no help at all. she puts the blacking on the scullery floor instead of on the boots. she never screws the stopper on to the shinio bottle after use, and the contents are therefore spilled all over the place. she allows the handles of the knives to lie in water. "does she take them off the blades?" i asked, and i received one of amelia's halibut looks. she forgets to sprinkle tea-leaves on the carpets before brushing them, though the tea-leaves are put all ready for her in a nice clean saucer. and yet, in spite of all these enormities, amelia permits her to remain and not help. before "running" to the village just now she wondered whether anything would go wrong during her temporary absence and what the help would be up to. "she's worse than her at tompkinses'." "the one who wore half a pound of tea as a bustle when she left at night?" amelia seemed pleased at my memory, and she then went on to explain why this help was worse than the other. it appeared that deceit was her besetting sin. the other one openly, so to speak, wore tea as a bustle; this one you could never catch. she would leave of an evening with a face like the song of solomon--i did not see the connection, but did not like to interrupt--and yet butter, bacon, and tea disappeared miraculously. amelia would search her hand-bag when the help was washing up; she would look under the lining of her crêpe bonnet. "crêpe!" i said. "is she a widow?" but amelia said she wasn't, that the bonnet had been given to her by a late employer, and the crêpe was of the best quality. i felt remiss in not having a crêpe bonnet too to present to the help, and asked amelia if she thought my old yellow satin dancing frock would be of any use to her, and amelia has gone off without replying. perhaps she would like the frock for herself. i know she can dance, for have i not seen her executing the cakewalk in dimbie's tea-rose slippers? the help is to wear a cap and collar and cuffs for to-morrow's festivities. amelia is making her do this; and i am a little sorry for the poor help, for she may dislike a cap very much, having a husband and four nearly grown-up children. amelia says that she and the help will be able to manage the guests quite easily, and i believe her. i know that she alone would be quite equal to forty, and we are only expecting ten besides the house-party. a younger brother of dr. renton is to be best man; and then there will be nanty; a miss rebecca sharp, a suffragist, and cousin to jane; dr. renton's married sister and her husband; his housekeeper, who has served him faithfully like a housekeeper in a book for nearly twenty years; a mrs. wilbraham, an old patient, who has invited herself; and professor leighrail. dimbie suggested inviting the last, and i jumped at him. "he will entertain nanty," i said. "you don't want to marry them?" said dimbie in alarm. "dimbie, dear," i returned, "you must try to break yourself of the habit of assuming that i am perpetually trying to marry people." "what about jane and the doctor?" "i was a girl in the schoolroom when they fell in love with one another." "you brought them together." "i did nothing of the kind. jane's visit was arranged long before i knew." he was only half convinced. "i don't want another wedding from here," he said a little gloomily. "one is all right. i like jane, and it has been fun and amusement for you. but if nanty and more pattern-books arrive i shall clear off." "were i stronger," i said, "i should shake you." "would you?" he laughed, holding his face to mine. "i hope you are going to be very good to-morrow, and give jane away nicely. you mustn't give her a push, you must hand her over gracefully to the doctor." dimbie screwed up his face. "i don't fancy the job. i wish you could be there, marg, to give me a wink at the right moment." "oh, don't!" i whispered, in a momentary fit of passionate longing. "don't remind me that i can't be there. dimbie, i am _so_ disappointed that i shall not see jane married! i do so love jane. it is--hard to bear." as the words were uttered i would have given a kingdom to recall them. when should i learn control? pain flitted across my dear one's face, pity and sorrow. "never mind!" i cried, striving to heal the wound. "i shall see her dressed. she is going to don her wedding-gown in my room, and i am to put all the finishing touches. she will kneel in front of me, and i am to pull a lock of hair out here, pat one in there, persuade a curl to wander across her forehead, tilt her hat to a more fashionable angle, and altogether make her the most beautiful jane in the world." but dimbie was not to be comforted. he has gone to the woods with black care hovering very close at hand, and every effort must i strain this evening to bring back the smile to his lips. there must be no sad faces to-morrow. jane has had a somewhat hard and lonely life, and she must embark upon her new voyage without a shadow of unhappiness. the doctor will be good to her, i know--gentle and chivalrous. one knows instinctively when a man will be good to the woman he has married; it is in his voice, his manner, in the very way he looks at her. what dimbie is to me he will be to her. why should jane and i be of the elect among women? we deserve it no more than mother and nanty. but they will have their compensation, i verily believe. god in his goodness will reserve for all the tired, disillusioned wives of the world a little peaceful niche where they may rest from their husbands, which is another word for labours. and the husbands! i do not think that theirs is always the blame, the fault. there must be many too who would like to find a peaceful haven where they may smoke and read, and put their feet upon the chairs, and rest from the perpetual nagging and fault-finding of their wives. * * * * * amelia is back and has roused the help, for her voice was borne to me loudly indignant. "and there is no kettle boiling for tea!" poor help, or sensible help? did she realise that if she waited long enough amelia would put on the kettle? there are usually plenty of amelias to put on kettles and scold helps and tidy up the universe. and so also are there many helps who realise this, and therefore sit with folded hands doing nothing so long as the amelias will permit them. i don't know to whom my sympathy goes the most, the amelias or helps. peter and mother are back too, and are removing their outdoor wraps. peter, blowing and snorting like the alligator to which amelia likened him, has informed me that it is a beastly cold day with an east wind, that the roads in surrey are the worst in europe, and that mother is the slowest woman in god's universe. mother has tip-toed back to tell me what she thinks of peter. that his limp was so fast and furious that you might just as well try to keep up with a fire-engine, that she has made up her mind that this will be her last walk with him (mother has been saying this for many years), and that he has _forbidden_ her to wear her new bonnet on the morrow, as--she looks a fright in it. i have soothed her as best i can. i have told her that dimbie shall stand by and see that she does wear the new bonnet, and that if peter is in any way untractable he shall be locked up for the day in the shed with his own canoe, which has caused her to steal away in a state of fearful joy. i see jane and dimbie coming through the gate. jane is wellnigh lost in a tangled wealth of glorious autumn treasures, and dimbie trails behind him an immense bough of pine. it is for me to smell, i know--to inhale the delicious, resinous scent fresh from the woods. a bit broken off is less than nothing, you must have a branch straight from the heart of the trunk. when i have felt it and held it, and smelled it and loved it, it shall stand by the grandfather clock in the hall, and it will make a beautiful decoration for to-morrow's festivities. i must cease scribbling. they are all assembling for the last family tea. the doctor has just arrived. jane has a bunch of mountain-ash berries tucked into her belt. here comes amelia with the tea and toast, and resignation under suffering written on her brow! what has the help been doing now? chapter xxix jane's wedding nanty described it as a calm, gracious sort of wedding. there was no blare of trumpets when jane and the doctor plighted their troth. "just as it should be," said nanty. "a wedding at all times is to me a depressing spectacle; and when accompanied by a sound of brass and tinkling of cymbals, and shawms, and ringing of bells, and thumping of wedding marches, it simply becomes ridiculous, not to mention that the making of such noises is a relic of barbarism." mother said a bright ray of sunshine found jane out, and lit up and illumined her face just as she was repeating the beautiful and solemn words, "till death us do part." "she looked--she looked----" mother paused for suitable words. "as though she had been sunstruck," interposed nanty. mother was mildly indignant. "she looked like an angel, anastasia." nanty gave a little grunt. "an angel in a paris hat, eh? but i must admit she looked rather nice. she's certainly far too good for the doctor." "of course, jane is getting on," said mother doubtfully. "if she were sixty she would be too good for any man," pronounced nanty decisively, and when she adopted that tone mother ceased to argue. i was glad that the wedding morning dawned serenely beautiful. i had feared lowering skies, heavy, white mists, a dripping, gloomy, sad-faced world, but november was on her best behaviour. the sun sent mild, warm rays across the garden, and the few leaves which still clung to the trees across the fence were as splashes of gold against the brown branches and quiet, blue sky. they bade me remain in bed till late on in the morning, so that i might be well and strong for the reception, which was a grand name to give to a gathering of a dozen or more people. i lay and laughed at the various sounds of the household, which were carried to me through my open door--at amelia's shrill expostulations with the help, who seemed to be bent upon doing the wrong thing at the wrong time; at peter's explosions as he was chivied about from pillar to post by "tiresome women who would go putting silly decorations all over the confounded place"; and at dimbie's perpetual wailing at the disappearance of the corkscrew. "tie it round your neck on a ribbon, dumbarton," i could hear peter growl; and dimbie said it was a most excellent suggestion on the part of his father-in-law, and he would carry it out at once. "would you mind moving once again, general macintosh, we must arrange the refreshments now," came jane's voice pleading and ingratiating. "well, i'm not preventing you." "but we want the table, please." and he straightway burst into my room to tell me what he thought of the institution of marriage. "not so much as a hole left for a cat to creep into," he said angrily. "jumbles is here; _you_ can stay if you like. the easy chair by the fire is very comfortable." he dropped into it a little ungraciously. "so you don't like weddings?" i said with a smile. "like weddings!" "why did you come?" "your mother insisted. when your mother gets an idea into her head you might as well talk to a mule." "but _you_ needn't have come," i said gently. he put some coal on the fire with unnecessary energy. "what is mother doing?" "getting in everybody's way." "i thought it was you who were doing that." he vouchsafed no reply, and buried himself behind _the times_, thinking, i suppose, like the ostrich, that if he covered up his head his body would not be detected. but jane soon routed him out. "i have come to dress marguerite," she announced. "amelia is permitting it." there was no movement from behind the paper. "general macintosh, i am sorry to disturb you, but the time is getting on." "i thought marguerite was dressed, she looks very grand." "it is the ribbons of my nightingale which have deceived you, i have only that and my nightdress on. i can hardly appear in so scanty an attire." "give 'em something to talk about." "father," i said, "_will_ you go." and growling and grumbling he went in search of mother, presumably to have a row. the sunshine streamed into the room, the tits chattered, and a robin blithely showed what could be done with a range of eight notes: tweet, tweet, ta ra ra tweet, tre la, tre la, ta ra ra tweet. "listen, jane," i said, "it is singing to you. isn't it a lovely day! i'm so glad the sun is shining. are you happy, jane?" "yes," she said simply, dropping a kiss on to my hair, which she was gently brushing. "i'm too happy to talk about it; and i must hurry, dimbie will be here in a minute, he has got something for you." and there he was, peeping through the door with amelia close behind him. in his arms was a large cardboard box. "it's a new tea-gown straight from paris, mum," said amelia, excitedly, as dimbie removed the lid. "there were twenty to choose from," added jane, "and _we_ were over an hour in settlin' on it," completed amelia. very carefully dimbie removed all the folds of soft, white paper, and shook out the gown--a lovely mass of pearly satin, soft as the petals of a rose, and marvellous old lace of cobweb transparency and texture. "it is too beautiful!" i whispered to him, folding my arms around his neck. "and there is a rose for your neck, sweetheart, just the colour of your hair. isn't he a beauty?" i held the fragrant, yellow softness to my face, for the tears were coming, and jane and amelia stole softly away and left us by ourselves for ten minutes--ten minutes which would alone make the saddest life worth living, and mine was not sad because i had dimbie. presently jane came back. "you must go, sir," she commanded, "or your wife will not be ready." and dimbie went. deftly and quickly she arranged my hair, got me into the lovely gown, and fastened the rose at my breast. and while she worked she talked. she made me laugh at her description of the help, who was sitting dazed and "amoithered" in the middle of the kitchen, drinking the strongest black tea, and regarding every onslaught of amelia with the utmost indifference and apathy. and amelia! she, of course, was working like a traction engine in the refreshment-room, shaking her fist at the creams and jellies, some of which refused to stand up, and persuading trails of briony to stick to their proper position on the cake and not wander away to the dishes of oyster pâtés. "and now you are ready, and you look--well, dimbie will tell you how you look. i will call him." "don't," i said, "he will stay so long, and then you will go to another room to dress, and i do so want to watch you. i shall be awfully particular about your hair." "you won't suggest a hair-frame?" "god forbid! you are not the type of woman for a frame. but you drag your hair too much off your temples at times, and although your forehead is low and broad and all that a forehead ought to be, i fancy a few tendrils straying across it would look sweet under your chinchilla toque, and you must humour my fancy, jane." obediently she knelt down and let me do what i would with her. "be very careful getting into your skirt," i commanded. "don't ruffle your hair whatever you do." she made a comical face. "what a fuss!" she said. "if you don't fuss on your wedding-day you never will. and men don't like dowdy women. come here and i will fasten your bodice. i can if you will kneel very close to me." for a moment i rested my cheek against the soft, beautiful fur which trimmed the bolero-bodice--nanty had indeed been generous. "jane, dear," i said, "i _am_ glad you are going to be married, and that you will have no more sticky children to teach. i should like to have seen the doctor as a bridegroom. i feel sure that he will use profane language in the stress of his emotions. now put on your hat and walk across the room with stately mien so that i may have a good look at you." i nodded approval. "you'll do. you look sweet--a study in grey. and you are quite tall and slight in that elegant frock. i believe even nanty will be satisfied." she came and knelt again by my couch. how strong and yet gentle was her face! i thought. how steady and clear were her eyes! how sweet and expressive the large, sensitive mouth! "i want to say good-bye to you alone--not before the others. i want to thank you, little, patient marguerite, for all your goodness to me----" "jane," i said, "if you utter another word i shall weep, and then my eyes will be red. be merciful to me." "god bless you and keep you!" she murmured with a great earnestness, and then she bowed her head for a moment, and i knew that she was praying. mother forced an entrance. "peter has hidden my bonnet"--her air was tragic--"and i can't find him, he has hidden himself as well." "he was under the pine tree in the hall when i last saw him," said jane. "he may have slipped behind the clock." "i'll go and see," said mother breathlessly, "i shall never be ready in time. the carriages are due now." mother and peter were to have one to themselves, and dimbie was to take jane. she was back in a moment. "i've got it. amelia found it. he says he never touched it, and that it was the help." and now dimbie came banging at the door. "time's up," he shouted. "how much longer are you going to prink, jane?" then popping his head in, "peter will be smashing the wedding presents if you don't all hurry up." "i'm ready. what do you think of your wife, sir?" said jane. i covered my face with my hands at the look in his eyes. "wheel me to the drawing-room," i whispered to him, "you don't go so fast as amelia; and put me right in the window, so that i may see you all coming down the path." "what a lovely marguerite!" he murmured, shutting the door. "i must kiss my little wife. why, even your cushions are gold! you look like a golden lily." "the carriages are waiting," i said. "i shall come home the very minute i have given jane away; i shan't wait to the end. you will be lonely." and dimbie little knew how earnestly during the next quarter of an hour i longed for the loneliness he had predicted. never had i more fervently yearned to be by myself, for as soon as ever jane and dimbie had driven away the help appeared. she came slowly and deliberately into the room and seated herself on a chair opposite to the couch. she wore the black crêpe bonnet, a black dress, black kid gloves, and she carried a black parasol and a prayer-book. "good afternoon," i said politely. "good afternoon," she returned. "are you going--to a funeral?" she stared at me with hard, black eyes. "i've come to the reception." "oh!" i said. "master said me and 'melia could hear their health drunk--the bride and bridegroom's." "but they are not here yet." "no," she said, still staring at me unwaveringly. "where's amelia?" the help alarmed me. "'melia's gone to the wedding, and then she's going to run 'ome before the others to make the tea and coffee." "couldn't you make it?" i cried with sudden relief. "no, 'melia's going to make it. she said i was to look after you and see that you wanted for nothin'." "i don't require anything, thank you; if i do, i will ring." she did not move. i closed my eyes. "i do not require anything at present, thank you," i repeated. there was no movement, and i opened my eyes. the help was still staring at me unflinchingly--not a flicker of an eyelid, not a movement of a muscle. i felt i was going to scream. "don't you think,--perhaps, it would be advisable--will you be so good as to see to the potatoes?" i clasped and unclasped my hands feverishly. "what pertaters?" "oh--er--the potatoes we are going to eat." "we're not goin' to eat no pertaters. 'melia never told me. there's to be tea, coffee, jelly, and champagne." "but shan't we require some later on with our dinner?" she shook her head. "it's to be 'igh tea. there'll be no time for dinner." "but i should like potatoes." the help looked doubtful. "i love potatoes." "i'll ask 'melia when she comes in." "there is no occasion to ask amelia. won't you go now, please, mrs.----?" she still stared at me steadfastly. "there's plenty of time; pertaters only takes half an hour." "it's not enough," i cried sharply. "i've boiled 'undreds of 'em--skerry blues, magnums, queen of them all, cheshires--none of 'em takes more than half an hour." i closed my eyes and clung to the tortoise. "oh, when would dimbie come?" i moaned to myself. i lay thus for some minutes. it seemed ridiculous, absurd to be frightened of a mere help. i told myself this over and over again. at length i ventured to open one eye. i longed to know if the help were still staring at me. she was, and i shut it again quickly. what was i to do? when would the wedding be over? i opened my eye again. the help was staring harder than ever. most wickedly i wished that she could be struck dead by lightning. but it was unlikely, the day was brilliantly fine and sunny. now i put a handkerchief over my eyes. i would not look at the help. the gate banged. i heard dimbie's step, and he came into the room, but i dare not remove the handkerchief. "what is it?" he cried anxiously. "are you poorly, marguerite?" "come here," i said. he stooped down. "is the help still staring?" i whispered. "yes." "can you get her out of the room?" he began to laugh. "can you?" i repeated. "of course." "well, do so quickly, please." his voice rang out pleasantly and commandingly-"will you go and tell amelia, please, that when the carriage returns i shall be glad if she will give the coachmen some dinner--some meat and potatoes." would the help think that we were all in a conspiracy to make her boil potatoes? "'melia is not here." "where is she?" "at the weddin'." "well, then, you go and get the dinner ready, please." she looked at her black dress and gloves and parasol. "i didn't know as there was to be cookin'. i've got my best dress on." "you can put on an apron," i said gently. she wavered. dimbie opened the door for her as he would have opened it for a duchess, and looked at her. she rose, carefully placed her parasol and prayer-book on the chair in order to reserve it for future use, and unwillingly went out of the room. "move the chair quickly," i gasped, "and hide the parasol and prayer-book. that woman must never be permitted to stare at me again or i shall go mad. how could you tell her that she might come in to hear the health of the bride and bridegroom drunk?" "she asked me. what could i say?" said dimbie ruefully. "and dressed up as though she were going to a funeral----" dimbie began to laugh. "and is she going to hand tea to the guests in a crêpe bonnet?" "can't say, you are the mistress of the house." "oh, dimbie, what shall i do? i daren't tell her to remove it." "wait till amelia comes home. she'll manage her." amelia came rushing through the gate, and i signalled to her from the window. "yes, mum!" "the help is--wearing a crêpe bonnet. i thought you said she was to wear a cap and collar and cuffs?" "so she is, mum. she must have slipped into that bonnet the minute my back was turned. she'll be out of it in a jiffy, i'll see to that. she's that deceitful, she'll wear me into my grave. and the weddin' was _that_ beautiful! miss fairbrother looked----" "i think i hear a carriage," i interrupted; and amelia miraculously flew into her cap and apron, and the next moment announced-"doctor and mrs. renton." jane advanced to the couch with outstretched hands. her eyes were shining and her lips smiling. "did your husband swear?" i asked as she kissed me. "certainly not," said the doctor. "how's my patient to-day?" "quite well, thank you," i replied. "now that you've got jane safely tied up you'll begin to remember that you have some patients hanging on your words. jane, he mustn't let his practice go to the wall. you have to live, you know." "there's another carriage," said dimbie, looking through the window. "ah, and here's nanty!--what a howling swell!--and a whole host of people i don't know." "jane, i am frightened of miss rebecca sharp. stand by me when you introduce us. i am not used to suffragettes," i said. and a most delightful half-hour followed, while we discussed jane's and amelia's united efforts at refreshments. dimbie would not permit my being wheeled to the refreshment-room and noise, so my cake and champagne were brought to the drawing-room, and i was entertained in turn by nanty and professor leighrail, the doctor and jane, miss rebecca sharp, who was most mild and unassuming, mr. tom renton, the best man, who ran to a heavy moustache and pimples, and even peter came for a moment to give me his opinion of amelia's jelly. nanty and the professor interested me greatly. she, resplendent in purple velvet and old lace, was composed and sarcastic; he genial, happy, and detached. "down with all weddings!" was the gist of her conversation. "do all you can to encourage them," said the professor cheerfully. "disillusionment and misery are the inevitable sequence." nanty nibbled at the almond on a piece of wedding-cake. "happiness and a fuller life are the natural result." the professor waved his glass in the air. she regarded him with amusement. "and you really think so?" "i do, madam." "you are optimistic." "there was a time when i believed that the world contained no happiness." "and now?" "now i am older, and think that most people are as happy as they will allow themselves to be." "but the sin, the suffering?" "many sufferers are happy." (his glance rested for a second upon me.) "and as for the sinners--well, surely they wouldn't sin if they didn't enjoy it?" "i do not agree with your philosophy." "madam, i am open to argument." "the room is too warm for discussion." "it is pleasant in the garden, and there are some late roses. will you come?" nanty hesitated. he held out his arm. "the sunshine is inviting." "perhaps it is," she admitted; and laying a beautifully-gloved hand lightly upon his arm, she went out with him. dimbie came in and found me smiling. "what is it, girl?" his eyes followed mine through the window. "humph!" he said. "he asked her to go and look at the roses." "and now i suppose you are happy?" "nanty's and the professor's desire for roses does not affect my happiness," i said gravely. "liar!" he laughed, stroking my hair. and now the bride and bridegroom came to say "good-bye." the doctor held back while jane kissed me and said, "i'll come back soon, little old pupil; and i will drive over the day after our return and tell you everything." her eyes were full of unshed tears. the doctor held my hand in a strong, close grip, and they were gone. through the window i could see everyone assembled on the path. confetti was in the air, congratulations, good-byes. the help with her cap all askew, into which amelia had insisted upon her changing, hurled rice and a slipper at the retreating cab. and so jane and the doctor drove away to happiness. chapter xxx the death of a little black chicken a day has come, still, cold and grey, when you say, "there is snow in the air," and you are not sorry. the first snow is curiously attractive. before, you are a little doubtful as to the season. is it late autumn--there are still a few leaves on the beech tree--or has winter arrived? you would like to know; you object to being in uncertainty about your seasons. and then the snow comes one night very softly but very surely, and you wake in the morning to find that the thing is accomplished--winter has come. your furs are reached out, your last thin frock is laid away, your eider-downs are aired, and you are quite resigned, you have no regrets. the summer brought you treasures in abundance, scattered largess with prodigal hand. but winter is no niggard. it gives you branches of trees stripped of their greenery, but beautiful in their form and shape. you had forgotten that the apple tree had a delicious crook here, a bend of the knee there, and a graceful arm with finely-turned wrist held out to its neighbours in the field in a spirit of friendship. and winter gives you brown fields--sad, you were about to say, but your pen halts at the word. they are not sad, they are but resting and waiting. "all things must rest." those quiet, brown fields have done their work, they have yielded great riches, they have given of their best. now is their season of peace, and they will be ready after their winter sleep for more work. winter gives you red suns and clear, frosty nights. it gives you the friendship of little birds who in summer are shy and not to be won. you are not deceived by their sudden overtures; it is not you, you know. it is the cocoa-nut hanging in front of the window, and the crumbs on the lawn, and the succulent bit of mutton-fat suspended from the apple tree. but you are glad to have them at any price; the tits' joyful chatter and the wrens' hurried warble, and the clear, sweet note of the robin enliven the atmosphere. they make no pretence of being fine musicians, like their sometime friend the thrush; but they say, "what's the good of being a singer if you keep your mouth or bill shut for six months in the year?" and i smile behind my hand and partly agree with them, though i dare not let the thrush hear me. i gave him a great welcome in the spring, and he would think me faithless were i now to speak of him disparagingly. and winter brings in its wake great glowing fires and warm, lamplit rooms, and a feeling of snug cosiness when the curtains are drawn. they have pushed my couch close to the fire, for i am a shivery mortal these days, and from my corner i can see the grey sky, the still, bare trees, and i can feel the hush in the air which ever precedes the snow. anxiously i hope that dimbie will be home before it comes, for he is many miles from here--gone at my request to satisfy a longing, a desire of mine which has been with me for many weeks, which has lain very close to my heart, and which has now become so insistent that it cannot be hushed. it has been with me by day, i have whispered it in the long hours of the night, "how fares the tiny black chicken?" has it suffered, lived on since that cruel moment when my bicycle crushed it to earth, or was its life snatched away from it? if it has lived it will be a big chicken now. the soft down will have become feathers, the wee legs will have grown long and thin. this morning i found courage to voice my request, to tell dimbie of my longing. at the first word he started, and his face became set. he walked to the window and drummed on the panes. "you don't mind, dimbie? you'll go for me?" i pleaded. "but why? why do you want to know?" "i cannot tell," i replied. "it may be silly, morbid, but i feel as though--one or two things might be made clear to me if i knew." he did not speak for a long time. his back was to me, and i could not see his face. presently he said, without looking round, "i'll go. i cannot refuse you anything, marg. but i don't like it. the chicken may be gone." "gone?" "well--dead." "and if it is," i said softly, "i shan't mind. i shall know--and be satisfied." he came and knelt by the couch. "but won't you be lonely, girl?" i shook my head. "are you better to-day, sweetheart? do you think you are any stronger? that wedding was too much for you." each day my dear one abuses poor jane's wedding. i had been overtired that night, faint, with a singing in my cars and the sound of many waters surging around me. and each day also he says, "you are a little stronger, i think, don't you?" but he does not wait for an answer. sometimes it is better to leave a question unanswered. oh, my husband, will you ever know, ever understand how much happiness you have given to me? before i knew you life was an arid wilderness. i was but young, but there was always peter. afterwards i came to a garden of roses and lilies set about with the tender green of spring. and _our_ year! how wonderful it has been! sorrow came to us, but joy entered a little later. sorrow we thrust forth, and joy crept still closer, and has remained with us even to the end. sorrow will dog dimbie's footsteps for a little season, but joy will triumph over all--"for here we have no continuing city." * * * * * dimbie came home as the first snowflake brushed the window-pane. in the firelight he knelt and told me of the strange thing that had happened. he found the cottage, and as he entered the little chicken turned over on its side, stretched its legs and died. a child with golden hair leaned over it and wept bitterly. "and had it suffered?" i whispered. he shook his head. "the woman said not, but it was lamed. the child from the day of the accident cared for it, tended it, nursed it. it slept in a box in the kitchen, and became very tame. the woman is a widow, and this little one the only child." "did you tell her of--me?" "yes," said dimbie gently. i laid my cheek to his, and he stroked my hair in his old, dear fashion. and we sat thus, and once again told each other the old, old story of our love. the soft snow brushed the window-pane, the corners of the room became shadowy and mysterious, and hand in hand we waited for the light which always follows the darkness. an afterword the pen has fallen from marguerite's hand never again to be taken up. and we who wait for the lifting of the veil find it hard not to question the why and the wherefore. hers was a beautiful, blameless life. her suffering was borne with a great patience and cheerfulness, and we cry and cry again, "why should this be?" jane renton's philosophy is simple: "god wanted her more than we." but to me it seems such love as theirs--of husband and wife--should have been allowed to continue yet a little while longer. jane says it will outlast the ages. to jane has been given a faith, an understanding which has been withheld from many. her eyes can see while ours are blinded with tears. i have her husband's sanction to give her simple story to the world. "it may help to brighten the life of some other sufferer, and she would be glad," i said, and he bowed his head. the last night of her life was one of silver, as she herself would have described it, for the moon turned the earth with its soft mantle of snow into silver sheen. we drew back the curtains and pushed the bed still nearer to the window. dimbie's arms pillowed her head. from unconsciousness she kept creeping back to moments of consciousness, and she would speak a little. once she murmured something about a little black chicken, and always the word "dimbie" was upon her lips. at the last we left them alone. by and by dimbie came out of the room and passed out into the moonlit night. she would be glad that it was so, that there was the moonlight, and that while her spirit winged its way to eternal light there was a reflection of its brightness left for her dimbie. nanty. the end. * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices new, clever, entertaining. gret: the story of a pagan. by beatrice mantle. illustrated by c. m. relyea. the wild free life of an oregon lumber camp furnishes the setting for this strong original story. gret is the daughter of the camp and is utterly content with the wild life--until love comes. a fine book, unmarred by convention. old chester tales. by margaret deland. illustrated by howard pyle. a vivid yet delicate portrayal of characters in an old new england town. dr. lavendar's fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine, healthful and life giving. "old chester tales" will surely be among the books that abide. the memoirs of a baby. by josephine daskam. illustrated by f. y. cory. the dawning intelligence of the baby was grappled with by its great-aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something at which even the infant himself winked. a delicious bit of humor. rebecca mary. by annie hamilton donnell. illustrated by elizabeth shippen green. the heart tragedies of this little girl with no one near to share them, are told with a delicate art, a keen appreciation of the needs of the childish heart and a humorous knowledge of the workings of the childish mind. the fly on the wheel. by katherine cecil thurston. frontispiece by harrison fisher. an irish story of real power, perfect in development and showing a true conception of the spirited hibernian character as displayed in the tragic as well as the tender phases of life. the man from brodney's. by george barr mccutcheon. illustrated by harrison fisher. an island in the south sea is the setting for this entertaining tale, and an all-conquering hero and a beautiful princess figure in a most complicated plot. one of mr. mccutcheon's best books. told by uncle remus. by joel chandler harris. illustrated by a. b. frost, j. m. conde and frank verbeck. again uncle remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another little boy to that non-locatable land called "brer rabbit's laughing place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play their parts, for the edification of a small but appreciative audience. the climber. by e. f. benson. with frontispiece. an unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman's soul--a woman who believed that in social supremacy she would find happiness, and who finds instead the utter despair of one who has chosen the things that pass away. lynch's daughter. by leonard merrick. illustrated by geo. brehm. a story of to-day, telling how a rich girl acquires ideals of beautiful and simple living, and of men and love, quite apart from the teachings of her father, "old man lynch" of wall st. true to life, clever in treatment. * * * * * grosset & dunlap's dramatized novels a few that are making theatrical history mary jane's pa. by norman way. illustrated with scenes from the play. delightful, irresponsible "mary jane's pa" awakes one morning to find himself famous, and genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny. one of the most humorous bits of recent fiction. cherub devine. by sewell ford. "cherub," a good hearted but not over refined young man is brought in touch with the aristocracy. of sprightly wit, he is sometimes a merciless analyst, but he proves in the end that manhood counts for more than ancient lineage by winning the love of the fairest girl in the flock. a woman's way. by charles somerville. illustrated with scenes from the play. a story in which a woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently tragic situation into one of delicious comedy. the climax. by george c. jenks. with ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little village where she was born and the limited audience of st. jude's to train for the opera in new york. she leaves love behind her and meets love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment. how she works, how she studies, how she suffers, are vividly portrayed. a fool there was. by porter emerson browne. illustrated by edmund magrath and w. w. fawcett. a relentless portrayal of the career of a man who comes under the influence of a beautiful but evil woman; how she lures him on and on, how he struggles, falls and rises, only to fall again into her net, make a story of unflinching realism. the squaw man. by julie opp faversham and edwin milton royle. illustrated with scenes from the play. a glowing story, rapid in action, bright in dialogue with a fine courageous hero and a beautiful english heroine. the girl in waiting. by archibald eyre. illustrated with scenes from the play. a droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a venturesome spirit and an eye for human oddities. the scarlet pimpernel. by baroness orczy. illustrated with scenes from the play. a realistic story of the days of the french revolution, abounding in dramatic incident, with a young english soldier of fortune, daring, mysterious as the hero. * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices cy whittaker's place. by joseph c. lincoln. illustrated by wallace morgan. a cape cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl. full of honest fun--a rural drama. the forge in the forest. by charles g. d. roberts. illustrated by h. sandham. a story of the conflict in acadia after its conquest by the british. a dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of poetic romance. a sister to evangeline. by charles g. d. roberts. illustrated by e. mcconnell. being the story of yvonne de lamourie, and how she went into exile with the villagers of grand prè. swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong novel. the opened shutters. by clara louise burnham. frontispiece by harrison fisher. a summer haunt on an island in casco bay is the background for this romance. a beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. a delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all. the right princess. by clara louise burnham. an amusing story, opening at a fashionable long island resort, where a stately englishwoman employs a forcible new england housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. how types so widely apart react on each others' lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in sentiment. the leaven of love. by clara louise burnham. frontispiece by harrison fisher. at a southern california resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of living--of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy. the story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasé woman by this glimpse into a cheery life. quincy adams sawyer. a picture of new england home life. with illustrations by c. w. reed, and scenes reproduced from the play. one of the best new england stories ever written. it is full of homely human interest * * * there is a wealth of new england village character, scenes and incidents * * * forcibly, vividly and truthfully drawn. few books have enjoyed a greater sale and popularity. dramatized, it made the greatest rural play of recent times. the further adventures of quincy adams sawyer. by charles felton pidgin. illustrated by henry roth. all who love honest sentiment, quaint and sunny humor and homespun philosophy will find these "further adventures" a book after their own heart. half a chance. by frederic s. isham. illustrated by herman pfeifer. the thrill of excitement will keep the reader in a state of suspense, and he will become personally concerned from the start, as to the central character, a very real man who suffers dares--and achieves! virginia of the air lanes. by herbert quick. illustrated by william r. leigh. the author has seized the romantic moment for the airship novel, and created the pretty story of "a lover and his lass" contending with an elderly relative for the monopoly of the skies. an exciting tale of adventure in midair. the game and the candle. by eleanor m. ingram. illustrated by p. d. johnson. the hero is a young american, who, to save his family from poverty deliberately commits a felony. then follow his capture and imprisonment, and his rescue by a russian grand duke. a stirring story, rich in sentiment. bruvver jim's baby. by philip verrill mighels. an uproariously funny story of a tiny mining settlement in the west, which is shaken to the very roots by the sudden possession of a baby, found on the plains by one of its residents. the town is as disreputable a spot as the gold fever was ever responsible for, and the coming of that baby causes the upheaval of every rooted tradition of the place. its christening, the problems of its toys and its illness supersede in the minds of the miners all thought of earthy treasure. the furnace of gold. by philip verrill mighels, author of "bruvver jim's baby." illustrations by j. n. marchand. an accurate and informing portrayal of scenes, types, and conditions of the mining districts in modern nevada. the book is an out-door story, clean, exciting, exemplifying nobility and courage of character, and bravery, and heroism in the sort of men and women we all admire and wish to know. the message. by louis tracy. illustrations by joseph c. chase. a breezy tale of how a bit of old parchment, concealed in a figurehead from a sunken vessel, comes into the possession of a pretty girl and an army man during regatta week in the isle of wight. this is the message and it enfolds a mystery, the development of which the reader will follow with breathless interest. the scarlet empire. by david m. parry. illustrations by hermann c. wall. a young socialist, weary of life, plunges into the sea and awakes in the lost island of atlantis, known as the scarlet empire, where a social democracy is in full operation, granting every man a living but limiting food, conversation, education and marriage. the hero passes through an enthralling love affair and other adventures but finally returns to his own new york world. the third degree. by charles klein and arthur hornblow. illustrations by clarence rowe. a novel which exposes the abuses in this country of the police system. the son of an aristocratic new york family marries a woman socially beneath him, but of strong, womanly qualities that, later on, save the man from the tragic consequences of a dissipated life. the wife believes in his innocence and her wit and good sense help her to win against the tremendous odds imposed by law. the thirteenth district. by brand whitlock. a realistic western story of love and politics and a searching study of their influence on character. the author shows with extraordinary vitality of treatment the tricks, the heat, the passion, the tumult of the political arena, the triumph and strength of love. the music master. by charles klein. illustrated by john rae. this marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a german musician in new york for his little daughter. mr. klein has well portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door. a superb bit of fiction palpitating with the life of the great metropolis. the play in which david warfield scored his highest success. dr. lavendar's people. by margaret deland. illustrated by lucius hitchcock. mrs. deland won so many friends through old chester tales that this volume needs no introduction beyond its title. the lovable doctor is more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies of the old village are told with dramatic charm. old chester tales. by margaret deland. illustrated by howard pyle. stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in a sleepy old town. dr. lavendar, a very human and lovable "preacher," is the connecting link between these dramatic stories. he fell in love with his wife. by e. p. roe. with frontispiece. the hero is a farmer--a man with honest, sincere views of life. bereft of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source, comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his respect and eventually wins his love. a bright and delicate romance, revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies. the yoke. by elizabeth miller. against the historical background of the days when the children of israel were delivered from the bondage of egypt, the author has sketched a romance of compelling charm. a biblical novel as great as any since "ben hur." saul of tarsus. by elizabeth miller. illustrated by andré castaigne. the scenes of this story are laid in jerusalem, alexandria, rome and damascus. the apostle paul, the martyr stephen, herod agrippa and the emperors tiberius and caligula are among the mighty figures that move through the pages. wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance. when a man marries. by mary roberts rinehart. illustrated by harrison fisher and mayo bunker. a young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visit is due from his aunt selina, an elderly lady having ideas about things quite apart from the bohemian set in which her nephew is a shining light. the way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms the motif of the story. a farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "seven days". the fashionable adventures of joshua craig. by david graham phillips. illustrated. a young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and social life in washington. he attains power in politics, and a young woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education in social amenities. "doc." gordon. by mary e. wilkins-freeman. illustrated by frank t. merrill. against the familiar background of american town life, the author portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. "doc." gordon, the one physician of the place, dr. elliot, his assistant, a beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved in the plot. a novel of great interest. holy orders. by marie corelli. a dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holy orders"--problems that we are now struggling with in america. katrine. by elinor macartney lane. with frontispiece. katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely irish girl, of lowly birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice. the narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one. the fortunes of fifi. by molly elliot seawell. illustrated by t. de thulstrup. a story of life in france at the time of the first napoleon. fifi, a glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third rate parisian theatre. a story as dainty as a watteau painting. she that hesitates. by harris dickson. illustrated by c. w. relyea. the scene of this dashing romance shifts from dresden to st. petersburg in the reign of peter the great, and then to new orleans. the hero is a french soldier of fortune, and the princess, who hesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates may be lost and yet saved. happy hawkins. by robert alexander wason. illustrated by howard giles. a ranch and cowboy novel. happy hawkins tells his own story with such a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last in positive affection. comrades. by thomas dixon, jr. illustrated by c. d. williams. the locale of this story is in california, where a few socialists establish a little community. the author leads the little band along the path of disillusionment, and gives some brilliant flashes of light on one side of an important question. tono-bungay. by herbert george wells. the hero of this novel is a young man who, through hard work, earns a scholarship and goes to london. written with a frankness verging on rousseau's, mr. wells still uses rare discrimination and the border line of propriety is never crossed. an entertaining book with both a story and a moral, and without a dull page--mr. wells's most notable achievement. a husband by proxy. by jack steele. a young criminologist, but recently arrived in hew york city, is drawn into a mystery, partly through financial need and partly through his interest in a beautiful woman, who seems at times the simplest child and again a perfect mistress of intrigue. a baffling detective story. like another helen. by george horton. illustrated by c. m. relyea. mr. horton's powerful romance stands in a new field and brings an almost unknown world in reality before the reader--the world of conflict between greek and turk on the island of crete. the "helen" of the story is a greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant--pure as snow. there is a certain new force about the story, a kind of master-craftsmanship and mental dominance that holds the reader. the master of appleby. by francis lynde. illustrated by t. de thulstrup. a novel tale concerning itself in part with the great struggle in the two carolinas, but chiefly with the adventures therein of two gentlemen who loved one and the same lady. a strong, masculine and persuasive story. a modern madonna. by caroline abbot stanley. a story of american life, founded on facts as they existed some years ago in the district of columbia. the theme is the maternal love and splendid courage of a woman. * * * * * books on nature study by charles g. d. roberts handsomely bound in cloth. price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid. the kindred of the wild. a book of animal life. with illustrations by charles livingston bull. appeals alike to the young and to the merely youthful-hearted. close observation. graphic description. we get a sense of the great wild and its denizens. out of the common. vigorous and full of character. the book is one to be enjoyed; all the more because it smacks of the forest instead of the museum. john burroughs says: "the volume is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories that has appeared. it reaches a high order of literary merit." the heart of the ancient wood. illustrated. this book strikes a new note in literature. it is a realistic romance of the folk of the forest--a romance of the alliance of peace between a pioneer's daughter in the depths of the ancient wood and the wild beasts who felt her spell and became her friends. it is not fanciful, with talking beasts; nor is it merely an exquisite idyl of the beasts themselves. it is an actual romance, in which the animal characters play their parts as naturally as do the human. the atmosphere of the book is enchanting. the reader feels the undulating, whimpering music of the forest, the power of the shady silences, the dignity of the beasts who live closest to the heart of the wood. the watchers of the trails. a companion volume so the "kindred of the wild." with 43 full page plates and decorations from drawings by charles livingston bull. these stones are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. "this is a book full of delight. an additional charm lies in mr. bull's faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing the pen pictures of the authors."--_literary digest_. red fox. the story of his adventurous career in the ringwaak wilds, and his triumphs over the enemies of his kind. with 50 illustrations, including frontispiece in color and cover design by charles livingston bull. a brilliant chapter in natural history. infinitely more wholesome reading than the average tale of sport, since it gives a glimpse of the hunt from the point of view of the hunted. "true in substance but fascinating as fiction. it will interest old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who know animals and those who do not."--_chicago record-herald_. * * * * * famous copyright books in popular priced editions re-issues of the great literary successes of the time, library size, printed on excellent paper--most of them finely illustrated. full and handsomely bound in cloth. price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid. the cattle baron's daughter. a novel. by harold bindloss. with illustrations by david ericson. a story of the fight for the cattle-ranges of the west. intense interest is aroused by its pictures of life in the cattle country at that critical moment of transition when the great tracts of land used for grazing were taken up by the incoming homesteaders, with the inevitable result of fierce contest, of passionate emotion on both sides, and of final triumph of the inevitable tendency of the times. winston of the prairie. with illustrations in color by w. herbert dunton. a man of upright character, young and clean, but badly worsted in the battle of life, consents as a desperate resort to impersonate for a period a man of his own age--scoundrelly in character but of an aristocratic and moneyed family. the better man finds himself barred from resuming his old name. how, coming into the other man's possessions, he wins the respect of all men, and the love of a fastidious, delicately nurtured girl, is the thread upon which the story hangs. it is one of the best novels of the west that has appeared for years. that mainwaring affair. by a. maynard barbour, with 11 illustrations by e. plaisted abbott. a novel with a most intricate and carefully unraveled plot. a naturally probable and excellently developed story and the reader will follow the fortunes of each character with unabating interest * * * the interest is keen at the close of the first chapter and increases to the end. at the time appointed. with a frontispiece in colors by j. h. marchand. the fortunes of a young mining engineer who through an accident loses his memory and identity. in his new character and under his new name, the hero lives a new life of struggle and adventure. the volume will be found highly entertaining by those who appreciate a thoroughly good story. the circular staircase. by mary roberts reinhart. with illustrations by lester ralph. in an extended notice the _new york sun_ says: "to readers who care for a really good detective story 'the circular staircase' can be recommended without reservation. the _philadelphia record_ declares that 'the circular staircase' deserves the laurels for thrills, for weirdness and things unexplained and inexplicable. the red year. by louis tracy. "mr. tracy gives by far the most realistic and impressive pictures of the horrors and heroisms of the indian mutiny that has been available in any book of the kind * * * there has not been in modern times in the history of any land scenes so fearful, so picturesque, so dramatic, and mr. tracy draws them as with the pencil of a verestschagin or the pen of a sienkiewics." arms and the woman. by harold macgrath. with inlay cover in colors by harrison fisher. the story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh and blood, and not mere pictures of past centuries. the story is about jack winthrop, a newspaper man. mr. macgrath's finest bit of character drawing is seen in hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and jack's chum. love is the sum of it all. by geo. cary eggleston. with illustrations by hermann heyer. in this "plantation romance" mr. eggleston has resumed the manner and method that made his "dorothy south" one of the most famous books of its time. there are three tender love stories embodied in it, and two unusually interesting heroines, utterly unlike each other, but each possessed of a peculiar fascination which wins and holds the reader's sympathy. a pleasing vein of gentle humor runs through the work, but the "sum of it all" is an intensely sympathetic love story. hearts and the cross. by harold morton cramer. with illustrations by harold matthews brett. the hero is an unconventional preacher who follows the line of the man of galilee, associating with the lowly, and working for them in the ways that may best serve them. he is not recognized at his real value except by the one woman who saw clearly. their love story is one of the refreshing things in recent fiction. a six-cylinder courtship. by edw. salisbury field. with a color frontispiece by harrison fisher, and illustrations by clarence f. underwood, decorated pages and end sheets. harrison fisher head in colors on cover. boxed. a story of cleverness. it is a jolly good romance of love at first sight that will be read with undoubted pleasure. automobiling figures in the story which is told with light, bright touches, while a happy gift of humor permeates it all. "the book is full of interesting folks. the patois of the garage is used with full comic and realistic effect, and effervescently, culminating in the usual happy finish."--_st. louis mirror_. at the foot of the rainbow. by gene stratton-porter. author of "freckles." with illustrations in color by oliver kemp, decorations by ralph fletcher seymour and inlay cover in colors. the story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. the novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. judith of the cumberlands. by alice macgowan. with illustrations in colors, and inlay cover by george wright. no one can fail to enjoy this moving tale with its lovely and ardent heroine, its frank, fearless hero, its glowing love passages, and its variety of characters, captivating or engaging humorous or saturnine, villains, rascals, and men of good will. a tale strong and interesting in plot, faithful and vivid as a picture of wild mountain life, and in its characterization full of warmth and glow. a million a minute. by hudson douglas. with illustrations by will grefe. has the catchiest of titles, and it is a ripping good tale from chapter i to finis--no weighty problems to be solved, but just a fine running story, full of exciting incidents, that never seemed strained or improbable. it is a dainty love yarn involving three men and a girl. there is not a dull or trite situation in the book. conjuror's house. by stewart edward white. dramatized under the title of "the call of the north." illustrated from photographs of scenes from the play. _conjuror's house_ is a hudson bay trading port where the fur trading company tolerated no rivalry. trespassers were sentenced to "la longue traverse"--which meant official death. how ned trent entered the territory, took _la longue traverse_, and the journey down the river of life with the factor's only daughter is admirably told. it is a warm, vivid, and dramatic story, and depicts the tenderness and mystery of a woman's heart. arizona nights. by stewart edward white. with illustrations by n. c. wyeth, and beautiful inlay cover. a series of spirited tales emphasizing some phase of the life of the ranch, plains and desert, and all, taken together, forming a single sharply-cut picture of life in the far southwest. all the tonic of the west is in this masterpiece of stewart edward white. the mystery. by stewart edward white and samuel hopkins adams. with illustrations by will crawford. for breathless interest, concentrated excitement and extraordinarily good story telling on all counts, no more completely satisfying romance has appeared for years. it has been voted the best story of its kind since _treasure island_. light-fingered gentry. by david graham phillips. with illustrations. mr. phillips has chosen the inside workings of the great insurance companies as his field of battle; the salons of the great fifth avenue mansions as the antechambers of his field of intrigue; and the two things which every natural, big man desires, love and success, as the goal of his leading character. the book is full of practical philosophy, which makes it worth careful reading. the second generation. by david graham phillips. with illustrations by fletcher c. ramson, and inlay cover. "it is a story that proves how, in some cases, the greatest harm a rich man may do his children, is to leave them his money." "a strong, wholesome story of contemporary american life--thoughtful, well-conceived and admirably written; forceful, sincere, and true; and intensely interesting."--_boston herald_. * * * * * the masterly and realistic novels of frank norris handsomely bound in cloth. price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid. the octopus. a story of california mr. norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels which, taken together, shall symbolize american life as a whole, with all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length and breadth of the continent. and for the central symbol he has taken wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of american power and prosperity. _the octopus_ is a story of wheat raising and railroad greed in california. it immediately made a place for itself. it is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength. one cannot read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness, the breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man. the pit. a story of chicago. this powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the chicago wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning. in a masterly way the author has grasped the essential spirit of the great city by the lakes. the social existence, the gambling in stocks and produce, the characteristic life in chicago, form a background for an exceedingly vigorous and human tale of modern life and love. a man's woman. a story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary run of fiction. it is most dramatic, containing some tremendous pictures of the daring of the men who are trying to reach the pole * * * but it is at the same time essentially a _woman's_ book, and the story works itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is continually presented in real life--the wife's attitude in relation to her husband when both have well-defined careers. mcteague. a story of san francisco. "since bret harte and the forty-niner no one has written of california life with the vigor and accuracy of mr. norris. his 'mcteague' settled his right to a place in american literature; and he has now presented a third novel, 'blix,' which is in some respects the finest and likely to be the most popular of the three."--_washington times_. blix. "frank norris has written in 'blix' just what such a woman's name would imply--a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are true and honest because she is true and honest. how she saved the man she fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship, makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author's 'mcteague.' a splendid and successful story."--_washington times_. grosset & dunlap, publishers, -new york 