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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peggy-Alone, by Mary Agnes Byrne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peggy-Alone
+
+Author: Mary Agnes Byrne
+
+Illustrator: Anna B. Craig
+
+Release Date: January 26, 2008 [EBook #24431]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEGGY-ALONE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: The girls paused and waved their handkerchiefs.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PEGGY-ALONE
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY AGNES BYRNE
+
+AUTHOR OF
+  "THE LITTLE WOMAN IN THE SPOUT,"
+  "LITTLE DAME TROT,"
+  "ROY AND ROSYROCKS,"
+  "THE FAIRY CHASES," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+DRAWINGS BY
+
+ANNA B. CRAIG
+
+
+
+
+THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+CHICAGO ---- AKRON, OHIO ---- NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1909_
+
+_By_
+
+_The Saalfield Publishing Co._
+
+
+
+
+TO MY SISTER TRESS
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+      I.  PEGGY-ALONE
+     II.  UNCLE FRED
+    III.  GUMDROPS
+     IV.  THE GARDEN OF GOOD INTENTIONS
+      V.  A DISGUSTED POET
+     VI.  A SCORNFUL BEAUTY
+    VII.  THEATRICALS
+   VIII.  PICNICKING
+     IX.  TISSUE-PAPER HATS
+      X.  ALENE'S VISITORS
+     XI.  TAFFY PULLING
+    XII.  A STRING OF FISH
+   XIII.  A GIRLISH TIFF
+    XIV.  THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
+     XV.  AFTER THE SHOW
+    XVI.  LAURA'S PROPOSITION
+   XVII.  IN THE BERRY PATCH
+  XVIII.  TO THE RESCUE
+   XIX.  THE BLUE BOX
+    XX.  MRS. KUMP'S BIRTHDAY
+   XXI.  TO CHINA IN A GLASS-BOAT
+  XXII.  VEXATIONS AND CONSOLATIONS
+ XXIII.  THE CRIMSON BAG
+  XXIV.  THE GARDEN PARTY
+   XXV.  IVY'S FRIEND
+  XXVI.  AN ADVENTURE
+ XXVII.  IN THE TOWER
+
+
+
+
+PEGGY-ALONE
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PEGGY-ALONE
+
+"Down, Prince!"
+
+High above the shrill exclamations of surprise and terror came that
+thin silvery command which the dog, great black fellow that he was,
+obeyed at once, and his flight in pursuit of those daring petticoats
+which had intruded on his master's orchard was brought to an
+ignominious end.
+
+"Girls, say, girls, don't be frightened!  He won't bite!"
+
+One of the children had already scaled the wall, dropping her apron of
+apples on the way.  She stood ready to help the second down, while the
+third and largest, who had kept in the rear between the smaller ones
+and their pursuer, waiting to see them safely over ere hastening her
+own steps, on hearing those friendly words paused and looked back.
+
+Some distance away, under the apple trees on the grassy terrace, stood
+a little girl dressed all in white; a wreath of green ivy-vines crowded
+her glossy curls which fell to her waist and framed her thin face; one
+tiny hand was raised in a beckoning gesture and the other was placed
+firmly on the head of the dog.
+
+Leading him, she approached the girl who waited in mute surprise.
+
+"Do tell them not to go.  They needn't be afraid of Prince now!"
+
+"She says not to be afraid," hallooed the largest girl, whereupon the
+fugitives came back and seated themselves upon the wall overlooking the
+scene.
+
+The girl with the dog had come forward.  She stood looking half shyly,
+but with evident good-will, from the little maids on the wall to their
+friend who had turned after recalling the others, and came back a few
+steps to meet her.
+
+"What are their names?" inquired the stranger.
+
+"This is Ivy Bonner," the other said in a formal tone, pointing to her
+thinner companion, who swung her feet on the outside of the wall and,
+though she sat only half-facing them, seemed to see everything that
+went on.  "And this is my sister Nettie," she continued, indicating the
+chubby, flaxen-haired party whose ruddy cheeks and great staring blue
+eyes reminded one of an over-grown doll-baby.
+
+As each name was pronounced its owner gave a ceremonious little bow
+such as is always used in make-believe introductions, and the newcomer
+bowed gravely to each in acknowledgment.  Then she turned again to the
+largest girl.
+
+"And yours?"
+
+"I am Laura--Laura Lee."
+
+"What's hers?" called Ivy, who felt that there was something lacking in
+the ceremony.
+
+"Oh, my name's Alene Dawson," was the answer, and then, turning to
+Laura, she added with a somewhat rueful laugh, "but Uncle sometimes
+calls me Peggy-Alone."
+
+"Why does he call you such a funny name?"
+
+"Why, you see I'm so much by myself, now that mother and father went
+away and left me here with Uncle Fred.  I get lonesome all by myself!"
+
+"I should think you would!" cried Laura compassionately.
+
+"Let's sit down," suggested Alene.  They did so, side by side, on the
+grass, while Prince reclined lazily beside them.
+
+"Do you live in the Big House?" inquired Laura, glancing toward a
+building which stood far up on the level ground overlooking the
+terraced hill; a substantial house whose gray stone walls and square
+tower were partly hid with vines.  It was the most pretentious
+habitation in the town and occupied the most beautiful site.  Laura and
+her friends regarded it somewhat as a fairy palace, around which they
+wove many fanciful romances.
+
+"I'm a-visiting there now but when Uncle goes down town and the maids
+are all at work I don't know what to do with myself; and when I saw you
+all here among the trees I just hurried down, I was so glad to see a
+crowd of girls, but naughty Prince ran ahead and scared you away!  What
+were you playing?"
+
+"We weren't playing; we were just picking apples."
+
+Alene looked horrified.
+
+"You see, Mr. Dawson allows us to come in and take all we want,"
+explained Laura hurriedly, while a shrill voice from the wall cried:
+
+"We weren't _stealing_!"
+
+"I never thought that!"
+
+"Well, she looked as if she did," commented Ivy.
+
+"I looked surprised because--well--to think you would eat such green
+apples."
+
+This statement brought forth a ripple of amusement from the two critics
+and Alene with reddened cheeks turned to the girl at her side.
+
+"Well, they are dangerous, aren't they?"
+
+"Don't mind those kids, they giggle at 'most anything.  You see we are
+used to eating them and they are not injurious if you eat 'em with
+salt," explained Laura, though not very clearly.
+
+"She's to take the kids and the apples with a little salt!" cried Ivy.
+
+"Just try one!"
+
+Alene sank her teeth rather gingerly into the rounded green cheek of
+the proffered apple.
+
+"It's rather sour!" she said, trying to repress a grimace but unable to
+keep the tears from her eyes.
+
+Laura took from her apron pocket a tiny glass saltcellar and shook some
+of its contents lightly over the next bite which Alene heroically
+swallowed.
+
+"It's not so very bad," she murmured.  So intent was she on accepting
+Laura's intended kindness graciously that she envied the ease with
+which Ivy and Nettie disposed of the apples, biting off great mouthfuls
+and chewing them, core and all, with evident enjoyment.
+
+Laura forgot to eat any herself, being content to watch Alene's
+performance and never dreaming what a task it was for her.
+
+"Say, Laura!" came a voice in a loud, hissing tone intended for a
+whisper; "she's got lace on her petticoat."
+
+"And silk stockings and slippers!"
+
+"Hush--'tisn't polite to whisper before comp'ny," admonished Laura.
+
+"I don't mind the little thing," said Alene in a confidential aside to
+Laura, regardless of the fact that the "little thing" was nearly as
+large as herself.
+
+"But she acts years and years older," was Laura's inward comment.  "I
+guess she's used to 'sociating with grown folks."
+
+"I don't like to wear lace-trimmed things, either," continued Alene.
+
+"Why, I think they're lovely," said Laura, tenderly fingering one of
+the flounces which billowed like waves against her own blue print.
+
+"But you don't have to wear them and be 'called down' by your governess
+every minute for fear they'll get torn or dirty!"
+
+"Have you a governess?" inquired Laura in a tone of awe.
+
+"Yes, but she took sick just after mother went away and had to go to
+the hospital.  You see mother expected her to come here and take care
+of me.  Uncle hasn't told mother 'cause he don't want to spoil their
+trip and he thinks it won't hurt me to learn to take care of myself.
+It's the first time I ever went round without a nurse or someone
+tagging after me, telling me to do this or not to do that--it's lovely
+to be free, girls!"
+
+"'Give me liberty or give me death!'" said Laura in a tragic tone, and
+Alene squeezed her hand.
+
+"Oh, Laura, it's so nice to talk with someone who understands!  But in
+spite of being so free, I get so _lonely_!"
+
+Laura's eyes shone with sudden comprehension.
+
+"Oh, you poor little lonely baby," she said to herself, and then aloud,
+
+"Alene, I wish you could join the Happy-Go-Luckys."
+
+"The Happy-Go-Luckys?  What are they?"
+
+"A kind of _club_--you know."
+
+"A club," said Alene, in such a doubtful tone that Laura took a sudden
+fit of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Alene, you're so funny!  It's not a club to _hit_ with, but just
+us--a crowd of girls--to go together for fun and to do things."
+
+"Oh, Laura!  Would you really let me join, if Uncle will allow?"
+
+"I'd love to, but we have some rules and bylaws--to be eligible the
+candidate's age must be at least twelve!" Laura from long practice was
+able to repeat the big words glibly.
+
+"And I won't be twelve till July the seventeenth!  Oh, Laura!"
+
+"That's not so far off!"
+
+"But what'll become of me till then?  I'll die of loneliness!"
+
+"I was going to say that July seventeenth is so near, and you seem so
+much older, that we'll have a special election, and--well, we'll
+stretch the rules to let you in."
+
+Alene gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"As I'm not so very large, you won't have to stretch them very far,"
+she said, encouragingly.
+
+"If she's little, she's old, like Andy Daly's pig!"  Again came that
+sibilant whisper.
+
+"Alene, don't mind her!"
+
+"But why does she say that?"
+
+"It's an old Irish saying.  You see, Andy Daly took his pig to market
+and they objected to its size--'If it's little, it's old' said Andy
+Daly; and so they say, 'If it's little, it's old, like Andy Daly's
+pig!'"
+
+Alene laughed and called over to the whisperer:
+
+"If I'm little, I'm old enough to be a Happy-Go-Lucky--so there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+UNCLE FRED
+
+"Where is Peggy-Alone, Prince?" inquired Mr. Frederick Dawson.
+
+The dog had come bounding over the grass to meet him at the Tower House
+gate, strange to say unaccompanied by the little girl who was usually
+the first to greet him each evening on his return from the office.
+
+With Prince barking and snapping at his hand, the young man hurried
+along the path and into the great hall.
+
+"Yes, Prince, I know she's hiding somewhere, to jump out and scare her
+poor old Uncle and set his nerves all a-tremble!  It was thoughtful of
+you to give me warning!" he said aloud.  He hung up his hat, keeping a
+sharp lookout for the delinquent but she was nowhere in sight; no
+dancing footsteps were heard coming from any part of the house.
+
+"I hope she isn't sick," he soliloquized, beginning to feel uneasy.
+"She's getting pale and listless.  The poor little thing must be lonely
+here all day with no one but the servants.  I wish she knew some
+children to play with!  Confounded luck for the governess to fall sick
+and leave me as a sort of head nurse!"  His grumbling anxious thoughts
+ended in an abrupt exclamation.
+
+"Hello, there!"
+
+Through the open door of the library he saw a little white-robed maid,
+seated in a great leather revolving chair, with her eyes fixed upon an
+object on the table beside her.  If she noticed the young man's
+entrance or heard his voice she gave no sign, nor did she pay any
+attention to Prince, who led the way into the room, and strove with a
+great show of canine solicitude, in merry barks and gambols, to attract
+his young mistress' attention.
+
+"Alene!" her Uncle said sharply, but the silence remained unbroken.
+
+Half alarmed, he came forward and shook her by the shoulder.
+
+"For heaven's sake, child, is anything the matter?"
+
+Still she made no reply; she kept gazing, gazing in one direction as
+though fascinated.
+
+Following her glance, he saw the fragments of a fancy Mexican
+tobacco-jar, which he had shown to her only the day before.
+
+"Alene, I'm ashamed of you!" he cried in an angry tone.  "Has the
+breaking of this jar brought you to such a state as this?  Why, anyone
+would think--I'd swear it was the truth myself were anyone else in
+question--yes, they would think me an ogre who ate little girls who
+chanced to break something!"  Turning away, he paced the floor with
+rapid steps backward and forward.  The longer he walked, the faster he
+went, and higher the angry red glowed in his cheeks.
+
+For a time Alene kept her unaccountable position.  Presently her eyes
+strayed sidewise toward her agitated companion, who, intent on his own
+angry mutterings, was unaware of her inspection.  The gleam of mirth
+that overspread her countenance was quickly banished; she rose and
+stood beside her chair and then crossed the floor to his side.
+
+A little hand stole into his, a pair of blue eyes gazed contritely
+upward.
+
+"Oh, Uncle, you said it was a present and I felt so badly!  You aren't
+angry?"
+
+"Ain't I?  Do I look as if I'd beat a child?"
+
+Suddenly his angry mood passed away, and he threw himself into a chair,
+in a paroxysm of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Polly-Wog, what shall I do to make you pay up for this?"
+
+"The jar?  Did it cost so awfully much?"
+
+"The jar you gave me when I came in, I thought you were in a trance!  I
+had a wild notion to lose no time in bringing the doctor!"
+
+She glanced ruefully at the broken vase.
+
+"I was just wondering if it could be pieced together again--"
+
+"Before the ogre got back?"
+
+Alene perched herself on the arm of his chair with one arm around his
+shoulders.
+
+"You're more like a fairy godmother--father, I mean."
+
+"How did the terrible accident occur?"
+
+"I picked it up to admire it and my hand got sort o' dizzy and let it
+fall."
+
+"And you didn't think of running away and pretending you knew nothing
+about it, or blaming it on the maid?"
+
+"Now, Uncle Fred--as if I'd be so dishonorable!"
+
+"Well, I might, if I had such an ogre for an uncle as yours appears to
+be!  I shouldn't fancy being ground to sausages!"
+
+"Like Andy Daly's pig was, I guess!  I must tell you about him, but
+there's something else to ask you first--something very important!
+Since you're the good fairy, you ought to grant me three wishes but
+I'll let you off with one."
+
+"I'll not insist on granting the three until I hear Number One--Here
+goes!  One, two, three--"
+
+"Can I--may I--join the Happy-Go-Luckys?" implored Alene in an
+impressive voice, with clasped hands.
+
+"The Happy-Go-Luckys!  You're sure you don't mean the Ku Klux Klan?
+Hark, there's Kizzie coming to announce dinner.  Come along and you can
+tell me all about it while we eat."
+
+She took his arm with a mock fine-lady air, and walked beside him with
+mincing steps across the hall to the dining-room.
+
+It was a square apartment with windows opening upon a green vista of
+gardens, now shut away by latticed blinds, through which the fresh
+spring air found way.
+
+The bay window was filled with immense potted palms; another window led
+to a balcony where baskets with myrtle and other vines hung round like
+a heavy green curtain.  The room was finished in light colored
+woodwork.  A square rug in a pattern of tiny green and white tiles
+partly covered the polished floor; in the center stood a cosy round
+table, whose snowy napery and old silver and china were lit by a bronze
+lamp with an ornamental shade that resembled a gorgeous peony.
+
+Seated opposite her Uncle, Alene, in her eagerness to relate her
+afternoon's adventure, almost forgot to touch the tempting dishes which
+Kizzie, the maid, served so deftly.
+
+Her usually pale cheeks glowed and her eyes beamed brightly while she
+told of her new friends and the club.
+
+Mr. Dawson listened with flattering attention.
+
+"You may, you shall, you must, join the Happy-Go-Luckys!  As a society
+for the prevention of loneliness to Peggy-Alone or any other forlorn
+little girl, it strikes me as a good thing," he declared.
+
+"Oh, Uncle, you're a dear old thing!"
+
+"An article of _virtu_ as it were.  Be careful how you handle me!"
+
+Alene gave him a reproachful look.
+
+"There, don't start that deadly stare again!  I'm not insinuating
+anything!"
+
+His air of alarm amused Alene.  She laughed merrily.  Her joy over his
+permission to join the Happy-Go-Luckys banished from her Uncle's mind
+any doubts he may have had of her mother's approval.  However, he knew
+something of Alene's new friends, being personally acquainted with Mr.
+Lee, whose work as a riverman allowed him little time at home, while
+Mrs. Bonner was a widow who kept a small boarding house; both families,
+though poor, were highly respectable.
+
+"Since I'm left in charge of Alene, I'll use my own judgment, which
+tells me that it's the very thing for her.  She looks improved already
+and I'll not let any snobbish question deprive her of happiness."
+Which settled the matter there and then for all concerned.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"What's the matter now, Alene, that you pucker your brows over that
+ponderous tome?"
+
+It was after supper, and Uncle Fred, seated in an easy chair beside the
+reading table in the library, was lazily puffing a pipe.
+
+A stand near by held a large dictionary over whose pages Alene's head
+was bent.
+
+Glancing up with a puzzled expression, she said: "I don't quite
+understand; this book says it means 'plain,' and I'm sure lots of
+children are quite ugly long before they are that age, and I don't
+think the girls are plain--Laura has lovely eyes and I never heard I
+was.  Am I ugly, Uncle?"
+
+"Well, one wouldn't pick you out in a crowd when all the lights were
+out, for a fright--"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Fred, do be sober a minute!"
+
+"Alene, I'm ashamed of you to hint that your guardian is ever anything
+else!"
+
+"I mean grave!"
+
+"A 'most potent, reverend and grave' old fellow am I!"
+
+"Why, sometimes, Uncle Fred, you act as if you weren't any more than
+nine," said Alene, returning to the book with an air of tolerant
+resignation that amused the young man.  He crossed to her side.
+
+"Tell me what you are hunting; perhaps I can help you."
+
+Alene ignored his air of exaggerated solemnity.
+
+"You see, Laura said one must be twelve years old to be legible--to the
+Club, you know."
+
+"Then if I'm not too old, I'm old enough to belong!  But if I were you,
+I'd quit the L's and try something else very like it, with an E
+before," suggested Uncle Fred.
+
+"Eligible, of course--how stupid of me!"
+
+On the way upstairs that night Alene paused and gave way to a fit of
+laughter.
+
+"What's the fun now?" called Uncle Fred from his cosy position by the
+table.
+
+"It seems so funny to think that I," here came a series of mirthful
+sounds, "to think that you would think that I was afraid of you."
+
+Uncle Fred's chair was overturned by his energetic uprising in pursuit
+of the little tease, who heeded the warning and was safely out of sight
+on the landing, with one parting giggle as the door of her room was
+shut with a resounding clap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+GUMDROPS
+
+"Not a red gum drop was cast!" cried Laura as she jumped lightly from
+the garden wall and joined Alene, who for some time had been pacing the
+orchard impatiently with Prince jumping beside her.
+
+Alene's look of pleased anticipation changed to dismay.
+
+"I'm so sorry!"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Why, Uncle Fred would have given me money to buy some, if I knew you
+wanted them!"
+
+Laura's laugh rang out merrily.
+
+"Why, Alene, it's _votes_!  We don't buy them like 'lectioneers do--we
+get enough to give each member one red and one white gumdrop.  Those
+who are for a candidate put in a white and those against her a red!"
+
+Alene danced with joy.
+
+"Then I'm elected!"
+
+"You are now a member of the Happy-Go-Luckys and your name is duly
+inscribed on the books!" said Laura, in her judicial tone.
+
+"And they all put in the white drops!  How lovely of them!"
+
+"Yes, all but Ivy; she put hers in her mouth to taste it, and before
+she knew, it was gone!"
+
+"Dear me, and what did she do then?"
+
+"She whispered it to me at the last minute, just after I got out the
+little mustard box where we cast our votes, and so I allowed her to put
+in a button instead.  After it was over, some of us wanted to save the
+gumdrops for the first meeting you attended, but those greedy
+youngsters had devoured 'em all but two which I managed to keep."
+
+Laura pressed into Alene's hand a small tinsel-paper package.
+
+"You must eat half of each," said Alene, wisely surmising that it was
+Laura's own portion that had been saved, and resolving to leave for
+another day the blue ribbon-tied box of candy Uncle Fred had given her
+that morning, which she had just placed in the grass at the foot of a
+tree, awaiting Laura's arrival.
+
+Seated on the green beneath the trees, they ate the gumdrops, whose
+scarcity perhaps made them seem the more delicious, and exchanged
+confidences concerning themselves and the Happy-Go-Luckys.
+
+Alene, who was an only child, envied Laura's claim to two small sisters
+and a baby brother and one brother older than herself.
+
+"Ivy is the only girl in the Bonner family."
+
+"Like me!"
+
+"Not quite--she has six brothers, four of them older than she is!"
+
+"Gracious, I'd be lost in such a crowd of boys!"
+
+As for the Club, it had formal meetings when an excursion to the woods
+or an exhibition was in view; then verbal notice was given to assemble
+at the home of one of the members.  The other meetings were when two or
+more members met by chance or appointment for any object, whether
+study, play or conversation.
+
+"So you see this is a meeting of two members, and I think I see a
+third," concluded the President, Miss Lee, craning her neck in the
+direction of the side street.
+
+"Hello, Lol," cried a shrill voice, and Ivy's curly head peeped over
+the wall.
+
+"I'll go and help her over," said Laura, rising quickly.  As the wall
+was not very high, Alene idly wondered why such an active-looking girl
+should need assistance in scaling it.
+
+"Why, I never dreamed she was lame," she murmured a moment later,
+swallowing something that seemed to choke her, when she saw Ivy coming
+forward on a pair of slender crutches.  She strove to hide her emotion
+as she hurried down the grassy terrace to greet her.
+
+Ivy may have noticed her start of surprise, for she said with a queer,
+unchildish laugh, as though she had read her thought:
+
+"You didn't know I used these," with an expressive glance toward the
+crutches.  "You see I kept 'em on the other side of the wall the other
+day.  I wanted you to treat me as you would if I were like the rest,
+not handled gently and pitied!"
+
+Alene tried to keep the pity from her countenance, for Ivy's words made
+her feel worse than ever.  She wished she could run away somewhere, for
+a while, to have a good cry.
+
+"Don't mind her, Alene!  I do believe she talks that way to make us
+feel bad," said Laura in what Alene thought a very unfeeling manner;
+but she learned later that Laura's seeming harshness toward Ivy was
+only a cloak to hide her sympathy, and that it gave her an influence
+over the child who would otherwise use her infirmity to tyrannize over
+the others.
+
+Ivy threw her crutches on the grass and sank down, saying,
+
+"Horrid things!  I hate them--and it makes me feel so mean to have to
+beg to get them back when the kids take 'em away from me!"
+
+"Do they do that?" inquired Alene, indignantly.
+
+"They have to do it sometimes, for she beats them with the crutches,"
+explained Laura.
+
+"That's the only way I can reach 'em!" said her friend, in self-defense.
+
+Ivy was an elfin-looking creature with sparkling black eyes that seemed
+to see right through one; her small head was covered with a thick mop
+of curls of a blackness that, in some lights, had blue and green shades
+like the plumage of a bird; her wasted cheeks and brown, claw-like
+hands told pathetically of weary months on a sick-bed, which indeed she
+had only recently quitted, as Alene learned later.
+
+"What a lovely sash you have on," she exclaimed, with a sudden change
+of mood, holding up an end of Alene's plaid sash.  "It's like a baby
+rainbow stolen from a fairy sky and hung 'round your waist."
+
+Alene glanced at her sash with a new interest.  She cared little for
+pretty clothes and seldom noticed what those around her wore; that she
+was dressed finer and more fashionably than Laura and Ivy had not once
+occurred to her.
+
+"That sounds like poetry," she observed.
+
+"Yes, she writes poetry, too!" Laura returned proudly.  "You must let
+Alene see some of it--and she keeps a book where she writes all about
+the sky when the sun sets--she sees lovely rivers and golden hills and
+ladies riding in skiffs--"
+
+"Now, Lol!" cried Ivy with a hectic color reddening her cheeks.  "It's
+just silly stuff, you know, that I put down to pass away the time when
+I'm laid up," she explained.  "I thought of it one evening when the
+boarders were at supper; the boys were eating and mother of course too
+busy to stay with me.  Hugh brought in my supper on a tray and hurried
+back to the dining-room and I sat there alone and ate my meal and
+watched the sky from my couch, which was drawn up close to the window.
+What wonderful things I saw then!"
+
+"Tell me about them, won't you?" implored Alene.
+
+"There were great purple mountains and emerald lakes and wonderful
+golden caves--people, too--angels with harps flying through the white
+clouds, ladies with crowns and long robes gliding along and little
+children swimming the river on the back of great swans like in the
+fairy books.  Every evening it changed and at last I commenced to write
+about the different things I saw each day, and so I called it my Sunset
+Book.  As for sunrises--"  Ivy gave a sudden arch glance at Laura.
+
+"Lazybones, I don't believe you ever saw one!"
+
+"I'd love to see your book!" cried Alene; "and there are some beautiful
+sunsets looking from the Tower!"
+
+Ivy glanced up toward the tower of the Big House that rose almost as
+high as a church spire from the top of the hill.
+
+"I do believe one could see behind the hills over there in the west, to
+the other side of the world from those windows," she exclaimed.
+
+"Well, you and Laura come up this evening and--"
+
+"Won't your folks object?"
+
+"There's no folks there but Uncle Fred and he's no objector.  Promise
+to come and see how far we can see!"
+
+"'Over the hills and far away.'"
+
+"Yes, we promise," cried Laura.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GARDEN OF GOOD INTENTIONS
+
+"Oh, Lol, I could hardly keep my face straight!  To think we were
+actually invited up to the Big House really and truly, and were right
+there where we had so often pretended to live, you as Countess Terilla
+and I the Lady Clare-Come-to-See; I could hardly make this face of mine
+behave."
+
+"Your eyes just shook inside; little, shining imps danced in them,
+wanting to come out.  Yes, I saw them and--"
+
+"And I was so glad of the chance to giggle out loud when you said
+something that wasn't at all funny but gave us a chance to pretend it
+was.  I could have screamed!"
+
+"After all, it wasn't near so fine as our palace, with its red room and
+its green room and its blue room with everything to match."
+
+"But that library was beautiful.  You couldn't help but see lovely
+things if you were writing there!"
+
+"Alene is such a dear little thing!  She never gave a thought to her
+home being so much finer than ours; she only thought of giving us a
+good time!" said Laura.
+
+"She's no snob!  She thinks people are what they are in themselves!"
+
+"And thoughts are the most precious things--that's the reason she
+wanted to give you the pleasure of seeing His Gorgeous Lordship from
+the tower window!"
+
+For a moment Ivy was silent; her gaze was far away; again she was
+looking from that little narrow window so close to the clouds.
+
+"Do you know, Lol, if I owned the Big House I'd live in the tower when
+I wasn't in the library.  But it wasn't me in particular, Lol, that
+Alene wanted.  To her I'm only a lesser planet when you're near--it's
+hearts that count!"
+
+"Yes, she's so good-hearted that you forget her pretty clothes and rich
+relations, and come to lock on her as just a little girl like the
+others!"  Ivy smiled indulgently as Laura applied her remarks to Alene,
+and the unconscious Laura continued, "At first when I proposed that she
+should join the Happy-Go-Luckys, it was just because she looked so
+lonely with only the dog to play with, in that great house with its
+acres of grounds; and when she said her Uncle called her 'Peggy-Alone',
+I could see the tears back of her smile and it came to me, 'what if
+Nettie or Lois were to be left all alone?'  They're so used to tagging
+after me all their lives, you know, and so I just asked her in, though
+I was dreadfully afraid you would all be against it."
+
+"And so we were!  Just because we knew she was rich and might be in the
+way when we wanted some fun, or would look down on us because we're
+poor.  That," glancing at her crutches, "makes some people mild and
+sweet-tempered, they say, but it only makes me hatefuller and selfisher
+every day!  Lol, I'm going to tell you something so you'll see what a
+selfish thing I am.  I swallowed that gumdrop on purpose so I wouldn't
+have to vote!  I didn't have the courage to vote against her because
+you were so eager to have her join."
+
+"And then you got sorry as you always do."
+
+"No, don't give me too much credit!  I got ashamed when I compared my
+conduct with others; but you were unselfish--you didn't stop to
+consider the disadvantages to yourself.  You only thought of her."
+
+While Laura, with reddened cheeks, disclaimed this with as much
+earnestness as if taxed with a crime, Ivy went on unheeding:
+
+"I thought it over this morning when I took out my Sunset Book, and
+instead of writing down what we saw from the tower window--which no one
+_could_ describe, no painter nor poet that ever lived, glimpses of
+glory that God lets shine down, sometimes, when the Pearly Gate is
+opened just a narrow chink (to let some little white angel in perhaps)
+and the clouds reflect it, just as the river does the trees, you
+know--well, I wrote this instead!"
+
+Laura took the precious book and perused it seriously.
+
+"May I keep it and read it to Alene?  I know she'd enjoy it!"
+
+Ivy demurred, but at last consented and on Laura's next meeting with
+Alene she brought forth a green paper-covered copy-book and, with a few
+preliminary remarks, proceeded to read:
+
+"'Once upon a time--'"
+
+"It begins all right, anyway," interrupted Alene, settling herself
+comfortably against a tree, and half closing her eyes, as if to hear
+the better.
+
+"'Once upon a time,'" Laura's voice went on, "'I wandered far away
+until I came to a narrow path, on one side of which was a beautiful
+garden blooming with flowers and fruit, with gay birds skimming through
+the air, while on the other side the grass and flowers lay withered,
+the trees leaned over, leafless and dead, and perched in their branches
+were mute, broken-winged birds.  I went on until I came to the Witch of
+the Woods, who stood leaning on her hazel staff, with her red cloak
+wrapped around her, and her long, silvery hair falling, tangled, en her
+shoulders.
+
+"'What ails the little maiden that she looks so puzzled?  Perhaps I can
+smooth the wrinkles from her brow!' she said in a harsh, cracked voice.
+
+"'Oh, wise woman!' I cried, for I felt so badly about what I had seen
+that I never thought of being afraid--'please tell me the mystery of
+the blighted garden!'
+
+"'My child, you have come through the Garden of Good Intentions--on one
+side are those which never came to blossom but died in the bud, whilst
+on the other are those which sprouted and grew and bloomed in beauty
+year after year, evergreen--'
+
+"'And the voiceless birds?'
+
+"'The mute birds of the broken wings are kind deeds, thought of, but
+left undone, while those performed multiply and fly, gay singing-birds,
+making many hearts glad!'"
+
+The reader's voice ceased; the book fell in her lap; a silence
+followed; Prince lay blinking in the sunshine; the birds and insects
+gave no token of their presence--even the leaves of the trees hung
+motionless.
+
+The girls, sitting in the shade side by side, vaguely realized the
+calm; the heat gave them only a sense of well-being; their thoughts
+were at first too shadowy for words.
+
+Alene was thinking of Ivy's story.  It reminded her of the text she had
+heard the previous Sunday in the little vine-covered church on the
+crest of the hill; "Be ye kind one to another, merciful, forgiving one
+another even as God hath forgiven you in Christ."  She wished that she
+too might go through the Garden of Good Intentions whilst flowers
+sprang up and birds sang sweetly round about her.  But what could she
+do, what deed of kindness perform, however small, that might perhaps
+bloom as a wild flower by the wayside to gladden the passer-by?
+
+She gave a start when with a sudden bark Prince leaped up and ran to
+chase some stray chickens; a breeze blew up till every leaf and blade
+of grass quivered with joy; a bird twittered softly and was answered by
+his mate and presently from each bush and tree came the voices of its
+lodgers in a song of praise.
+
+Then Laura spoke, showing that her thoughts had divined Alene's in a
+sympathetic wave.
+
+"Now, what do you think, Alene, of a 'Kind Deeds' article in the
+Happy-Go-Luckys' constitution, pledging each member to the sending out
+of little birds with strong wings that can fly?"
+
+"And planting seeds to spring up in fragrant flowers?  Oh, Laura!"
+cried Alene, "that would be beautiful!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A DISGUSTED POET
+
+When Laura rashly undertook the role of stage manager, or to say more
+truly, when the position devolved upon her as a matter of course,
+because she was the president of the Happy-Go-Luckys, she accepted the
+honor and the duties in blithe confidence, never dreaming of
+difficulties.
+
+For a time everything went smoothly, and that lively sympathy for
+others in like position which marked her after years would never,
+perhaps, have been called forth was it not for her discovery one day in
+the attic of an old reader which contained something she thought could
+be used as a dialogue in the coming exhibition.
+
+It was a poem in which each of four children expresses a cherished
+ambition to the mother, who comments on the wish with approval or
+censure.
+
+The piece required two boys, and Laura's brother Mat and his chum, Hugh
+Bonner, were called upon, and after some grumbling on their part and as
+much coaxing on the part of the girls they "came in to help the
+Happy-Go-Luckys out," as they expressed it.
+
+They were assigned their characters; Laura took the role of mother,
+giving the girls' parts to Alene and Ivy.
+
+  "I ask for beauty, for an eye
+  Bright as the stars in yonder sky;
+  For tresses on the air to fling
+  And put to shame the raven's wing;
+  Cheeks where the lily and the rose
+  Are blended in a sweet repose;
+  For pearly teeth and coral lip,
+  Tempting the honey bee to sip,
+  And for a fairy foot as light
+  As is a young gazelle's in flight,
+  And then a small, white, tapering hand--
+  I'd reign, a beauty, in the land!"
+
+
+This was Alene's verse, but Ivy read it over and over instead of her
+own, and the oftener she read, the more discontented she grew.
+
+"Why should Alene wish for 'a fairy foot, as light as is the young
+gazelle's in flight' when she has one already--two of 'em for that
+matter?" she thought.  "The other wish is fine, I know--'a noble gift,'
+the mother says, but I don't care, I can't do justice to it as I could
+to the other!  Of course, I don't care much for the 'eye, bright as the
+stars,' and all that rubbish, but I can imagine being light and gay and
+dancing!"
+
+Although Ivy learned her part she went through it at rehearsal in such
+a spiritless way that Laura could not have failed to remark it if she
+were not occupied with so many other things.
+
+When Alene's turn came and she stepped forward rather timidly to
+recite, Ivy listened eagerly to her rendition.  It proved to be
+letter-perfect but expressionless.  Ivy was justified in thinking that
+she herself could have done much better.
+
+"She says it just in the way you might wish for a piece of plum cake or
+another gum-drop," she mused bitterly.
+
+No one suspected her dissatisfaction except Hugh, who someway
+understood all the moods of the frail little sister whom he worshiped.
+
+In her sick spells, dating from a fall five years before, no one could
+move her so tenderly, nor place her in so comfortable a position as
+this sturdy lad of fifteen.
+
+He resented Ivy's affliction even more than she did herself.
+
+"I don't see why it couldn't have been one of us big lubbers of boys
+instead of her," he grumbled to his mother.  "She seems to be made to
+run and dance and play--almost to fly like a bird."
+
+"It's the Lord's will," returned Mrs. Bonner with a sigh.
+
+"Umph!  I don't know!  When doctors fail to cure a disease, it seems
+pesky mean to blame it on the Lord!  If we were only rich enough, I bet
+we could find some clever doctor who could make her O.K.!  Why couldn't
+it have been a rich girl instead of her?"
+
+"Oh, Hugh!  That is wrong!  Why need it be any poor little creature?"
+said the mother, who thought to herself that in this case money would
+indeed be a desirable thing; she never envied the rich except when she
+thought of Ivy.
+
+But the boy, with all youth's revolt, hated the seeming injustice and
+his resentment often extended to those whose wealth made the difference
+so marked.
+
+When Ivy, trying to conceal her own disapproval, spoke of Alene's
+joining the Happy-Go-Luckys, Hugh was opposed to it.
+
+"I know just how it will be, and you girls are makin' a big guess when
+you take her in," he had warned.
+
+"But she seemed so lonely, and Laura wanted it so much--"
+
+"So did that city chap who used to go with us boys.  He looked all
+right, but my, nothin' suited him.  He laughed at our dug-bait, and
+fishin' rods, and our old-fashioned skiff and things, and talked about
+his pa's yacht and motor-cars and his ma's diamonds, until we were sick
+of 'em all!"
+
+"But Alene is different," replied Ivy, and her brother said no more but
+wore a look of "just wait and you'll find out that I told you so," that
+was exasperating.
+
+As time passed and he heard nothing but praises of Alene, and saw for
+himself her unassuming manners and her evident good will, he was
+obliged to confess that she was a good little thing in spite of her
+citified dress and her haughty relations; but in this dialogue affair
+he thought it too bad that the fortunate little maid, who had
+everything else, should stand in Ivy's way.
+
+"I'll give a hint to Laura," he suggested.
+
+"Oh, no, no, Hugh!  Don't say a word to anyone!  Not for the world!"
+
+"After all, your part is fine.  The other is silly stuff--sounds like
+some empty-headed thing!"
+
+"Oh, Hugh, it's beautiful!  Anyway, I could just enter into part of it!
+I'm tired of being tied to crutches and people thinkin', because of
+them, one never even wants any foolishness and fun, like other girls!"
+
+Hugh looked troubled.
+
+"It's a wonder Laura didn't think you might--"
+
+"Laura didn't think anything about it!  She just saw it was about a
+poet, and so the very thing for me!"
+
+"Maybe Alene would--"
+
+"Yes, I know she'd give it up if she knew I wanted it!  She's an
+unselfish little thing.  She took it because it was all that was left
+when Laura disposed of the 'soulful poet' part," Ivy said.  Then after
+a silence, "I wonder why bad health makes me cranky and selfish and
+envious, instead of patient and meek, like the little girls in story
+books!"
+
+Hugh smiled.  He couldn't imagine his sprightly sister in the story
+book role of uncomplaining heroine, and he wouldn't wish to have her
+so, not for the world.  Ivy was Ivy with all her faults; he wouldn't
+wish to have her otherwise except a happier Ivy, with the blessing of
+health and strength, flitting gaily through life, having part in the
+work and the play of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A SCORNFUL BEAUTY
+
+Ivy could not have complained of Alene's want of animation had she
+followed her home after rehearsal one afternoon a few days later.
+
+She entered the library, threw her hat on a chair and herself upon a
+snug little sofa that stood invitingly in the embrasure of a window,
+which, by drawing the crimson curtains, could be shut off from the rest
+of the room, leaving a cosy den--her favorite place for dreaming and
+reading, where her eyes, straying from her book, rested on an
+ever-varying picture of sky and river, which the window framed.
+
+To-day, not waiting to shut herself away, and paying no attention to
+the smiling landscape, she opened a sheet of foolscap paper that she
+had held clasped tightly in her hand, and gravely perused the lines of
+Ivy's angular writing which covered it.  A similar sheet had been given
+to the other actors in the dialogue so that each might learn his part
+at leisure.
+
+"'I ask for beauty--' yes, you little numskull, ask for it,--that's all
+people think you're good for!  Laura, of course, never thought of it
+that way but others will!  And I don't wish for it, I'd rather be a
+poet any day!
+
+  'I ask the poet's gift, the lyre,
+  With skillful hand to sweep each wire,
+  I'd pour my burning thoughts in song,
+  In lays deep, passionate and strong,
+  Till heart should thrill at every word
+  As mind is thrilled at song of bird!
+  Oh, I would die and leave some trace
+  That earth had been my dwelling place,
+  Would live in hearts forevermore
+  When this frail, fitful life is o'er!
+  Oh, for the gifted poet's power--
+  This is my wish, be this my dower!"
+
+
+Alene jumped to her feet, and standing in the window facing the room,
+recited the words with a dash and a fire that brought forth a "Bravo!"
+from Uncle Fred, who on his way through the hall had heard her voice
+and, stopping softly at the door, witnessed her performance.
+
+It formed a pretty picture, the little tragedienne, standing where the
+crimson draperies made an effective background for her slender,
+white-robed figure, with the long strands of rumpled brown hair
+straying over her shoulder, and her earnest, gray eyes deepening to
+black or sparkling into blue, her whole face lit with passion.
+
+"You do your part well, Peggy," said the young man.
+
+Alene's blushes of pleasure faded suddenly.
+
+"But it's not my part, it's Ivy's!  Why does everyone think when you're
+rich that's all you are good for or can wish for!  This is my part,"
+and she pointed tragically at the detested verse.
+
+"Ah, I see," said Uncle Fred, glancing at the lines.  "It's a pretty
+thing.  'Tis a pity to have it spoiled, as I fear it will be, since you
+dislike it.  "Why not suggest a change?"
+
+"I'm afraid Laura would feel hurt; besides it is more suitable to Ivy
+as she is a poet!"
+
+"The very reason she may wish for something else!"
+
+"Anyway, she said the verse in a sing-song style that just spoiled it!"
+declared Alene.
+
+"Poor stage manager!  It's almost as bad as being the leader of a
+choir!  Pity Laura's not a mind reader!  But why not be perfectly
+honest with her, and tell her how you feel about it; perhaps Ivy has no
+preference in the matter."
+
+Alene thought that was out of the question; besides it would be selfish
+to want Ivy's part, just because she herself preferred it; poor Ivy,
+who, though so clever, was never quite happy.
+
+"Then act on the Golden Rule; but don't spoil it by murdering the
+dialogue in revenge," said Uncle Fred.  To which Alene assented, though
+she declared it was very hard.
+
+"Since Laura's stars refuse to shine, why doesn't she call on me?  Now,
+I rather fancy the part," said the young man; and taking the paper with
+an air of solemnity that the twinkling of his eyes belied, he proceeded
+to read the verse with an exaggerated air, emphasizing the wrong words
+and using gestures which seemed so funny to Alene that she threw
+herself on the rug and screamed with laughter.  The noise attracted
+Mrs. Major and Kizzie, who reached the door in time to witness the
+bewildering wind-up, as the actor, dwelling softly on the words,
+
+  "And for a fairy foot as light
+  As is the young gazelle's in flight."
+
+gave his right foot an upward movement bringing his toe in contact with
+the chandelier, and then executed a backward kicking act I am sure no
+gazelle, old or young, would wish to emulate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THEATRICALS
+
+The rehearsals went on.  Alene and Ivy recited their parts in the
+dialogue in the same listless way, secretly criticising each other's
+rendition, but Laura, busy in directing and arranging so many things,
+failed to notice the discontent of those two important members of the
+Company.
+
+It was only their love of the manager that kept them silent, and even
+then it was a hard task, considering Alene's ingenuousness and Ivy's
+impulsiveness, both traits alike foes to concealment.
+
+At the last meeting before the great event, everything seemed to go
+wrong; the little ones forgot their lines or refused to obey the stage
+manager, declaring she was cranky, and threatening to throw up their
+parts and go out on the hillside to play; the boys were in a
+mischievous mood and teased their sisters unmercifully; Laura was on
+the point of tears, which fact Alene discovered by her unusual rigidity
+of countenance.
+
+Laura crying would be something terrible!  Alene had seen the others
+whimper and complain.  She had been present when Ivy, in her sudden
+fierce passions of anger, would attack the little ones viciously with
+her crutches, unless they had previously stolen them away; in which
+event she would gnash her teeth, and stamp her feet, in powerless rage,
+and only Laura could bring peace by banishing her tormentors.  But no
+matter what happened, Laura seemed a rock upon which to lean, and if,
+in adjusting a grievance, she sometimes failed to use tact, and the
+remedy proved worse than the disease, they knew in their hearts she was
+acting in good faith, trying to do what was right.
+
+Therefore it behooved Alene upon this occasion to redouble her efforts
+to be helpful and cheering.
+
+She won over the babies by promising them each a beautiful doll out of
+the trunkful she had at home; whereupon the big boys promised to be
+good if she would give them one also, but Alene took their chaffing
+good-naturedly and things began to proceed more smoothly.
+
+The last thing on the program, "The Wishes," was called.
+
+Laura, strange to say, for the first time found fault.
+
+"Oh, Ivy, _do_ put a little animation into it!  One would think you
+were delivering a funeral oration," she cried testily.
+
+Ivy's nerves, overwrought by the preceding irritations, gave way:
+
+"Well, no wonder, for I hate it!"
+
+"Hate that?  Why, it's the finest thing in the whole piece; even the
+mother says 'a noble gift,' while she chides Alene for wanting mere
+beauty!"
+
+Ivy's thin cheeks were like crimson roses.  "I'd rather be a dancing
+beauty than a broken-winged robin!" she declared defiantly.
+
+"And I'd rather be a poet than go mincing through the world with just a
+pretty face!" exclaimed Alene.
+
+"Oh, Alene, would you really like my part?" cried the astonished Ivy.
+"Why didn't you say so?"
+
+"Why, because I thought anyone would prefer it to that detestable
+beauty part!  Why didn't you speak out?"
+
+Now it would have taken quite a long explanation, each having, as we
+know, several reasons for not having spoken, so they only looked at
+each other and laughed.
+
+Laura glanced from one speaker to the other, her look of surprise
+changing to compunction.
+
+"Oh, girls, why didn't I ask you which verse you preferred instead of
+portioning it off as I thought you would like?" she queried ruefully.
+While they sought to reassure her, Mrs. Lee entered the room, and
+learning the cause of the excitement, said:
+
+"That's just like Laura!  The other morning I heard a great uproar.  In
+I came to find Laura helping to dress Lois, insisting upon putting a
+certain shoe on her foot, while she cried against it.  I investigated
+and found--"
+
+"That I was bent on cramming her fat little footsie into a shoe two
+sizes too small for her--I had picked up Elmer's shoe in mistake!"
+
+Although Ivy and Alene were somewhat embarrassed when they rehearsed
+the dialogue after exchanging roles and did not render the new parts
+with the power of which they were capable, the improvement was marked
+and brought forth much applause, which however was not to be compared
+with the hand clappings received the night of the performance--but that
+is another story.
+
+Mrs. Bonner's double parlors were used, the front for the audience,
+which filled the room.  All of the boarders attended, and the neighbors
+came, bringing their own chairs.  The back parlor, ordinarily used as a
+dining-room, was the stage, the sliding doors making a good substitute
+for a curtain.
+
+Mat had a funny speech by way of introduction; then Lois was called for
+a song about lovers meeting at the garden gate, which in her baby
+English she rendered, "Meet me at the Garbage Gate."  An original poem
+by Laura was unexpectedly brought to light by a mischievous friend, and
+read in a sing-song style by Lafe Bonner:
+
+  "That poor old slate
+  I always did hate,
+  But I had to use it
+  At any rate.
+  One day by accident (?)
+  It fell on the floor,
+  It broke to pieces,
+  And I saw it no more."
+
+
+Fortunately the author's blushes were hidden along with herself back in
+a corner of the stage.  "It's the only 'pome' I ever executed and I
+felt like executing Lafe when I heard him reciting it," she explained
+later.
+
+Nettie, looking more than ever like a great waxen doll in her pink
+gingham and golden curls, brought down the house by her recitation:
+
+  "Little Bobby, come to daddy!
+  Holdy up his tiny paddy,
+  Did he hurt his blessed heady?
+  Darling, come and get some bready,
+  Don'ty cry, poor little laddie,
+  Come and kiss his precious daddy."
+
+
+Baby Elmer represented Bobby, and the little maid went through the
+piece with appropriate gestures, unconscious of her audience and not
+forgetting a word,--to the joy of her instructor, Laura, whose heart
+beat nervously while she watched the performance.
+
+Mr. Frederick Dawson and a few of his companions had come in rather
+late and seats were found for them in the rear, as they refused to
+allow any at the front to be vacated for them.  It was just before the
+doors opened on the great dialogue where Laura was the mother, in a
+neat wrapper and gray wig and spectacles, standing in the midst of an
+interesting family.  The back of an easy chair served to support Ivy,
+who was dressed in white, with red sash and hair ribbons.
+
+What spirit she put in her lines, all leading up to, and centering in,
+the wish for the young gazelle's light footfall, the rest being only a
+prelude to that!
+
+Then the other little white-robed girl from her seat in the big chair
+rose to declare her wish.  A color that was not all excitement glowed
+in her cheeks, thrilling Uncle Fred with the conviction that the
+Happy-Go-Luckys by banishing loneliness had brought the blessing of
+health to Alene.
+
+It was her first appearance before the public, and the thought of it
+had brought her much nervous apprehension that she might forget her
+lines, falter, or even run away at the last moment.  To perform even
+before the other boys and girls at rehearsal had always brought a
+preliminary nerve tension which she had tried to conceal.  This,
+however, was nothing compared with her dread of the great night when
+she thought of facing a whole roomful of people; but now, strange to
+say, all her tremors died away.  She found it less difficult to recite
+before the crowd than at rehearsal; she forgot herself in the joy of
+her lines.  That she recited even better, if anything, than when her
+Uncle had overheard her in the library is all that need be said.
+
+When the ensuing applause died away and the doors refused to open
+again, Uncle Fred noticed the lips of a small boy seated near him
+puffed out in disdain.  Stooping with a show of solicitude to learn the
+cause, he heard him say to a companion:
+
+"'A lip to tempt the honey-bee to sip'--I bet she never felt a stinger
+or she wouldn't wish for such a silly thing!"
+
+"I don't see why that Dawson girl wants the poet's gift, 'the liar!'
+Do all poets tell whoppers, I wonder?" said the other boy, looking up
+into Uncle Fred's face with wide, wondering eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PICNICKING
+
+Such a merry crowd of Happy-Go-Luckys they were as they came marching
+along the country road that summer day, wearing gay caps of
+tissue-paper with floating streamers, while their brothers' hats were
+decorated with rosettes of the same material.
+
+The day was a perfect one for their picnic; sudden, saucy breezes
+tempered the warm atmosphere, making the paper ribbons dance merrily
+around the heads of the girls.
+
+As they came along with dancing steps and smiling faces, and lips of
+laughter and song, the sight of them was enough to lighten the heart of
+an onlooker and bring to his mind the shepherds and shepherdesses of
+old, who surely could not have been merrier nor a whit more picturesque.
+
+But suddenly the gay voices fell to murmurs.  A whispered command was
+borne along the line even to the last straggler.  Laura's voice, low
+but impressive, said, "Hats off!" and off came those gay bonnets and
+the rosette-trimmed hats, and along the road the children went in
+solemn silence, with stately step; for over the hill alongside the road
+they saw a neat little house whose upper windows overlooked the road,
+all the blinds upstairs and down were closed, and on the door swung
+long bands of black crepe.
+
+It was this sad emblem which had curbed so suddenly the mirth of the
+Happy-Go-Luckys, and made them pay respect in their own childish but
+expressive way to the grief of the mourners; and it was not until the
+little house had been left far behind that the awe was lifted from
+their spirits, and the joy of childhood reasserted itself.
+
+They had reached a road bordered with trees that almost met above them,
+forming a long green arbor into which the sunlight stole through every
+little chink, and Ivy was moving along almost forgetful of her
+crutches, her eyes intent on the green loveliness of the place and the
+pretty pink parasol with white lace trimmings which Alene carried, when
+suddenly the latter gave a shrill scream and threw the parasol away
+from her as far as she could.
+
+Immediately the others gathered around, while she stood grimacing,
+saying nothing but "Ugh!  Ugh!" to all their questions.  They were
+greatly puzzled, until someone picked up the pink parasol at which its
+owner pointed so tragically, to find that all the fuss was caused by
+two caterpillars which had fallen from the trees.
+
+"'Fraid cat!" said Hugh, contemptuously; "I've seen little tads of four
+and five let 'em crawl up their bare arms!"
+
+"I'm not a 'fraid cat!  But those ugly, crawly things make me feel
+creepy!" Alene returned with crimsoning cheeks.
+
+"Those ugly things, as you call them, turn into beautiful butterflies!"
+returned Hugh, in a tone that to Alene sounded offensively
+preacher-like.
+
+"Well, let them wait until they are butterflies before perching on my
+parasol," she retorted.
+
+"It's just one's nerves!  They _are_ ugly things, and Alene's not used
+to seeing them," said Laura.
+
+"And they say the great Napoleon couldn't bear to touch velvet, and he
+was no coward!" cried Ivy, who felt that her brother was often unjust
+to Alene.
+
+In spite of their protests, Hugh had his own opinion in the matter.
+There are some boys to whom Alene's timidity would have appealed, but
+he was not one of that kind.  He was the most outspoken and the least
+gentle of all the boys with whom the Happy-Go-Luckys associated.  But
+his downright honesty and fearlessness, his renown among the boys as an
+athlete, and especially his devotion to his little sister which Laura
+dilated upon, and of which new proofs were daily shown, had awakened
+Alene's admiration, and made her the more resent his calling her a
+coward.
+
+"I've stumbled over my toe!" wailed little Lois, carrying the stubbed
+toe and tearstained face to Laura for repairs.
+
+Mat ran to stroke the offending stone with an exaggerated air of
+sympathy.
+
+"Naughty girl!  The poor stone was standing in the road, never moving
+until you came along and gave it a kick," he said reproachfully, at
+which they all laughed, and the caterpillar affair was forgotten for
+the time by all except Alene, who had picked up her parasol and walked
+along with an air of unconcern that gave her friends no hint of the
+tears so bravely forced back.
+
+"'Fraid cat!" her thoughts ran; "why couldn't Hugh have been polite
+enough to keep from that slighting remark or at least laugh
+good-naturedly with the rest, and paid no more attention to it, instead
+of making so much of such a trivial affair!"
+
+She felt at first that the day was spoiled so far as she was concerned;
+but the gay chatter of the others, the new experience of tramping the
+country paths, climbing fences and crossing runs, discovering new
+beauties at every step, made her presently forget her chagrin.
+
+As the day wore on, the smaller children cast wistful glances toward
+the baskets, and even went so far as to peek through any little opening
+to make sure that certain favorite morsels, which they had seen put in,
+had not mysteriously disappeared.
+
+"Laura, you and mother must have loaded this basket with cobblestones,"
+cried Mat with a groan, leaning sideways almost to the ground.
+
+"Cobblestones!  You take very good care not to call them that when
+you're begging mother to cut her fresh pies!  I'll tell her what you
+call 'em in company!"
+
+"Well, it's funny how heavy this basket's grown in the last half hour!"
+
+"I've noticed they always do grow heavier toward noon," commented Hugh.
+"Can't we lighten 'em some way?"
+
+"Can't we?  Just let me try!  Keep off, Nettie, or I'll eat you up--I'm
+as hungry as Red Riding-hood's famous--or infamous--bear!"
+
+"It was a wolf!" declared Nettie, in the tone of one who knew.
+
+"So much the better to eat you up, my honey!"  Mat smacked his lips
+voraciously, displaying two rows of firm white teeth, and made a dart
+at the little girl.  She ran screaming to Laura, who, Ivy often
+declared, was the children's real and truly Noah's ark of refuge.
+
+Everybody was hungry and they only waited to reach a suitable place for
+lunch.
+
+"I know the very spot," said Hugh, leading the way.
+
+"Behold a Moses to lead us out of the wilderness!" cried Mat.
+
+"And behold the Promised Land!" Ivy screamed in delight, as her brother
+set his basket among the great knotted roots of a tree that helped to
+shade a stretch of green-sward which extended gradually to the river.
+
+"This Moses remains to dine," said Hugh.
+
+The girls spread a white cloth on the ground and proceeded to unpack
+the baskets.
+
+Although they had made frequent stops on the road, Laura feared the
+walk had over-taxed Ivy's strength, and wished her to rest; but she
+refused to be left out of any activity.  She it was who sat, a spirit
+of prodigality, in the midst of the baskets, dealing out the good
+things one by one, while Alene and Laura arranged them artistically,
+piling in the center a pyramid of fruit, and placing the cakes and pies
+and pickles in the most tempting proximity, not forgetting sandwiches,
+and plain bread and butter.  Indeed, as Mat remarked when he came up
+from the spring with a pail of cold water, "The very look of it was
+enough to give an imaginative person the nightmare."
+
+"Then don't eat any of it, Mr. Matthew," cried Ivy.
+
+"Thank heaven, I'm not imaginative!  I think I'll try a snack of that
+jelly-roll," he returned, reaching for the cake in Ivy's hand.
+
+"I think you won't!  Why, even those greedy children haven't been
+allowed a taste of anything, though it's a wonder their eyes have left
+a morsel!  What are you laughing at?" she inquired, as Mat's glance
+strayed beyond her.
+
+Net waiting for an answer she turned her head to find her little
+brother Claude standing at her shoulder, balancing in his out-stretched
+palm a slice of brown bread from which he had just taken a huge bite,
+whose buttered and jellied traces were seen on his plumped-out cheeks.
+Not far away was Lois with a monster pickle.  At a distance, with backs
+discreetly turned, were two other small sinners whom Ivy eyed
+suspiciously, and she turned at last with a hopeless shake of her head
+to Laura, whom she suspected was to be blamed.  But she was mistaken in
+her surmise for Alene was the real offender.  Not being used to the
+always hungry state of a half dozen small brothers and sisters, she
+could not withstand the children's pathetic glances.
+
+"You don't suppose it will spoil their appetite for dinner?" she
+inquired anxiously, when the truth was disclosed.
+
+"I haven't the faintest fear that it will," returned Ivy, in a dry tone.
+
+"The wisdom of the innocents!  Wish I had tackled Alene instead of
+you," deplored Mat.
+
+At that moment he was hailed by Hugh:
+
+"Come along, Mat!  We boys are going to pick some wild strawberries for
+dessert.  I noticed some vines up there over the hill as we came along."
+
+"That will be lovely; run along, little boy," said Ivy, and Mat, with a
+last despairing glance at the feast, was gone, leaving her free to
+resume her task.
+
+Although there was quite a crowd, almost a dozen young people to feed,
+the baskets seemed to disgorge enough for twenty.  But then they were
+Happy-Go-Lucky baskets!
+
+"Leagues and Clubs someway have a selfish sound--as though everyone
+outside didn't count for anything," Ivy said one day.  "We mustn't let
+ourselves get narrow that way," and they did not, for as Laura remarked
+later, "When it came to picnics and good times generally, the
+Happy-Go-Luckys was very 'stretchible'--it took in all the kids!"
+
+While the girls proceeded blithely to get lunch, helped or hindered by
+the younger children, loud voices were heard and presently a crowd of
+ragged boys appeared on the upper road.
+
+The girls, expecting them to go on their way, paid no attention to
+them, but the lads attracted by the bounteous display of dainties, at
+once gave notice of the find, and with whoops of delight came running
+down the hillside and attacked the spread.
+
+The girls were alarmed but stood their ground nobly.
+
+"You had better go!  Hugh Bonner and the other boys will soon be here!"
+said Laura warningly.
+
+"I've heard of the redoubtable Hughie--we ain't goin' to force our
+company, we just want them cakes an' things!  Come on, boys!  Hurry!"
+
+Laura stood guard over the table and Ivy raised a crutch to strike the
+foremost but both girls were swept aside.
+
+Some of the little ones turned to Laura for protection, while the
+others ran screaming in the direction of the berry-patch, and a moment
+later the berry-pickers were seen on the side of the hill.
+
+Hugh, being somewhat in advance, saw the whole engagement.
+
+When Laura and Ivy were routed, he noticed Alene turning as if for
+flight.  However, instead of running away as he had expected, she
+stooped, picked up the pail of water left by Mat, and, turning back
+with a sudden movement, dashed the fluid into the boys' faces.
+
+Choked and blinded by the unexpected assault, they fell back.
+
+The smallest boy, who had been in the rear, was the first to recover
+from the sudden bath.  With uplifted hand he made an angry dash at
+Alene.
+
+"Don't you dare to strike that girl!" cried a boy who came running down
+from the road.  He evidently belonged to the gang but had only appeared
+on the scene in time to witness their rout.  He was a well-built lad of
+fifteen, with a bearing that showed him to be above his associates, of
+whom he proclaimed himself the leader by collaring the angry boy who
+had made the attack on Alene.  Then the berry-pickers came hurrying
+along with cries of, "A rescue, a rescue!" and the strange boys fled,
+leaving the girls mistresses of the field.
+
+Alene was surprised to find herself a heroine.  The girls declared the
+day lost but for her, and the boys, who had all witnessed the last of
+the engagement, were loud in her praises.
+
+"I heard that big boy say you were a brave little thing and I agree
+with him," declared Hugh, who had experienced a sudden compunction for
+his hasty judgment in the caterpillar affair.
+
+Whereupon the last vestige of Alene's resentment vanished.
+
+"I think I'm entitled to some of the glory," remarked Mat modestly,
+joining the group around the re-arranged feast.  "Didn't I, with
+remarkable foresight, provide the pail of water for Alene to drown the
+enemy in?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TISSUE-PAPER HATS
+
+Blame it all on those tissue-paper hats; the surprise and horror of
+good Mrs. Ramsey when she beheld Alene Dawson among that madcap crowd,
+skipping along gaily intent on her play, unobserving the pained
+expression of the portly lady who was coming up the other side of the
+street.  Mrs. Ramsey had stopped suddenly, "so flustrated by the
+sight," as she said later, that she had not the strength to hail Alene
+and when her breath came it was too late, the happy crowd had passed
+from sight around the corner leading to the fields, and her feeble,
+"Why, Alene Dawson, I'll tell your Uncle about this!" sounded no
+farther than her own ears.
+
+Panting with indignation and the heat of the day, she resumed her way
+up the steep street and in due time reached her home, a showy, buff
+brick house with fancy turrets and pointed roofs and tiny windows with
+wooden ornamentations, that gave warning of the interior, where none of
+the rooms was of good size or well proportioned.  Most of the space on
+the first floor was taken by the reception hall which was not often
+used and the whole gave the impression of being built to show off the
+hall, of which its owner was very proud.
+
+She was also very proud of her two daughters, Hermione and Vera, whom
+she found on this occasion sitting in the study, a tiny alcove on the
+second story, which overlooked the garden.  They were apparently deep
+in the mysteries of a French grammar which Vera had seized on hearing
+the click of the gate announcing Mrs. Ramsey's return, while Hermione
+busied herself in hiding under the cushion of her chair two borrowed
+books of fairy tales which their mother had denounced and forbidden and
+banned and would have burned with a zeal like to that which animated
+the burners of the witches.
+
+"When I was your age I never cared for reading.  I knew most books were
+lies from beginning to end.  You couldn't hire me to read about goblins
+and witches," she often declared.
+
+"What a dull, tiresome girl mamma must have been," said Vera in a low
+aside.
+
+"But she didn't have to play exercises on the piano!" returned Hermione.
+
+"No, nor try to _parlez vous_ with a gibbering foreigner."
+
+"I don't see any use for foreign babbling.  As the nurse in the French
+tale says to the little girl who is studying English, 'Since the _bon
+dieu_ wrote the Bible in French, it shows that he thought it good
+enough for anybody,'" said Hermione, laughing, and Vera continued,
+
+"Grandpa was too poor to pay for extras, I guess."
+
+"I almost wish we could say the same of Pa Ramsey, only I'd hate to be
+poor--I don't see how poor people can stand it!"
+
+"Oh, they are used to it.  They don't mind it," returned Vera with a
+yawn.
+
+"Tissue-paper hats!" they cried when their fond parent, sinking on a
+lounge, had recovered sufficient breath to relate her adventure;
+"Tissue-paper hats!"
+
+Hermione's thoughts flew to her own room where, reposing in a box, was
+her best hat, a huge affair of fine white straw, with ribbons and
+flowers galore, whose glories made Alene's headgear appear the more
+offensive.  She was wishing she had been along with Alene, wearing her
+own hat, of course, until her mother went on to say:
+
+"That wasn't the worst of it!  What can Frederick Dawson mean to allow
+Alene to associate with the town children!"
+
+"Town children, mamma!  Do you mean from the poorhouse?"
+
+"No, Miss Density, mamma means that Lee girl and Ivy Bonner and--"
+
+"Oh, them!  They go to our room!  That Bonner girl is awfully bright
+but so sarcastic, and Laura Lee is all right!"
+
+Mrs. Ramsey shook her head.
+
+"This comes of the public schools, where the president's child is made
+to rub shoulders with the miner's!"
+
+"And the miner's child often beats him in his lessons and the rest of
+the scholars are apt to remark and remember it," said Hermione.  "Only
+for that, the rich boys could pose as being extra smart!"
+
+"I should have got you girls a governess only papa said he couldn't
+possibly afford it, as times are dull; when the children are grown it's
+embarrassing to know how to meet their former schoolmates!"
+
+"Nothing easier!  Just turn your shoulder or look straight ahead!"
+Vera stood up, and, using a chair to represent the offending party,
+illustrated her remarks with appropriate gestures.
+
+"Yes, but the girls aren't like that chair.  They wouldn't be sat upon
+so easily!" exclaimed Hermione.
+
+"They would understand the next time unless they were unusually dense,"
+retorted Vera.
+
+Hermione laughed.
+
+"I can imagine I see you trying to cut Ivy Bonner that way!  She would
+toss up her head and give you the 'icy stare'.  As for Laura, she
+wouldn't understand; she'd only think it a pity you were so
+near-sighted!"
+
+"Well, girls, don't get to quarreling," interrupted their mother.
+"I'll make it a point to warn Alene's uncle.  I'm sure her mother would
+have collapsed had she been in my place to-day!  I'm afraid the Dawsons
+will be vexed because I've not had her over here to get better
+acquainted with you girls!"
+
+"You have asked her often enough, dear knows, and she never came, yet
+she seems very intimate with those other girls!" commented Hermione.
+
+"I admire her taste," said Vera.  "It's all because her mother's not
+here to look after her.  Some men are queer.  Very likely her uncle
+never sees the difference between those town girls and others!"
+
+"Well, what difference is there, except that Ivy and Laura are more
+clever than the average?"
+
+"Hermione, you talk like a--a socialist!  The barriers between the
+classes must be preserved, especially in these times when education is
+trying to sweep them away!  Else where would we land?"
+
+"We, the royal family," muttered Hermione in an aside to Vera.  "Don't
+you remember Grandpa Green's prize pigs?"
+
+Vera pretended not to hear, and their mother, taking breath, continued,
+"There's no use talking, girls, those children are not in the Dawson
+set!  The idea of wearing tissue-paper hats on the street in broad
+daylight!"  So saying, she sailed from the room and the hidden books
+were promptly brought forth and the interrupted reading resumed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ALENE'S VISITORS
+
+"Alene, Mrs. Ramsey stopped in the office yesterday to lecture me on
+the criminality of tissue-paper hats," said Uncle Fred at supper the
+next evening.  Although his voice was solemn, the twinkle in his eyes
+told much to the observant Alene.
+
+"Tissue-paper hats!  Why, Uncle!"
+
+"She was surprised, or I should say scandalized, when I remarked that I
+had superintended the putting on of yours, and that I was sorry I was
+too young, or not old enough, to go along with you."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Fred, you are just the right age for--anything; but we
+couldn't coax you to go that day!" Alene protested.
+
+"And then I told her of my surprise when I reached the office that
+morning to find my hat adorned with a red-white-and-blue rosette, which
+horrified her so much that I was glad--I mean sorry, that she hadn't
+met me wearing it."
+
+"I wish she had, meddling thing!"
+
+"She thinks I'm very lax in my duty to allow you on the street without
+a _chaperone_.  Alene, I'm a failure as a stern old guardian!  I think,
+to put myself right with the townspeople, I'll have to get arrested for
+beating my incorrigible niece!"
+
+"If they find fault with you, just send them to me and I'll--I'll
+settle them," cried Alene, with angry vehemence, holding her fork in
+such a threatening position that Kizzie, coming in with the tray, half
+paused.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, Kizzie.  She's not going to attack you or me; she's
+only indignant because everyone doesn't agree with her in holding me up
+as a model guardian!"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Fred, how you do go on!" returned Kizzie with a laugh and a
+blush, giving Alene a glance that showed upon whose side she stood.
+
+"But I haven't come to the end of my tale.  It seems that Mrs. Ramsey's
+real object in paying me a visit was not to lecture me, as I supposed,
+but to say that her two daughters are coming to visit you to-morrow
+afternoon."
+
+"Oh, bother!  Laura and Ivy promised to come and stay for tea!"
+grumbled Alene.
+
+"Well, the more the merrier.  The Ramsey girls seem to be amiable
+enough," returned Mr. Dawson who failed to see any reason for the
+little girl's vexation.  Indeed, Alene herself could not define what
+was, in reality, the dismay any hostess might feel if called upon to
+entertain a group of people which she knows to be utterly uncongenial.
+
+"Don't worry, child!  Just do the best you can," was the advice of the
+housekeeper, when Alene, kneeling on a chair at the window next
+morning, viewed the forbidding, rain-soaked grounds.
+
+"But I depended on the garden to help me out," said she, giving a
+reproachful glance at the soggy grass and dripping trees.  "The girls
+could swing and run about in the grass, and now we'll all have to stay
+cooped together in the house!  I wouldn't mind it a bit with Laura and
+Ivy.  We could do lots of things inside--but the Ramsey girls!"
+
+"There's the tower room and the wide halls.  Surely you can play some
+games there!  It does seem unfortunate how things turn out sometimes,
+but we must just bear it!" said Mrs. Major.
+
+"That's what makes it so much harder, we _must_ bear it!  Ivy says if
+we could take our burdens just because we wanted to for a noble cause,
+like some of the martyrs did, it wouldn't be half so hard as when they
+are put on one!" grumbled Alene.  "But there, I'm not going to cry
+about it!"
+
+"I wouldn't, either," cried Kizzie, broom in hand, her face glowing
+from an attack on the upstairs carpets.  "It would only make things
+damper!"
+
+The smiling visage of the plump little maid seemed to have captured
+some of the sunshine hidden away by the clouds; it radiated from her
+blue eyes, her yellow hair, her round rosy cheeks; Alene, turning from
+the depressing outside where the rain was steadily falling, felt an
+answering glow when she met that sunny gaze, and retorted gaily:
+
+"Does she mean to be profane or funny, or only puny!"
+
+"I mean to tell you what I was thinkin' about!  Wouldn't it be fun for
+you and the girls to make taffy this afternoon?"
+
+Alene clapped her hands.
+
+"Oh, Kizzie, the very thing!  And please, _please_ let me be chief
+cook--I think it would be lovely to potter round the pans and things!"
+
+"I could come in and show you how, only Mrs. Major let me off this
+afternoon and my sister's expecting me--but I might send her word,"
+said Kizzie.
+
+"No, you mustn't do that.  Just tell me how much to use and where to
+find the stuff--but I don't want anyone to help me!"
+
+So Alene listened solemnly, with a delightful sense of responsibility,
+to the directions given by Kizzie and the housekeeper.  It seemed so
+easy, just so many cups of sugar, so much vinegar and water, a lump of
+butter not too large and enough vanilla to make it taste; then the
+greased pans and the flour to use in pulling it.
+
+"Oh, I know it by heart!  Don't say another word till I bring you some
+upstairs to the sewing-room this afternoon!  And I'll save some for
+Kizzie when she comes."
+
+As the girls intended coming at one o'clock to stay not later than
+five, Alene felt secure in having provided something that would pass
+the greater part of the time, so she paid no more attention to the
+weather.  It could not interfere with the taffy pulling.
+
+She flew happily round making her preparations and it did not seem any
+time until Prince gave a joyous bark to notify her of the near approach
+of friends.
+
+She ran to the door.  Sure enough, it was Laura and Ivy making their
+way through the rain; they were coming around the curve of the walk
+which led from the front gate.
+
+"And Laura's holding the umbrella over Ivy so that she herself gets
+nothing but the drippings," Alene observed.  She seized an umbrella
+from the rack and hastened to meet them, while Prince ran on ahead to
+assure them of a welcome.
+
+The barking of the dog and the chatter of the girls made such a din
+that it reached Mrs. Major, who came and stood in the hall, enjoying
+the excitement.
+
+After greeting the visitors she went upstairs, feeling a pleasant glow
+in the consciousness that the little girl, whose loneliness had been a
+source of anxiety to the older inmates of the house, was now
+light-hearted and happy with companions of her own age.
+
+"Girls, girls, I'm so glad you've come in spite of the rain!" cried the
+beaming Alene, dancing round, more of a hindrance than an aid in her
+endeavors to help them off with their things.
+
+"Mother was against my going out in the rain, but Hugh knew how much I
+wanted to come, and just as he was coaxing her, Laura came in, and they
+hustled me off!"
+
+"It's well I did, or the Bonners would have had a weeping Ivy on their
+hands, and dear knows it's moist enough without that, so I carried her
+away just for pity!" explained Laura, who stood before the rack mirror
+surveying a few locks of straight hair which stuck to her forehead.  "I
+was just telling Ivy it's good there's no lightning; but the rain does
+take the starch out of things.  Just look at my poor hair, while Ivy's
+curls are kinkier than ever!"
+
+"Poor Lol, I'd gladly turn some of the kinks over to you if I could,"
+cried Ivy with a laugh, as she gave her mop of curls a vigorous
+smoothing, trying in vain to make them lie closer to her head.  "But
+talking of lightning, when I was quite small I remember one day in
+school it stormed hard.  The thunder rolled and the lightning flashed
+and one of the girls got frightened and began to cry, which surprised
+me very much; not because she cried, but because she was a doctor's
+daughter--I don't know why I thought a doctor's daughter should be
+braver than anyone else's child!"
+
+"It's funny the thoughts we have and the queer things we believe when
+we're small," returned Alene.  "A girl told me one day if you put beads
+in the oven more beads would grow.  So I put in my string of pink coral
+but it only got hot and didn't grow a bit bigger!  I never believed in
+that girl again!"
+
+"I never told you of the spring that Ivy and I made when we were
+little.  We thought it would be so nice to have cold water handy, so we
+dug a hole in the cellar, big enough to put a good-sized tin pan in,
+and filled the pan with water.  We put pebbles in the bottom and moss
+around the rim and thought we had a perpetual well; but when we came
+back to it the old pan was dry.  The water had leaked through the
+holes!  We were awfully disappointed that no other water had run in!"
+
+As Laura completed her contribution to ancient history, divested of
+their rain-coats, hats and rubbers, they were ready to follow Alene
+into the library.
+
+"Ivy's brought a book along, 'Tales of the Angels.'  Let's read turn
+about," proposed Laura.
+
+Sitting close together, Ivy half reclining among the cushions of the
+little sofa and Alene upon a leather arm chair with Laura between them
+on a hassock, all shut in by the crimson curtains of the cosy corner,
+where the rain beat against the window panes and the vines stirred in
+the wind emphasizing the comfort of their snug retreat, they spent a
+happy time reading and talking over the beautiful little stories until
+Prince's renewed barking attracted their attention.
+
+"Somebody's coming," announced Ivy, peering through the blurred window
+pane.
+
+"I guess it's the Ramseys," said Alene, going out to meet them.
+
+"I hoped the rain would keep them away," murmured Ivy with a grimace.
+
+"So did I," answered Laura.  "I felt like turning back when Alene said
+they were coming, but I hated to hurt her feelings!"
+
+They heard Alene greeting the new-comers, then footsteps and voices in
+the hall, and presently the three girls came in together.
+
+The sisters were in the midst of an argument.  Vera had found a small
+rent in her silk umbrella for which she declared Hermione's umbrella
+responsible.
+
+"But I was walking ahead of you all the way, not near enough for the
+rib to touch your umbrella!  It must have been done when you crowded up
+against the fence to let Mrs. Park and her baby carriage go past."
+
+"Well, I couldn't go in the muddy street, could I?  I don't see why
+they bring babies out on such a day as this, brushing others up against
+damp walls!  But it's just a little cut such as only an umbrella point
+could give.  It never touched the fence!"  Vera's grumbling came to a
+sudden pause--"Oh say, Alene, I didn't know you had company!"
+
+"I had no chance to tell you on the way in."
+
+"No, Vera gives no one a chance when she has a grievance to air!" said
+Hermione.  "Howdy'do, girls!"
+
+She crossed the room and sat beside Ivy and Laura.  Vera took an easy
+chair near the table, somewhat apart from the group, and gave all her
+attention to the careful removing of her kid gloves.  The conversation
+with her mother as to the manner in which to meet her poorer
+schoolmates in society was fresh in her mind.  Now was the opportunity
+to act upon her convictions.  She resolved to be very cool in her
+treatment of Laura and Ivy.
+
+The other girls chattered away, apparently unmindful of her
+abstraction.  Alene was showing them some sheet music which had come in
+the mail a few days before.
+
+"Here's the new Raindrop two-step.  How appropriate for to-day," cried
+Hermione.  "Have you tried it yet?"
+
+"Yes, it's real sweet!  Would you like to come into the music room and
+hear it?"
+
+They all assented, and presently from the little room opening off the
+library came the notes of a piano.
+
+"I'd like to try the step," said Hermione, "if only there was someone
+to dance with!"
+
+"Where's Vera?"
+
+"Sulking in the library, I guess.  Come, Laura, won't you?"
+
+Laura hesitated until Ivy joined in, "Do, Lol!  She dances beautifully,
+Hermione, only she--she won't sometimes," and as the two girls paired
+off, "When I'm along she seems to think I'll mind it more because--"
+
+"Yes, I know," returned Alene, slipping her hand from the keyboard to
+give Ivy's brown fingers a sympathetic squeeze.
+
+"But I won't let her; I don't want to be a _bete noire_ to my friends!"
+said Ivy, leaning her head against the piano and letting her eyes stray
+from Alene's nimble fingering to the graceful swaying of the girls in
+the dance.  Around the room they circled, out along the hall, and
+presently back again through the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TAFFY PULLING
+
+Vera found that being cool was very dull.  Besides, it had no effect
+upon the others.  As time went by and the gay strains of the piano
+mingled with talk and laughter filled the air, and the dancing began,
+and the two girls whirled by, their twirling skirts almost brushing
+hers, it dawned upon her that she was being left out in the cold!  Her
+coolness was reacting upon herself!  If Alene had helped her by
+devoting herself to her, to the exclusion of the others, she felt that
+she might have carried out her original program.  As it was, she came
+to the conclusion that Alene was too stupid to perceive her superiority.
+
+Shortly after the dancers had sunk on a divan near the piano, Vera came
+in from the library, declaring that she too wished to dance; but the
+girls failed to respond to the invitation, saying they were tired.
+
+Presently with a smile she slipped up to Alene and gave her what on the
+surface seemed a playful pinch on the arm but Alene drew back with a
+rueful glance while tears of pain came into her eyes, and when she
+thought herself unobserved she pulled up her sleeve and found a great
+bruised spot already getting black and blue.
+
+"Oh!" the watchful Ivy commenced but she checked herself and pretended
+not to have seen this little by-play.  Somewhat later when Alene was
+sitting beside Ivy, whose arm was around her waist, Vera came again to
+Alene and with some humorous remark reached out to give her another
+pinch.  As Alene shrank back, Vera gave a scream and turned suddenly
+away.
+
+"Oh, that vicious Alene, she can't take a joke!" she cried, rubbing her
+arm, but Hermione to whom she complained gave her little sympathy.
+
+"Serves you right," was all she replied.
+
+Laura, looking up from a book in which she had been absorbed, received
+an expressive glance from Ivy which told her as plainly as words that
+something unusual had taken place.  She learned what it was when they
+found themselves apart.
+
+"Poor Alene could hardly keep the tears back and when Vera came with
+that sweet, unconscious air, and reached for a second pinch, Alene put
+out her hand to ward her off--at the same time mine flew up some way, I
+don't know how, it seemed to go of its own accord and Vera didn't know
+what had happened!  Neither did Alene!  I thought I'd die laughing when
+she turned round to me and asked, 'What's the matter with Vera?'.
+'Looks as if she had a pain,' said I--"
+
+"She thinks it was Alene, so she won't bother her again.  I've heard
+the girls at school talking of the Ramsey grip!  She only uses it when
+she's vexed with a girl.  I don't see what Alene did to her!"
+
+"She doesn't want her to be so friendly with us," explained the
+observant Ivy.
+
+Laura laughed.
+
+"She doesn't know that Alene is a true Happy-Go-Lucky," she said with
+proud confidence.
+
+"No, they stick together like--like postage stamps!"
+
+"Girls," cried Alene, "I'm taking Hermie and Vera up to see the tower
+room.  Do you care to come along?"
+
+"Not I, thank you, I'll wait for some brighter day," returned Ivy.
+
+"The distinguished author of the Sunset Book does not wish to look from
+the tower window upon anything less than a sunset!" explained Laura.
+"So I'll stay and try to console her in the absence of one."
+
+Ivy curled herself among the cushions of the friendly little sofa in
+the cosy corner and fell to dreaming, while Laura sat at the piano and
+played several pieces, some of which, though very difficult, she
+rendered by ear with expression and fidelity.  Laura's talent was fully
+known to Ivy, who on this occasion found the sweet sounds chiming in
+with her own idle fancies.
+
+How long she lay snuggled there, half hid by the crimson curtains,
+while the rain made its unwearied assault upon the window panes and the
+wind soughed mournfully among the trees, she did not know.  When she
+awoke, Laura was playing the two step, to the wonder and admiration of
+the Ramsey girls who were practising the dance together.  Ivy did not
+see Alene anywhere and for a moment she had a strange, half-waking
+dream, that she was upstairs all alone in the tower room, weeping
+because Vera had beat and pinched her.
+
+"Why didn't I go up with them?  I thought only of myself, as usual,"
+Ivy muttered.  She was on the point of rising to go in search of Alene
+when a noise was heard and there in the doorway stood a queer little
+figure enveloped from head to foot in a blue gingham apron.  That she
+was no stranger was evidenced by Prince leaping joyfully beside her.
+
+"I've come to invite you-alls to a taffy pulling in the kitchen," she
+said, with a drawl and an odd little courtesy that made everybody
+laugh, "No one admitted except _en costume_," pointing to her apron,
+"so each of you must find one hidden somewhere in the hall or
+dining-room!"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+"Good fun!"
+
+"Come along!"
+
+A rush was made and the search began.
+
+Ivy was the first to find an apron in the folds of an umbrella on the
+hall rack, the very place where, strange to say, Laura had searched
+unsuccessfully a moment before.  With the help of the latter she was
+soon draped in its red and white bars and joined Alene in watching the
+others.
+
+Hermione's search at the back of a door was rewarded by the discovery
+of a costume hanging on the knob; Vera found another folded under a
+cushion in the dining-room and Laura, by lifting the lid of a
+covered-dish on the sideboard, disclosed the last.
+
+"We look like a crowd of orphans out for a walk," said Ivy, as holding
+on to each other's apron strings, they filed into the kitchen.
+
+"I'm the mammy and you-alls are tied to my apron string!  Behave
+yourselves, chillun!" cried Alene, glancing back warningly along the
+line.
+
+The kitchen was a square room with tiled-linoleum floor covering.  A
+highly-polished, range whose copper boiler glowed like a mirror
+occupied one side along with a spotless sink; besides a mammoth
+cupboard, there was an old-fashioned corner cupboard with glass upper
+doors; two well-scoured tables stood at convenient points, the one near
+the window having a rug beside it and a hospitable rocking chair,
+which, with a few other chairs, a small time-piece and a calendar,
+completed the furnishings.  The wide door opened upon a commodious
+porch with two steps leading to the garden.
+
+It was a very jewel of a kitchen, this in which good Mrs. Major reigned
+queen.  Mr. Dawson declared that he always regarded his boots
+doubtfully ere venturing in upon the floor and that he was afraid to
+touch the immaculate objects it contained.
+
+"Do you really cook potatoes and make vulgar mush in those pots on that
+range?  Do you actually use these tables?" he would ask, and one day,
+running his hand across a shelf, he pretended to find a speck of dust
+which he carried away in triumph to preserve.
+
+"You girls think I'm only fooling," he said to Kizzie and Alene one
+day; "but I assure you if I were to make a grease-spot on that table
+I'd run away with visions of Mrs. Major, butcher knife in hand, at my
+heels, and I'd never dare to enter the house again!"
+
+His niece did not share in his scruples as she and her guests entered
+upon the spot dedicated to quiet and order, and soon, like spirits of
+disorder, upset its calm.  Half a dozen cooking utensils were brought
+forth, drawers opened, cupboards and pantry rifled.
+
+"One would think we each had forty mouths to eat with, judging by all
+the material set out," said Laura, who, following where the others led
+in their mad assault upon the provisions, tried to keep a semblance of
+order, by returning things to their places.
+
+Amid all the havoc Vera was the only one who preserved her calm.
+Seated in the rocking chair, she swung lazily back and forth, pausing
+occasionally to reach for a cube of sugar or to taste the various
+condiments on the table.  She was enjoying herself thoroughly in spite
+of the consciousness that it was all on a par with tissue-paper hats
+and other affairs peculiar to the Happy-Go-Luckys, that queer club of
+which she had heard.
+
+"They get a lot of fun out of it.  I don't see why the girls in our set
+couldn't start one!"
+
+While she pictured herself presiding over the new club, which no one
+outside the favored few would be allowed to enter, the other girls,
+after careful measuring, had placed on the range a pot half filled with
+the materials necessary for the taffy of which Alene wished to make
+enough not for themselves only, but to share liberally with all the Lee
+and Bonner children.
+
+"Sweets to make it sweet, and sours to make it sour, fire to heat,
+water to dissolve, and butter to make it run down our throats!" intoned
+Ivy like a witch making an incantation over her brew, while Alene,
+taking a large spoon, kept stirring the mixture until, exhausted, she
+was relieved by Hermione.
+
+"Our motto is 'Keep Stirring,'" said Hermione; "but this takes so long
+a time to thicken, my arm's about broke."
+
+"I never made sugar taffy, but molasses doesn't take any time hardly!"
+returned Laura.
+
+After a consultation the mixture was emptied into a square, buttered
+pan and carried to the porch to cool.
+
+When Laura went out presently to test it, she uttered a cry of dismay.
+
+"It's gone back to sugar, girls!" she announced when the others came
+hastily to investigate.
+
+Sure enough, instead of taffy ready for pulling, they found a sheet of
+sugar that could be broken into pieces.
+
+"Put the pan back on the stove with some water, and let it melt, so we
+can try again," someone suggested.
+
+They made surmises as to where the fault lay.
+
+"Surely not in the stirring," cried Hermione, rubbing her elbow.
+
+With renewed vigor they attacked the melted sugar--they stirred and
+stirred.  Even Vera lent a hand, and the stuff boiled and boiled but
+thickened very slowly and when set out to cool hardened as before.
+
+"Keep stirring!  Indeed, I think if we stirred it from now until
+doomsday it would stay just sugar," declared Laura.
+
+"I'm sure I remember the recipe just as Kizzie told it," said the
+disappointed Alene who, as head cook, felt responsible for the
+disaster.  "I'll run up to the sewing-room and ask Mrs. Major what she
+thinks is wrong."
+
+"Oh, girls, guess where the trouble was!  In the stirring, after all,"
+she said, returning a few minutes later, breathless from her hurried
+trip.
+
+"No!"
+
+"It can't be!"
+
+"We didn't stop a minute!"
+
+"But we shouldn't have commenced!  All we have to do is to let it alone
+until it thickens!"
+
+"My poor broken arm feels worse than ever," grumbled Hermione.
+
+"'Love's labors lost,'" said Ivy, and Vera declared that she had
+suspected they were overdoing it!
+
+"The third time's the charm," cried Laura, breaking hopefully into the
+chorus of lamentations, "Let's get to work!"
+
+When the mixture was returned to the fire she took Alene by the
+shoulder and placed her on a chair with her back to the stove, "for
+fear her reproachful glances set the pan a-tremble and that obstinate
+sugar be glad of the chance to escape taffying!"
+
+Whereupon Ivy, with a parting grimace toward the range, gravely moved
+her chair around and the others followed her example, until all had
+turned their backs upon the offending pan.
+
+After a while Ivy craned her neck stealthily.  She saw the mixture
+bubbling.  She gave a scream.
+
+"It's stirring of its own accord!  Girls, girls, stop it, stop it!"'
+
+"I'm not surprised," Hermione remarked.  "The poor thing no doubt feels
+very much 'stirred up.'"
+
+"Yes, it's fairly boiling over with rage," said Alene.  Then, forgetful
+of the prophesied consequences, she flew to test it.
+
+They crowded around her as she poured a spoonful of the sweet into a
+glass of water, Then followed a hilarious cheer--
+
+  "Joy, joy, our task is done!
+  The sugar's thickened!
+  Taffy's won!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A STRING OF FISH
+
+"Let me alone and I'll die myself," cried Alene who, after a vigorous
+rocking in the big swing, was coming to a leisurely stop which Kizzie's
+appearance threatened.  The latter, seeing that her good intentions
+were not necessary, stood inactive until the swinging died away.
+
+"Kizzie's mad and I am glad," sang Alene, noticing a cloud on the
+girl's usually good-natured countenance.  "What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, the fish wagon didn't come and Mrs. Major says Mr. Fred can't do
+without his fish.  I have to go round to the big gate to watch for one
+of the boys to come along from the river, and I had just finished my
+work in a hurry, so's to have an hour at the sewing machine, to finish
+my waist."
+
+"If that's all, I can watch for the boys and buy the fish, so just give
+me the basket, Kizzie darlin'!"
+
+The girl's face brightened.
+
+"If you would--if you're sure you ain't puttin' yourself out!"
+
+"Why, it will be fun for me!  So run in to the machine and make it run."
+
+Alene took the basket on her arm and went singing along the walk toward
+the big gate, while Kizzie smilingly re-entered the house calling a
+thousand thanks upon the head of the obliging little maid.
+
+Tired of racing with the shadows cast by the swing on the sunny spots
+amid the trees, Prince lay sunning himself on the front door steps.  He
+now came forward with a merry barking and joined his young mistress.
+He rubbed his nose against the basket and looked up inquiringly into
+her face.
+
+"You want to carry the basket, old fellow?  Well, here it is!"
+
+Prince wagged his tail and took the basket, and then they had a merry
+race along the wide pathway to where the double iron gate between thick
+vine-covered posts opened upon a short flight of stone steps leading to
+Forest Street, the finest residence avenue of the town.
+
+Alene ensconced herself upon the shaded upper step with Prince keeping
+guard over the basket at her side, and fell into a pleasant reverie.
+
+Presently she heard boyish tones; and the group of lads for whom she
+was waiting came in sight.  Bare-legged, with trousers turned up at the
+knees, coatless, wearing a variety of hats, some having brims minus
+crowns and others crowns only, they came along carrying fishing-rods
+and tin cans for holding bait.
+
+Several had strings of beauties yet moist from the river, whose scaly
+sides glittered in the morning sunshine.
+
+Alene rose hurriedly at the first sign of their coming, intending to
+parley with the first comer, but her courage oozed away when a nearer
+view of him disclosed the boy who had rushed to strike her at the
+picnic.
+
+Perhaps the others were his partners in the raid of that memorable day.
+This thought kept her standing mute and inactive while the boys filed
+past her up the street.
+
+"What will Kizzie think of me?  Mrs. Major will scold her, and I
+promised!"  Alene gazed forlornly up the street as the lads got farther
+and farther away, bearing the precious freight which she had made no
+effort to buy.  They were all gone but one, a tall boy who was almost
+at her side when she glanced around.
+
+Noticing only that he had a magnificent string of fish, she held her
+basket toward him in desperation, feeling that she must redeem her word
+to Kizzie, and save her from the housekeeper's wrath, and Uncle Fred
+from a meal minus the fish, for which he had a special liking.
+
+Her eyes were fixed upon the fish which she felt were the only ones she
+could get now.  If she let them go, her opportunity would be lost and
+her good offices in Kizzie's behalf fruitless, so she gasped hurriedly,
+"Say!"
+
+The boy had noticed the little girl standing like a statue gazing up
+the street.  He had given her a glance as he approached but her eyes
+were intent upon the fish; he was going on his way, half glad to escape
+notice when he heard her feeble call.
+
+He came to a standstill.
+
+"Did you speak to me?"
+
+His voice sounded strangely familiar to Alene.  Hastily looking from
+the fish to their owner, she encountered a pair of frank, gray eyes,
+whose rather deep setting and coal black brows gave the whole face an
+odd, but singularly attractive expression.
+
+She recognized him at once.
+
+"Why, is it you?" she exclaimed, in a startled voice.
+
+The boy flushed.
+
+"Don't be scared--I won't rob you," he said, with a note of vexation
+that recalled Alene to herself.
+
+"I must have appeared ridiculous standing here looking half scared to
+death," she thought.
+
+"I never dreamed of such a thing!  I guess I did look funny but it was
+because of those other boys," she replied with an expressive nod up the
+street.
+
+"The rascals!  I came near giving them up that day!  I hope it didn't
+spoil your fun!  How the rest did guy that fellow who tried to strike
+you!  I bet he'll never try to strike a girl again!"
+
+His tone giving assurance that he had effectually disposed of the
+delinquent caused his hearer a thrill of satisfaction.
+
+"But I'm jolly glad you weren't afraid of me!" he concluded with an air
+of relief.
+
+Then the humor of the situation seemed to strike Alene.
+
+"The idea!  No, I wasn't a bit afraid.  I knew you didn't mean to rob
+me but I intended to rob you!" she said in a mischievous tone.
+
+He gave a ringing laugh and looked very much relieved.
+
+"Well, say, I would never have suspected it!  What did you want, the
+fishin' rod or bait?"
+
+"No, not those ugly, squirming things.  I've seen Hugh digging for
+them!" she drew back from the can with a look of disgust.
+
+"Well, I've nothin' else worth takin' 'cept the fish!"
+
+"That's it.  Mrs. Major wants them."
+
+"Mrs. Major wants my fish?  Why, I never heard tell of the lady!"
+
+"Yes, it's for Uncle Fred's supper!  She's the housekeeper, you know,
+and the fish-cart didn't come round to-day!  So I told Kizzie I'd come
+out and get some from the boys, you know!"
+
+"Oh, I see!  Well, it won't do to disappoint Uncle Fred, the
+housekeeper and Kizzie and you--especially you!"  So saying, he
+tendered her the big string of fish.
+
+As Alene reached for it, one of the fishes gave a sudden jump.  She
+recoiled.
+
+"Oh!  Do put them in the basket, won't you?  Their tails wriggle up so!"
+
+He laughed, and while he busied himself to obey her, Alene opened her
+little silver purse.  When the boy glanced up from his task she offered
+him a silver dollar.
+
+"They're not for sale, thank you!" he said, turning away.
+
+"Oh, then I can't take them!"
+
+"Turn about's fair play!" he cried, quickening his steps; a beam of
+mischief shone in his eyes, lighting up his face.
+
+"What do you mean?  Come back and get your fish," cried Alene, swinging
+the basket as far as she could reach.  She rushed up the street a short
+distance but, seeing the hopelessness of overtaking him, came to a halt
+while the dog stood barking beside her.
+
+"Here, Prince, take the basket and follow him," cried Alene excitedly,
+but Prince failed to understand why he should rob his master of the
+supper they had procured for him.  He took the basket in his mouth and
+waited for Alene to lead the way.
+
+"Oh, Prince, you--you idiot!  Boy, boy, say!" she screamed with such a
+sharp, insistent treble that it reached the lad's ears.  He turned
+around and waved his hat.
+
+"Highway robbery!" he cried, making a trumpet of both hands, and then
+with a parting wave he passed from view, leaving the exasperated and
+almost tearful Alene to return to the house, with the disobedient
+Prince at her side proudly carrying the spoils.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A GIRLISH TIFF
+
+
+  GRAND PANORAMA!
+
+  MOVING PICTURES!  THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS!
+
+  AT JARRETT'S HALL,
+
+  FRIDAY EVENING, JULY THE 16TH
+
+  _Admission ..................  25 cts._
+
+  _Reserved Seats .............  50 cts._
+
+
+Thus read the attractive handbills scattered throughout the town by
+half a dozen small boys, while a man went from street to street posting
+gorgeous pictures of the different scenes, until the whole population,
+especially the younger portion of it, was aroused into the desire or
+intention of attending the show.
+
+The boys who by a happy chance were on hand when the advance agent
+stepped from the train, and had secured the privilege of distributing
+the bills with the accompanying reward of free admission to the hall,
+were the envied of their less favored friends.
+
+Loud was the lamentation of Lafe Bonner, Ivy's eleven-year-old brother,
+whose only consolation was the memory of a happier time in the early
+spring when the circus had come to town with its elephants and caged
+animals, its clown in cap and bells, to say nothing of its fine ladies
+in red and green velvet habits all gold bespangled, riding so
+gracefully the high-stepping horses to the music of the band, perched
+high on a scarlet-and-gold mirrored chariot--not to forget the calliope
+bringing up the rear.  Then, with glowing countenance and swift-beating
+heart, Lafe and his companions had followed the parade to "the
+bottoms," a level space sacred to the circus and baseball, where men
+were busy erecting tents for the afternoon's show.
+
+One lusty fellow whose bronze cheeks were tanned by the wind and sun of
+many climes immediately engaged the three boys to carry water to the
+animals, in exchange for passes to the evening performance, the memory
+of which would never, never fade from Lafe's mind, were he to live as
+long as Methuselah himself.  Every detail, the sawdust-covered
+racetrack around the ring, the acrobats swinging and diving so far, far
+up in the air that one held his breath till they made a safe descent;
+the jokes of the clown never too old to evoke laughter, the noises of
+wild animals which might break through their barred cages and cause a
+panic among the people, a possibility that lent spice to the whole; the
+peanuts and lemonade,--weak in lemon but strong in sugar, and of a
+lovely shade of pink,--genuine circus lemonade, on which they had spent
+their last pennies, with all this comparatively fresh in his memory no
+wonder that Lafe gazed longingly on the posters, and read with avidity
+every item concerning the attraction, which, if not the circus, was
+related to it in a sort of third or fourth cousin degree.
+
+Lafe could not gain entrance by the drawing-of-water method, nor yet,
+alas, by scattering bills; and he knew it was useless to apply at home.
+Did not the pinching of shoes worn the first time the Sunday previous
+remind him of his mother's latest ill-spared expenditure?  All he could
+do, therefore, was to grumble at his luck in having missed the agent.
+This he did so persistently and in tones so loud that everybody either
+commiserated or scolded him, with the exception of Ivy, who only
+laughed and dubbed him Master Glumface.  To her, who measured every woe
+with her own, his disappointment seemed a pitifully small thing to
+bewail.
+
+"Now, I'm sure I'd love to see the Pilgrim's Progress--that picture
+where Christian is crossing through the Dark Valley just gives me
+thrills--and yet I don't go round like a big baby complaining.  And I
+didn't even see the circus when it was here, only the side show!" she
+said.
+
+Lafe gave her a withering glance.  He felt inclined to catch hold of
+that provoking curl that bobbed so impertinently in his direction as
+she tossed her head, and give it a good hard pull.
+
+But Laura, who had just come in, soothed his ire by saying in a
+sympathetic voice:
+
+"Lafe seems so much taken with the circus and things I shouldn't wonder
+if he turns out to be an actor!  Don't you remember how well he did at
+our exhibition?"  Ivy nodded.  "So of course, he feels it worse than we
+do.  But I'd love to go too and take Nettie.  She's wild about that
+picture where the angels are flying.  She thinks they have real angels
+at the show.  Mat has a quarter saved up toward a bicycle and--"
+
+"He'd better get an automobile while he's about it," interrupted Lafe.
+
+"He wants me to take it and go; as if I would do such a thing!  You
+know, Ivy, he made me take that dime he had saved up when the circus
+came, and go to the side show with you; and we had a lot of fun shaking
+hands with the giant and the fat lady and seeing the animals; but this
+is different, and his mind is quite set on the bicycle."
+
+Which remark reminded Ivy that her admission to the side show--the
+bright silver dime--was given her by Lafe, and that before he had any
+hope of himself seeing the circus.  So she began to feel sorry for her
+flippant attitude and said in a more kindly tone:
+
+"Well, this is only Friday noon and the performance doesn't come off
+till to-night.  Who knows what may turn up before then?"
+
+This might have had the intended effect were it not for that curl which
+in some way affected Lafe's nerves.  It now gave a careless bob that
+exasperated him.
+
+"'Something may turn up;'" he muttered, "an earthquake or Mat's
+motor-car, perhaps!"
+
+He went away in disgust and Ivy turned to Laura with a sigh:
+
+"Now, what did I say to make him flare up that way?"
+
+"He thought you didn't care--"
+
+"Well, I don't--I don't!  Laura, if I were to go sympathizing with six
+brothers--and boys are always clamoring for attention--I'd end in a mad
+house!"
+
+Laura could hardly repress a smile at the thought of Ivy's six sturdy
+brothers depending on her in their troubles, knowing as she did that
+stone bruises, torn garments and other calamities incident to boyhood
+were always carried to their mother, while, as Laura often said, Hugh
+made himself a regular oak-tree for Ivy to twine around.
+
+No further remarks were made on the subject, however, and the two girls
+started side by side on their way to a shady spot near home, to spend a
+few hours of the hot afternoon.
+
+The wind caught them rather sharply at a street corner and Ivy's
+endeavors to balance her crutches while holding her hat in place
+renewed her irritation.
+
+"If some people had troubles like this, they would have room to
+preach," she cried.
+
+"I'm sure I never thought of preaching," returned Laura stiffly.  "But
+there's no use always harping on one's own trials and thinking nobody
+else has any!"
+
+"Meaning me, of course!  Anyway, I don't care to play this afternoon.
+I think I'll go home," said Ivy, turning away with crimsoning cheeks.
+
+Laura gave a backward glance at the haughty little maid hurrying along
+as fast as she could, while the wind sent the mop of curls flying
+around her head in all directions.
+
+For a few moments she stared blankly down the street, half expecting
+Ivy to turn around, but she failed to do so, and Laura, with a
+heightened sense of injury, went on her way intending to take the first
+side-street home.
+
+But the longer the distance grew between herself and Ivy, the unhappier
+she became, the more she repented her harsh words.  It was really no
+wonder that Ivy had thought them unfeeling at a time, especially, when
+she was already upset by her encounter with Lafe.  Perhaps, too, this
+was one of Ivy's bad days when the least contradiction irritated her.
+
+In this strain ran Laura's thoughts and the longer she pondered, the
+slower she walked until at last she came to a standstill.
+
+It was right at the top of a hilly street which commanded a fine view.
+In the distance were the blue shadows of mountains; the river swept
+along between green-verdured hills; a steamboat with lowered stacks was
+passing beneath the bridge that hung like a black line connecting the
+east and west sides of the town.  Overhead shone the midday sun in a
+sky of cloudless blue, but nature spread her canvas all in vain for
+Laura.  Another time she would have paused to drink in the beauty of
+the scene, to follow with admiring eyes the movements of the boat
+which, brave in a new coat of paint, swept along in a wake of billowing
+foam, but to-day she stood unheeding.  All that she saw was the
+pathetic figure of a little girl with crutches receding in the distance.
+
+Something clutched at Laura's throat.  Her resentment against Ivy died
+away, leaving only blame for herself.  With a sudden resolve she turned
+and hurriedly retraced her steps.
+
+"Nothing but a cross cat would act the way I did!"
+
+Faster and faster she went until, as she came around a corner, she
+almost collided with someone hastening up the street.  A little hot
+hand clutched her arm--
+
+"Oh, Lol, is it you?  I came back to make up!  Someway I can't bear to
+be on the outs with you!"
+
+Ivy was breathless and perspiring and her hat was blown all to one side.
+
+Laura reached over and set it straight carefully, almost caressingly.
+
+"Oh, Ivy-vine, neither can I--Isn't it funny?  Shall we go on?"
+
+Laughing softly and blinking back the tears of which they were half
+ashamed, they continued up the street, happy in the reconciliation, so
+facile and so complete in childhood, when bygones are bygones, and
+there is no danger of ghosts, once laid, ever rising up again to give
+added rancor to future disagreements.
+
+What a beautiful day it was and how the sun shone and how blissfully
+they drank in the air!
+
+"Oh, Lol, see, there's a wagon in front of Jarrett's Hall!  I do
+believe those men belong to the show!" cried Ivy.
+
+"Let's go up and look round," proposed Laura.
+
+They had reached a long building fronting on Main Street, the first
+story of which was occupied by a half dozen stores.  They climbed a
+covered stairway that led to the second story.  At the top of the "hall
+stairs," as they were called, was the main entrance to the hall which
+occupied the second story of the edifice.  These stairs also opened
+upon a sort of court, from which a broad flight of stone steps led to
+an upper street.
+
+By walking along the court, the girls were on a level with the inner
+windows of the hall.  The outside shutters stood wide open to admit
+light, and a few children were peering curiously through the dusty
+panes.  Further away was a narrow door sacred to the use of actors or
+employes of the hall.
+
+Laura observed that this door was closed when she and Ivy first
+appeared upon the scene; but after a time, leaving Ivy at a good
+position at the window with her inquisitive eyes pressed against the
+glass, Laura strayed back and found the door open.
+
+She hastened to the threshold and took a long, eager look into the
+dingy hall, from the curious little box-like office at the "grand
+entrance," as the double wooden door was styled, past the rows of rough
+benches to the stage at the upper end of the hall, where some
+carpenters and other employes were busy making arrangements for the
+evening's performance.
+
+Neither the dust nor the dinginess was seen by Laura.  A subtle
+fascination held her in thrall--she saw everything through a golden
+light.
+
+She, who had been stage manager so often under the disadvantages of
+improvised platforms and home-made curtains, could appreciate a real
+hall and a real stage with a real curtain, were they ever so crude.
+
+She was on the point of returning to fetch Ivy to view the magic scene
+and share her joy, when one of the men, who appeared to be a personage
+of authority, left the stage where he had been directing the movements
+of everybody, and proceeded down the aisle.
+
+His coat brushed against a bench and sustained a smudge of dust which
+he viewed with an exclamation of disgust.
+
+Returning to the dressing-room, he hunted round and found a
+feather-duster which he carried away in triumph.
+
+He came down the aisle for the second time, wielding the brush with
+vigor, making frantic dabs at the benches on each side, and raising
+great clouds of dust that rose and enveloped him, and settled back
+again on the furniture.
+
+Laura was so interested in his movements that she forgot her manners,
+and stood watching his ineffectual efforts at cleaning up, with a smile
+of amusement mingled with compassion.
+
+At length the stranger was seized with a fit of coughing as the dust
+invaded his throat, and he stood for a moment to rest from his labors.
+
+Then for the first time he noticed the little girl standing smiling in
+the doorway.
+
+He gave her an answering smile, lifted his hat and, to Laura's dismay,
+crossed over to her side.
+
+He was very dark and foreign looking; she recognized him as one of the
+gentlemen whom she and Ivy had noticed on the street.
+
+"Pardon, _mademoiselle_," he said; "but perhaps you are the good fairy
+to help me out!"
+
+Laura answered him with a blush and a look of inquiry.
+
+"The dust, _c'est_ terrible," he went on to explain; "but there is no
+one to remove it from the seats.  The ladies will have fear for their
+beautiful costumes.  Can you not direct me to someone who will
+manipulate this woman's weapon?  I confess it is beyond my powers!"
+
+He glanced so ruefully at the feather brush that Laura laughed aloud.
+
+"Why, I can dust the benches in a little while, if you wish!"
+
+"Did not my heart tell me you were my good angel?  Oh, _mademoiselle_,
+if you will be so kind!"
+
+He handed the duster to Laura with a sigh of relief and returned to the
+overseeing of things in another part of the hall.
+
+"Why, Lol, it's like belonging to the troupe," cried Ivy, who came at
+her friend's call and seated herself on a back seat where she could see
+everything that went on, while Laura gave the benches a careful
+overhauling.
+
+Meanwhile the open doorway was filled with a group of curious children,
+wide-eyed and smiling, among whom were Nettie Lee and little Claude
+Bonner.
+
+Laura's task completed, she placed the duster upon a front seat and
+turned to go away with Ivy.  They had almost reached the door when they
+heard a voice:
+
+"_Merci, mademoiselle_," cried the foreign gentleman, overtaking them;
+"may I prevail upon you to accept this ticket to the performance, as a
+slight acknowledgment of my obligations--or, better still," as he
+glanced at Ivy, "come to the side door tonight and ask for Mr. Edmonds
+and bring your sister and," his eyes strayed to the line of wondering
+childish faces at the door, "the rest of your little brothers and
+sisters!"
+
+Laura's surprised and happy look and Ivy's gasp of pleasure gave
+testimony to their delight, and the man smiled as he watched them going
+away joyfully.
+
+"_Merci, mademoiselle!_" cried Ivy, with a titter of delight, "Oh, Lol,
+isn't it lovely to be able to go after all!"
+
+"Yes, it's fine!  But I shall have to hurry home; there will be so much
+to do.  I must help Nettie to get ready."
+
+That little girl who was walking behind them clapped her hands.
+
+"What are you going to wear, Laura?"
+
+"Me?  My white, I guess--"
+
+"I'll wear my old standby--the dotted lawn."
+
+They went down the street chatting gaily but presently Ivy's enthusiasm
+died away; her mind seemed intent on something else.  At last she
+turned to Laura, saying in a rather choked voice:
+
+"Lol, would you mind taking Lafe instead of me?  You know he is so
+anxious to go!"
+
+Laura veiled her surprise at this new phase in her friend, who had
+always hitherto claimed the best as her right.  Her eyes glistened as
+she replied,
+
+"Yes, indeed, I would mind his coming instead of you, but I shouldn't
+mind his coming along; tell him to bring Donald, too."
+
+"But what will Mr. Edmonds think?"
+
+"He said all my little brothers and sisters.  I'm sure you folks are
+just the same thing.  Lois is too small to go, she can't keep awake
+after eight, so we can smuggle Claude in, instead."  Whereupon that
+little lad who had been walking along dejectedly at Nettie's side gave
+a whoop of delight.  Laura continued, "It's too bad Hugh and Mat can't
+pose as my little brothers!"
+
+"They are so inconveniently tall.  Seems to me I can see Hugh's legs
+lifting his poor head up higher and higher every day," said Ivy
+dolefully.  Laura laughed.
+
+"The oak will never grow beyond the ivy's reach, so never fear!  But
+I'd better hurry home, for there's Alene, too--I must send a note to
+her!"
+
+"That will be splendid!  Oh, Lol, your Mr. Edmonds will think when he
+sees us all of that verse in the Scriptures, 'Go out into the highways
+and byways and call the lame, the halt and the blind.'"
+
+When they paused to say good-bye at the parting of the ways Ivy said
+with a sudden rush of words:
+
+"Now, Lol, don't go to thinking I'm a heroine because I proposed to
+keep in the background for once!  You don't know how I hesitated and
+hated it."
+
+"Don't you remember your story about the blooming flowers and the
+singing birds?"
+
+"Oh, Laura, it's so much easier for me to write about kind deeds than
+to do them!"
+
+"I only wish the rest of us Happy-Go-Luckys may do as well when the
+time comes!" returned Laura.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
+
+"Come here, Nettie," cried Laura; "I'll plait your hair so it will be
+wavy for to-night, and then I want you to take a note to Alene."
+
+Nettie was glad of the chance to visit the Towers but she objected to
+having her hair brushed so vigorously.
+
+"Mother, do make Nettie behave!  She won't keep still and her hair gets
+all tangled!"
+
+"Nettie, you are too big to make so much noise.  If you don't wish to
+go with the others to-night, say so and Laura needn't bother,"
+admonished Mrs. Lee.
+
+"Of course I want to go but I hate this fussing," returned the little
+girl.
+
+"It would only serve you right if mother kept your hair cut straight
+around from your ears, like the Hoover children!" remarked Laura.
+
+This veiled threat had a good effect; Nettie made no more trouble and
+soon her long tresses were confined in six tight braids and she was
+free to seize her hat and go on her mission.
+
+Holding the note folded tightly in her hand, she went up the steep
+street and along the vine-covered wall of the Tower grounds, and
+finally reached the stone steps leading to the double gates of iron,
+through which a broad walk in the midst of grass and trees curved
+toward the house.
+
+The gate opened readily to Nettie's touch and then shut with a loud
+bang that attracted the attention of a big, black dog which came
+bounding across the grass.  At his first bark Nettie's heart stood
+still.  She paused just inside the gate, too terrified to move, but in
+a moment she felt secure, for she saw Alene coming along the walk,
+calling imperiously to Prince.
+
+"What a shame to scare the little girl!  Go right home, sir!  Don't be
+frightened, Nettie, he won't harm you.  He only barks that way to let
+you know how glad he is to see you!  Come in, girlie!"
+
+"It's only a note from Laura; I can't wait," said Nettie shyly.
+
+Alene glanced at the note.
+
+"Isn't that fine?  Yes, tell her I'll be down at seven, if Uncle Fred
+is willing!  And you are going, too; I thought there was something up
+when I saw your hair; Laura's so proud of it and no wonder!  But come
+in just for a moment!"
+
+She took Nettie's hand and led her to the house, back to the immaculate
+kitchen, where, sitting in the rocking chair, the little girl enjoyed
+some cakes and milk provided by Kizzie, while Alene brought Prince in
+to beg her pardon and get better acquainted.
+
+Their friendship grew so rapidly that by the time Nettie was ready to
+go home she was brave enough to stroke his glossy head, and she
+screamed with delight when, accompanied by Alene, all three raced to
+the gate.
+
+"You won't be afraid next time," said Alene encouragingly as she held
+the gate open.
+
+"No indeed, thank you!" returned Nettie, "Good-bye!  Good-bye, Prince!"
+
+She turned away, joyfully clasping to her breast a satin-striped box,
+in which beneath paper lace and tinsel was the most delicious candy; a
+whole box full all but a few bites, as Alene had said; while the latter
+leaned over the wall calling more good-byes, and Prince kept up a
+continuous barking that said so plainly, once you understood his
+language, "Good-bye!  Good-bye!  Come back again!"'
+
+But when Alene, with an armful of flowers, reached the Lee house that
+evening, she found poor Nettie in a state of revolt; the process of
+being washed and dressed in her stiff-starched pique and having her
+plaits undone was very trying to both her and Laura.
+
+She glanced up at the yellow canary swinging so blithely in his cage.
+
+"I do wish people were like birds," she cried, "they are always dressed
+just in their feathers!"
+
+"Even then you wouldn't want to take your bath," said Laura, giving a
+last touch to the shining locks which hung like a veil to the child's
+waist.  "I'll be ready in a minute, Alene," she continued, as she
+released the little girl, "I didn't feel satisfied until I saw you
+coming!"
+
+"I got all ready when Nettie left, and could hardly wait for Uncle Fred
+to come home to show him your note.  The old dear said yes, right away,
+but insisted upon my taking some dinner first.  Then I waited to gather
+these roses for your Mother.  Shall we start now?"
+
+Ivy was standing at the door with her seven-year-old brother awaiting
+their coming, and taking note of Alene's dress of white challis
+o'erstrewn with pink rosebuds which, as they came nearer, disclosed a
+yoke embroidered in the same design, while a wreath of roses adorned
+her hat.  She thought it was a beautiful costume, and that the other
+girls looked nice, too, though Laura's white dimity and Nettie's blue
+pique were as well worn as her own familiar lawn.
+
+"Where's Lafe?" inquired Laura.
+
+"He ran ahead with Donald to join us later.  I think they are ashamed
+to be seen with this mob!" returned Ivy with a laugh.  "What will Mr.
+Edmonds think of us?"
+
+Laura declared he wouldn't care, but when they reached the hall where a
+great crowd was congregated, and she saw so many getting their tickets
+at the box-office and filing, one by one, past the door-keeper, she
+began to feel less confident.
+
+They threaded their way slowly through the crowded court, where all the
+children of the town seemed to have collected and finally reached the
+side door.
+
+"Here comes an orphan asylum," was the derisive and no doubt envious
+cry of a boy who had heard of the wonderful luck that had befallen the
+Lees and their friends.  Indeed the knowledge seemed general, and as
+they came along, first Laura with Nettie clinging to her skirts, and
+then Alene, to whom it was all so new and exciting, trying to keep
+little Claude safe from harm, with Ivy bringing up the rear, they were
+the objects of many curious glances.
+
+"Mr. Edmonds said to ask for him," Laura faltered, when the line halted
+at the side door.
+
+"Oh--Ah," said the young man who was on guard.  He turned to look for
+that gentleman, and Laura glancing backward, felt like a kite with a
+long, embarrassing tail, which stretched apparently to the upper street.
+
+What a relief it was to hear a genial voice saying,
+
+"Oh, _mademoiselle_, is it you?  Come in, come in!"
+
+The speaker's smiling countenance and kindly air banished Laura's fears
+and she passed the threshold proudly, followed by her triumphant train.
+
+Glancing at Mr. Edmonds, Ivy saw his smile grow broad and broader as
+they filed past one by one.  Her trepidation vanished and when her turn
+came she met his amused glance with an answering smile.
+
+"Are there any more of you?" he inquired, in a whimsical tone.
+
+"No, sir, unless Lafe and Donald; I guess they're ashamed to be seen!"
+
+"Hello there, Lafe and Donald," cried the gentleman, and the two boys,
+who were standing aloof, ashamed to be seen, and yet afraid they
+wouldn't, pushed their way through the crowd with an air of bravado
+which their blushing cheeks denied, and were duly admitted.  Upon
+reaching the inside they joined a crowd of their chums, leaving the
+girls to be piloted to a reserved bench by an usher whom Mr. Edmonds
+had delegated.
+
+How happy and proud they felt as they settled themselves in their
+places and looked around them!
+
+The stage was in darkness, making it seem the more mysterious in
+contrast with the glaring light of the auditorium.
+
+The hall was filling rapidly with the citizens, their wives and
+daughters, all dressed in their best, and our party was much interested
+in watching the new arrivals when suddenly Ivy gave Laura a nudge, and
+the latter, following her glance, saw a short gentleman accompanied by
+a tall lady in a rustling summer-silk coming up the aisle followed by
+two girls, one dressed in white, the other in pale green, with mammoth
+white hats.
+
+"The Ramseys!" whispered Laura, and Alene, who was watching the little
+ones, looked up in time to receive a gracious smile from Vera, who
+appeared not to see the other girls, although she was entering the seat
+directly in front of them.
+
+On being seated Hermione looked around and seemed pleasantly surprised
+to see them.  She nodded and smiled and holding her arm, leaned back to
+whisper,
+
+"Don't mention taffy or my arm will start stirring again!"
+
+Suddenly the lights went down in the main hall, to shine with redoubled
+brilliancy upon the stage.
+
+"Look at the Jacks-in-the-boxes!" cried Nettie, as several heads were
+seen popping from under the stage.
+
+"It's the band," explained Laura.  Sure enough, it was the musicians
+who took a row of chairs in front of the curtain, and with a
+preliminary tuning up and a few toots of the clarinet, began a swinging
+march.
+
+How hard it was for the little ones to keep their feet still, though
+they knew that was the proper thing to do!  Claude, however, found his
+little legs swinging in time, being careful not to let them touch the
+floor, and Nettie's bright head and busy hands kept up a sort of
+lilting movement, both children requiring some outlet for all that
+pent-up exhilaration.
+
+The music died gradually to the softest murmur, the curtain ascended
+slowly, a movement and flutter went through the hall, and the people
+settled themselves in their seats with their faces turned to the stage.
+
+Up, up, the curtain soared toward the ceiling.  Little Claude watched
+it with a fascinated glance, expecting it to go right through the roof
+but when it stopped just in time he gave a sigh of relief and directed
+his eyes toward the stage.  Then his face lengthened--as far as such a
+chubby face could--for all that he saw in front of him was a huge round
+affair of some soft material, all decked with flowers.
+
+"Great scissors!" he muttered, as he gazed upon it in amazement; then
+he noticed at the other side of the hall a portly gentleman who held a
+sort of wand with which he pointed toward the stage where something
+interesting was taking place but, alas, all that was visible to Claude
+was the topmost part which resembled a clouded sky.
+
+He gave a sigh of disappointment and glanced toward the girls.  Alene
+was leaning forward with a rapt expression, Ivy's mouth was half
+opened--she appeared to have forgotten the world--and Laura's head was
+craned painfully to one side of that huge affair in front.  Then he
+glanced at Nettie who sat beside him.  Her face was the picture of woe,
+her lips were curled ready to cry.
+
+"What's the matter?" he whispered sympathetically.
+
+A tear came running slowly down her cheek.
+
+"Don't you see--I can't see a thing!"
+
+Alene, attracted by their restlessness, glanced round.  There they sat,
+looking blankly at Hermione's mammoth hat, that shut away everything
+else from their gaze.  To be sure, it was a beautiful creation of white
+chiffon, green foliage and pink ribbons; but when one has feasted his
+eyes for a week on gorgeous posters, and has been washed and starched
+and brought to the show to see wonderful things on a real stage, a
+girl's hat, be it ever so fine, is surely a poor substitute!
+
+"You little martyrs!" exclaimed Alene, feeling that she must do
+something to help them.
+
+She knew it would be useless to have them change places with her or the
+other girls.  It was only by leaning to one side that they were able to
+see the pictures, for the brim of Hermione's hat met that of Vera's, a
+rival in pale green and white, forming a screen which completely hid
+the stage.
+
+With a sudden compunction Alene remembered that her own hat was of
+goodly proportions, with a lovely lace cascade rippling over the brim.
+She glanced behind to find that she, too, was an offender, for a little
+girl whose head was on a level with Claude's, sat directly in the rear.
+
+For a moment only Alene hesitated, then she reached for her hat pin,
+and whispering, called the attention of Laura and Ivy to the situation.
+They gave her a nod and following her example took off their hats
+which, while not so fine as Alene's and the Ramsey girls', were just as
+effectual in shutting out the view.
+
+The people back of them nodded their approval and the mother of the
+little maid whom Alene had first noticed leaned forward to thank her,
+but the action of the three girls gave little relief so long as those
+other hats stood up defiantly in front.
+
+What could be done?  They were all missing the first scene and Nettie
+and Claude might just as well have remained at home for all enjoyment
+they were having.
+
+Alene leaned over and tapped Hermione on the shoulder.  The latter
+glanced around.
+
+"Would you mind removing your hat, Hermione?  The children--"
+
+"What a shame!  Thank you for telling me!  I'll tell Vera, too!"
+
+Vera glanced at her sister wonderingly when she commenced to unfasten
+her hat.
+
+"The children can't see," she explained.  "Take yours off too, Vera,
+do!"
+
+"Are you crazy'?  The very idea!  No one can see it if I do!"
+
+"That's the point, no one wants to see it!"
+
+Vera tossed her head.
+
+"It's just in people's way!" persisted Hermione.
+
+"Well, it will be in my own way if I have to keep it in my lap."
+
+Just then came a loud whisper from the rear--
+
+"Country style!  No one in the city ever wears a hat at the theatre!"
+
+A chorus of low laughter followed this remark, and Vera, not knowing it
+was made by Ivy, began to have doubts as to the correctness of her
+position.
+
+It was Alene, she knew, who had inaugurated the style here, and she was
+from the city.  Vera noticed, besides, that all over the hall the women
+and children who wore large hats were taking them off.
+
+"Well, if it's the correct thing.  But what's the use of having a fine
+hat if it's not to be worn in public?" she murmured, as with a show of
+complacency the "screen" was removed.
+
+Claude and Nettie gave a murmur of joy when they beheld the beautiful
+painted canvas spread out before them.
+
+At the end of the scene when the curtain fell, the lecturer in a few
+words thanked the ladies for their courtesy and thoughtfulness.  "To
+have regard for the rights and feelings of others is to act upon the
+Golden Rule!  Not alone for the audience but for myself also I thank
+you!  Especially do I thank the little girls who set the good example."
+He turned to the bench where the originators of the movement sat and
+gave them an impressive bow, then he stepped back, and the band started
+up with a crash and a bang that resounded throughout the hall.
+
+"It was Alene who deserved all the credit," commented Ivy.
+
+"Yes, indeed," agreed Laura warmly.
+
+"He looked straight at me," whispered Vera.
+
+"Miss Vanity, it was all Alene's work!" returned her sister.
+
+At that moment Alene's gaze, straying to another part of the hall,
+spied her Uncle Fred who had come in unobserved by the girls and taken
+a seat not far away.
+
+He was looking in her direction with such a pleased and happy
+countenance that Alene, meeting his glance, flashed him a radiant smile
+over the heads of the people.
+
+"I wonder what makes him look so pleased," she murmured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AFTER THE SHOW
+
+Meanwhile, outside in the court, many boys and girls who were unable to
+attend the show found a great attraction in its immediate vicinity.
+
+To watch the doors through which so many lucky individuals passed had
+proved very interesting earlier in the evening, and after the door had
+closed upon the latest comer to creep closely to doors and windows, and
+listen to the hum and flutter of the crowd, and then to hear the band's
+inspiring strains was a source of joy.  But when the music ceased and a
+great calm settled on the audience, they knew very well it was because
+the show had commenced, and that, alas, was not visible through thick
+boards.
+
+One window, whose shutters were pierced by penknives in former years,
+was held valiantly all the evening by a special clique of youngsters
+who relieved each other at intervals in pressing their eyes to the
+holes, thus getting glimpses of the mysteries within.
+
+A certain ingenious lad had repaired to a nearby house, borrowed a red
+hot poker, and returning to the hall, bored two peep-holes through
+another shutter, while an enterprising companion pried open a third
+window, thus giving a full view of the pictures to all who were
+fortunate enough to get near.
+
+All these delinquents at first were thrown into intermittent thrills of
+fright whenever the word went round that the constable was coming; but
+when, after many false alarms, that worthy man was discovered sitting
+comfortably in the hall, well up toward the stage, they felt secure,
+knowing they could easily find safety in flight at the first show of
+activity on his part.
+
+The panorama moved on.  Christian's movements were followed with
+intense interest, especially by the younger onlookers.  Claude found a
+special fascination in the big bag fastened upon the hero's shoulders.
+He wondered what it contained and when, toward the end, it was lost in
+some mysterious way that he could not understand, he felt very much
+disappointed not to have found out.  Nettie whispered she guessed it
+was old clothes, but Claude knew it was something more interesting than
+that.
+
+At last came the Dark Valley and then the Grand Transformation scene,
+when through the great pearly gates a glimpse of the Celestial City was
+obtained.  Little white-robed angels, with crowns and harps, were seen
+flying through the pink tinted air; the white walls and shining domes
+of the heavenly mansions glittered in the distance, and Christian's
+trials were past.  The children, gazing enraptured at the scene, were
+sorry that it could not last forever.
+
+Nettie felt a special interest in one chubby cherub who reminded her of
+Lois, and wished for a closer acquaintance, and Claude still hoped to
+see the bag bobbing up again to display its contents, like a wizard's
+hat but, alas, in a moment the fairy scene was blotted out by the
+descending curtain!
+
+Everybody rose and took place in the procession toward the door.
+
+At that moment a crash was heard; a pane of glass was shattered by some
+one outside leaning too heavily against it.  In a moment the score of
+heads which were peering in had disappeared.  The red-faced constable
+was seen edging his way through the crowd, and Claude and Nettie had
+visions of handcuffs and the jail in store for the offenders, who,
+however, were far away when the enforcer of the law arrived upon the
+scene.
+
+Ivy nudged Alene, who in turn nudged Laura, who looked round just in
+time to see Mr. Edmonds standing near the box-office.
+
+"_Bon jour, mesdemoiselles_," he cried, with a smile and a bow that
+included them all.  "I hope you enjoyed your evening."
+
+"Yes, indeed, thank you, sir!"
+
+"It was beautiful!"
+
+"Lovely!"
+
+"Where do you keep Lois, I mean the cherub?" murmured Nettie in so shy
+a tone that only her lips were seen moving, and Claude wished he were
+well enough acquainted to ask about the missing bag.
+
+The girls felt a thrill of pride at their prominent position.  Speaking
+to one of the show people was next to being a real actor, but they had
+to move on with the crowd which pressed around them.
+
+Mr. Edmonds handed the beaming Laura a pretty book, which proved to be
+an illustrated copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, and with a parting _au
+revoir_, re-entered the box-office.
+
+"Decidedly forward, keeping everyone back this way," said Mrs. Ramsey,
+who was slightly in the rear, having waited to fasten Vera's hat.
+"Alene Dawson is a bold piece!  The idea of making everybody remove
+their hats!  I was glad I wore a close-fitting bonnet or I'd actually
+have had to take mine off too.  One can't be odd, you know!--Oh,
+there's Mr. Dawson!  Good evening!  Why don't you call upon me to
+chaperone Alene for you?  She seems so forsaken, poor thing!  I assure
+you I'll take her gladly any time with my girls!"
+
+"You are very kind, but to-night is a sort of a Club affair I believe!"
+
+"Club affair!"
+
+"Is it the Happy-Go-Luckys?" inquired Hermione with a smile.
+
+"Yes, Alene came on their invitation."
+
+"But to be out so late, going home alone!" gasped the lady.
+
+"She is never alone!  Half a dozen of the girls and boys intend
+escorting her home to-night and, besides, you see I am not far in the
+rear!"
+
+"What a likely tale!" cried Mrs. Ramsey, as the crowd carried the
+gentleman away.  "As if the Lees or the Bonners could afford such an
+expense!  I'll wager Fred Dawson paid for them all; but then he's
+always been odd--don't you remember that little foreigner he made such
+a fuss over because Mrs. Truby had him arrested for stealing?  He
+actually spent a lot of money to get him off!"
+
+"But the boy was innocent, mamma.  Don't you remember how the lady
+found the money a long time afterward, where she had hidden and
+forgotten it?"
+
+"But that is not the point--Fred Dawson didn't know he was innocent.
+And there's old Miss Marlin, the best teacher of painting and the
+languages in town--who charges outlandish prices because he upholds
+her, and he actually gives her a house, rent free!"
+
+"She is his old teacher and very feeble!  Dawson is a great-hearted
+fellow.  In his quiet way he does more good than many of our famed
+philanthropists," said the usually silent Mr. Ramsey.
+
+"Philanthropy, indeed!  Were I Alene's mother I wouldn't like it at
+all, throwing his money away.  If he doesn't marry, it will all go to
+Alene!"
+
+"She will have plenty in any case; her father is very well fixed!"
+commented Mr. Ramsey.
+
+"Is Alene an heiress?" cried Vera.  "How funny!  No one would ever
+guess it from her manner!"
+
+"It's well you are not; you would want an air-ship in order to live up
+in the clouds above the heads of ordinary people!  Alene has brains!"
+returned Hermione.
+
+"An unspoiled child, I should judge," said her father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAURA'S PROPOSITION
+
+"There's a club or something of that kind.  I think it's a branch of
+the Sunshine Society," said Laura, as they sat under the trees on the
+terrace one bright afternoon, "that keeps a record of the birthdays of
+certain members who are sick or shut away from active life, and
+everybody is invited to a sort of surprise party, as it were; letters,
+books, or mementos of any kind are sent to reach the person on a
+certain date; it's a red-white-and-blue letter date for her, I guess--"
+
+"Not blue," interrupted Ivy, "I'd call it a red letter day!"
+
+"Well--" said Alene when Laura paused as if to ponder over something
+suggested by her words.
+
+"Well," she returned, coming back to the present, to find her two
+friends waiting interestedly.  "Well, it strikes me as a good idea for
+adoption by the Happy-Go-Luckys.  It wouldn't be original with us, but
+if we wait to do only things which have never been done before, we may
+remain idle forever and ever, for there's nothing original under the
+sun."
+
+"Except original sin," suggested Ivy.
+
+Laura gave her a withering glance that included Alene who always found
+Ivy's sallies amusing.  Perhaps Alene's smile on this occasion caused
+Ivy to continue:
+
+"Yes, Lol, I've found that's true, especially when one's writing.  If
+you put down something you think is decidedly fine or smart, you're
+sure to find that the Bible or Shakespeare or the Daily Observer in
+to-day's paper has said it all so much better!  But excuse me, I'm
+interrupting you!"
+
+Laura was too full of her subject to give more than a stiff little
+contraction of the lips to Ivy's digression; she went on to say:--
+
+"Well, what made me think so much of the birthday idea was what Mother
+said when she came home from Mrs. Kump's this morning.  The old lady
+lives all alone.  She makes a living by doing odd jobs, so Mother
+wanted to get her to do some quilting.  She does it beautifully, in an
+old-fashioned way that few understand now-a-days.  When Mother got
+there she found her going round doing her work on her hands and
+knees--her feet were too sore to walk on.  She told Mother she had been
+that way for a week.  She was glad of the quilting, not having been
+able to do any other kind of work for some time.  Mother was afraid she
+might be in actual want, but she didn't dare say a word for fear of
+offending her.  Mrs. Kump happened to remark that Thursday, the day
+after to-morrow, is her birthday, and hearing that, just after reading
+about the birthday party, made me think of the Happy-Go-Luckys' 'Be
+kind' clause.  So, girls, what do you think?"  Laura turned to them a
+shining, expectant countenance.
+
+"That we might set some birds a-flying straight to the poor old lady,"
+was Alene's prompt reply.
+
+"Yes, the birds will be the best in this case as it is rather quick
+time for flower seeds to take root and bloom," remarked Ivy.
+
+"But these are a kind of magic flowers that spring up in a single
+night," said Alene.
+
+"And who knows, some of them may turn out regular century plants.  I
+read a poem not long ago, about a pebble cast upon the beach, that sent
+out ripples to the farther shore, which I suppose means that sometimes
+our smallest action may have a far reaching influence," said Ivy, who
+reclined on the grass, with her eyes fixed dreamily on the blue expanse
+of sky that stretched across the river and met the dark blue line of
+hills beyond.
+
+"Come down out of the clouds!  We have work to do and precious little
+time for its doing," cried Laura, giving her a shaking.  She sat up
+laughing.
+
+"Sounds like a sermon on the shortness of time!  What's time to us
+children of eternity?  But what shall we give to poor old Mrs. Kump?"
+
+"That's the question," said Laura, glad to have arrived at something
+practical, a matter she often found rather difficult with Ivy.  "Mother
+has promised a loaf of bread."
+
+"And I'll ask Mother to give some rolls--but that's bread too; sounds
+so dry--I hate dry bread!"
+
+"Kizzie always gives me a dish of honey for breakfast.  I'll ask her
+for some of it, and Mrs. Major gets the loveliest little pats of butter
+from the country, marked with a dear little cow--I'm sure she will give
+me one!"
+
+"Instead of a bird that will be a butterfly," interposed Ivy; "or a
+cowslip!"
+
+"Or a buttercup and a honey-bee," returned Alene.
+
+"You wretches!  Here's one to get even.  As Mrs. Kump works at
+quilting, we ought to send her a quilting-bee!"
+
+Laura's sally was greeted with groans.
+
+"Well, there's something you won't groan about.  Mrs. Kump was
+lamenting that she couldn't go out to pick any berries this year and so
+will miss her jam.  Let's go blackberrying to-morrow morning, if the
+boys will go along; we can get home before noon and I'll make her a jar
+of jam."
+
+"Splendid!" cried Alene, "I've never gone berrying in my life!"
+
+"What's the matter with you, Ivy?  You are not usually so shy!"
+
+"It will be too far for me," said Ivy dejectedly.
+
+"Where did you think I meant to go?  Why, just around the road, on the
+hillside near the bridge!"
+
+"There's not a berry left there!  Hugh went over this morning and found
+the bushes stripped!  The nearest place is Thornley's, three miles
+away!"
+
+"Then of course we won't go!  I wonder if you could go horseback?  I
+was thinking that Mat could borrow the groceryman's horse."
+
+"No, Lol, I never learned to ride.  Besides, it would be so jolty!  The
+rest of you go without me; the walk will be only a pleasure for you!"
+
+The girls protested against this; they talked of other things connected
+with Mrs. Kump's birthday party, and the blackberry project was
+apparently abandoned.
+
+A bright thought had come to Alene, however, which she resolved to keep
+a secret until she found if she could carry out her plan.
+
+It all depended on her uncle, whom she expected to come up the street
+at any moment, on his way home from the office.  She jumped up when she
+saw him coming.
+
+"Stay here, girls, until I speak to Uncle Fred."
+
+She ran to the wall and climbed up at the spot where she had first seen
+her new friends.
+
+Mr. Dawson crossed in answer to her call.
+
+After a few moments' conversation she returned to the girls, saying
+gaily:--
+
+"It's all right, he says we may have it!"
+
+They gazed upon her wonderingly.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Alene laughed.
+
+"There, I forgot it was a secret.  Well, here goes--All the horses are
+out at the farm now, but Uncle Fred says we may have the surrey if Mat
+can get a horse!"
+
+Laura clapped her hands, and Ivy, who had been unusually silent and
+depressed in the last half hour, brightened and her face was fairly
+radiant with joy as she cried:
+
+"Oh, Alene!  You good fairy godmother!  It's just like Cinderella and
+her pumpkin coach!"
+
+"But we mustn't wear glass slippers," said Laura.  "You see, Alene,
+when we go a-berrying we always wear our heaviest shoes and battered
+bonnets and patched dresses, for the thorns tear our shoes and clothes."
+
+Alene's face clouded.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't find a battered dress or a patched bonnet.  Will I
+have to stay at home?"
+
+"No, you goose!  Just wear the plainest you have!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+IN THE BERRY PATCH
+
+As if in a dream Alene heard a voice:
+
+"It's after five o'clock, Miss Alene.  You better get up if you want to
+be ready by six!"
+
+Alene sat up with a yawn.  She blinked her eyes and gazed solemnly at
+the rosy, smiling face of the little maid.
+
+"I wonder why it's so much easier to get up the night before!" she
+ejaculated.
+
+Kizzie laughed as she crossed the room and raised the blinds.  The lace
+curtains billowed in the fresh air and the soft light of dawn stole
+into the room.  A pretty room it was, too, with blue and gray matting,
+blue tinted walls, its white stand and dresser, and little brass bed.
+
+With another yawn Alene slipped her feet to the white rug beside the
+bed, stood up, and lifting her gown as if for a skirt dance, skipped
+lightly to a willow rocker which stood invitingly before one of the
+tall windows overlooking the terrace and the town.
+
+"I'll run downstairs and get some breakfast ready, and then come back
+and help you with your hair and buttons," said Kizzie.
+
+Alene knelt down beside the chair and buried her face in its blue
+cushions to say her morning prayers.
+
+There was a time when she had first come to the Towers when to her
+regular prayers she always added a sort of petition--"Please, dear
+Lord, I am so lonely!"
+
+Now her heart was filled with the beauty of the day, its promises of
+joy.  She had so much that for herself there was nothing more to
+ask--only thanks to give, but for her friends, beginning with Mrs.
+Kump, the latest, and ending with her parents, the oldest and best
+beloved, she petitioned many blessings.
+
+Only a few moments given to God, but they were a consecration for the
+day!
+
+Alene rose with a song on her lips and proceeded with her bath and
+dressing.  She found herself doing so many things now-a-days that a few
+months before would have seemed an impossibility.
+
+"I used to be a bigger baby than Nettie or even Lois," she reflected as
+she buttoned her shoes and started to comb her hair.  This was always a
+difficult task.  The comb that went through those long locks so
+smoothly when manipulated by some one else, encountered many snarls,
+and Alene was glad when Kizzie came back to relieve her.  A vigorous
+brushing and curling soon brought the refractory hair to the required
+state, and the glossy brown curls were finally tied at the nape of her
+neck with a bow of blue ribbon.
+
+She was too excited to eat her breakfast; it was only Kizzie's reminder
+that, "Mr. Fred will ask if you ate a good breakfast.  He will be
+displeased if you don't," that induced her to partake of anything.
+
+She had scarcely finished her bowl of milk and crackers when the big
+gate clanged through the still air, then came a medley of gay voices;
+the walk resounded beneath the tread of light footsteps, and Prince's
+sonorous bark gave forth a challenge.
+
+"There they come!"
+
+"Here they are!"  Alene rushed from the table.
+
+She paused for a moment in the open doorway in sheer amazement and then
+she gave a peal of laughter.
+
+"No wonder Prince was scared!" she cried.
+
+For there stood the girls with their sunbonnets drawn over their faces,
+and their skirts spread out to display each rent and patch, of which
+there were not a few.  Laura put one foot forward that a dilapidated
+shoe, from which her toes peeped, might not escape notice, and Ivy
+seemed proud of a pocket, turned inside out, that was apparently all
+holes.
+
+A snickering sound came from the depths of the bonnets and then their
+laughter rang out loud and long.
+
+"We had rehearsed a speech about tramping along the tracks all night,
+but I couldn't say a word to save my life when I saw your bewildered
+face!" explained Ivy when their mirth had subsided.
+
+"You poor girl!" remarked Laura with a commiserating glance at Alene's
+neat blue gingham gown with its trimming of fancy braid; "is that the
+'very worstest' you could scare up?"
+
+"Kizzie helped me to look through my trunk and wardrobe and we couldn't
+find a thing plainer.  I looked it over but there's not a tear in it!
+I might have sewed a patch on, but that would have been make-believe!"
+
+Alene's tone was disconsolate.
+
+"Well, never mind, come along!  There's Hugh waiting near the gate and
+Mat's minding the rig!  You needn't take your hat, I brought Nettie's
+bonnet; it will do fine.  It's too big for her!"
+
+They ran along the walk and scrambled into the surrey.  The girls took
+the back seat, Hugh jumped in beside Mat, and with gay good-byes to
+Kizzie and Prince they were off on their way to the country.
+
+The bells of the factories rang out, calling the men to work.  Few
+pedestrians, however, were seen for the majority of the working people
+lived in the streets nearer the river, while the merchants and
+leisurely class occupied residences in the upper streets, along which
+they drove.  Occasionally an energetic maid was seen cleaning the front
+steps or porch, and just on the out-skirts of the town they passed a
+group of boys going the same way, who eyed them curiously.
+
+"Hey, Hughie," cried one, "where are you bound for?"
+
+"Berryin'!"
+
+"So are we!"
+
+Mat gave the grocer's slow-going nag a touch that livened him and they
+were soon carried out of range of the lads.
+
+"It's that Stony Road gang!" Hugh glanced round to explain.
+
+"The ones who tried to steal our lunch that day?  But I didn't see Mark
+Griffin with them--he's your fish-boy, Alene," said Ivy.
+
+"I guess he'll join them later on; that's his home!"
+
+Hugh pointed to a low stone house that stood some distance in from the
+road, beyond a well-trimmed hedge and broad stretch of lawn, with
+grape-arbors and barns showing in the rear.
+
+"Why, his folks must be well off," said Laura in surprise.
+
+"Old man Griffin owns the boat-yards over in Westville."
+
+"Well, his son might find better company than that, surely!"
+
+"Mark's been away at school most of his life and when he came home this
+vacation, the first thing we knew he was hobnobbing with that gang.
+They steal and play cards and torture animals!"
+
+"Horrors!"
+
+"I don't think he would torture anything, he doesn't look like that
+kind of a boy!" exclaimed Alene, warmly.
+
+"Might as well be bad as in bad company," returned Hugh, with that
+"preacher air" of his which Alene always found exasperating.
+
+"Mark and Jack Lever used to be thicker'n flies, but I've not seen 'em
+together this year," interposed Mat.
+
+"Jack's fine as silk, couldn't stand the Stony Road pace, I guess!
+Fact is, I haven't seen him for six weeks.  He's never in his father's
+store; must be out of town."
+
+"Gee up!" interposed Mat.  "If I didn't keep up a perpetual song, I
+believe Old Hurricane'd stop still and never go on again; can easily
+see he used to be a race horse!"
+
+"Yes, he always raced the last few yards home for his grub!"
+
+"He's doing splendiferous.  Only for him we wouldn't be here, so don't
+spurn the ladder by which we climb," cried Ivy.
+
+"Well, he'd make a better ladder than anything else, he's so bony;
+besides that he'd rather stand still any day and let us climb him!"
+
+"You ungrateful Mat!  But, Oh, girls and boys, to sit and let the air
+blow upon us, and feast our eyes on the glorious sunrise and the lovely
+green fields and flowers!  The air is like champagne I tasted once,
+kind of thin and clear and nippy and refreshing!"
+
+"If I knew you were a boozer, Miss Bonner, nothing would have induced
+me to undertake the management of this nervous racer.  If the air
+brings on an attack of the delirium tremenjous, how can I manage the
+two of you?"
+
+"Just manage your own tongue, Mr. Lee, but that would be an
+impossibility," said Ivy.
+
+"Talking of wine and things reminds me of Claude," said Laura.  "I
+overtook him coming down street the other day and we walked together.
+He stopped to peer in at the bars of the jail.  'I'd hate to be put in
+a stall like the poor drunkards.'  (He called them Dunkards.)  'And I'm
+sure you never will, Claude,' said I.  He threw back his shoulders and
+said, 'Well, I drank root-beer till I was six years old and then swore
+off and haven't drank a drop since!'  I could have screeched!"
+
+Hugh laughed heartily.
+
+"The little scamp!  He insisted on taking the pledge when I did last
+year!  The temperance lecturer was here.  He was a speaker, I can tell
+you!  When he cried that ancient warning:
+
+  'Young men, Ahoy there!
+  'What is it?'
+  'The rapids are below you.'
+
+I could see some of our old soaks shrinking in their seats; and when he
+wound up, 'Shrieking, howling, blaspheming, over they go,' it was
+simply immense!  There was such a stampede for the platform that you'd
+think we were drowning, and scrambling for life-buoys.  I knew from the
+way Mother spoke when I set out for the hall that she would like me to
+pledge myself.  Someway I didn't see any use in it, but that lecturer
+made me see lots of things, so I up and followed old man Potter who
+hadn't drawn a sober breath ever since I could remember.  Claude clung
+to my coat-tails.  "I want a ribbon, too!" he screamed.  The lecturer
+gave one look at the little shaver and the crowd roared as he pinned a
+badge on the boy's coat.  Ah, here we are at the patch!"
+
+Mat turned the horse into a lane leading to the left.
+
+"Here's your bonnet, Alene," cried Laura.  "Don't forget the buckets,
+boys!"
+
+Mat tied Old Hurricane to the fence beneath a shady tree and they
+started for the nearest clump of bushes, each carrying a tin cup,
+which, when filled with berries, was to be emptied into one of the
+buckets placed at a convenient spot.
+
+Alene gave a gasp of joy, when parting the branches she found an
+abundance of delicious fruit.  Her first scratch, a tiny one on the
+back of her hand, was proudly exhibited to the others.
+
+"How many have you eaten?" inquired Laura.
+
+"Not a one!"
+
+"Show your tongue, little girl," said Ivy in a doubting tone.  "Why,
+you poor thing, you haven't tasted one!  Look at mine," she opened her
+mouth.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Kump!" said Alene.
+
+The others laughed.
+
+"Oh, there will be plenty for her.  Eat all you wish, Alene; Mat and
+Hugh are noted pickers, there's no fear of our taking home empty
+buckets," said Laura.
+
+Alene's lips were soon in the same state as Ivy's.  The air had given
+her a sharp appetite, and when in the course of the morning, Laura
+found a package of sandwiches and tarts hidden under the seat of the
+surrey, she declared that nothing had ever tasted quite so good as the
+portion she disposed of, along with her tin of clear cold water from a
+neighboring well.
+
+While enjoying luncheon her eyes wandered over the berry patch which
+sloped gently upward to the road.  A great many children and a few men
+and women were scattered over the field, stripping the bushes.
+
+Across the patch a barred gate led to fields of pasture, and some of
+the boys on the safe side of the fence were goading a great red bull
+into a state of frenzy.
+
+As he tossed his head and bellowed, stamping and goring the ground,
+Alene was glad there was a strong fence between them.  She thought she
+recognized among the mischievous lads one of the crowd they had passed
+on the road in the early morning.
+
+The girls brushed away the crumbs of the feast and went back to the
+bushes, while the boys returned the borrowed water bucket to its owner,
+who lived a short distance up the lane.
+
+Alene was busy picking the ripe berries from an unusually heavy-laden
+branch, rejoicing to see her measure filling so rapidly, when she heard
+a terrified shriek.
+
+She jumped to her feet, letting the cup fall from her grasp, and turned
+to find the other girls standing with horror-stricken faces, gazing
+across the patch.  In a moment she knew what had happened.  The wide,
+barred gate had become unfastened in some way, probably by one of the
+boys.  It was standing wide open and the angry bull had come through
+and was seen tearing like a mad creature in the middle of the patch.
+
+Everyone sought places of safety, the small children clinging to their
+elders with frightened cries, while one or two of the more courageous
+young men who tried to head the animal and turn him back to his pasture
+were compelled to fly, to escape injury.
+
+The three girls stood for a moment as if paralyzed; then Laura grasped
+Ivy's arm.
+
+"Quick, quick, to the fence!  He's coming straight upon us!"
+
+"It's my red dress," gasped Ivy.
+
+Alene glanced round.  She saw they were not far from the fence but that
+it would be necessary to skirt a row of thick-grown bushes in order to
+reach it.  Could they do so in time?
+
+In the meantime Mat and Hugh, returning leisurely along the lane, were
+startled into activity by the sight that met their view.  Their gaze at
+once sought the place where they had left the girls.  It was deserted;
+but not far away, Ivy's dress made a bright spot that immediately held
+their glance, and the bull apparently had singled it out for attack;
+his mad flight led straight in the path of the girls.
+
+The boys, with one impulse, made a dash across the fence; with clenched
+hands and set teeth they stumbled onward; but alas, they were too far
+away to render any help!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TO THE RESCUE
+
+And then an unlooked-for actor appeared upon the scene; a boyish
+figure, supple and well built, sprang, as if miraculously, out of a
+dense clump of bushes, just beyond the terror-stricken girls.
+
+With a ringing shout he darted straight in front of the infuriated
+brute, and flung his coat defiantly in its eyes.  Angry and snorting,
+it tossed the coat aside and started after its tormentor.
+
+The trembling girls, thus suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from their
+peril, found new anxiety for the safety of their brave deliverer.
+
+With bated breath they watched him as, having succeeded in diverting
+the attention of the enemy, he half circled the field with the maddened
+creature in hot pursuit, so close at times that he felt its hot breath
+on his neck.
+
+Always heading in one direction, toward the open gate of the pasture
+field, the boy led the race, and finally breathless and almost
+exhausted, he gained the goal.
+
+Through the gate he ran and gave, as he cleared it, a sudden jump to
+one side, while the momentum of the bull carried it forward and beyond
+him.  A moment later he stood in the friendly grass of the berry-patch,
+with the gate closed securely between him and the foe.
+
+"It's Mark Griffin!" cried Ivy.
+
+"Yes, I knew him at once," returned Alene.
+
+The three girls clapped their hands joyfully, starting a round of
+applause.  Soon from every part of the patch came cheers and shouts and
+whistling; a small boy, who perhaps was the cause of all the trouble,
+scrambled from a tree near the big gate with a whoop that would have
+startled an Indian brave.  He ran across the field, picked up the coat
+from where it lay on the ground almost in ribbons, and returned it to
+its owner.
+
+With a humorous glance at the crumpled and grass-stained object Mark
+flung it over his shoulder and, followed by the urchin and one or two
+other boys, started away from the field and was soon out of sight down
+the lane.
+
+"He wouldn't wait a minute," explained Hugh apologetically, when he and
+Mat returned to the girls.
+
+Ivy curled her lip.
+
+"There's a great deal in the way things are asked," she said, and Hugh
+knew she was offended.
+
+"Who wouldn't run away from a lot of girls ready to slobber over him
+with thanks and prayers?" said Mat with a broad grin.
+
+"As if we would make him a courtesy and say, 'Thank you, sir, for
+saving my life!'" retorted Ivy.
+
+Hugh busied himself picking up the tins and the upset buckets.  He
+sympathized with Mark's dislike of a scene.
+
+"Any of you fellows would have done the same if you had the chance,"
+the latter had said.
+
+"Did she expect us to bring a fellow by the coat collar to be thanked?
+Girls are queer, they always enjoy fussing and the limelight,"
+concluded Hugh.  He kept resolutely away from them.
+
+"What's the matter with Hugh?" whispered Laura after a time.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He seems kind o' grumpy."
+
+Ivy picked out a monster berry and put it into her mouth.
+
+"The wind's changing I guess!  Boys are like weather-vanes, you never
+can tell what way they're going next!"
+
+Laura smiled at the idea of comparing staid, dependable Hugh with
+anything so uncertain as a weather-vane.
+
+Ivy kept on filling her tin cup and pretended not to pay any attention
+to her brother.  She knew her uncalled-for, sarcastic remark had
+offended him.  Had it been anyone else, she would have made ample
+apology, but it was only poor old Hugh--it was not necessary to trouble
+herself about him.  He would "come round" after while, as he always
+did.  No matter how far in the wrong Ivy might be, it was always Hugh
+who made the first advances toward a reconciliation.  Perhaps if he had
+waited longer, Ivy might have behaved differently, but Hugh never
+waited.
+
+Sure enough, he soon gave signs of the "coming round" process, but
+instead of "coming round" to Ivy with a handful of flowers he had
+found, he gave them to Alene.
+
+After that it was to Alene he came when he had an especially large
+berry to show; he insisted upon her eating it; he compared the state of
+his tin cup and hers, and they made a wager as to whose cup would be
+filled the first.
+
+His celerity amazed Alene.
+
+"How can you fill yours so quickly?"
+
+"By sticking to a good bush when I find one!"
+
+"You girls lose time by flitting from bush to bush like butterflies,"
+added Mat.
+
+"We are more like busy bees, Mat.  We gather only the best as we fly!
+There's Laura, no boy can beat her picking berries," said Ivy.
+
+"I believe there's a good deal in what Hugh says," remarked Laura, "not
+only in berry picking, but in work and study.  We accomplish more by
+sticking to one thing at a time.  They say 'Beware of the man of one
+book.'"
+
+"I would indeed be beware of him.  He'd be an insufferable bore!"
+retorted Ivy, as she moved away to another bush.
+
+"Now we will transmigrate ourselves into robins and do the 'babes in
+the wood' act!"
+
+Ivy gazed at the speaker compassionately.
+
+"Has the poor boy gone daffy?"
+
+Mat pointed to the two buckets, by that time filled with berries.
+
+"We will cover them over with leaves!"
+
+"Do you know what Claude does when he's angry or out of humor?"
+inquired Ivy.
+
+"Throws himself on the floor and kicks, I guess!"
+
+"No, he runs to a corner and hides his face!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If I were you, I'd follow his example!"
+
+"But I'm not angry or out of humor with you, Ivy.  On the contrary, I
+feel as mild as a lamb, and I'm so razzle-dazzle-dizzled pleased with
+getting these buckets filled in spite of you girls, that I
+could--could--"
+
+"Please don't, whatever it is you could do, be wise and don't do it!"
+
+"What's the time?" asked Laura.
+
+"Eleven A.M.!"
+
+"Are you sure of the A.M.?"
+
+"I'm surer of it than of the eleven!  I made a guess at that!"
+
+"We'd better start home.  It will take some time to make the jam and
+get Mrs. Kump's basket ready," said Laura.
+
+Mat made a horn of his hands and gave a yell.
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+"To call our party in."
+
+"We don't want everybody in the field; we're all here but Alene and
+Hugh."
+
+"Where are they?  Haven't seen 'em for some time!  Ah, here they come!"
+
+"Hugh took me over to see a thrush's nest," explained Alene.  Her face
+glowed with animation beneath Nettie's pink lined bonnet; her lips and
+fingers were stained with berries and Laura asked herself if this could
+be the white-cheeked, forlorn, little Peggy-Alone she had seen standing
+beside Prince on the terrace just a couple of months before.
+
+They trooped gaily into the carriage, Mat again took the reins and away
+they went on the return trip.
+
+They came into the town by a different route, which led past the
+Ramseys' buff cottage.
+
+"There's Vera and her mother and some ladies sitting on the porch,"
+remarked Alene.
+
+"And see, there's Hermione at an upstairs window," said Ivy.
+
+The girls waved their hands to that smiling friend and the boys
+gallantly doffed their hats as they raced Old Hurricane past the house.
+
+Mrs. Ramsey gazed after the vehicle with a look of amazement.  She had
+obtained a glimpse of the girls, in their print dresses and sunbonnets,
+but had failed to recognize them.
+
+"Who can they be?"
+
+"They evidently know you," said one of the ladies, smilingly.  "Didn't
+you see that little curly-headed girl swinging her bonnet?"
+
+"Not at us, surely!"
+
+Vera smiled at her mother's shocked tone.
+
+"That was Ivy Bonner; they were waving at Hermione upstairs."
+
+"I thought it looked like Dawson's rig, but surely Alene wasn't--"
+
+"Yes, she was there, with her face all stained with berry juice!  I
+guess they were out picking blackberries!"
+
+Mrs. Ramsey raised her eyes in despair.  "What does Fred Dawson mean by
+allowing it?  If that poor child's mother only knew!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE BLUE BOX
+
+It was eight o'clock when Jed Granger, a youth of eighteen, who acted
+as a sort of under gardener at the Towers, left a hamper at the Lee
+home.
+
+"Here's a note from Alene," explained Laura, running her eyes over the
+sheet of tinted paper.  "Of all the foolish things to do!"
+
+Ivy sat beside the kitchen table, writing a neat label for Mrs. Kump's
+jar of jam.  She glanced up at Laura.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Just listen!  Mother, listen to this!"
+
+
+"Laura Dear:--
+
+Good luck!  Uncle Fred gave me two dollars to buy something for Mrs.
+Kump.  Didn't have time to consult you or Ivy but I know you will be
+pleased!  It's on top of the hamper.  Be sure and look at it.
+
+Good-bye!
+  "Alene D."
+
+
+"Candy!  Let's look at it!"
+
+Laura, still wearing a look of disgust, opened the package, displaying
+a box of pale blue and silver tied with narrow ribbons, which after a
+careful untying and lifting of the lid disclosed a splendor of
+lace-work and tinsel-paper, over layer upon layer of bon bons and
+candied fruit, with a cute little silver tongs.
+
+"Delicious!  And what a beautiful box!"
+
+"It's certainly very fine!"
+
+"But for old Mrs. Kump!" cried Laura.  "The money or something
+substantial would do so much better!"
+
+"There's plenty of substantials in Alene's hamper," said Mrs. Lee.
+"Butter, coffee, tea."
+
+"But this fine candy and the ribbons and fixings!  It's like throwing
+the money away!" said Laura sharply, as she wrapped up the box and
+replaced it on the hamper.
+
+Though Ivy had doubts of the usefulness of Alene's gift, she felt a
+certain satisfaction in having it to send along with the more practical
+things; she wished she had a volume of her own poetry, bound in blue
+with the name just as she had often pictured it in silver letters,
+"Early Blossoms," to send; it would go so well with Alene's box.
+Laura's condemnation, however, made this seem a foolish desire, which
+she would not dare to mention.
+
+They returned to the work of getting everything ready for the boys to
+carry to Mrs. Kump.  Ivy completed her label and pasted it on the jar,
+where the fancy initials looked effective.  Laura and her mother
+proceeded with the packing.  The former still wore a disapproving
+countenance and her vexation hung round them like a cloud.
+
+"This reminds me of something that happened to me once upon a time,"
+said Mrs. Lee, who had occasion to move the hamper.  Ivy smiled
+encouragingly.
+
+"Ob, a story, a story!  Come and sit here, Lol, and listen!"
+
+"Once upon a time," Mrs. Lee began, "I and my cousin Clementina, just
+about my own age, ten years, were the best of chums, even thicker than
+you Happy-Go-Lucky girls, for we had just ourselves to play with, all
+the other members of both families being much older; the next in age
+was my sister Roxana, going on sixteen.  Clemmie and I used to watch
+the store windows and I remember one day we stood transfixed at a new
+display in Smithley's drug store.  In addition to drugs, they sold many
+other things, so there we stood, Clemmie admiring a pair of pink
+garters with silver buckles, while I looked longingly at a volume of
+_Jane Eyre_.
+
+"'Only thirty cents!  If I only had a pair!' sighed Clementina.
+
+"'A dollar and a half,' I lamented, for in those days there were no
+cheap editions of books.
+
+"Day after day on our way to and from school we stopped before our
+idols.  Clem told me she often dreamed of that pair of garters with its
+shining buckles!
+
+"'Saturday's my birthday; if some kind, rich old gentleman would happen
+along and adopt me before then, the first thing I'd ask for would be a
+pair of pink garters like these!'
+
+"That day when I reached home I found a small package which my
+godmother, Mrs. Keyes, had left for me.  It was a pretty handkerchief
+with my initial in the corner, and knotted inside was a silver half
+dollar.  To me that was quite a fortune and Roxana gave me much advice
+as to its disposal, but I scarcely heard what she said; I was thinking
+of something else; you can guess what it was."
+
+"Yes, we know, we know," cried Ivy.
+
+"Friday evening, I sneaked away from Clem and went to Smithley's.
+
+"I could hardly control my voice to speak when the proprietor came
+forward.  I had come to a halt near the show window.
+
+"'What's your lowest price for _Jane Eyre_?' I found myself saying.
+
+"'A dollar and a half.  It's a most fascinating book, but for your own
+reading I'd advise--'
+
+"'Thank you, sir, but I think I'll buy those.'
+
+"I pointed to the garters.  Mr. Smithley wrapped them up and tied the
+package with a pink and white cord.
+
+"I could hardly wait to get home before opening the precious parcel.  I
+wanted to show it to mother the first thing, but she was not in and I
+proudly displayed it to Roxana.  She eyed the garters dubiously.
+
+"'Very easily soiled!  How much did you pay for them?'
+
+"'Thirty cents, at Smithley's.'
+
+"'Thirty cents!  The idea!  For something you can't wear!'
+
+"'I don't intend wearing them!  It's my present for Clementina's
+birthday!'
+
+"'You foolish thing!  Why didn't you consult me?  A pair of black ones
+would wear so much longer!'
+
+"Roxana's manner did not chill my pleasure.  I went upstairs and wrote
+an inscription on a card:--
+
+"'For Clementina on her Tenth Birthday, from Edna,' and placed it with
+the garters.
+
+"I could hardly wait for the next day!  I pictured Clem's surprise and
+rapture.
+
+"Mother came home, and after supper I slipped away to get the package
+to show to her.  I knew when I returned to the sitting-room, that
+Roxana had told her about my purchase and how she regarded it.
+
+"She said it was pretty but--well, they kept on about it, until I began
+to think myself a culprit.  I could hardly see the pink garters for my
+tears.  At last Roxana suggested an exchange.  By that time I didn't
+care for anything; all my pleasure in the gift was spoiled.
+
+"'I'll not give Clementina anything,' I said.
+
+"'Don't be unreasonable, child, the black garters will be so useful,'
+chided my mother.
+
+"'But Clementina admired these!'
+
+"'She never dreamed of owning them, though,' said Roxana.
+
+"'Yes, she did!'
+
+"Well, it resulted in Roxana's carrying off my foolish purchase and
+coming back with her sensible one.
+
+"I can smile at it now, but at the time it was a real tragedy to me.
+Mother never suspected my disappointment.  We were all so used to
+accepting Roxana's opinions as laws that to rebel against them would
+lay oneself open to the charge of treason.
+
+"Well, the next day I went to Clementina's.  She came running down to
+the front gate to meet me.
+
+"'Happy birthday,' I faltered, thrusting the little package into her
+hands.
+
+"'Why, Edna,' she said, but I hurried away, not daring to wait to see
+her open it.
+
+"That was apparently the end of our friendship.
+
+"When we met again, Clementina treated me very coolly; I was terribly
+cut up but I did not blame her.  I knew it would have been better taste
+not to have given her anything, but it was too late then.
+
+"For several days we kept apart.
+
+"I avoided Smithley's window, but one day I stopped before it almost in
+spite of myself.  There hung the pink garters, with their shining
+buckles.  They seemed to mock my chagrin.  Then all at once Clementina
+stood at my side.  She held out her hand!
+
+"'Forgive me, Edna, I might have known it was Roxana!'
+
+"My lip trembled.
+
+"'Carrie Smithley told me just now.  You see, she was in the store when
+you bought the pink garters and when Roxana returned them she told Mr.
+Smithley what a foolish thing you had bought; she said you were too
+stubborn to come back yourself and she had to do it.  She always had to
+do the things the rest of the family shirked!'
+
+"I had to smile at Clem's mimicking Roxana, it was so true to life.
+
+"Poor Clem!  She said she never expected me to give her anything, but
+when she opened the parcel and saw the black garters, she rushed into
+the darkened parlor and cried and cried, on the sofa behind the door!
+Not because of the garters, but because she expected different
+treatment from me--'It just seemed like a slap in the face,' she said."
+
+"I guess it did," murmured Ivy.  "Is that the end?"
+
+"There's a kind of a sequel," said Mrs. Lee with a smile.  "Clementina
+gave a glance into Smithley's window.
+
+"'Say, Edna, would you care if--'
+
+"'Oh, Clem, I'd be so glad!' said I."
+
+"And so it ended happily after all!" cried Ivy.
+
+"Yes; and Cousin Clem has them to this day--put away in a cedar box
+that belonged to her mother!"
+
+Laura smiled rather doubtfully.
+
+"And of course there's a moral, Mother Lee, but this is different!"
+
+Going home, Ivy talked the matter over with her mother.
+
+"I'm inclined to take Mrs. Lee's view.  The poem says 'Give to the
+hungry potatoes,' but I guess it doesn't mean to give potatoes only!"
+said that lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+MRS. KUMP'S BIRTHDAY
+
+Mrs. Kump's home, a one-storied frame building, stood on the west bank
+of a run that trickled down from the hills to the river; a small window
+faced the main road, while two others with the 'front' door between,
+opened upon a porch thickly trellised with grape vines; a couple of
+steps at one end of the porch led to a wooden platform which bridged
+the stream.
+
+At six o'clock that morning the dew lay heavy upon the matted grape
+leaves, and over the little vegetable garden behind the house, with its
+outlying poles of hop-vines and sweet-peas.
+
+The scent of pennyroyal came from the banks of the stream; the birds
+twittered round the little gray house and the sun shone upon it feebly,
+through a thick wall of fog.
+
+Stepping softly across the bridge and through the green opening of the
+porch went Hugh and Mat, those worthy aids of the Happy-Go-Luckys; in
+front of the door they placed the birthday offerings, and then, giving
+a resounding knock on the panel, they ran and hid in the bushes across
+the road.
+
+Presently the door opened and a gray head peered forth, then out
+stepped a thin figure in a blue calico wrapper.  With hands upraised
+she advanced to the porch steps.
+
+"The grocer's man made a mistake," the boys heard her say.  She gazed
+along the road but no one was in view.  Retracing her steps she bent
+over the baskets.
+
+"There's a card on 'em.  The owner's name, I reckon.  I'll get my specs
+and see!"
+
+"Now's our chance to light out!" whispered Mat, and away they flew.
+
+Mrs. Lee crossed the bridge that same evening, followed by Nettie in
+starched white frock and golden curls.
+
+A clump of hollyhocks made a gorgeous splash of color against the wall
+of the house beneath the end window.  Four-o'clocks, ragged-robins and
+blue lark-spur struggled up through the cabbages and long grass of the
+little garden, to bid them welcome, and at the door they were met by
+the mistress of the house, who had heard their footsteps.
+
+Mrs. Kump was a large-boned woman of medium height; her complexion was
+of golden bronze; the flesh had fallen, giving her cheeks a square set,
+and her dark eyes gleamed brightly beneath a broad wrinkled brow; a cap
+of black lace surmounted her head, a white net fichu was crossed on her
+breast and fastened with a cameo pin in a wide gold frame, and her
+dress was of silver gray.
+
+She led the way into the little sitting-room and drew aside the muslin
+half-curtains.  Through the open window came the murmur of the running
+stream, the scent of pennyroyal, and the rays of the setting sun.
+
+A striped rag carpet covered the floor and the walls, with gorgeous
+papering of flowers and vines, were hung with many old fashioned
+pictures.
+
+There was the Lord's Prayer in an intricate design of crimson and gold,
+a framed sampler and motto, and smaller pictures in square and oval
+frames; these for the most part friends and relatives of the owner,
+their pictured features shadowed and dimmed by time.
+
+In the middle of the room a square table with a red, woolen cover, held
+a half-dozen books cross-cornered one upon the other in several groups;
+a glass lamp filled with red-colored water and oil stood in the center,
+the top covered with a paper shade and the bottom swathed in a woolen
+mat.
+
+A high, wooden mantel, painted black, occupied the other end of the
+room; the fireplace was hidden by a square, cambric screen, with a
+cut-out picture of fruit and flowers pasted in the center.  Nettie's
+glance was immediately taken by a white marble book, with yellow
+painted edges and clasps, lying upon the old glass-knobbed bureau.
+
+Mrs. Kump drew the straight-backed rattan rocker to the open window,
+giving it a hurried dusting with her black silk apron, and invited Mrs.
+Lee to be seated.
+
+Then, as she noticed her visitor looking at the quilting frames which
+occupied one end of the room, she said,
+
+"You'll think I'm slighting your quilt, Mis' Lee!--I got so far back on
+the job, with my poor legs bothering me so!  But sez I to myself, 'I'll
+try and catch up on Thursday,' but when I went to the door this mornin'
+and found the good fairies' offerings, I fairly wilted.  I made up my
+mind to keep the day, and I'm keepin' it; I haven't done a stroke of
+work!"
+
+Mrs. Lee looked interested.
+
+"The day--yes--I believe you told me--"
+
+"My birthday--sixty-seven--the years do run up when once you begin to
+count 'em!  But about the baskets--thinks I to myself, 'The grocer's
+man left 'em at the wrong place,' but he must have druv away fast,
+there wasn't a soul in sight, and then I comes in for my specs and
+there was my name writ in black and white 'Mrs. Keturah Kump, with best
+wishes for her birthday!'  I nearly wilted!  I got so narvous-like that
+I could hardly lift 'em!  And who was livin' to care for me or my
+birthday?  All my folks dead--all but the young ones.  They live out
+west and don't bother their heads about me.  But about the
+baskets--you'd orter see what they held--a good share of
+everything--I'll show you my cupboard stocked, and lots of things down
+cellar--and there, I'd been worryin' and doubtin', not bein' able to
+work for so long.  I don't mind tellin' you, Mis' Lee, now that things
+is changed for the best, that I was about at the end of my string.
+Sugar and tea about out and not enough flour to last a day longer!  I
+unpacked the baskets and stood and looked at the things--butter and
+eggs and bread and cake and blackberry jam, the only spread I ever et,
+and I put 'em away as if in a dream, leavin' out a snack to make
+breakfast, though I was so excited I couldn't swallow a bite!
+
+"I put on a drawin' of tea, and puttered about settin' the table, when
+all at once I spied a little passel that I had set aside when I brought
+the baskets in.  So I opened it--and what do you think!  I sat right
+down by the table and cried and cried!  It seemed to me that the other
+things might be for any old, worn-out woman, but this was just for me,
+and it went straight to my heart!  The loveliest blue box, the inside
+fixed with lace just like the valentines that poor David sent me when
+he came courtin', and it was filled with candy, the loveliest you ever
+saw!--with real cherries and vi'lets fixed up, lookin' too good to eat!
+Just think--for me, a poor old woman that most people would think it
+all wasted on!  Something beautiful came over the day, I felt young
+again, and vigorous and proud and happy all at once, just like I used
+to feel long years ago when I'd first see the Johnny-jump-ups in the
+spring, way down in the medder near the creek!"
+
+Mrs. Kump rose suddenly and went to the big bureau, wiping her glasses
+as she went.  Coming back, she proudly displayed Alene's box.
+
+"Take some, child," she said to Nettie, "and you too, Mis' Lee!  I
+thought at first it was too good for me to eat but it'll get spiled, so
+I'll eat it little by little, and I can keep the box to hold some
+trinkets I've had for years!  Just see the little silver tongs!
+Nothin' was too good for me!  Why, I felt so perked up that I got out
+my best dress and my silk apron, to do honor to the day!"
+
+A score of years seemed to fall from the speaker, her eyes gleamed
+brightly, as she glanced from her silver-toned best dress to her
+listener's sympathetic countenance.
+
+As she wended her way homeward with Nettie, who carried a huge bouquet
+from Mrs. Kump's garden, Mrs. Lee's thoughts dwelt on the old lady's
+words.
+
+"I wish the girls had been along to hear--Ah, there they are!" she
+said, as, coming in sight of the Bonner house, she saw Laura and Ivy
+seated on the front steps.
+
+Nettie gave a screech of delight and jumped across a gutter to make a
+short cut to exhibit her flowers.
+
+Mrs. Bonner, hearing voices, came to the door and one of the boys
+brought out chairs for her and Mrs. Lee.
+
+"As you are all so much interested, I guess I'll sit down a while and
+tell you all about Mrs. Kump's birthday!" said Mrs. Lee.  "Now, not so
+many questions!  Yes, she got the baskets with her name printed so
+artistically on the card, and she never suspects who gave the things.
+She has enough to tide her over for a long time, and the jam went to
+the right spot, but guess what it was that pleased her the most."
+
+"Old ladies are very fond of tea," ventured Mrs. Bonner.
+
+"The print of butter!" cried Ivy.
+
+"Mrs. Bonner's coffee cake," said Laura.
+
+They made several other guesses but Mrs. Lee still shook her head.
+
+"I know," said Nettie quickly, "it was that blue box!"
+
+"Not Alene's candy!" cried Laura, incredulously.
+
+"Yes, that was it!"
+
+Mrs. Lee thereupon told what Mrs. Kump had said, word for word.
+
+A silence followed the recital.
+
+"Who would have thought it?" Laura said at last.
+
+"Ah, Laura dear, you forgot the thought behind the gift.  'The love of
+the giver is greater than the gift of the lover,'" said Mrs. Lee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+TO CHINA IN A GLASS-BOAT
+
+At the upper end of the wharf a small boat was anchored, gay in red
+paint with black trimmings.  It consisted of a single deck only, on
+which was a raised cabin that extended the whole length of the boat,
+having doors at each end and several small windows on the sides.
+
+The girls hastened along the broad plank, over the shallow space of
+water between the boat and the shore, and entered the wide front
+opening.
+
+The interior resembled a country store.
+
+A counter, running three quarters of the length of the boat and stacked
+with all sorts of glassware, divided the room in two parts.
+
+Sandwiched between the counter and the shelves, which were also heavily
+laden with glass, was a clerk, intent upon the customers who crowded
+the narrow aisle.
+
+And what queer customers they were!  Boys and girls, for the most part
+poorly dressed, who kept an eye on the different articles displayed, or
+hovered round the large scales at one end of the counter, guarding
+strange looking bundles and baskets.
+
+To Laura, who had visited the boat each summer for as long as she could
+remember, it was a familiar scene, but everything proved new and
+wonderful to Alene.
+
+For a time they were content to wait and watch before making any
+investments.
+
+"What are they doing?" inquired Alene, pointing to two boys who had
+dragged a battered basket and a great bundle to the scales.
+
+"Just watch and you'll see."
+
+The clerk took the basket which was filled with pieces of old iron,
+small bolts, nails, and such things, rusty and apparently good for
+nothing, and weighed it on the scales; its owners watched carefully to
+verify its correct weight, and while they calculated its value the
+clerk proceeded to weigh the bundle.
+
+"Rags," whispered Laura to the wondering Alene.  "They buy them from
+all the towns along the river and sell them in the city to make paper
+and things."
+
+"The iron?"
+
+"No, silly--that's made over I guess at the foundries."
+
+Alene became interested in watching the two boys whose property had
+been valued.  With an air of importance they turned their attention to
+choosing its equivalent in crystal ware.
+
+After examining critically the different articles, the older boy at
+last decided upon a large plate with "Give us this day our daily bread"
+in fancy letters around the rim, but his companion hesitated between
+two pitchers.
+
+"Oh, Laura!"  Alene's cry of dismay drew Laura's attention.  "He's
+going to buy that purple monstrosity!"
+
+"I think that blue one with the bulgy sides is out o' sight," the boy
+was saying, his gaze straying from one to the other; "I wonder which ma
+would like the best!"
+
+Laura stepped forward with an elder-sisterly air.
+
+"Is it for water?" she inquired.
+
+"Yes; ma broke her chiny one the other day and I want to s'prise her."
+
+"Then I'd buy that white one with the frosted flowers; it will look so
+cool with the water sparkling through.  You think the blue one is
+prettier I know, but it would not be so suitable for water.  Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"That's so, thank y', miss," said the boy, lifting the straw crown
+which served him as a hat.
+
+Alene drew a breath of relief.  "Oh, Laura, you know just what to do!
+I'm sure he wanted the purple-blue one awfully and he took the other
+just to please you!" she whispered as the boys left the boat with their
+treasures, giving a doubtful look backward at the abandoned pitcher.
+
+Laura shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, boys are funny; they mean well but their tastes run to bright
+things.  Any girl in a gaudy dress is beautiful in their eyes!"
+
+"And there isn't always a Laura near to point out the superiority of
+the girl in plain white," returned Alene with a sanctimonious air at
+which they both laughed.
+
+"Now for our own choosing," said Laura briskly, and the clerk came
+forward to her nod.
+
+They spent a delightful half hour at the counter fingering the pretty
+things, sometimes having as much trouble to decide between different
+objects as the boys had with their pitchers.
+
+"I'll take this sweet little blue goblet for Ivy, and that pitcher for
+Mrs. Major, and the berry dish for Kizzie.  I'd like to get Uncle Fred
+a new tobacco-jar to replace the one I broke, but I don't see any."
+Alene pointed out the things desired, all of which Laura had helped in
+selecting; then Laura bought her mother a cake-stand and Mrs. Bonner
+had commissioned her to buy a dozen tumblers, which purchase took much
+time and thought.
+
+Presently Alene became aware of a pattering on the roof.  Softly it
+came at first, then more and more insistent.
+
+"Why, Lol, it's raining like--like in the days of Noah!" she cried.
+
+"It's only a summer shower," said Laura carelessly.
+
+Having completed their purchases, they strayed to the far end of the
+boat and discovered a narrow, paneled door which led to a tiny private
+cabin.
+
+"It would make a lovely play-house!" exclaimed Laura as they peeped in.
+
+It certainly looked inviting with its gay rug and crimson-cushioned
+furniture.
+
+"What do you say?  Let's slip in and wait for the rain to be over!"
+
+Laura's proposition almost took Alene's breath away.
+
+"But will they allow?"
+
+"Oh, yes, what difference could it make?  It's empty, so we won't be in
+anyone's way!" returned Laura airily, and as the rain still beat upon
+the boat, and they were both very tired, having been on their feet for
+several hours, so they entered the inviting little parlor without
+further hesitation.
+
+It was cosy and snug within but rather stuffy, the small windows being
+closed; but the girls seated side by side on the big chair beside the
+table found the situation very enjoyable.
+
+"I feel like a traveler, as if we were taking a sail to some outlandish
+place," said Laura, getting up to adjust her hat before a small mirror
+set in the wall, beneath which was a stationary wash-stand with holes
+for bowl and pitcher.
+
+"Let's pretend we're on one of those funny Chinese boats like Uncle
+Fred told me about; they have large, painted eyes without which no
+Chinaman would set sail.  They say; 'No got eye, no can see--no can
+see, no can walkee!'"
+
+Alene placed her bundles on the center table and leaned back cosily in
+the cushioned chair.  She was in the midst of a reverie where a
+queer-looking Chinese mandarin was trying to persuade her to buy a blue
+glass pitcher, when Laura's voice brought her back to reality.
+
+"Alene, Alene, it's moving--the boat!"
+
+"But it's tied to that big iron ring--it can't move from the wharf!"
+
+There was a creaking and straining of the woodwork around them which
+they had not noticed before.  Laura ran to a window, followed by Alene.
+The hills appeared to be gliding by!  Sure enough, the boat was moving;
+it had left the shore while they were talking.
+
+For a moment they had a strange sensation.
+
+"It's like being abducted," said Alene.
+
+"Oh, dear, I wonder how far they will go!"
+
+They ran through the paneled door to the front of the boat.  The clerk
+was busy arranging his stock.
+
+"Why, I thought everybody was gone!" he cried in surprise.
+
+"We went into the cabin to rest awhile; we never dreamed you were going
+away.  Where will the boat go?"
+
+The young man laughed.
+
+"Oh, don't get scared!  We are only bound across the river a few miles
+above, to catch the train!  Wait, maybe I can get Jones to return and
+land you first."
+
+He came back in a few minutes.
+
+"He says he can't do it; the captain is coming on the train and if we
+fail to meet him 'on the dot' it's as much as his job is worth.  But it
+won't take very long and then we'll put back and land you at home."
+
+The girls were forced to be content.  They returned to the cabin and
+discussed the situation.
+
+"I wish Ivy could have come along, she would enjoy this," cried Laura.
+
+When the boat at length drew near to shore and a plank was thrown out,
+they went on deck and gazed around.
+
+In front and on each side as far as they could see, a steep, scrubby
+bank reached up to the railway tracks which swept along the foot of the
+hills.  A small wooden tower stood near the tracks a short distance
+away.  The rain had ceased as suddenly as it had come and the sunlight
+lay on river and land.
+
+"The train must be late," remarked the clerk.  A muffled rumble was
+heard--"Hark, there it is now!"
+
+But it turned out to be a freight, which drew its long length past,
+like a many-jointed snake.
+
+Time passed slowly to the impatient girls.  The young man ran up to the
+tower to make inquiries.
+
+"The operator says our train may be hour late," he reported.
+
+He felt very sorry for their dilemma, but he knew it would be useless
+to ask the man in charge to make a special trip to let them off.
+
+Laura and Alene glanced at each other.
+
+"If he says one hour, it may be more and then it will take quite a time
+to get back," murmured the former.
+
+"Couldn't we walk to some bridge and cross over?"
+
+"I don't know the way, and I never heard of any bridge nearer than
+Westville, three miles above.  Let's take a walk, it'll help pass the
+time," proposed Laura.
+
+They crossed the plank and wandered arm in arm along the shore.
+
+"I suppose they'll soon have the bellman out ringing for us!  To think
+the dire fate I've often predicted for Nettie when she tarries on the
+way from school should happen to myself instead!"
+
+"Hello, there!"
+
+Across the water came this welcome hail.  A skiff manned by a boy came
+in sight rounding the bend of the river.
+
+The girls paused and waved their handkerchiefs.
+
+"Is he calling to us?  I wonder who it can be!"
+
+"Why, it's Mark Griffin!" cried Alene, with a gulp of delight.
+
+They stood watching the movements of the skiff, fearing it would turn
+in some other direction and leave them in their plight.
+
+"Maybe he's going on down the river," wailed Laura.
+
+Alene waved her handkerchief more energetically.
+
+"He wouldn't do that!"
+
+"But he doesn't know we're abducted and cast away on this unfriendly
+coast," rejoined Laura, whose courage increased with the nearer
+approach of the boat.
+
+It was evident the rower had no intention of turning aside; he aimed in
+their direction with even and rapid strokes of the oars which soon
+covered the expanse of water between.
+
+"I noticed you girls running out on deck when the boat drew off and I
+thought something was wrong and hurried over to see," he explained half
+shyly, as he drew the boat to shore.
+
+"Oh, have you come to take us home?" cried Alene.  "How lovely of you!"
+
+"I'll run back to the cabin for our packages," and Laura, not waiting
+for his reply, hurried away.
+
+"If you don't object to going with me!"
+
+"Object!  Why, we are delighted at the chance!  We didn't know what to
+do!"
+
+Alene told the cause of their predicament, which the boy had already
+guessed.
+
+"It seems funny you thought we would object to being rescued by you;
+you didn't wait to find out if we objected or not, that day at the
+picnic, and the day you faced the mad bull!"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"Excuse me, you see the old fellow was so quick he didn't give me a
+chance!  But this is different!"
+
+Alene was silent.  She was afraid he might think her a great baby were
+she to say how very, _very_ much relieved she was by his presence.
+
+"Well, I guess Hugh Bonner would object," returned the lad.
+
+Alene stepped gingerly into the boat, trying to hide her nervousness
+when it rocked beneath her and Mark came to her assistance.
+
+"Sit here in the bow and I'll bail out this water," he said.
+
+Alene found it a very spacious and pleasant seat; the rolling of the
+boat which had alarmed her when standing gave her only a delightful
+sensation.  She put her hand over the side of the skiff and let the
+water glide through her fingers while she watched with interest the
+movements of the boy.
+
+"You didn't answer my question," he remarked at last.
+
+"What question?"
+
+"About Hugh objecting."
+
+"Why should he object?  Here's Laura with our bundles!"  She moved
+aside to let her friend step into the boat.
+
+The packages were put in a safe place, Mark grasped the oars, Laura,
+who felt perfectly at home on the water, took a third oar and they
+started on their homeward way.
+
+"How glad I am to leave the bleak coast of China!" cried Laura.
+
+"You mean Glass-gow, don't you?" spoke up the boy, pointing over his
+shoulder to where the friendly clerk stood calling, 'Bon voyage!' from
+the deck of the glass-boat.
+
+The girls laughed.
+
+"I guess we will have to forgive him?"
+
+Alene glanced across the water.
+
+"I suppose we had better, at any rate until we reach dry land," she
+replied.
+
+"Won't Ivy be sorry she missed this good chance to say 'thank you,
+sir,' for rescuing us again?" remarked Laura.
+
+"Do you mean the little girl with the big, snapping eyes and--"
+
+"Yes; she was offended with Hugh because he failed to drag you back
+with him to be thanked prettily by us girls!"
+
+"I didn't want any thanks, but I suspect Hugh wasn't sorry I wouldn't
+go with him.  I'm afraid he doesn't approve of me?"
+
+Laura became suddenly occupied with her rowing and Alene felt called
+upon to answer.
+
+"Why--" she hesitated.
+
+"You needn't be afraid to say; I know they think I'm a bad case!"
+
+"Oh--no, Hugh said you were all right by _yourself_!"
+
+"Then he doesn't like my chums?"
+
+"He said if you would give up those Stony Road boys--"
+
+"I'm no snob to go back on a boy because he's poor!"
+
+"Why, it's not that!  Hugh and his chums are poor but--"
+
+"They say they torture animals!" broke in Laura.
+
+"I told them I was sure you wouldn't allow that," Alene protested.
+
+Her warm defense seemed to mollify the boy; his air of mockery and
+resentment fell away and he gave her a grateful glance.  Then his
+attention became absorbed in keeping the skiff a safe distance from
+some passing barges.
+
+For a time there was silence.  The boy cleared the tow and continued
+rowing, giving all his attention to the boat.
+
+The girls glanced at each other, fearing they had offended him.
+
+With a sudden impulse he ceased his energetic rowing and let the skiff
+drift.  His face flushed as he said:
+
+"For myself I make no defense, but you may tell Mr. Hugh that so far as
+my chums are concerned he's bearing false witness.  They may be poor
+and rough and unruly, but they're not cruel!  They belong to the
+Torchlights!"
+
+"The Torchlights?" cried the girls in duet.
+
+But the boy had resumed his oars, cutting the water vigorously as
+though glad of a vent for his pent-up indignation.  Alene wondered what
+he meant by the Torchlights, but did not like to ask; Laura more
+venturesome inquired,
+
+"The Torchlights?  What are they?"
+
+"A sort of club," he responded, shutting his mouth with an air of
+finality that vexed them.
+
+They glanced at each other.  Laura's half-curled lip said plainly, "As
+if we really cared!" and Alene's returned scornfully, "The idea!"
+
+They pretended not to notice his taciturnity and talked lightly to each
+other of their purchases and other personal matters.
+
+The lad, left to his own reflections, continued rowing manfully.
+Presently he announced,
+
+"I'll land you at the upper end of the wharf, that will be nearer home."
+
+"Oh, thank you, that will save us quite a walk!" returned Laura.
+
+"And I'll get home before Uncle Fred," cried Alene.
+
+"Wouldn't they all have been scared if we had had to wait for the
+glass-boat to take us home?"
+
+The boy smiled.  He thought there were others who would have been
+scared in that event.
+
+"Is Mr. Fred Dawson your uncle?"
+
+"Yes.  Do you know him?"
+
+"I used to be captain of the Fred Dawson Baseball Club," he replied
+with a tone of pride.
+
+"How nice!" and Alene determined to ask her uncle all about it that
+very night.  "Ah, here's the wharf!  It seems to be coming right up to
+us!"
+
+A few minutes later their light, little craft swept in to shore.
+
+Mark gallantly gathered up the bundles and handed them out to Laura,
+who had skipped lightly across the bow to the bleached stones of the
+wharf, then he gave his hand to his more timid passenger and she
+stepped ashore.
+
+"And the Happy-Go-Luckys will be on time as usual," cried Laura, as
+they said good-by to Mark, who intended taking the skiff farther up the
+river.
+
+"The Happy-Go-Luckys?  Who are they?" he exclaimed.
+
+"A sort of a club," returned Laura demurely, glancing mirthfully at
+Alene ere they turned away to climb the hilly homeward path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+VEXATIONS AND CONSOLATIONS
+
+Ivy turned disconsolately from the window.  She had waved good-by to
+Laura and Alene when they had looked round at the corner ere passing
+from view on their way to the glass-boat.
+
+The trip had been postponed from day to day in the hope of her being
+able to go along, and even at the last moment her friends had wished to
+give it up and devote the afternoon to an indoor meeting of the
+Happy-Go-Luckys; but Ivy would not have it so; she insisted on their
+going, she vetoed every argument to the contrary, but now that they
+were beyond recall and she faced the empty room she almost regretted
+her persistence.
+
+And yet it was a pleasant room enough, with nothing of luxury to
+recommend it but having an air of quiet comfort.  An unobtrusive wall
+paper, a green-and-oak carpet, a bright rug before the fire-place,
+which was filled with tall ferns; a picture of the "Mammoth Trees of
+California," above the mantel, a lamp with a green globe hanging over
+the center-table, a few chairs, and Ivy's couch drawn close to the two
+windows with their snowy curtains--all beautifully neat and clean, but
+alas, so tiresomely familiar to the little prisoner.  Even the sight of
+her books piled at the foot of the lounge wearied her!
+
+She threw aside the beloved Sunset Book after vainly trying to get
+interested in it.  How flat and unprofitable it seemed!  Why could she
+never write anything but the trite and useless things that almost
+anyone who was able to hold a pen could say as well or better?  The
+verses about the four o'clocks, which the other day had seemed a pretty
+conceit, to-day sounded silly, fit only for the little waste-basket at
+her side, where she threw them with disdain.
+
+Life was unprofitable, friends noticeable only by their absence; even
+the faithful Hugh had deserted her.  He had made no motion toward
+"making up" since the day they went blackberrying--it would have served
+him right if the bull had put an end to her!  If that boy Mark Griffin
+hadn't interfered--and why he had she didn't know, what business was it
+of his?--Hugh, instead of wearing his air of indifference, would be
+crying his eyes out beside her dead body--or rather her grave, for she
+would be buried and done with by this time.  But no; here she herself,
+instead of Hugh, was crying over it!  For the last week he had been
+even less attentive than ever; he was up and out long before she awoke
+in the mornings, came home at noon to snatch a hasty lunch and was off
+again after supper until bedtime, with only a careless nod to her, Ivy,
+whom he had hitherto allowed to claim all his attention and the little
+leisure time he could spare from his work as office-boy and assistant
+clerk in a real-estate firm down street.
+
+Heigho!  Who was that coming?  Claude and Nettie, hand in hand, with
+beaming faces and crumby lips!
+
+"Oh, you greedy youngsters, where do you put all the cake and things
+you devour, anyway?"
+
+Simultaneously two mouths were opened wide.
+
+"They are big enough naturally, you needn't stretch them!  No wonder
+you are both noted dunces in your class--you are nothing but mouth and
+stomach!  Come here, I've a little time.  Let's see what you can do!"
+
+"I can figure!" said Nettie proudly, but she eyed the slate upon which
+Ivy had written, half abashed.
+
+"Three plus two equals what?" said Ivy.
+
+"Six!"
+
+"No, try again!"
+
+"Six!" cried Nettie decidedly again.
+
+"No; five, stupid!"
+
+"Six," reiterated Nettie, "Teacher says so!"
+
+"That's three multiplied by two; I said three _plus_--"
+
+"Well, it's six at our school," declared Nettie doggedly, her eyes half
+filled with tears.
+
+"To think you are any relation to Laura!  Why, she's as bright--"
+
+"She's big, and awful old, and not half as nice as Nettie!" cried
+Claude.
+
+"Indeed, no wonder you stand up for her!  You don't even know the
+alphabet!"
+
+"Yes, I do!"
+
+"Well, see here!"  Ivy picked up his primer.
+
+"I don't want to study--it's vacation!" said Claude, drawing back.
+
+"He may injure his brain by overstudy; such a precocious scholar!"
+
+Nettie pursed out her lip.  "Precious scolder herself!" she muttered.
+
+"Come, Claude, I'll give you this big red apple if you say it
+correctly," urged Ivy.
+
+"A--B--C," commenced Claude bravely, "A--B--C--Poke Bonnet."
+
+"No, that's D!"
+
+"Well, it looks like a poke," returned Claude.
+
+"How funny!  It only needs a bow and string, see?" cried the little
+girl.
+
+Claude proceeded with the letters:
+
+"L--M--N--the same old hoop--I ought to know its name."
+
+"O," whispered Nettie.
+
+He turned upon her indignantly--
+
+"I was just going to say O--that's easy!  P--Q--R--little wormy
+thing--Oh, bother T--U--V--W--let's see, see-saw, X--wizie!" he
+concluded triumphantly and with a sudden movement he snatched the apple
+from Ivy's lap.
+
+"Come back, you didn't earn it!" commanded Ivy.
+
+"I did, didn't I, Nettie?" he cried, digging his uneven little teeth
+into the rosy cheek of the apple.
+
+"Come here at once!"
+
+Ivy reached for her crutches but Nettie, too quick for her, grabbed one
+and fled with Claude, while Ivy in a rage threw the other after them.
+Across the floor it sailed and hit against the wall with a resounding
+clap.
+
+"That's the end of my teaching, and everything I do trying to help
+others ends just that way!  Now in the story-books the children are
+good and no matter how dull, anxious to learn and thankful to be
+taught, and the teacher gets some satisfaction out of it!  I believe
+the only respectable children are in books; the others are imps!  Dear
+me!  I feel like knocking my head against the wall!"  She threw herself
+upon the sofa and pressed her face against its fir-scented cushions.
+
+Presently soft footsteps were heard.  A lady entered the room, and
+glancing from the discarded crutch to the couch, crossed the floor and
+placed her hand caressingly on the curly mop of hair.
+
+"Are you asleep, Ivy?" she inquired gently.
+
+"No, mamma, just thinking."
+
+"Is there anything I can do?  Here is a cool drink."
+
+"No, thank you--yes, I guess I will, I am rather thirsty!"  She sat up
+and eagerly drank the lemonade.
+
+"Were the children naughty?  I thought they might amuse you for a
+while--"
+
+"They were simply diabolical--but just on a par with all the rest!  The
+girls gone to enjoy themselves--and that hateful Hugh running away
+every day as though afraid I might encroach on his valuable time--and--"
+
+"Hugh?  Why, what has he done?"
+
+"He's not been the same since that day we went blackberrying."
+
+
+  "'We have pleasant words for the stranger,
+    And smiles for the sometimes guest;
+  But for our own the bitter tone
+    Though we love our own the best,'"
+
+quoted Mrs. Bonner.  "I'm afraid that's your way with Hugh, sometimes,
+Ivy, and as for the girls leaving you alone, you almost ran them out of
+the house!"
+
+"They might as least have called in on their way home!"
+
+"Have they gone past?"
+
+"I haven't seen them, but they were to be back about half past four and
+see, it's nearly six--Ah, here they are now!"
+
+The girls came bustling in.
+
+"All the way from China!" cried Laura breathlessly.
+
+Ivy listened to their adventures with glowing eyes.
+
+"So the buccaneers took you captive for ransom and carried you across
+the ocean; but a gallant ship, flying the American colors and commanded
+by a brave knight, came to your relief, swept the pirate fleet from off
+the sea and brought you away, leaving the waves red with gore!"
+
+"And here we are with all our valuables intact, even to this little
+vase of purest amethyst," said Alene, handing Ivy the blue glass
+goblet, while Laura gave a package to Mrs. Bonner, saying impressively:
+
+"And these tumblers of priceless glittering crystal are yours, dear
+madame; here's your change--fifteen cents--they only cost a nickle
+apiece."
+
+This called forth a chorus of mirthful exclamations, in the midst of
+which two little figures came quietly in.  Emboldened by Ivy's smiling
+countenance, they stole to her side and displayed a collection of
+bright pebbles which they had picked up from the flat, tar-coated roof
+of the foundry, which, being built against a hill, was easily reached
+from the upper street.
+
+"We gathered them for you," said Nettie shyly.
+
+"Oh, girls, while you were in China, these tots journeyed to the
+sea-shore in search of treasure, and I'm the Princess Lazybones who
+sits at home, and receives her subjects' peace-offerings."
+
+"There, Alene has forgotten something," said Mrs. Bonner, picking up a
+small bundle from the table.  Laura reached for it, intending to
+overtake Alene who had gone away a few minutes before, but a glance
+showed that it was marked in pencil, "For Laura," in Alene's
+handwriting.
+
+"For me, and she didn't buy a single thing for herself," grumbled
+Laura, untying the cord.  "Isn't it just too sweet!"  She held up a
+dish of pale pink glass with a knot of blue forget-me-nots in the
+corner.
+
+"It's beautiful!" exclaimed Ivy.  "I was just going to say that
+somebody else forgot to buy a single thing for herself, but I see Alene
+didn't forget her!"
+
+"That little sly piece, and I never noticed her at it!" Laura said,
+secretly hoping that a certain quaint amber-colored bowl which she had
+deftly tucked away among Alene's purchases would prove as pleasant a
+surprise to Alene.
+
+Hugh, coming in to supper just before Laura went home, peeped into the
+room in time to hear Ivy's laughing remark,
+
+"We should confer upon Sir Mark the title of 'Rescuer-in-Chief to the
+Happy-Go-Luckys!'"
+
+Hugh, with a hasty nod to the girls, turned away.
+
+"Don't be in such a hurry, Hugh!  I've just been telling Ivy how
+thrilling it was, when just in our moment of despair, Mark Griffin
+appeared--"
+
+"Like the hero on a stage," interrupted Hugh.
+
+"No, in a skiff," corrected Laura.
+
+"I've no time for rhapsodies now," said Hugh curtly.  He turned away
+with Ivy's voice, "Hear!  Hear!" ringing mockingly on the air.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Through the open window came the sound of children's voices,
+
+  "Here comes an old woman from New Foundland.
+  With all of her children in her hand,"
+
+shrill and clamoring, but powerless to disturb Ivy who, seated beside
+the window with her blue goblet beside her and a pad of writing paper
+on her lap, was busy writing.
+
+After a series of brow puckerings and erasures, she gave a sigh of
+contentment.
+
+"There it's finished!  I'll read it over and put it in the Sunset Book
+to-morrow!"
+
+The old woman from New Foundland had gone home to bed, and Claude, one
+of her shrill-voiced children, had rushed in sleepily and thrown
+himself upon the rug, where he lay oblivious to all things, when the
+absent-minded Ivy came out of her trance; the first thing she saw was
+his chubby, outstretched form with both arms flung above the touzled
+head from which his cap had partly fallen.
+
+The smile of sisterly love and pride with which she enveloped him, must
+have pierced the vale of unconsciousness, for the lad stirred and
+smiled in his sleep.
+
+Ivy took the goblet and poured the pebbles into her lap.  They fell
+against one another with a velvety sound, and gave forth a rainbow of
+color, like precious stones in the light of the lamp.
+
+She mused happily over them, the children's treasures, gathered so
+carefully and given so generously.
+
+"How cross I was to-day and all for nothing!  I must be one of those
+'hirelings' who are always 'looking for consolations' for I feel
+consoled to-night; if only Hugh--"
+
+A noise was heard in the little entry; footsteps and voices, and then a
+pushing as of something being moved up the steps.
+
+"What's that?  It's Hugh's voice and there's someone with him!"
+
+Ivy glanced expectantly toward the open doorway.  Presently Hugh and
+another boy, their faces reddened with exertion, appeared carrying some
+object between them.  Could it be--yes, it was a writing desk, such as
+Ivy had often seen in dreams and store windows, but never hoped to
+possess!  Her heart gave a sudden jump and then seemed to stand still.
+
+"Bub, be careful you don't scrape it against the side of the door!
+Hello, sis--where's the best place to put it?"
+
+Hugh tried to speak in a careless tone, but Ivy's scream of pleasure,
+the sudden crimson roses that bloomed in her thin cheeks, and the
+shower of stars which flashed through and dried the mist in her eyes,
+brought a funny grip to his throat; he gulped and made a wry face.
+
+"Say, Fatty, look out!  You knocked my hand against the wall!"
+
+Attracted by the noise, Mrs. Bonner came in, Claude awoke and everybody
+crowded round to see the new article of furniture.
+
+It was placed where Ivy could admire it at leisure, and the strange boy
+having said good-night, Hugh displayed a lovely bronze key, unlocked
+the lid and disclosed all its attractions.
+
+"See this little drawer and the shelves, and the place for your ink and
+paper, and the large drawer below, and then there's a secret drawer
+I'll show you when the rest are not here," Hugh whispered the latter
+part.
+
+A secret drawer!  Ivy clapped her hands--what a heavenly culmination of
+attractions!  And the desk as a whole, of quartered-oak with bronzed
+handles and a shelf with a tiny mirror above, was indeed a beauty.
+
+"Oh, Hugh, how--where did you get it?"
+
+"I've been working overtime nights at Pearson's furniture store.  The
+old man's sick and his son had to stay home evenings.  I bargained to
+stay in his place and take it out this way!  I kind of thought you'd
+like it," Hugh explained breathlessly, glancing from his auditors to
+the desk.
+
+"Oh, Hugh!" cried Ivy deprecatingly.
+
+"It was dead easy!  Hardest part was to keep it quiet so to surprise
+you.  It wouldn't do to get too friendly or I'd a blurted it out!"
+
+Hugh's head was bending over the desk, dangerously close to Ivy as it
+proved, for she gave his hair a sudden pull.
+
+"Oh, Hugh, you good-for-nothing!" she cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CRIMSON BAG
+
+"Uncle Fred, I'm going to play being poor for a whole week," said
+Alene, meeting Mr. Dawson at the gate one evening.
+
+"What put that idea into your head, child?"
+
+"You see it's so much more exciting to do things when you haven't
+money!  We felt quite hilarious this afternoon when Nettie discovered
+that one could get a great big sugar cake for a cent at the new bakery.
+It was Ivy's treat and we all went in a crowd and bought half a dozen
+for five cents!  We really don't see how they can afford to give such
+big ones!"
+
+"They depend on large sales and small profits, no doubt; besides it
+will attract other customers.  A good advertisement too, for here am I,
+for one, who would have gone past the new bakery a hundred times, never
+once glancing that way, never dreaming of those elephantine sugar
+cakes, were it not for you!  Are you sure the bakery didn't bribe you
+girls to sound their praises?"
+
+"The idea!"
+
+"It's not so foolish after all; I'm almost famished for one of those
+sugar cakes.  Greedy Alene, to devour them every one!"
+
+"No, I did not!  There was Laura and Ivy, and Nettie and Claude, and
+Lois and little Elmer, besides myself, to divide among!"
+
+"Which suggests my school days and problems in arithmetic!  I think
+this would be a question in short division or would it be short cake?"
+
+"No, indeed!  We all had almost enough!  But, Uncle, do behave!  Here's
+my purse; I want you to keep it."
+
+"'With all my lordly goods I thee endow!'  Why, thank you, Miss Dawson!
+I hear the gold pieces clinking!  But I don't know if my mamma will
+allow me to accept such valuable presents!"
+
+There was a little gurgling laugh from Alene.
+
+"Do let me finish!  I only want you to keep it for me until the end of
+the week!"
+
+"Indian giver!  Indian giver!  Take your old purse!  I guess it was
+only the clink of pennies I heard, anyway!"
+
+Alene clasped her hands behind her back.
+
+"You must keep it or I can't play being poor!  Now Uncle, won't you be
+good!  I feel so ashamed to have so much when the other girls have so
+little, and I want to try it for just one little week; besides, it will
+be fun!"
+
+"Fun for you, but what a temptation to put in your own Uncle's way!
+However I don't want to be too selfish.  I'll keep the purse."
+
+"For a week.  Thank you, Uncle!"
+
+"Have you any more stray pennies to put in my charge?"
+
+"I have exactly six cents left and I must get along on that."
+
+"Won't you allow me to contribute an occasional quarter?"
+
+"Well, not more than a nickel at a time.  Just pretend I'm a poor
+little girl who is hired to run errands at the Towers!"
+
+"And if you demand part of the content of the purse?"
+
+"Don't give it to me!  But I shan't!"
+
+Alene held her week's allowance in her hand until they entered the
+house; then she placed it beside her plate at dinner.  She found it
+troublesome keeping track of it.
+
+"I need a small purse to put it in.  There's a pretty one for a quarter
+at Nixon's store--ah, I forgot already, I haven't enough money."
+
+Uncle Fred offered her the use of a flat red-morocco pocketbook, but
+Alene said it was not convenient to carry, and besides, people would
+expect so much from its size!  She at last decided to use a small knit
+bag of crimson silk with silver rings, which she kept in a box upstairs.
+
+The next day she had a long letter to mail to her parents, and the
+girls accompanied her to the post-office.
+
+On the way back they heard music.
+
+They soon came to where the players stood, a crippled Italian and a
+little, dark-skinned boy, with a harp and violin.
+
+At the conclusion of several numbers the boy went through the crowd,
+holding out his battered cap.
+
+Laura put in all she had, a bright new cent.
+
+"I haven't a penny," lamented Ivy.
+
+"I have just one solitary, shamed little fellow, done up in crimson
+satin and silver buckles," announced Alene, taking the pretty bag from
+her wrist.
+
+Ivy giggled.
+
+"Everybody is looking, Alene!  They expect a piece of silver, at least,
+from that gorgeous purse!"
+
+"Well, I can't help it!  I paid a nickle postage on my letter, you
+know!"
+
+"Yes, I know, but the rest of the town is in ignorance of that great
+expenditure."
+
+"You needn't laugh, Miss Bonner.  Considering the amount of my capital,
+it was a big payment to meet!"
+
+"And so early, too, in your poverty-stricken career, I can sympathize
+with you," said Laura.
+
+The bright bag with its shining rings, over which the heads of the
+three girls were bent, seemed to have attracted the attention of the
+crowd as Ivy had said, and the penny, hidden away in its crimson
+corner, while Alene fumbled in vain for it, held them longer in the
+public gaze.
+
+Laura gave a relieved sigh and Ivy a squeak of delight when it at last
+appeared, and Alene dropped it, as if it burned her fingers, into the
+outstretched cap.
+
+As she turned away with cheeks that were blazing to match the hue of
+the bag, a tall boy standing near lifted his hat courteously, and gave
+way to her.
+
+"Sir Mark!" whispered the irrepressible Ivy.  "And looking as grave as
+a cemetery, without the ghost of a smile!"
+
+"If he hadn't, I'd never, _never_ have spoken to him again!" declared
+Alene.  "Girls, I can sympathize now with those who would like to help
+others and can't."
+
+"Giant Generosity with his pigmy purse," suggested Ivy.
+
+"It's so much pleasanter as well as more blessed to give," remarked
+Laura.
+
+"But, after all, money isn't everything!" said Alene.  "If we are poor
+we can still give love and sympathy and unselfishness--"
+
+"And advice," broke in Ivy.  "And feel the richer the more we give!"
+
+Alene said never a word to her uncle, that evening, relative to the
+state of her finances.  She kept her collapsed purse hidden away.
+
+"When one is poor, one is too proud to beg!"  Which reflection did not
+keep her from being very glad when Mr. Dawson remarked:
+
+"Here, child, is a nickle for the little maid who trimmed my lamp so
+nicely."
+
+She dropped him a courtesy.
+
+"Thank you, Uncle.  I think she will be very glad to get it.  I feel
+quite prosperous again," she said, shutting the coin away in her
+crimson bag.
+
+Mr. Dawson laughed.
+
+"I suspect you will find that wealth has its uses, and when you are of
+age and have command of a large sum of money, I only hope that you will
+use it well.  I think your experiences as a Happy-Go-Lucky will teach
+you much that you would not otherwise learn."
+
+"There's one thing I should like to do--find that clever doctor who
+cures the lame children, and have him cure Ivy.  When I'm grown up I'll
+build a hospital just for the poor children--but then it will be too
+late to help her!"
+
+"My friend Dr. Medway, who assists in those operations, promised to pay
+me a visit this summer," remarked the gentleman.
+
+Alene clapped her hands.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!"
+
+"What about, Miss Jump-at-Conclusions?"
+
+"To think that if I'm not grown up, someone else is," said Alene
+mysteriously.
+
+Uncle Fred made no reply but smiled thoughtfully as he puffed away at
+his pipe.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Heralded by Prince's loud barking, and escorted by Jed and Kizzie, who
+ran out to investigate, a vendor, laden with a large square basket,
+came to the kitchen door.  Alene, who was at luncheon, hurriedly gulped
+down her coffee and joined the group.
+
+The man opened his basket and exhibited some really fine specimens of
+Mexican drawn-work, beaded moccasins and Indian blankets.
+
+Mrs. Major bought a centre piece, Kizzie a collar-and-cuff set, and
+Alene looked longingly at a pair of dainty moccasins that were now,
+alas, beyond her means.  She thought regretfully of the cut-steel purse
+in Uncle Fred's possession.
+
+"But even if he were here I wouldn't ask for it.  That would be
+breaking my word," she said sturdily.  The man used all his persuasive
+powers in vain; she looked and longed and sadly shook her head.
+
+At last he took from the bottom of the basket a long wooden box, and
+raised the lid.
+
+"How lovely!"  They all crowded round with cries of admiration.
+
+"You thinka them vair fine!" the man said, picking up a handful and
+turning them over in the light till they shone like fairy lanterns of
+rainbow-tinted dew.
+
+"Here-a is whata you call heem, black fire opal, here-a meelk, here-a
+cherry, here-a blue!" cried the seller volubly.
+
+Alene stood in silent ecstasy!  How she would love to buy three, one
+each for Laura, Ivy and herself!  She knew she could borrow the money
+from Mrs. Major, and repay her upon Uncle Fred's return that evening,
+or even let it stand until the next week, when she would regain her
+fortune but--
+
+"And here-a, leettle lady, ees de jewelry--de feela-gree broocha and de
+Swastika charm," continued the man persuasively, having noted the
+little girl's indecision.  The others, who were aware of her vow of
+voluntary poverty, looked on in sympathy and were ready, as she knew,
+to help her if she desired.
+
+"The other girls often wish to buy, and it's just as hard for them when
+they can't; besides, it wouldn't be right to borrow for such things
+when one is poor, and I'm not supposed to know this week that I'll be
+able to afford it next," reasoned Alene, shaking her head the more
+energetically to fortify her resolution.
+
+The man, disappointed, slowly repacked his wares, shouldered them and
+shambled away, while Alene stood looking on.
+
+"After all, opals are unlucky," said Kizzie consolingly.
+
+Alene felt Prince's soft nose against her hand.
+
+"You feel sorry, don't you, old fellow?  But this is what the rest of
+the Happy-Go-Luckys have to bear all the time!  I've been used to going
+through the world picking up everything I fancied, with never a thought
+for others who had to go without.  This is a sort of experience week
+for me!  But cheer up, Prince Sobersides, and come along for a run!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Girls, this is the Crimson Bag's last night, and it's my treat!"
+announced Alene, when she met her friends Saturday evening.
+
+They proceeded blithely down the street, dressed in their best, in
+honor of the evening which was generally observed in the town as the
+gala time of the week, when the stores were kept open to accommodate
+the workingmen who were paid that night, and the young people
+promenaded Main Street as far as the ice-cream parlors.
+
+When the girls reached "Clyde's Parlors and Restaurant," as the highly
+gilded sign in the window proclaimed it, they found the place crowded.
+
+Ivy gave Laura a nudge and the latter, turning suddenly, collided with
+another girl.
+
+"I beg your pardon--Oh, Hermione, is it you?"
+
+"You can't think it's my ghost that nearly knocked your hat off!  Ah,
+there's your other two-thirds, Alene and Ivy!  How d'you do, girls?"
+She paused for a chat until Vera with several other girls came along on
+their way out of the store.
+
+"Ah, good evening, Alene!  Let me introduce my friends," she said,
+proceeding with the ceremony and totally ignoring Laura and Ivy.
+
+"And these are my friends, Miss Lee and Miss Bonner," said Alene.
+
+Vera soon hurried her party away, but they had gone only a few steps
+when she paused at a show case, apparently much interested in its
+contents.
+
+"I want to see what Alene Dawson is going to buy!" she explained in an
+undertone.  "That's the reason she likes to go with those girls; she
+can 'show off' more with them and act the Lady Bountiful!  Mamma says
+it's a shame for her uncle to allow her so much money to throw away!"
+
+Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, come along, girls; it's none of our affair," said she, but Vera's
+words had aroused the curiosity of the others and they loitered beside
+her.
+
+All unconscious of their spying, Alene and her friends went their way.
+Instead of taking seats at one of the many little tables placed
+invitingly around, they stopped at the next counter.  Alene unfastened
+the crimson bag and gravely searched within it.
+
+"More show!" whispered Vera.
+
+"Three Dill pickles, please; you need not wrap them up," said Alene,
+laying a nickle on the counter.
+
+Then Vera made a hasty retreat amid the raillery of her friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GARDEN PARTY
+
+"Letters for the whole bunch!" cried Lafe Bonner, coming into the
+sitting-room on his return from the post-office.  "Hugh Bonner,
+E--s--q--Esquimau--wonder why they call his nibs that?  Master Donald
+Bonner, Master Roy Bonner, Little Claude Bonner, Master Walter Bonner
+and--"  Lafe stammered and got very red when he saw the address 'Gen.
+Lafayette Bonner.'  "One for me, too," he continued hurriedly; "and
+last for Mrs. L. Bonner."
+
+All the members of the family in reach took their letters, and Ivy,
+seated at her new writing desk in the corner next to the window, turned
+round expectantly, saying,
+
+"Where's mine?"
+
+Lafe held up his empty hands.
+
+"You may search me!  Somebody's forgotten this time!"
+
+"Come here," commanded Ivy.
+
+Lafe advanced, wearing a guileless expression until Ivy ran her hand
+into his empty coat pocket, and fumbling round, found a snug space in
+the lining and brought forth the missing epistle.
+
+"Of course I couldn't fool her in that," mused Lafe sheepishly, when he
+read the contents of his high titled note:
+
+
+  YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A
+
+  GARDEN PARTY AT THE TOWERS ON
+
+  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER THE FIRST.
+
+  HOURS 1:30 TO 8 P. M.
+
+
+The opening of the mail, always an important event in the town, had
+proved a pleasantly exciting one that day.
+
+There was a shower of white envelopes from the little square window.
+Almost everyone who called received one or more, according to the
+number of children in the family; many regular inquirers who were never
+known to get even a circular, were at last rewarded, and proudly waved
+their little white banners so that all the world might see.  The
+unusually large number of mail-bearing pedestrians gave Main Street a
+gala air.
+
+Ivy, on watch at the window, hugged herself and smiled contentedly, for
+was she not one of the conspirators who, in league with the Post-office
+Department, had sent all those little white flags a-flutter through the
+town?
+
+It was Mr. Dawson who had suggested the idea.
+
+"You have enjoyed so many merry-makings at your friends' hands, don't
+you think it would be a good thing to make some return, Alene alanna?"
+he inquired one evening, when they sat by the library table, he smoking
+a pipe as usual, while Alene finished a page of a daily journal which
+she sent each week to her parents.
+
+She beamed at the questioner across the table.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Fred, I'd love to!  What shall we do?  May I get the girls
+to help, and make it a regular Happy-Go-Lucky affair?"
+
+"Certainly--and the boys, too, if you wish.  I notice they are
+generally mustered in, 'to help or to hinder,' as the case may be.  You
+might have an outside party if the weather is fine."
+
+"And then we could invite so many more!"
+
+"Invite all the town if you wish.  I'll see that there's enough big
+sugar cakes to go round if we break the bakery.  Suppose you ask Mrs.
+Major and Kizzie in, and see how it strikes them!"
+
+Alene skipped away and soon returned with the buxom housekeeper and the
+rosy little maid, all in a stir of excitement.
+
+"I see Alene had no trouble in finding enthusiastic allies," said Uncle
+Fred in his genial way, that always set people at ease.
+
+Everybody found seats and a pleasant hour followed in offering
+suggestions and making plans, while Prince lay on the rug lazily
+nodding approbation, or giving a friendly bark when Alene asked his
+opinion.
+
+That was only the beginning of a happy time.  The girls were deep in
+blissful preparations the next ten days; the cheerful helpers, Mat and
+Hugh, held many consultations with Jed and the gardener and Uncle Fred;
+an array of pavilions, swings, maypoles, rustic seats and tables sprang
+up in the Towers' grounds, and the kitchen range glowed like a furnace,
+turning out enough good things to feed a multitude.
+
+Laura, Ivy, and Alene spent two afternoons in the library, making out
+lists and addressing invitations.  Uncle Fred peeped in once or twice,
+bringing sheets of postage-stamps.
+
+"May I take a few invitations?  There are some fellows big and little
+I'd like to ask," he inquired.
+
+Alene glanced up from her task, pen in hard and nodded absent-mindedly.
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+Apparently overwhelmed by her condescension, he furtively picked up
+half a dozen invitations and slouched away with a culprit-like mien
+that made Ivy lean back in her chair and laugh till she was out of
+breath.
+
+Alene gazed at her wonderingly with such an innocent air that another
+explosion resulted, and sober Laura, all unaware of the little by-play,
+gave Ivy a smart rap on the back, which only increased her mirth.
+
+"Hysterics?" inquired Alene.
+
+"I thought she was choking, but she's only practising to be a
+contortionist," returned Laura, gazing apprehensively at the convulsed
+figure beside her.
+
+"You girls will be the death of me, along with Mr. Dawson; he looked so
+funny," explained Ivy, in gasps, wiping her eyes.
+
+They settled back to work with a will.
+
+"Shall we ask Mark Griffin?" inquired Laura.  "I have him on my list."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"And I!"
+
+"One invitation will answer, I fancy!  Kindly address it, Miss Dawson."
+
+"And now the Happy-Go-Luckys may be as reckless as they please; fall
+off tree-tops, get lost in the grape-arbors, or tumble into the
+fountain--it's all the same," cried Ivy.
+
+"_If_ he comes!"
+
+"Perhaps he won't, without his band of buccaneers.  I wonder if they
+are the Torchlights," said Alene.
+
+"He 'shut up like a clam' as Mat says, when I asked him that day, but I
+got even with his High Mightiness," returned Laura.
+
+"Say, girls," broke in Ivy, "I feel kind of lonesome!  Everybody in
+town will have a bid but us."
+
+"Poor child, she shall have one!"  Alene held out for inspection a
+missive duly stamped and addressed.
+
+"Now, Ivy, you might address Hermione's, and I'll send Vera's."
+
+Ivy made a grimace.
+
+"I'm glad you don't put it the other way!"
+
+"I'd like to ask Hermione to help in our tissue-paper work, but we
+can't ask her without Vera."
+
+"Hermione's a dear, so for her sake let's set up with Vera," said Laura.
+
+Ivy gave a prodigious groan.
+
+"'Take the bitter with the sweet,' though it will be Vera bitter."
+
+So it came to pass that the library was the scene of many more busy
+hours, and the working-force of the Happy-Go-Luckys was increased by
+the Ramsey girls, who threw themselves heartily into the making of
+tissue-paper caps, rosettes and flowers, in which Vera proved an adept,
+and her productions were so much admired and praised by the others that
+she became quite amiable, and gave them no reason to regret the
+invitation.
+
+The time went fast enough to these busy workers, though it seemed very
+slow to the rest of the young people.
+
+Every lawn in town flew yards of dainty garments all belaced and
+beruffled; many small frocks and waists having seen much service were
+patched and mended to see more, there was an epidemic of ribbons,
+curling-irons, and fancy slippers, which grew worse as the great day
+approached, and when it came at last--as fine a day as one could
+wish--each house sent forth its quota of shining-faced, bedizened
+merry-makers to besiege the Towers' gates.
+
+The smaller children were directed to the library, where they were
+captured by the larger girls, decorated with tissue-paper favors and
+set loose; "like a flock of birds and butterflies," as Hermione said,
+or "a plague of hungry locusts," to quote Ivy, who stood on the porch
+at the front door watching their flight.
+
+"I don't want this old red cap," declared Claude.
+
+"And I want a yellow one like Lawa's weaf," wailed Lois, while Nettie,
+for once figuring as amiability, with a blue top-knot on her golden
+tresses, only lingered with the others to give them countenance, as it
+were.
+
+"Shoo, shoo!" cried the unfeeling Ivy, waving them away with her
+skirts.  "Who are those boys who went past just now, looking so much
+amused, Laura?  The short one stared at you as if he knew you."
+
+"I didn't notice," returned Laura, glancing after the lads.
+
+"It's that boy you made buy the white pitcher," said Alene.
+
+"The other looks like one of Mark Griffin's soldiers of misfortune.
+Hoy, Mat!" Ivy hailed the latter in passing.  "Who are those boys?"
+
+"Bud Waters and Artie Orr; they came with Mark Griffin and Jack
+Lever,--there's Jack now."
+
+"That thin boy leaning on the cane?  I wondered who he was!"
+
+"Yes, he's been laid up with a broken leg; is just able to hobble
+round; that's the reason we haven't seen him and Mark together for so
+long.  They are hobnobbing with the Stony Road gang to-day."
+
+"The gang?  Why, are they all here?"
+
+"Five or six, I should say.  Mr. Dawson seemed to know them and sent
+Jed to show them round."
+
+"That explains where Uncle Fred's invitations went."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he knows all about the Torchlights, too!"
+
+"Neither should I, Laura."
+
+"The Torchlights?" cried Vera; "Who are they?"
+
+"'A sort of club,'" said Laura, shutting her lips together in an
+imitation of Mark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+IVY'S FRIEND
+
+In the middle of the afternoon as Ivy sat alone on a bench beneath a
+tree, listening to the band and watching the children circling merrily
+round a number of maypoles, she heard a voice at her side:
+
+"Excuse me, but may I have part of your seat?"
+
+"Why, certainly!" she said, making room for the speaker, a middle-aged
+man with genial blue eyes and a blonde beard, who was dressed in an
+easy-fitting, light suit, and carried a large book which he placed with
+his hat on the grass at his feet.
+
+"I guess he's a friend of the housekeeper's; I noticed him speaking
+with her to-day," thought Ivy, her gaze straying back to the
+light-footed dancers.
+
+"It looks easy, twirling those ribbons around the poles, but isn't it
+rather warm weather, for dancing?"
+
+Ivy turned upon him a pair of eyes full of pity for his ignorance.
+
+"Why, it would be lovely!  I'm sure I'd never think of the heat if--"
+she glanced eloquently at the crutches which leaned against the tree.
+
+"It's too bad, at a time like this especially; I shouldn't like that
+either!  Though my dancing days are past, I like to walk a lot and
+gather 'yarbs an' things,'" he said.  Taking up the big black book, he
+displayed a collection of pressed plants, leaves and flowers, in which
+Ivy took so much interest that he showed her through the book,
+explaining the value and rarity of his treasures gathered from many
+places, and relating incidents connected with his travels in search of
+them.
+
+Ivy gave a sigh of admiration.
+
+"How lovely to travel that way!  One could write a book about it!"
+
+"Do you like to write?  I hope then you will get a chance some day to
+visit all those countries."
+
+Ivy shook her head.
+
+"Not hopping around on those," she said bitterly, and with a few
+sympathetic questions he drew from her the sad story of her affliction.
+She was afterwards surprised at her own volubility, being, as a rule,
+very shy with strangers.
+
+"I have seen children who were even worse than you completely cured,"
+he said; he related several instances while Ivy listened with flaming
+cheeks and glistening eyes.  A dozen questions trembled on her tongue
+when a crowd of girls came along, one of whom paused beside her, saying,
+
+"Ivy, Ivy, come on!  Don't you hear the bell?"
+
+"Oh, Laura, I forgot all about eating," said Ivy somewhat ruefully.
+
+The stranger smiled.
+
+"Then you are the only one to forget, for see, the youngsters are
+racing from everywhere right upon us."  He glanced at his watch.  "Four
+o'clock--it's time for me to seek my place at the visitors' table!"  He
+picked up his book and hat while the girls hurried away.
+
+The children assembled in front of the Towers and marched in five
+battalions headed by chiefs wearing different colored tissue-paper
+wreaths.
+
+Laura with yellow roses led the yellow-capped tots; Vera with blue
+flowers, the blue-capped ones; Hermione crowned with lilacs, the
+lavender; Ivy in crimson roses, the red, and Alene in pink roses, the
+pink.
+
+A few of the children marched in wrong companies.  Lois, despite her
+blue cap, clung closely to her beloved "Lawa."
+
+"With Claude it's not color blindness, but Nettie," explained Ivy, when
+that rebellious red-cap was seen stepping brazenly in Vera's train.
+
+Vera for once seemed to forget herself in seeing to the welfare of her
+small charges, who one and all regarded her with admiring eyes; she
+enjoyed the sensation of being the centre of attraction and graciously
+accepted their homage, although the majority were "nobodies" whom she
+had affected to despise.
+
+"Vera bitter has become Vera sweet," observed Ivy, giving a shy nod to
+the Botanist who was seated with the other grown-ups at the visitors'
+table watching the children filing past.  Beside him was Mrs. Ramsey,
+resplendent in black net over coral-colored silk, who at that moment
+was explaining for his benefit:
+
+"The tall, fair girl, wearing blue flowers, is my daughter Vera, and
+there is Hermione, my oldest, in white with the lilac wreath."
+
+"The Happy-Go-Luckys are partial to tissue-paper," Mr. Dawson said,
+smilingly.
+
+"The dear girls!  And the tots look like fairies in those pretty caps!"
+said the lady, proud of her daughters' success.
+
+"This active life has certainly done wonders for Freddie's little
+niece.  She was pale and delicate when she came here in the spring and
+look at her now!" and Miss Marlin, a slight little woman in Quakerish
+gray, smiled at Alene whose cheeks outvied the roses in her wreath.
+
+"Her mother will be delighted to find her so improved," said Mrs.
+Ramsey.  "My girls think the world of Alene and that funny club, the
+what-do-you-call-'ems?"
+
+"The Happy-Go-Luckys," suggested Mrs. Major, who wore her best black
+silk in honor of the day.
+
+The Happy-Go-Luckys, unconscious of having won a champion, passed on to
+their respective tables; soon all were placed and with mirth and
+laughter the feast began.
+
+And what a feast it was!
+
+"Niagaras of lemonade, seas of milk and coffee, pyramids of fruit,
+hills of candy, mountains of cake, whole continents of toothsome
+things--"
+
+"Not forgetting Sandwich Islands," said Jack Lever, interrupting Mat's
+flow of oratory.
+
+"Is that in reference to our cannibalistic appetites?" inquired Mark
+Griffin.
+
+"'The bogie man will get you if you don't be good!'" squealed Artie Orr
+in a high falsetto voice.
+
+"Who is that farmer-looking gentleman at the visitors' table?  The one
+speaking to Mr. Dawson?" Ivy asked in an aside of Kizzie who flitted
+from one table to another, her rosy face like a small sun shining above
+a cloud of pink and white lawn.
+
+"He's visitin' Mr. Fred--he's from the city, I think.  He just came
+to-day and I didn't hear his name."
+
+"Why, that's Dr. Medway," said Alene; "he's from Dr. Luke's hospital."
+
+"I never dreamed he was a doctor!  I talked away like a graphophone,
+and he told me about many children worse than I am who were cured, just
+think!"
+
+"Oh, Ivy, Ivy, he'll cure you then!" cried Alene with a quick breath of
+ecstasy.
+
+Ivy's joy subsided; the tears came in her eyes.
+
+"But I guess it would cost a fortune," she said dejectedly.
+
+Shortly after lunch Dr. Medway, sauntering along the walk enjoying a
+cigar and escorted by Prince, who had taken a fancy to him, was
+arrested by a voice.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, but are you Dr. Medway?"
+
+"I am.  What can I do for you, young man?"
+
+"Ivy, the little lame girl--I'm her brother, Hugh Bonner--you told her
+about so many cures--Oh, sir, if you would undertake to cure her--why,
+I haven't any money now, but I'd pay you some day if it took me a
+lifetime, and I'd--I'd work my fingers to the bone for you!" cried the
+lad, forgetting in his earnestness the dignified speech he had
+prepared, and speaking with all the intensity of his long-cherished
+desire.
+
+"You are a good brother, Hugh, my lad, but I'm not a Shylock.  I heard
+of the little girl before I came here.  I shall see your mother about
+her to-morrow; and be assured the main thing is to cure Ivy--nothing
+else matters!" and the doctor gave Hugh's hand a vigorous grip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AN ADVENTURE
+
+"Where is Lois?"  Laura flitted from one group of people to another,
+growing anxious in her continued failure to get any information.
+
+"She was naughty, and she's gone!" screamed Claude and Nettie, who came
+rushing hand in hand out the front door.
+
+"Where did she go?"
+
+"Over the roof."
+
+Laura grew pale.
+
+"The roof?  Whereabouts?  Where is she, I say?  Where were you?"  She
+took hold of their shoulders as if to shake the answers out of them.
+
+Alas, when they spoke her worst fears were confirmed!  The children had
+climbed the four flights of steps to the tower room, where Lois had
+crawled out upon the roof; they called to her and in trying to turn she
+had slipped out of sight over the edge.
+
+Laura ran moaning toward the foot of the tower, dreading to find a
+little crushed body lying there inert, but no! the crowd was gazing
+upward horror-stricken, and she caught a glimpse of a white object
+clinging to a swinging ladder high up in the air.
+
+Between the second story and the sloping tower roof a scaffold had been
+erected by workmen who were repairing the walls.  Fearing possible
+injury to the children by falling stones, Mr. Dawson had instructed
+them not to work on the day of the picnic and they had secured the
+scaffold from the reach of mischievous boys, placing it fortunately
+just in position to arrest the child's fall.
+
+"If only she doesn't get dizzy!" a voice was saying and Laura for the
+first time noticed that a boy was scaling the wall.  Favored by the
+thick vines and uneven stones up he went with the agility of an
+acrobat.  He was bareheaded and the sun shone on his face, reddened
+with exertion, and on his sandy hair and Laura recognized him as one of
+the Stony Road boys, the one she had talked with on the glass-boat.
+
+"It's Bud Waters--the rest of us were too heavy to try it, and he was
+off like a squirrel, soon as he saw the child," explained Mat
+hurriedly.  He was with a crowd of boys, among whom were Mark, Hugh,
+and Jed, carrying a coil of rope.
+
+"We're going up to the roof--if she only holds out that long!"
+
+"Mat, Mat, it's our Lois!" wailed Laura.  She saw Mat's face blanch,
+and the crowd passed, leaving her half crazed.  She knew that Alene and
+Ivy were standing beside her with tears in their eyes, murmuring half
+audible prayers, but she did not see them.  Her gaze turned steadily
+upon the little hanging figure, and on the boy who went climbing up the
+wall.
+
+Ah, he has almost reached the goal--he has grasped the ladder--a thrill
+went through the crowd--he is holding the little one safe from harm!
+Then, seated beside her on the ladder, he gave a whoop of joy that was
+answered by the crowd's enthusiastic cries.  A moment later the other
+boys were seen at the narrow windows above and the rope came gliding
+over the roof.
+
+Then everything became a blur to Laura; she heard a shout of many
+voices and knew no more until she found herself sitting on a bench with
+Mrs. Major fanning her, Miss Marlin demanding fiercely from everybody
+why she had forgotten to bring her lavender salts, Kizzie dancing round
+with a glass of water, and Ivy and Alene kneeling on the grass chafing
+her hands, and then, oh blessed sight, Uncle Fred coming across the
+lawn with Lois safe in his arms!
+
+On seeing her big sister, she stuck a tiny finger into her mouth half
+abashed.
+
+"Lawa, don't cwy!  I didn't mean to go so far down the woof!" she
+cried, cuddling into Laura's arms.
+
+"Oh, girls!  I could kneel to that boy!  I'd go and kiss him now only I
+know boys hate to be fussed over!" declared Laura.
+
+"I'll give him a bushel of kisses!" cried Lois rapturously, whereupon
+they kissed her all round while Nettie looked on enviously at the stir
+the little maid was making.
+
+"I wonder why when I'm naughty I get a scolding instead of kisses," she
+confided to Claude.
+
+"I suppose it's because you've never been quite that naughty, though
+you've been pretty bad," he said, which latter assurance consoled his
+chum.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+IN THE TOWER
+
+Later in the evening when the smaller children had gone home, some of
+the others proposed a visit to the tower room to view the sunset, and a
+gay crowd scurried up the stairs.
+
+Ivy, who could climb the stairs almost as nimbly as her mates, lingered
+in the rear with Jack Lever.
+
+"It's pretty hard lines," he remarked smilingly, answering her
+sympathetic expression.
+
+"Yes, indeed, but you will be all right in no time!  Just be thankful
+it won't last for years and years!"
+
+"The brave little gipsy!" thought Jack.  He gave her a kindly glance,
+noting with an insight gained by his late acquaintance with pain, the
+marks of suffering always so pathetic on a childish face.
+
+"Things like this teach us a lot, don't you think?  I feel as if I'd
+become quite old, tied so long to a sofa, like a thing-um-bub--those
+lace affairs the girls make, you know--"
+
+"A tidy?"
+
+"Untidy I call 'em, always sticking to a fellow's coat!  If it wasn't
+for the Torchlights, I'd have gone all to pieces."
+
+Ivy started, but curbing her curiosity and profiting by Laura's
+experience she merely repeated,
+
+"The--the Torchlights?"
+
+"Yes, our club, you know."
+
+Ivy felt that Jack was ready and willing to enlarge upon the theme; she
+chuckled inwardly, gleefully anticipating the tale she would have for
+the other girls.
+
+Alas, at that moment Jed came up the stairs with a large pitcher of
+lemonade and glasses on a tray, and Kizzie followed with a huge frosted
+cake.
+
+"We thought you would like this, along with the sunset," she said.
+
+Together they climbed the fourth and last flight of stairs and received
+a noisy greeting from the others on entering the tower room.
+
+Jack gave them an elaborate bow.
+
+"I assure you, my friends, we feel flattered by this demonstrative
+welcome."
+
+"We don't want to throw cold lemonade on your joy, me boy, but your
+credentials are excellent," returned Mat, taking the cake from Kizzie.
+
+Jed and the little maid, assisted by the boys, proceeded to pour out
+lemonade and to cut cake amid the clinking of glasses and merry talk.
+
+The tower room was of octagon shape; crimson tapestry curtains edged
+with tarnished gilt fringe hung at the eight narrow windows, and a rug
+of faded crimson velvet half covered the painted floor.  A heavy walnut
+table and a revolving bookcase graced the centre of the room, and an
+old fashioned wooden settee and several ancient chairs stood round, now
+occupied by the young people who ate and drank and chattered, the
+majority quite unmindful of their journey's object--Old Sol, in his
+departing splendor, glorifying the clouds with prismatic color, ere he
+sank beyond the far-reaching hills.
+
+"You look quite uplifted," cried Alene, when Ivy, one of the few
+onlookers, turned from the window.
+
+She gave an expressive glance backward toward the fast-fading sky.
+
+"It's that and something Hugh just told me.  He spoke to Dr. Medway--"
+
+"Yes, I know, and oh, I'm so glad!"
+
+"And I too!" cried Laura, joining them.
+
+"I like Dr. Medway; he never once called me 'an interesting case' but
+talked as if I were just a little girl he would like to see cured.
+When I think of it I feel so queer, I have to keep tight hold of my
+crutches, to keep from floating away into the air, like a balloon!"
+Ivy glanced across the room.  "Things seem to be upside down, for there
+I imagine I see Hugh and Mark Griffin buzzing together like two old
+gossips!"
+
+"It's not imagination; all the boys are as amiable as the children when
+they play Mrs. Come-to-See!  They were tottering on the brink of
+friendship and Lois toppled them over into each other's arms."
+
+"You Happy-Go-Luckys look to your laurels; Hugh and I belong to a club
+of our own now!" called Mat.
+
+"What, the Torchlights?" chorused the three.
+
+He looked surprised.
+
+"How did you know about it?"
+
+They looked wise but said not a word, and Ivy whispered to the girls
+how near she had come to finding out.
+
+At that moment, taking a glass of lemonade, Mark Griffin stood up.
+
+  "To the clever and plucky,
+  The Happy-Go-Lucky--club!"
+
+he cried, with a sly smile, which told them he knew all about it.
+
+"How did you know?" asked one.
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Hugh, that was shabby of you!"
+
+"You girls are always patching up some mystery or other.  How was I to
+know?" said Hugh.
+
+Jack Lever, who was leaning against the table, came over and sat on the
+settee beside the girls.
+
+"Mark didn't play fair; he never said a word about it till Mat and Hugh
+had told your secret, so to get even I'll tell you his."
+
+Amid the girls' applause and Mark's protests he commenced.
+
+"You ought to know Phillip Gamer, the first Torchlight, ran away from
+home when he was twelve to join the Salvation Army.  He was a drummer
+boy in the ranks until a detective, hired by his dad, shadowed him and
+brought him home, but last year at school he said the Army had helped
+him to a view of a question which had puzzled him all his life.  His
+mother declared that even as a baby, he had protested in lusty tones
+against silver-backed hair-brushes and perfumed soaps, and when the
+nurse perambulated him in the park, a bunch of ragged, barefoot kids
+would surround the beaming youngster in his silk-lined carriage.  There
+might be a dozen other baby vehicles round, which they wouldn't think
+of touching, nor of speaking to those tony babies, but they seemed to
+overlook Phil's frills and laces and took to him like brothers.
+
+"At school he refused one of the high-priced rooms, because it would
+separate him in a way from the boys he wished most to meet, the boys
+who thought things out for themselves.  Phil's coming knocked out that
+feeling,--a sort of caste--which divided the rich scholars from the
+poor; his room was a meeting point--the plane upon which they became
+fellow-men.  Here the Torchlights came into being.  Our counter-sign,
+The Brotherhood of Man, and though there was only one of us who
+intended to work as a minister in the slums, each was pledged to
+individual effort in his own locality.
+
+"Mark and I were the only Torchlights from this town, and the first
+thing I did when I got home was to break my bones in a runaway, and
+that put me out of the race."
+
+"But it didn't keep him from doing a lot for the boys," said Mark.
+"Every week we all visited him and had a jolly evening with games,
+reading and singing and a dandy lunch.  At first Jack's people rather
+scouted the idea of entertaining the Stony Road gang.  The first night
+one of them cut a fine china plate in two, and another shied egg-shells
+over his shoulder against the wall.  Mrs. Lever was horrified, but we
+begged her to wait and give us another trial."
+
+"Now mother and the rest are completely won over and help us lots.  I
+believe I would have knocked my brains out against the wall this
+summer, only for the Torchlights.  I found we can't do good to others
+without receiving a reactionary benefit.  As Phil says, many a rich lad
+joins in a patronizing way, thinking he's going to revolutionize
+things, and soon finds it's himself that needs to be done over."
+
+"We were surprised to find a sister club ahead of us here, but we are
+not at all jealous!" said Mark.
+
+"We can help each other out."
+
+"I thank you in the name of the Happy-Go-Luckys!  The Torchlights are
+fine!" said Laura heartily.
+
+"We might all take for our club poem this little verse," and, half
+embarrassed by the sudden silence, Alene recited softly--
+
+  "'Jesus bids us shine,
+  With a clear pure light,
+  Like a little candle,
+  Burning in the night.
+  In the world is darkness,
+  So we must shine,
+  You in your corner,
+  And I in mine.'"
+
+
+"Your lights are torches, you can take them with you out into the
+world," said Laura.
+
+"As we are all so solemncholy, I'll propose a toast:
+
+  'To the dear, ducky duckies,
+  The Happy-Go-Luckys!'"
+
+cried Mat.
+
+"And here's another--take it for your motto:
+
+  'For lofty flights
+  The Torchlights!'"
+
+
+Ivy's neat allusion brought forth three cheers for Bud Waters.
+
+"Mr. Dawson inquired about Bud to-day.  I bet he'll look out for him,
+though he has been kind to the Torchlights all along."
+
+The girls glanced at each other as if to say, "What did I tell you?"
+
+"The other day he gave us the use of a big room over his offices; said
+we could use it for a library and he'd provide the books and
+furniture," said Mark.
+
+"When there's 'something doing' in the way of reform, Fred Dawson is
+right there," said Jack.
+
+Whereupon there followed three ringing cheers for that gentleman, which
+made Alene color with pride.  And then the meeting adjourned.
+
+They all descended to the first floor, where the boys joined the men in
+the library, and the girls went outside for a parting ramble and chat,
+with Prince gambolling around them.
+
+"There are things about the Torchlights we might copy," remarked Laura.
+"They take in members whether they like them or not, and try to help
+them."
+
+"We might invite Hermione and Vera to start with," suggested Ivy.
+
+"That would be kind.  I think they would like it," said Alene.
+
+They had reached the grassy terrace beneath the apple-trees, and Ivy,
+with a sudden recollection exclaimed,
+
+"Girls, it was here we first met, or I should say parted, for Net and I
+ran so hard we lost our apples in tumbling over the wall, leaving poor
+Lol to be eaten up by Prince."
+
+"That was the fifteenth of June.  I remember it so well," said Laura.
+
+"We have had some lovely times together since then," said Alene.
+
+"To-day was the loveliest of all," declared Ivy.
+
+Then Alene uttered hopefully a prediction that in time proved a true
+one:
+
+"Girls, we'll have a happier time still on the anniversary of that
+day--Ivy will be cured, and we'll dance round the Maypole together, the
+'maddest, merriest' Happy-Go-Luckys in all the world!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peggy-Alone, by Mary Agnes Byrne
+
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