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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Prince and Other Stories, by
+Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
+
+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: Fairy Prince and Other Stories
+
+Author: Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2008 [EBook #26399]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY PRINCE AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY PRINCE AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+OLD-DAD
+PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD-WILL TO DOGS
+RAINY WEEK
+
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY PRINCE
+
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY
+
+ELEANOR HALLOWELL ABBOTT
+
+AUTHOR OF "MOLLY MAKE-BELIEVE," "RAINY WEEK," ETC.
+
+
+NEW YORK
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+681 FIFTH AVENUE
+
+Copyright, 1922,
+By E. P. Dutton & Company
+
+_All Rights Reserved_
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED
+STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                PAGE
+
+FAIRY PRINCE                                       1
+
+THE GAME OF THE BE-WITCHMENTS                     59
+
+THE BLINDED LADY                                 111
+
+THE GIFT OF THE PROBABLE PLACES                  155
+
+THE BOOK OF THE FUNNY SMELLS--AND EVERYTHING     195
+
+THE LITTLE DOG WHO COULDN'T SLEEP                245
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY PRINCE
+
+
+In my father's house were many fancies. Always, for instance, on every
+Thanksgiving Day it was the custom in our family to _bud_ the Christmas
+tree.
+
+Young Derry Willard came from Cuba. His father and our father had been
+chums together at college. None of us had ever seen him before. We were
+very much excited to have a strange young man invited for Thanksgiving
+dinner. My sister Rosalee was seventeen. My brother Carol was eleven. I
+myself was only nine, but with very tall legs.
+
+Young Derry Willard was certainly excited when he saw the Christmas
+tree. Excited enough, I mean, to shift his eyes for at least three
+minutes from my sister Rosalee's face. Lovely as my sister Rosalee was,
+it had never yet occurred to any of us, I think, until just that moment
+that she was old enough to have perfectly strange young men stare at her
+so hard. It made my father rather nervous. He cut his hand on the
+carving-knife. Nothing ever made my mother nervous.
+
+Except for father cutting his hand it seemed to be a very nourishing
+dinner. The tomato soup was pink with cream. The roast turkey didn't
+look a single sad bit like any one you'd seen before. There was plenty
+of hard-boiled egg with the spinach. The baked potatoes were frosted
+with red pepper. There was mince pie. There was apple pie. There was
+pumpkin pie. There were nuts and raisins. There were gay gold-paper
+bonbons. And everywhere all through the house the funny blunt smell of
+black coffee.
+
+It was my brother Carol's duty always to bring in the Christmas tree. By
+some strange mix-up of what is and what isn't my brother Carol was
+dumb--stark dumb, I mean, and from birth. But tho he had never found
+his voice he had at least never lost his shining face. Even now at
+eleven in the twilightly end of a rainy Sunday, or most any day when he
+had an earache, he still let mother call him "Shining Face." But if any
+children called him "Shining Face" he kicked them. Even when he kicked
+people, tho, he couldn't stop his face shining. It was very cheerful.
+Everything about Carol was very cheerful. No matter, indeed, how much we
+might play and whisper about gifts and tinsels and jolly-colored
+candles, Christmas never, I think, seemed really _probable_ to any of us
+until that one jumpy moment, just at the end of the Thanksgiving dinner,
+when, heralded by a slam in the wood-shed, a hoppytyskip in the hall,
+the dining-room door flung widely open on Carol's eyes twinkling like a
+whole skyful of stars through the shaggy, dark branches of a young
+spruce-tree. It made young Derry Willard laugh right out loud.
+
+"Why, of all funny things!" he said. "On Thanksgiving Day! Why, it looks
+like a Christmas tree!"
+
+"It is a Christmas tree," explained my sister Rosalee very patiently. My
+sister Rosalee was almost always very patient. But I had never seen her
+patient with a young man before. It made her cheeks very pink. "It _is_
+a Christmas tree," she explained. "That is, it's going to be a Christmas
+tree! Just the very first second we get it 'budded' it'll start right in
+to be a Christmas tree!"
+
+"_Budded?_" puzzled young Derry Willard. Really for a person who looked
+so much like the picture of the Fairy Prince in my best story-book, he
+seemed just a little bit slow.
+
+"Why, of course, it's got to be _budded_!" I cried. "That's what it's
+for! That's----"
+
+Instead of just being pink patient my sister Rosalee started in suddenly
+to be dimply patient too.
+
+"It's from mother's Christmas-tree garden, you know," she went right on
+explaining. "Mother's got a Winter garden--a Christmas-tree garden!"
+
+"Father's got a garden, too!" I maintained stoutly. "Father's is a
+Spring garden! Reds, blues, yellows, greens, whites! From France! And
+Holland! And California! And Asia Minor! Tulips, you know. _Buster's!_
+Oh, father's garden is a _glory_!" I boasted.
+
+"And mother's garden," said my mother very softly, "is only a story."
+
+"It's an awfully nice story," said Rosalee.
+
+Young Derry Willard seemed to like stories.
+
+"Tell it!" he begged.
+
+It was Rosalee who told it. "Why, it was when Carol was born," she said.
+"It was on a Christmas eve, you know. That's why mother named him
+Carol!"
+
+"We didn't know then, you see"--interrupted my mother very softly--"that
+Carol had been given the gift of silence rather than the gift of
+speech."
+
+"And father was so happy to have a boy," dimpled Rosalee, "that he said
+to mother, 'Well, now, I guess you've got everything in the world that
+you want!' And mother said, 'Everything--except a spruce forest!' So
+father bought her a spruce forest," said Rosalee. "That's the story!"
+
+"Oh, my dear!" laughed my mother. "That isn't a 'story' at all! All
+you've told is the facts! It's the _feeling_ of the facts that makes a
+story, you know! It was on my birthday," glowed mother, "that the
+presentation was to be made! My birthday was in March! I was very much
+excited and came down to breakfast with my hat and coat on! 'Where are
+you going?' said my husband."
+
+"Oh--Mother!" protested Rosalee. "'Whither away?' was what you've always
+told us he said!"
+
+"'Whither away?' of course _was_ what he said!" laughed my mother.
+"'Why, I'm going to find my spruce forest!' I told him. 'And I can't
+wait a moment longer! Is it the big one over beyond the mountain?' I
+implored him. 'Or the little grove that the deacon tried to sell you
+last year?'"
+
+"And they never budged an inch from the house!" interrupted Rosalee. "It
+was the funniest----"
+
+Over in the corner of the room my father laughed out suddenly. My father
+had left the table. He and Carol were trying very hard to make the
+spruce-tree stand upright in a huge pot of wet earth. The spruce-tree
+didn't want to stand upright. My father laughed all over again. But it
+wasn't at the spruce-tree. "Well, now, wouldn't it have been a pity," he
+said, "to have made a perfectly good lady fare forth on a cold March
+morning to find her own birthday present?"
+
+My mother began to clap her hands. It was a very little noise. But
+jolly.
+
+"It came by mail!" she cried. "My whole spruce forest! In a package no
+bigger than my head!"
+
+"Than your rather fluffy head!" corrected my father.
+
+"Three hundred spruce seedlings!" cried my mother. "Each one no bigger
+than a wisp of grass! Like little green ferns they were! So tender! So
+fluffing! So helpless!"
+
+"Heigh-O!" said young Derry Willard. "Well, I guess you laughed--then!"
+
+When grown-up people are trying to remember things outside themselves
+I've noticed they always open their eyes very wide. But when they are
+remembering things inside themselves they shut their eyes very tight. My
+mother shut her eyes very tight.
+
+"No--I didn't exactly laugh," said my mother. "And I didn't exactly
+cry."
+
+"You wouldn't eat!" cried Rosalee. "Not all day, I mean! Father had to
+feed you with a spoon! It was in the wing-chair! You held the box on
+your knees! You just shone--and shone--and _shone_!"
+
+"It would have been pretty hard," said my mother, "not to have shone
+a--little! To brood a baby forest in one's arms--if only for a single
+day--? Think of the experience!" Even at the very thought of it she
+began to _shine_ all over again! "Funny little fluff o' green," she
+laughed, "no fatter than a fern!" Her voice went suddenly all wabbly
+like a preacher's. "But, oh, the glory of it!" she said. "The potential
+majesty! Great sweeping branches--! Nests for birds, shade for lovers,
+masts for ships to plow the great world's waters--timbers perhaps for
+cathedrals! O--h," shivered my mother. "It certainly gave one a very
+queer feeling! No woman surely in the whole wide world--except the
+Mother of the Little Christ--ever felt so astonished to think what she
+had in her lap!"
+
+Young Derry Willard looked just a little bit nervous.
+
+"Oh, but of course mother couldn't begin all at once to raise
+cathedrals!" I hastened to explain. "So she started in raising Christmas
+presents instead. We raise all our own Christmas presents! And just as
+soon as Rosalee and I are married we're going to begin right away to
+raise our children's Christmas presents too! Heaps for everybody, even
+if there is a hundred! Carol, of course, won't marry because he can't
+propose! Ladies don't like written proposals, father says! Ladies----"
+
+Young Derry Willard asked if he might smoke. He smoked cigarets. He took
+them from a gold-looking case. They smelled very romantic. Everything
+about him smelled very romantic. His hair was black. His eyes were
+black. He looked as tho he could cut your throat without flinching if
+you were faithless to him. It was beautiful.
+
+I left the table as soon as I could. I went and got my best story-book.
+I was perfectly right. He looked _exactly_ like the picture of the Fairy
+Prince on the front page of the book. There were heaps of other
+pictures, of course. But only one picture of a Fairy Prince. I looked in
+the glass. I looked just exactly the way I did before dinner. It made me
+feel queer. Rosalee didn't look at all the way she looked before dinner.
+It made me feel _very_ queer.
+
+When I got back to the dining-room everybody was looking at the little
+spruce-tree--except young Derry Willard and Rosalee. Young Derry Willard
+was still looking at Rosalee. Rosalee was looking at the toes of her
+slippers. The fringe of her eyelashes seemed to be an inch long. Her
+cheeks were so pink I thought she had a fever. No one else came to _bud_
+the Christmas tree except Carol's tame coon and the tame crow. Carol is
+very unselfish. He always _buds_ one wish for the coon. And one for the
+crow. The tame coon looked rather jolly and gold-powdered in the
+firelight. The crow never looked jolly. I have heard of white crows. But
+Carol's crow was a very dark black. Wherever you put him he looked like
+a sorrow. He sat on the arm of Rosalee's chair and nibbed at her pink
+sleeve. Young Derry Willard pushed him away. Young Derry Willard and
+Rosalee tried to whisper. I heard them.
+
+"How old are you?" whispered Rosalee.
+
+"I'm twenty-two," whispered young Derry Willard.
+
+"O--h," said Rosalee.
+
+"How young are you?" whispered Derry Willard.
+
+"I'm seventeen," whispered Rosalee.
+
+"O--h," said Derry Willard.
+
+My mother started in very suddenly to explain about the Christmas tree.
+There were lots of little pencils on the table. And blocks of paper. And
+nice cold, shining sheets of tin-foil. There was violet-colored
+tin-foil, and red-colored tin-foil--and green and blue and silver and
+gold.
+
+"Why, it's just a little family custom of ours, Mr. Willard," explained
+my mother. "After the Thanksgiving dinner is over and we're all, I
+trust, feeling reasonably plump and contented, and there's nothing
+special to do except just to dream and think--why, we just list out the
+various things that we'd _like_ for Christmas and----"
+
+"Most people end Thanksgiving, of course," explained my father, "by
+trying to feel thankful for the things they've already had. But this
+seems to be more like a scheme for expressing thanks for the things that
+we'd _like_ to have!"
+
+"The violet tin-foil is Rosalee's!" I explained. "The green is mine! The
+red is mother's! The blue is father's! The silver is Carol's! Mother
+takes each separate _wish_ just as soon as it's written, and twists it
+all up in a bud of tin-foil! And takes wire! And wires the bud on the
+tree! Gold buds! Silver buds! Red! Green! Everything! All bursty! And
+shining! Like Spring! It looks as tho rainbows had rained on it! It
+looks as tho sun and moon had warmed it at the same time! And then we
+all go and get our little iron banks--all the Christmas money, I mean,
+that we've been saving and saving for a whole year! And dump it all out
+round the base of the tree! Nickels! Dimes! Quarters! Pennies!
+_Everything!_ And----"
+
+"Dump them all out--round the base of the tree?" puzzled young Derry
+Willard.
+
+Carol did something suddenly that I never saw him do before with a
+stranger. He wrote a conversation on a sheet of paper and waved it at
+young Derry Willard. It was a short conversation. But it was written
+very tall.
+
+"_Phertalizer!_" explained Carol.
+
+My father made a little laugh. "In all my experience with horticulture,"
+he said, "I know of no fertilizer for a Christmas tree that equals a
+judicious application of nickels, dimes, and quarters--well stirred in."
+
+"Our uncle Charlie was here once for Thanksgiving," I cried. "He stirred
+in a twenty-dollar gold piece. Our Christmas tree bloomed _everything_
+that year! It bloomed tinsel pompons on every branch! And gold-ribbon
+bow-knots! It bloomed a blackboard for Carol! And an ice-cream freezer
+for mother! And----"
+
+"And then we take the tree," explained my mother, "and carry it into the
+parlor. And shut the door."
+
+"And _lock_ the door," said my father.
+
+"And no one ever sees," puzzled young Derry Willard, "what was written
+in the wishes?"
+
+"_No one_," I said.
+
+Rosalee laughed.
+
+"Some one--must see," said Rosalee. "'Cause just about a week before
+Christmas father and mother always go up to town and----"
+
+"Oh, of course mother _has_ to see!" I admitted. "Mother is such friends
+with Christmas!"
+
+"And father," laughed Rosalee, "is such friends with mother!"
+
+"Usually," I said.
+
+"Eh?" said father.
+
+"And then," explained mother, "on Christmas morning we all go to the
+parlor!"
+
+"And there's a fire in the parlor!" I explained. "A great hollow Yule
+log all stuffed full of crackly pine-cones and sputtering sparkers and
+funny-colored blazes that father buys at a fireworks shop! And the
+candles are lighted! And--and----"
+
+"And all the tin-foil buds have bloomed into presents!" laughed Derry
+Willard.
+
+"Oh, no, of course--not _all_ of them," said mother.
+
+"No tree ever fulfills every bud," said my father.
+
+"There's Carol's camel, of course," laughed Rosalee. "Ever since Carol
+was big enough to wish, he's always wished for a camel!"
+
+"But mostly, of course," I insisted, "he wishes for kites! He got nine
+kites last Christmas."
+
+"Kites?" murmured young Derry Willard.
+
+"_Kites!_" I said. "I _have_ to talk a good deal. Once always for
+myself. And all over again for Carol." It seemed a good time to talk for
+Carol. Perhaps a person who came all the way from Cuba could tell us the
+thing we wanted to know. "Oh, Carol's very much interested in kites!" I
+confided. "And in relationships! In Christmas relationships especially!
+When he grows up he's going to be some sort of a jenny something--I
+think it's an ologist! Or else keep a kite-shop!"
+
+"Yes?" murmured young Derry Willard.
+
+There are two ways I've noticed to make one listen to you. One is to
+shout. The other is to whisper. I decided to whisper.
+
+"You don't seem to understand," I whispered. "It's Christmas
+relationships that are worrying Carol and me so! It worries us
+dreadfully! Oh, of course we understand all about the Little Baby
+Christ! And the camels! And the wise men! And the frankincense! That's
+easy! But _who_ is Santa Claus? Unless--unless--?" It was Carol himself
+who signaled me to go on. "Unless--he's the Baby Christ's
+_grandfather_?" I thought Derry Willard looked a little bit startled.
+Carol's ears turned bright red. "Oh, of course--we meant on his
+_mother's_ side!" I hastened to assure him.
+
+"It is, I admit, a new idea to me," said young Derry Willard. "But I
+seem to have gotten several new ideas to-day."
+
+He looked at mother. Mother's mouth looked very funny. He looked at
+father. Father seemed to be sneezing. He looked at Rosalee. They laughed
+together. His whole face suddenly was very laughing. "And what
+becomes," he asked, "of all the Christmas-tree buds that _don't_ bloom?"
+It was a funny question. It didn't have a thing in the world to do with
+Santa Claus being a grandfather.
+
+"Oh, mother never throws away any of the buds," laughed Rosalee. "She
+just keeps them year after year and wires them on all over again."
+
+"All unfulfilled wishes," said my mother. "Still waiting--still wishing!
+Maybe they'll bloom some time! Even Carol's--camel," she laughed out
+suddenly. "Who knows, sonny-boy--but what if you keep on _wishing_
+you'll actually travel some day to the Land-Where-Camels-Live?
+Maybe--maybe you'll own a--a dozen camels?"
+
+"With purple velvet blankets?" I cried. "All trimmed with scarlet silk
+tassels? And smelling of sandalwood?"
+
+"I have never understood," said my father, "that camels smelt of
+sandalwood."
+
+Young Derry Willard didn't seem exactly nervous any more. But he jumped
+up very suddenly. And went and stood by the fire.
+
+"It's the finest Christmas idea I ever heard of!" he said. "And if
+nobody has any objections I'd like to take a little turn myself at
+_budding_ the Christmas tree!"
+
+"Oh, but you won't be here for Christmas!" cried everybody all at once.
+
+"No, I certainly sha'n't be," admitted Derry Willard, "unless I am
+invited!"
+
+"Why, of course, you're invited!" cried everybody. Father seemed to have
+swallowed something. So mother invited him twice. Father kept right on
+choking. Everybody was frightened but mother.
+
+Young Derry Willard had to run like everything to catch his train. It
+was lucky that he knew what he wanted. With only one wish to make and
+only half a minute to make it in, it was wonderful that he could decide
+so quickly! He snatched a pencil! He scribbled something on a piece of
+paper! He crumpled the "something" all up tight and tossed it to mother!
+Carol and mother wadded it into a tin-foil bud! They took the
+gold-colored tin-foil! Rosalee and I wired it to a branch! We chose the
+highest branch we could reach! Father held his overcoat for him! Father
+handed him his bag! Father opened the door for him! He ran as fast as he
+could! He waved his hand to everybody! His laugh was all sparkly with
+white teeth!
+
+The room seemed a little bit dark after he had gone. The firelight
+flickered on the tame coon's collar. Sometimes it flickered on the
+single gold bud. We cracked more nuts and munched more raisins. It made
+a pleasant noise. The tame crow climbed up on the window-sill and tapped
+and tapped against the glass. It was not a pleasant noise. The tame coon
+prowled about under the table looking for crumbs. He walked very flat
+and swaying and slow, as tho he were stuffed with wet sand. It gave him
+a very captive look. His eyes were very bright.
+
+Father got his violin and played some quivery tunes to us. Mother sang a
+little. It was nice. Carol put fifteen "wishes" on the tree. Seven of
+them, of course, were old ones about the camel. But all the rest were
+new. He wished a salt mackerel for his coon. And a gold anklet for his
+crow. He wouldn't tell what his other wishes were. They looked very
+pretty! Fifteen silver buds as big as cones scattered all through the
+green branches! Rosalee made seven violet-colored wishes! I made seven!
+Mine were green! Father made three! His were blue! Mother's were red!
+She made three, too! The tree looked more and more as tho rainbows had
+rained on it! It was beautiful! We thanked mother very much for having a
+Christmas-tree garden! We felt very thankful toward everybody! We got
+sleepier and sleepier! We went to bed!
+
+I woke in the night. It was very lonely. I crept down-stairs to get my
+best story-book. There was a light in the parlor. There were voices. I
+peeped in. It was my father and my mother. They were looking at the
+Christmas tree. I got an awful shock. They were having what books call
+"words" with each other. Only it was "sentences!"
+
+"Impudent young cub!" said my father. "How _dared_ he stuff a
+hundred-dollar bill into our Christmas tree?"
+
+"Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean to be impudent," said my mother. Her voice
+was very soft. "He heard the children telling about Uncle Charlie's gold
+piece. He--he wanted to do something--I suppose. It was too much, of
+course. He oughtn't to have done it. But----"
+
+"A hundred-dollar bill!" said my father. Every time he said it he seemed
+madder.
+
+"And yet," said my mother, "if what you say about his father's sugar
+plantations is correct, a hundred-dollar bill probably didn't look any
+larger to him than a--than a two-dollar bill looks to us--this year.
+We'll simply return it to him very politely--as soon as we know his
+address. He was going West somewhere, wasn't he? We shall hear, I
+suppose."
+
+"Hear _nothing_!" said my father. "I won't have it! Did you see how he
+stared at Rosalee? It was outrageous! Absolutely outrageous! And
+Rosalee? I was ashamed of Rosalee! Positively ashamed!"
+
+"But you see--it was really the first young man that Rosalee has ever
+had a chance to observe," said my mother. "If you had ever been willing
+to let boys come to the house--maybe she wouldn't have considered this
+one such a--such a thrilling curiosity."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" said my father. "She's only a child! There'll be
+no boys come to this house for years and years!"
+
+"She's seventeen," said my mother. "You and I were married when I was
+seventeen."
+
+"That's different!" said my father. He tried to smile. He couldn't.
+Mother smiled quite a good deal. He jumped up and began to pace the
+room. He demanded things. "Do you mean to say," he demanded, "that you
+want your daughter to marry this strange young man?"
+
+"Not at all," said mother.
+
+Father turned at the edge of the rug and looked back. His face was all
+frowned. "And I don't like him anyway," he said. "He's too dark!"
+
+"His father roomed with you at college, you say?" asked my mother very
+softly. "Do you remember him--specially?"
+
+"Do I remember him?" cried my father. He looked astonished. "Do I
+remember him? Why, he was the best friend I ever had in the world! Do I
+remember him?"
+
+"And he was--very fair?" asked my mother.
+
+"Fair?" cried my father. "He was as dark as a Spaniard!"
+
+"And yet--reasonably--respectable?" asked my mother.
+
+"Respectable?" cried my father. "Why, he was the highest-minded man I
+ever knew in my life!"
+
+"And so--dark?" said my mother. She began to laugh. It was what we call
+her cut-finger laugh, her bandage laugh. It rolled all around father's
+angriness and made it feel better almost at once.
+
+"Well, I can't help it," said father. He shook his head just the way
+Carol does sometimes when he's planning to be pleasant as soon as it's
+convenient. "Well, I can't help it! Exceptions, of course, are
+exceptions! But Cuba? A climate all mushy with warmth and sunshine! What
+possible stamina can a young man have who's grown up on sugar-cane sirup
+and--and bananas?"
+
+"He seemed to have teeth," said my mother. "He ate two helpings of
+turkey!"
+
+"He had a gold cigaret-case!" said my father. "_Gold!_"
+
+My mother began to laugh all over again.
+
+"Maybe his Sunday-school class gave it to him," she said. It seemed to
+be a joke. Once father's Sunday-school class gave him a high silk hat.
+Father laughed a little.
+
+Mother looked very beautiful. She ruffled her hair a little on father's
+shoulder. She pinked her cheeks from the inside some way. She glanced up
+at the topmost branch of the Christmas tree. The gold bud showed quite
+plainly.
+
+"I--I _wonder_--what he wished," she said. "We'll have to look--some
+time."
+
+I made a little creak in my bones. I didn't mean to. My father and
+mother both turned round. They started to explore!
+
+I ran like everything!
+
+I think it was very kind of God to make December have the very shortest
+days in the year!
+
+Summer, of course, is nice! The long, sunny light! Lying awake till
+'most nine o'clock every night to hear the blackness come rustling! Such
+a lot of early mornings everywhere and birds singing! Sizzling-hot noons
+with cool milk to drink! The pleasant nap before it's time to play
+again!
+
+But if _December_ should feel long, what would children do? About
+Christmas, I mean! Even the best way you look at it, Christmas is always
+the furthest-off day that I ever heard about!
+
+My mother was always very kind about making Christmas come just as soon
+as it could. There wasn't much daylight. Not in December. Not in the
+North. Not where we lived. Except for the snow, each day was like a
+little jet-black jewel-box with a single gold coin in the center. The
+gold coin in the center was _noon_. It was very bright. It was really
+the only bright light in the day. We spent it for Christmas. Every
+minute of it. We popped corn and strung it into lovely loops. We
+threaded cranberries. We stuffed three Yule logs with crackly cones and
+colored fires. We made little candies. All round the edges of the bright
+noon-time, of course, there was morning and night. And lamplight. It
+wasn't convenient to burn a great many lamps. At night father and mother
+sat in the lamplight and taught us our lessons. Or read stories to us.
+We children sat in the shadows and stared into the light. The light made
+us blink. The tame crow and the tame coon sat in the shadows with us. We
+played we were all jungle-animals together waiting outside a man's camp
+to be Christianized. It was pleasant. Mother read to us about a woman
+who didn't like Christmas specially. She was going to petition Congress
+to have the Christ Child born in leap-year so that Christmas couldn't
+come oftener than once in four years. It worried us a little. Father
+laughed. Mother had only one worry in the world. She had it every year.
+
+"Oh, my darling, darling Winter garden!" worried my mother. "Wouldn't it
+be _awful_ if I ever had to die just as my best Christmas tree was
+coming into bloom?"
+
+It frightened us a little. But not too much. Father had the same worry
+every Spring about his Spring garden. Every Maytime when the tulip-buds
+were so fat and tight you could fairly hear them splitting, father
+worried.
+
+"Oh, wouldn't it be perfectly _terrible_ if I should die before I find
+out whether those new 'Rembrandts' are everything that the catalogue
+promised? Or whether the 'Bizards' are really finer than the 'Byblooms'?
+Now, if it was in phlox-time," worried my father. "Especially if the
+phlox turned out magenta, one could slip away with scarcely a pang. But
+in _tulip-time_----?"
+
+We promised our mother she should never die at Christmas-time. We
+promised our father he should never die at tulip-time. We brought them
+rubbers. And kneeling-cushions. We carried their coats. We found their
+trowels. We kept them just as well as we could.
+
+But, most of all, of course, we were busy wondering about our presents.
+
+It hurries Christmas a lot to have a Christmas tree growing in your
+parlor for a whole month. Even if the parlor door is locked.
+
+Lots of children have a Christmas tree for a whole month. But it's a
+_going_ tree. Its going is very sad. Just one little wee day of perfect
+splendor it has. And then it begins to die. Every day it dies more. It
+tarnishes. Its presents are all gathered. Its pop-corn gets stale. The
+cranberries smell. It looks scragglier and scragglier. It gets brittle.
+Its needles begin to fall. Pretty soon it's nothing but a _clutter_. It
+must be dreadful to start as a Christmas tree and end by being nothing
+but a clutter.
+
+But mother's Christmas tree is a _coming_ tree. Every day for a month
+it's growing beautifuler and beautifuler! The parlor is cool. It lives
+in a nice box of earth. It has water every day like a dog. It never
+dies. It just disappears. When we come down to breakfast the day after
+Christmas it simply _isn't there_. That's all. It's immortal. Always
+when you remember it, it's absolutely perfect.
+
+We liked very much to see the Christmas tree _come_. Every Sunday
+afternoon my mother unlocked the parlor door. We were not allowed to go
+in. But we could peep all we wanted to. It made your heart crinkle up
+like a handful of tinsel to watch the tin-foil buds change into
+presents.
+
+Two of Carol's silver buds had bloomed. One of them had bloomed into a
+white-paper package that looked like a book. The other one had strange
+humps. Only one of Rosalee's violet buds had bloomed. But it was a very
+large box tied with red ribbon. It looked like a best hat. One of
+father's blue buds had bloomed. One of mother's red buds. They bloomed
+very small. Small enough to be diamonds. Or collar-buttons. 'Way back on
+the further side of the tree I could see that one of my green buds had
+bloomed. It was a long little box. It was a narrow little box. I can
+most always tell when there's a doll in a box. Young Derry Willard's
+golden bud hadn't bloomed at all. Maybe it was a late bloomer. Some
+things are. The tame coon's salt fish, I've noticed, never blooms at all
+until just the very last moment before we go into the parlor Christmas
+morning. Mother says there's a reason. We didn't bother much about
+reasons. The parlor was very cold. It smelt very cold and mysterious. We
+didn't see how we could wait!
+
+Carol helped us to wait. Not being able to talk, Carol has plenty of
+time to think. He can write, of course. But spelling is very hard. So he
+doesn't often waste his spelling on just facts. He waits till he gets
+enough facts to make a philosophy before he tries to spell it: He made a
+philosophy about Christmas coming so slow. He made it on the blackboard
+in the kitchen. He wrote it very tall.
+
+"Christmas has _got_ to come," he wrote. "It's part of _time_.
+Everything that's part of _time_ has _got_ to come. Nothing can stop it.
+It runs like a river. It runs down-hill. It can't help itself. I should
+worry."
+
+Young Derry Willard never wrote at all. He telegraphed his "manners"
+instead. "Thank you for Thanksgiving Day," he telegraphed. "It was very
+wonderful." He didn't say anything else. He never even mentioned his
+address.
+
+"U--m--m," said my father.
+
+"It's because of the hundred-dollar bill," said my mother. "He doesn't
+want to give us any chance to return it."
+
+"Humph!" said my father. "Do we _look_ poor?"
+
+My mother glanced at the worn spot in the dining-room rug. She glanced
+at my father's coat.
+
+"We certainly do!" she laughed. "But young Derry Willard didn't leave us
+a hundred-dollar bill to try and make us look any richer. All young
+Derry Willard was trying to do was to make us look more Christmassy!"
+
+"Well, we can't accept it!" said my father.
+
+"Of course we can't accept it!" said my mother. "It was a mistake. But
+at least it was a very kind mistake."
+
+"_Kind?_" said my father.
+
+"_Very_ kind," said my mother. "No matter how dark a young man may be or
+how much cane-sirup and bananas he has consumed, he can't be absolutely
+depraved as long as he goes about the world trying to make things look
+more Christmassy!"
+
+My father looked up rather sharply.
+
+My mother gave a funny little gasp.
+
+"Oh, it's all right," she said. "We'll manage some way! But who ever
+heard of a chicken-bone hung on a Christmas tree? Or a slice of roast
+beef?"
+
+"Some children don't get--anything," said my father. He looked solemn.
+"Money is very scarce," he said.
+
+"It always is," said my mother. "But that's no reason why presents ought
+to be scarce."
+
+My father jumped up.
+
+My father laughed.
+
+"Great Heavens, woman!" he said. "Can't anything dull your courage?"
+
+"Not my--Christmas courage!" said my mother.
+
+My father reached out suddenly and patted her hand.
+
+"Oh, all right," he said. "I suppose we'll manage somehow."
+
+"Of course we'll manage somehow," said my mother.
+
+I ran back as fast as I could to Carol and Rosalee.
+
+We thought a good deal about young Derry Willard coming. We talked about
+it among ourselves. We never talked about it to my father or my mother.
+I don't know why. I went and got my best story-book and showed the Fairy
+Prince to Carol. Carol stared and stared. There were palms and bananas
+in the picture. There was a lace-paper castle. There was a moat. There
+was a fiery charger. There were dragons. The Fairy Prince was all in
+white armor, with a white plume in his hat. It grasped your heart, it
+was so beautiful. I showed the picture to Rosalee. She was surprised.
+She turned as white as the plume in the Fairy Prince's hat. She put the
+book in her top bureau-drawer with her ribbons. We wondered and
+wondered whether young Derry Willard would come. Carol thought he
+wouldn't. I thought he would. Rosalee wouldn't say. Carol thought it
+would be too cold. Carol insisted that he was a tropic. And that tropics
+couldn't stand the cold. That if a single breath of cold air struck a
+tropic he blew up and froze. Rosalee didn't want young Derry Willard to
+blow up and freeze. Anybody could see that she didn't. I comforted her.
+I said he would come in a huge fur coat. Carol insisted that tropics
+didn't have huge fur coats. "All right, then," I said. "He will come in
+a huge _feather_ coat! Blue-bird feathers it will be made of! With a
+soft brown breast! When he fluffs himself he will look like the god of
+all the birds and of next Spring! Hawks and all evil things will scuttle
+away!"
+
+There certainly _was_ something the matter with the Christmas tree that
+year.
+
+It grew. But it didn't grow very fast.
+
+My father said that perhaps the fertilizer hadn't been rich enough.
+
+My mother said that maybe all Christmas trees were blooming rather late
+this year. Seasons changed so.
+
+My father and mother didn't go away to town at all. Not for a single
+day.
+
+Late at night after we'd gone to bed we heard them hammering things and
+running the sewing-machine.
+
+Carol thought it smelt like kites.
+
+Rosalee said it sounded to her like a blue silk waist.
+
+It looked like a worry to me.
+
+It got colder and colder. It snowed and snowed.
+
+Christmas eve it snowed some more. It was beautiful. We were very much
+excited. We clapped our hands. We stood at the window to see how white
+the world was. I thought about the wise men's camels. I wondered if
+they could carry snow in their stomachs as well as rain. Mother said
+camels were tropics and didn't know anything about snow. It seemed
+queer.
+
+A sleigh drove up to the door. There were three men in it. Two of them
+got out. The first one was young Derry Willard. It was a fur coat that
+he had on. He was full of bundles. My father gave one gasp.
+
+"The--the impudent young--" gasped my father.
+
+We ran to the door. The second man looked just exactly like young Derry
+Willard except that he had on a gray beard and a gray slouch hat. He
+looked like the picture of "a planter" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." My father
+and he took just one look at each other. And then suddenly they began to
+pound each other on the back and to hug each other. "Hello, old top!"
+they shouted. "Hello--hello--_hello_!" Derry Willard's father cried a
+little. Everybody cried a little or shouted or pounded somebody on the
+back except young Derry Willard and Rosalee. Young Derry Willard and
+Rosalee just stood and looked at each other.
+
+"Well--well--well!" said Derry Willard's father over and over and over.
+"Twenty years! _Twenty_ years!" The front hall was full of bundles! We
+fell on them when we stepped. And we fell on new ones when we tried to
+get up. Whenever Derry Willard's father wasn't crying he was laughing!
+"So this is the wife?" he said. "And these are the children? Which is
+Rosalee? Ah! A very pretty girl! But not as pretty as your wife!" he
+laughed. "Twenty years! _Twenty_ years!" he began all over again. "A bit
+informal, eh? Descending on you like this? But I couldn't resist the
+temptation after I'd seen Derry. We Southerners, you know! Our impulses
+are romantic! Tuck us away anywhere! Or turn us out--if you must!"
+
+My father was like a wild man for joy! He forgot all about everything
+except "twenty years ago."
+
+We had to put the two Mr. Derry Willards to bed in the parlor. There was
+no other room. They insisted on sleeping with the Christmas tree. They
+had camped under every kind of branch and twig in the world, they said.
+But _never_ had they camped under a Christmas tree.
+
+Father talked and talked and talked! Derry Willard's father talked and
+talked and talked! It was about college! It was about girls! It was
+about boys! It was about all sorts of pranks! Not any of it was about
+studies! Mother sat and laughed at them!
+
+Rosalee and young Derry Willard sat and looked at each other. Carol and
+I played checkers. Everybody forgot us. I don't know who put me to bed.
+
+When we came down-stairs the next morning and went into the parlor to
+see the Christmas tree we _screamed_!
+
+Every single weeney-teeny branch of it had sprouted tinsel tassels!
+There were tinsel stars all over it! Red candles were blazing! Glass
+icicles glistened! There were candy canes! There were tin trumpets!
+Little white-paper presents stuck out everywhere through the branches!
+Big white presents piled like a snowdrift all around the base of the
+tree!
+
+Young Derry Willard's father seemed to be still laughing. He rubbed his
+hands together.
+
+"Excuse me, good people," he laughed, "for taking such liberties with
+your tree! But it's twenty years since I've had a chance to take a real
+whack at a Christmas tree! Palms, of course, are all right, and banana
+groves aren't half bad! But when it comes to real landscape effect--give
+me a Christmas tree in a New England parlor!"
+
+"Palms?" we gasped. "Banana-trees?"
+
+Young Derry Willard distributed the presents.
+
+For my father there were boxes and boxes of cigars! And an order on some
+Dutch importing house for five hundred _green_ tulips! Father almost
+sw--ooned.
+
+For mother there was a little gold chain with a single pearl in it! And
+a box of oranges as big as a chicken-coop!
+
+I got four dolls! And a paint-box! One of the dolls was jet-black. She
+was funny. When you squeaked her stomach she grinned her mouth and said,
+"Oh, lor', child!"
+
+Rosalee had a white crepe shawl all fringes and gay-colored birds of
+paradise! Rosalee had a fan made out of ivory and gold. Rosalee had a
+gold basket full of candied violets. Rosalee had a silver hand-mirror
+carved all round the edge with grasses and lilies like the edges of a
+little pool.
+
+Carol had a big, big box that looked like a magic lantern. And on every
+branch where he had hung his seven wishes for a camel there was a white
+card instead with the one word "Palestine" written on it.
+
+Everybody looked very much perplexed.
+
+Young Derry Willard's father laughed.
+
+"If the youngster wants camels," he said, "he must have camels! I'm
+going to Palestine one of these days before so very long. I'll take him
+with me. There must be heaps of camels still in Palestine."
+
+"Going to Palestine before--long," gasped my mother. "How wonderful!"
+
+Everybody turned and looked at Carol.
+
+"Want to go, son, eh?" laughed Derry Willard's father.
+
+Carol's mouth quivered. He looked at my mother.
+
+My mother's mouth quivered. A little red came into her checks.
+
+"He wants me to thank you very much, Mr. Willard," she said. "But he
+thinks perhaps you wouldn't want to take him to Palestine--if you knew
+that he can't--talk."
+
+"Can't talk?" cried Mr. Derry Willard. "_Can't talk?_" He looked at
+mother! He looked at Carol! He swallowed very hard! Then suddenly he
+began to laugh again!
+
+"Good enough!" he cried. "He's the very boy I'm looking for! We'll rear
+him for a diplomat!"
+
+Carol got a hammer and opened his big box. It _was_ a magic lantern! He
+was wild with joy! He beat his fists on the top of the box! He stamped
+his feet! He came and burrowed his head in mother's shoulder. When Carol
+burrows his head in my mother's shoulder it means, "Call me anything you
+want to!"
+
+Mother called him anything she wanted to. Right out loud before
+everybody. "Shining Face!" said my mother.
+
+There were lots of other presents besides.
+
+My father had made a giant kite for Carol. It looked nine feet tall. My
+father had made the dearest little wooden work-box for my mother. There
+_was_ a blue silk waist for Rosalee. My mother had knitted me a doll!
+Its body was knitted! Its cheeks were knitted! Its nose was knitted! It
+was wonderful!
+
+We ate the peppermint-candy canes. All the pink stripes. All the white
+stripes. We sang carols. We sang,
+
+    O, the foxes have holes! And the birds build their nests
+      In the crotch of the sycamore-tree!
+    But the Little Son of God had no place for His head
+      When He cameth to earth for me!
+
+Rosalee's voice was like a lark in the sky. Carol's face looked like two
+larks in the sky.
+
+The tame crow stayed in the kitchen. He was afraid of so many strangers.
+The tame coon wasn't afraid of anything. He crawled in and out of all
+the wrapping-papers, sniffing and sniffing. It made a lovely crackling
+sound.
+
+Everything smelt like fir balsam. It was more beautiful every minute.
+Even after every last present was picked from the tree, the tree was
+still so fat and fluffy with tinsel and glass balls that it didn't look
+robbed at all.
+
+We just sat back and stared at it.
+
+Young Derry Willard stared only at the topmost branch.
+
+Father looked suddenly at mother. Mother looked suddenly at Rosalee.
+Rosalee looked suddenly at Carol. Carol looked suddenly at me. I looked
+suddenly at the tame coon. The tame coon kept right on crackling through
+the wrapping-papers.
+
+Young Derry Willard made a funny little face. There seemed to be dust in
+his throat. His voice was very dry. He laughed.
+
+"My wish," said young Derry Willard, "seems to have been the only one
+that--didn't bloom."
+
+I almost died with shame. Carol almost died with shame. In all that
+splendiferousness, in all that generosity, poor Derry Willard's
+gold-budded wish was the only one that hadn't at least bloomed into
+_something_!
+
+Rosalee jumped up very suddenly and ran into the dining-room. She looked
+as tho she was going to cry.
+
+Young Derry Willard followed her. He didn't run. He walked very slowly.
+He looked a little troubled.
+
+Carol and I began at once to fold the wrapping-papers very usefully.
+
+Young Derry Willard's father looked at my father. All of a sudden he
+wasn't laughing at all. Or rubbing his hands.
+
+"I'm sorry, Dick," he said. "I've always rather calculated somehow on
+having my boy's wishes come true."
+
+My father spoke a little sharply.
+
+"You must have a lot of confidence," he said, "in your boy's wishes!"
+
+"I have!" said young Derry Willard's father, quite simply. "He's a good
+boy! Not only clever, I mean, but good! Never yet have I known him to
+wish for anything that wasn't the _best_!"
+
+"They're too young," said my father.
+
+"Youth," said Derry Willard's father, "is the one defect I know of that
+is incontestably remedial."
+
+"How can they possibly know their own minds?" demanded my father.
+
+"No person," said Derry Willard's father, "knows his own mind until he's
+ready to die. But the sooner he knows his own heart the sooner he's
+ready to begin to live."
+
+My father stirred in his chair. He lit a cigar. It went out. He lit it
+again. It went out again. He jerked his shoulders. He looked nervous. He
+talked about things that nobody was talking about at all.
+
+"The young rascal dropped a hundred-dollar bill--when he was here
+before!" he said. He said it as tho it was something very wicked.
+
+Young Derry Willard's father seemed perfectly cheerful.
+
+"Did he really?" he said.
+
+"It's a wonder the crow didn't eat it!" snapped my father.
+
+"But even the crow wouldn't eat it, eh?" said Derry Willard's father.
+Quite suddenly he began to laugh again. He looked at my mother. He
+stopped laughing. His voice was very gentle. "Don't be--proud," he said.
+"Don't ever be proud." He threw out his hand as tho he was asking
+something. "What difference does anything make--in the whole world," he
+said, "except just young love--and old friendship?"
+
+"Oh, pshaw," said father. "Oh, pshaw!"
+
+Rosalee came and stood in the door. She looked only at mother. She had
+on a red coat. And a red hat. And red mittens.
+
+"Derry Willard wants to see the Christmas-tree garden," she said. "May I
+go?"
+
+Derry Willard stood just behind her. He had on his fur coat. He looked
+very hard at father. When he spoke he spoke only to father.
+
+"Is it all right?" he said. "May _I_ go?"
+
+My father looked up. And then he looked down. He looked at Derry
+Willard's father. He threw out his hands as tho there was no place left
+to look. A little smile crept into one corner of his mouth. He tried to
+bite it. He couldn't.
+
+"Oh--_pshaw_!" he said.
+
+Carol and I went out to play. We thought we'd like to see the
+Christmas-tree garden too. The snow was almost as deep as our heads. All
+the evergreen trees were weighed down with snow. Their branches dragged
+on the ground. It was like walking through white plumes.
+
+We found mother's Christmas-tree garden. We found Rosalee and young
+Derry Willard standing right in the middle of it. It was all caves and
+castles! It was like a whole magic little city all made out of white
+plumes! The sun came out and shone on it! Blue sky opened overhead!
+Everything crackled! It was more beautiful even than the Christmas tree
+in the parlor.
+
+They didn't hear us.
+
+Rosalee gave a funny little cry. It was like a sob. Only happy.
+
+"I love _Christmas_!" she said.
+
+"I love _you_!" said Derry Willard.
+
+He snatched her in his arms and kissed her.
+
+A great pine-tree shivered all its snow down on them like a veil.
+
+We heard them laugh.
+
+We ran back to the house. We ran just as fast as we could. It almost
+burst our lungs. We ran into the parlor. I didn't tell. Carol couldn't
+tell.
+
+My father and young Derry Willard's father were talking and talking
+behind great clouds of smoke. The Yule log was blazing and sputtering
+all sorts of fireworks and colors. Only mother was watching it. She was
+paring apples as she watched. A little smile was in her eyes.
+
+"What a wonderful--wonderful day to have it happen!" she said.
+
+I couldn't stand it any longer. I ran upstairs and got my best
+story-book. I brought it down and opened it at the picture of the Fairy
+Prince. I laid it open like that in Mr. Willard's lap. I pointed at the
+picture.
+
+"_There!_" I said.
+
+Derry Willard's father put on his glasses and looked at the picture.
+
+"Well, upon my soul," he said, "where did you get that?"
+
+"It's my book," I said. "It's always been my book."
+
+My father looked at the picture.
+
+"Why, of all things," he said.
+
+"Why, it looks exactly like Derry!" said my mother.
+
+"It _is_ Derry!" said Derry's father. "But don't ever let Derry know
+that you know that it is! It seems to tease him a little. It seems to
+tease him a very great deal in fact. Being all rigged out like that. The
+illustrator is a friend of mine. He spent the Winter in Cuba three or
+four years ago. And he painted the picture there."
+
+I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. It was an absolutely perfect
+Christmas! If _this_ were true, then everything beautiful that there was
+in the world was true, too! Carol nudged me to speak.
+
+"Then Derry really _is_ a Fairy Prince?" I said.
+
+Father started to speak.
+
+Mother stopped him.
+
+"Yes! Rosalee's Fairy Prince!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+THE GAME OF THE BE-WITCHMENTS
+
+
+We like our Aunt Esta very much because she doesn't like us.
+
+That is--she doesn't like us specially. _Toys_ are what our Aunt Esta
+likes specially. Our Aunt Esta invents toys. She invents them for a
+store in New York. Our Aunt Esta is thirty years old with very serious
+hair. I don't know how old our other relatives are--except Rosalee! And
+Carol! And myself!
+
+My sister Rosalee is seventeen years old. And a Betrothess. Her
+Betrother lives in Cuba. He eats bananas. My brother Carol is eleven. He
+has no voice in his throat. But he eats anything. I myself am only nine.
+But with very long legs. Our Father and Mother have no age. They are
+just tall.
+
+There was a man. He was very rich. He had a little girl with sick
+bones. She had to sit in a wheel chair all day long and be pushed around
+by a Black Woman. He asked our Aunt Esta to invent a Game for her. The
+little girl's name was Posie.
+
+Our Aunt Esta invented a Game. She called it the Game of the
+Be-Witchments. It cost two hundred dollars and forty-three cents. The
+Rich Man didn't seem to mind the two hundred dollars. But he couldn't
+bear the forty-three cents. He'd bear even that, though, he said, if it
+would only be sure to work!
+
+"_Work?_" said our Aunt Esta. "Why _of course_ it will work!" So just
+the first minute she got it invented she jammed it into her trunk and
+dashed up to our house to see if it would!
+
+It worked very well. Our Aunt Esta never wastes any time. Not even
+kissing. Either coming or going. We went right up to her room with her.
+It was a big trunk. The Expressman swore a little. My Father tore his
+trouser-knee. My Mother began right away to re-varnish the scratches on
+the bureau.
+
+It took us most all the morning to carry the Game down-stairs. We
+carried it to the Dining Room. It covered the table. It covered the
+chairs. It strewed the sideboard. It spilled over on the floor. There
+was a pair of white muslin angel wings all spangled over with silver and
+gold! There was a fairy wand! There was a shining crown! There was a
+blue satin clock! There was a yellow plush suit and swishy-tail all
+painted sideways in stripes like a tiger! There was a most furious tiger
+head with whisk-broom whiskers! There was a green frog's head! And a
+green frog's suit! There was a witch's hat and cape! And a hump on the
+back! There were bows and arrows! There were boxes and boxes of
+milliner's flowers! There were strings of beads! And yards and yards of
+dungeon chains made out of silver paper! And a real bugle! And red
+Chinese lanterns! And--and everything!
+
+The Rich Man came in a gold-colored car to see it work. When he saw the
+Dining Room he sickened. He bit his cigar.
+
+"My daughter Posie is ten years old," he said. "What I ordered for her
+was a Game!--not a Trousseau!"
+
+Our Aunt Esta shivered her hands. She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"You don't understand," she said. "This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted
+and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical!
+Psycho-psycho--logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after
+day!--Once begun, you understand, it's never over!"
+
+The Rich Man looked at his watch.
+
+"I have to be in Chicago a week from tomorrow!" he said.
+
+Somebody giggled. It couldn't have been Rosalee, of course. Because
+Rosalee is seventeen. And, of course, it wasn't Carol. So it must have
+been me.
+
+The Rich Man gave an awful glare.
+
+"Who are these children?" he demanded.
+
+Our Aunt Esta swallowed.
+
+"They are my--my Demonstrators," she said.
+
+"'Demonstrators?'" sniffed the Rich Man. He glared at Carol. "Why don't
+you speak?" he demanded.
+
+My mother made a rustle to the door-way.
+
+"He can't," she said. "Our son Carol is dumb."
+
+The Rich Man looked very queer.
+
+"Oh, I say," he fumbled and stuttered. "Oh, I say--! After all there's
+no such great harm in a giggle. My little girl Posie cries all the time.
+_All_ the time, I mean! _Cries_ and _cries_ and _cries_!--It's a
+fright!"
+
+"She wouldn't," said our Aunt Esta, "if she had a game like this to play
+with."
+
+"Eh?" said the Rich Man.
+
+"She could wear the Witch's hideous cape!" said our Aunt Esta. "And the
+queer pointed black hat! And the scraggly gray wig! And the great
+horn-rimmed spectacles! And the hump on her back! And----"
+
+"My daughter Posie has Ti--Titian red curls," said the Rich Man coldly.
+"And the most beautiful brown eyes that mortal man has ever seen! And a
+skin so fair that----"
+
+"That's why I think it would rest her so," said our Aunt Esta, "to be
+ugly outside--instead of inside for a while."
+
+"_Eh?_" said the Rich Man.
+
+He glared at our Aunt Esta.
+
+Our Aunt Esta glared at him.
+
+Out in the kitchen suddenly the most beautiful smell happened. The smell
+was soup! Spiced Tomato Soup! It was as though the whole stove had
+bloomed! My Father came to the door. "What's it all about?" he said. He
+saw the Rich Man. The Rich Man saw him. "Why, how do you do?" said my
+Father. "Why, how do you do?" said the Rich Man. They bowed. There was
+no room on the Dining Room table to put the dishes. There was no room
+anywhere for anything. We had to eat in the kitchen. My Mother made
+griddle cakes. The Rich Man stirred the batter. He seemed to think it
+was funny. Carol had to sit on a soap-box. Our Aunt Esta sat on the edge
+of a barrel with her stockings swinging. It made her look not so strict.
+"All the same," worried the Rich Man, "I don't see just why you fixed
+the price at two hundred dollars and forty-three cents?--Why not two
+hundred dollars and forty-five cents? Or even the round sum two hundred
+and one dollars?"
+
+Our Aunt Esta looked pretty mad. "I will be very glad--I'm sure," she
+said, "to submit an itemized bill."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" said the Rich Man. "It was just your mental processes I
+was wondering about.--The thing, of course, is worth any money--if it
+works!"
+
+"If it works?" cried our Aunt Esta.
+
+The Rich Man jumped up and strode fiercely to the Dining Room door.
+
+Our Aunt Esta strode fiercely after him, only littler. Our Aunt Esta is
+_very_ little.
+
+The Rich Man waved his arms at everything,--the boxes,--the
+bundles,--the angel-wings,--the cloaks,--the suits,--the Chinese
+Lanterns.
+
+"All the same, the thing is perfectly outrageous!--The size of it!--The
+extent! No house would hold it!"
+
+"It isn't meant," said our Aunt Esta, "to be played just in the
+house.--It's meant to be played on a sunny porch opening out on a green
+lawn--so that there's plenty of room for all Posie's little playmates to
+go swarming in and out."
+
+The Rich Man looked queer. He gave a little shiver.
+
+"My little daughter Posie hasn't got any playmates," he said. "She's too
+cross."
+
+Our Aunt Esta stood up very straight. Two red spots flamed in her
+cheeks.
+
+"You won't be able to keep the children away from her," she said, "after
+they once begin to play this game!"
+
+"You really think so?" cried the Rich Man.
+
+Out in the kitchen my Father looked at my Mother. My Mother looked at my
+Father. They both looked at us. My Father made a little chuckle.
+
+"It would seem," said my Father, "as though it was the honor of the
+whole family that was involved!" He made a whisper in Carol's ear. "Go
+to it, Son!" he whispered.
+
+Rosalee jumped to her feet. Carol jumped to his feet. I jumped to my
+feet. We snatched hands. We ran right into the Dining Room. Carol's face
+was shining.
+
+"Who's going to be Posie-with-the-Sick-Bones?" I cried.
+
+"S--s--h!" said everybody except our Aunt Esta.
+
+Our Aunt Esta suddenly seemed very much encouraged. She didn't wait a
+minute. She snatched a little book from her pocket. It was a little book
+that she had made herself all full of typewriter directions about the
+Game.
+
+"_Someone_, of course," she said, "will have to be the Witch,--someone
+who knows the Game, I mean, so perhaps I--?"
+
+We rushed to help her drag the old battered tricycle to the Porch! We
+helped her open up every porch door till all the green lawn and gay
+petunia blossoms came right up and fringed with the old porch rug! We
+helped her tie on the Witch's funny hat! And the scraggly gray wig! And
+the great horn-rimmed spectacles! We helped her climb into the tricycle
+seat! We were too excited to stay on the porch! We wheeled her right
+out on the green lawn itself! The green lilac hedge reared all up around
+her like a magic wall!
+
+We screamed with joy! The Rich Man jumped when we screamed. The Rich
+Man's name was Mr. Trent.
+
+"And Mr. Trent shall be the Black Woman who pushes you all about!" we
+screamed.
+
+"I will not!" said Mr. Trent.
+
+But Carol had already tied a black velvet ribbon on the Rich Man's leg
+to _show_ that he was!
+
+Our Aunt Esta seemed more encouraged every minute. She stood us all up
+in front of her. Even Father. She read from her book. It was a poem. The
+poem said:
+
+    Now come ye all to the Witch's Ball,
+    Ye Great, ye Small,
+    Ye Short, ye Tall,
+    Come one, Come all!
+
+"I will not!" said the Rich Man.
+
+He sweated.
+
+"Oh Shucks! Be a Sport!" said my Father.
+
+"I will _not_!" said the Rich Man.
+
+He glared.
+
+Our Aunt Esta tried to read from her book and wave her wand at the same
+time. It waved the Rich Man in the nose.
+
+"Foul Menial!" waved our Aunt Esta. "Bring in the Captives!"
+
+"Who?" demanded the Rich Man.
+
+_"You_!" said our Aunt Esta.
+
+The Rich Man brought us in! Especially Father! He bound us all up in
+silver paper chains! He put a silver paper ring through my Father's
+beautiful nose!
+
+"Oh, I say," protested my Father. "It was 'guests' that I understood we
+were to be! Not captives!"
+
+"Ha!" sniffed the Rich Man. "Be a Sport!"
+
+They both glared.
+
+Our Aunt Esta had cakes in a box. They seemed to be very good cakes.
+"Now in about ten minutes," read our Aunt Esta from her book, "you will
+all begin to feel very queer."
+
+"Oh--Lordy!" said my Father.
+
+"I knew it!" said the Rich Man. "I knew it all the time! From the very
+first mouthful--my stomach----"
+
+"Is there no antidote?" cried my Mother.
+
+Our Aunt Esta took off her horn-rimmed spectacles. She sniffed.
+
+"Sillies!" she said. "This is just a Game, you know!"
+
+"Nevertheless," said the Rich Man, "I certainly feel very queer."
+
+"When you all feel equally queer," said our Aunt Esta coldly, "we will
+proceed with the Game."
+
+We all felt equally queer just as soon as we could.
+
+Our Aunt Esta made a speech. She made it from her little book.
+
+"Poor helpless Captives (said the Speech). You are now entirely in my
+power! Yet fear not! If everybody does just exactly as I say, all may
+yet be well!"
+
+"Hear! Hear!" said my Father.
+
+The Rich Man suddenly seemed to like my Father very much. He reached
+over and nudged him in the ribs.
+
+"Shut up!" he whispered. "The less you say the sooner it will be over!"
+
+My Father said less at once. He seemed very glad to know about it.
+
+Our Aunt Esta pointed to a boxful of little envelopes.
+
+"Foul Menial," she said. "Bring the little envelopes!"
+
+The Rich Man brought them. But not very cheerfully.
+
+"Oh, of course, it's all right to call _me_ that," he said. "But I tell
+you quite frankly that my daughter Posie's maid will never stand for
+it! _Her_ name is Elizabeth Lou!--Mrs. Jane--Frank--Elizabeth
+Lou--even!"
+
+Our Aunt Esta looked at the Rich Man. Her look was scornfuller and
+scornfuller.
+
+"_All_ Witch's servants," she said, "are called 'Foul Menial!'--From the
+earliest classical records of fairy tale and legend down to----"
+
+"Not in our times," insisted the Rich Man. "I defy you in any
+Intelligence Office in New York to find a--a----"
+
+Our Aunt Esta brushed the contradiction aside. She frowned. Not just at
+the Rich Man. But at everybody. "We will proceed with the Rehearsal--as
+written!" she said. She gruffed her voice. She thumped her wand on the
+floor. "Each captive," she said, "will now step forward and draw a
+little envelope from the box."
+
+Each captive stepped forward and drew a little envelope from the box.
+
+Inside each envelope was a little card. Very black ink words were
+written on each card.
+
+"Captives, stand up very straight!" ordered our Aunt Esta.
+
+Every captive stood very straight.
+
+"Knock your knees together with fear!" ordered our Aunt Esta.
+
+Every captive knocked his knees together with fear.
+
+"Strain at your chains!" ordered our Aunt Esta. "But not too hard!
+Remembering they are paper!"
+
+Every captive strained at his chains but not too hard! Remembering they
+were paper!
+
+Our Aunt Esta seemed very much pleased. She read another poem from her
+book. The poem said:
+
+    Imprisoned thus in my Witchy Wiles,
+    Robbed of all hope, all food, all smiles,
+    A Fearful Doom o'er-hangs thy Rest,
+    Unless thou meet my Dread Behest!
+
+"Oh, dear--oh, dear--oh, dear--oh, dear!" cried our Mother. "Can nothing
+save us?"
+
+My Father burst his nose-ring!
+
+Rosalee giggled!
+
+Carol and I jumped up and down! We clapped our hands!
+
+The Rich Man cocked his head on one side. He looked at our Aunt Esta. At
+her funny black pointed hat. At her scraggly gray wig. At her great
+horn-rimmed spectacles. At the hump on her back. "U-m-m," he said. "What
+do you mean,--'witch-y wiles?'"
+
+"_Silence!_" said our Aunt Esta. "Read your cards!"
+
+We read our cards.
+
+Carol's card said "PINK BREEZE" on it. And "SLIMY FROG."
+
+Our Aunt Esta poked Carol twice with her wand. "Pitiful Wretch!" said
+our Aunt Esta. "It is now two o'clock.--Unless you are back here exactly
+at three o'clock--bearing a _Pink Breeze_ in your hands--you shall be
+turned for all time and eternity into a _Slimy Green Frog_!--Go hence!"
+
+Carol went hence. He henced as far as the Mulberry Tree on the front
+lawn. He sat down on the grass with the card in his hand. He read the
+card. And read it. And read it. It puzzled him very much.
+
+"Pitiful Wretch, go _hence_!" cried our Aunt Esta.
+
+He henced as far as the Larch Tree this time. And sat down all over
+again. And puzzled. And puzzled.
+
+"Go _hence_, I say, Pitiful Wretch!" insisted our Aunt Esta.
+
+My Mother didn't like Carol to be called a "Pitiful Wretch."--It was
+because he was dumb, I suppose. When my Mother doesn't like anything it
+spots her cheek-bones quite red. Her cheek-bones were spotted very red.
+
+"Stop your fussing!" said our Aunt Esta. "And attend to your own
+business!"
+
+My Mother attended to her own business. The business of her card said
+"SILVER BIRD" and "HORSE'S HOOF."
+
+Even our Aunt Esta looked a bit flabbergasted.
+
+"Oh, dear--oh, dear," said our Aunt Esta. "I certainly am sorry that it
+was you who happened to draw that one!--And all dressed up in white too
+as you are! But after all--" she jerked with a great toss of her
+scraggly wig, "a Game is a Game! And there can be no concessions!"
+
+"No, of course not!" said my Mother. "Lead me to the Slaughter!"
+
+"There is not necessarily any slaughter connected with it," said our
+Aunt Esta very haughtily. But she hit my Mother only once with her wand.
+
+"Frail Creature," she said. "On the topmost branch of the tallest tree
+in the world there is a silver bird with a song in his throat that has
+never been sung! Unless you bring me this bird _singing_ you are hereby
+doomed to walk with the clatter of a Horse's Hoof!"
+
+"Horse's Hoof?" gasped my Mother. "With the clatter of a Horse's Hoof?"
+
+My Father was pretty mad. "Why, it's impossible!" he said. "She's as
+light as Thistle-Down! Even in her boots it's like a Fairy passing!"
+
+"Nevertheless," insisted our Aunt Esta. "She shall walk with the clatter
+of a Horse's Hoof--unless she brings me the Silver Bird."
+
+My Mother started at once for the Little Woods. "I can at least search
+the Tallest Tree in _my_ world!" she said.
+
+It made my Father nervouser and nervouser. "Now don't you _dare_," he
+called after her, "climb _anything_ until I come!"
+
+"Base Interloper!" said our Aunt Esta. "Keep Still!"
+
+"Who?" said my Father.
+
+"_You!_" said our Aunt Esta.
+
+I giggled. Our Aunt Esta was very mad. She turned me into a White
+Rabbit. I was made of white canton flannel. I was very soft. I had long
+ears. They were lop-ears. They were lined with pink velvet. They hung
+way down over my shoulders so I could stroke them. I liked them very
+much. But my legs looked like white night-drawers. "Ruthy-the-Rabbit"
+was my name. Our Aunt Esta scolded it at me.
+
+"Because of your impudence, Ruthy-the-Rabbit," she said, "you shall not
+be allowed to roam the woods and fields at will. But shall stay here in
+captivity close by my side and help the Foul Menial do the chores!"
+
+The Rich Man seemed very much pleased. He winked an eye. He pulled one
+of my lop-ears. It was nice to have somebody pleased with me.
+
+Everybody was pleased with Rosalee's bewitchment. It sounded so restful.
+All Rosalee had to do was to be very pretty,--just exactly as she was!
+And seventeen years old,--just exactly as she was! And sit on the big
+gray rock by the side of the brook just exactly as it was! And see
+whether it was a Bright Green Celluloid Fish or a Bright Red Celluloid
+Fish that came down the brook first! And if it was a Bright Green
+Celluloid Fish she was to catch it! And slit open its stomach! And take
+out all its Directions! And follow 'em! And if it was a Bright Red
+Celluloid Fish she was to catch _it_! And take out all its Directions
+and follow _them_!--In either case her card said she would need rubbers
+and a trowel.--It sounded like Buried Treasure to me! Or else Iris
+Roots! Our Aunt Esta is very much interested in Iris Roots.
+
+It was my Father's Bewitchment that made the only real trouble. Nothing
+at all was postponed about my Father's Bewitchment. It happened all at
+once. It was because my Father knew too much. It was about the Alphabet
+that he knew too much. The words on my Father's card said "ALPHABET."
+And "BACKWARDS." And "PINK SILK FAIRY." And "TIN LOCOMOTIVE HEAD." And
+"THREE MINUTES." Our Aunt Esta turned my Father into a Pink Silk Fairy
+with White Tarlatan Wings because he was able to say the Alphabet
+backwards in three minutes! My Father refused to turn! He wouldn't! He
+wouldn't! He swore he wouldn't! He said it was a "cruel and unnecessary
+punishment!" Our Aunt Esta said it wasn't a Punishment! It was a Reward!
+It was the Tin Locomotive Head that was the punishment! My Father said
+he wouldn't have cared a rap if it had been the Tin Locomotive Head!--He
+could have smoked through that! But he _wouldn't_ be a Pink Silk Fairy
+with White Tarlatan Wings!
+
+The Rich Man began right away to untie the black velvet ribbon on his
+leg, and go home! He looked very cheated! He scorned my Father with
+ribald glances! "Work?" he gloated. "_Of course_ it won't work! I knew
+all the time it wouldn't work!--Two hundred dollars! And forty-three
+cents?" he gloated. "_H-a!_"
+
+Our Aunt Esta cried! She put her hand on my Father's arm. It was a very
+small hand. It didn't look a bit like a Witch's hand. Except for having
+no lovingness in it, it looked a good deal like my Mother's hand.
+
+My Father consented to be turned a little! But not much! He consented to
+wear the white tarlatan wings! And the gold paper crown! But not the
+garland of roses! He would carry the pink silk dress on his arm, he
+said. But he would _not_ wear it!
+
+The Rich Man seemed very much encouraged. He stopped untying the black
+velvet ribbon from his leg. He grinned a little.
+
+My Father told him what he thought of him. The Rich Man acknowledged
+that very likely it was so. But he didn't seem to mind. He kept right on
+grinning.
+
+My Father stalked away in his gold paper crown with the pink dress over
+his arm. He looked very proud and noble. He looked as though even if
+dogs were sniffing at his heels he wouldn't turn. His white wings
+flapped as he walked. The spangles shone. It looked very holy.
+
+The Rich Man made a funny noise. It sounded like snorting.
+
+My Father turned round quicker than _scat_. He glared right through the
+Rich Man at our Aunt Esta. He told our Aunt Esta just what he thought of
+_her_!
+
+The Rich Man said it wasn't so at all! That the Game undoubtedly was
+perfectly practical if----
+
+"If _nothing_!" said my Father. "It's you yourself that are spoiling the
+whole effect by running around playing you're a Black Slave with
+nothing on but a velvet ribbon round one knee! The very _least_ you
+could do," said my Father, "is to have your face blacked! And wear a
+plaid skirt!"
+
+"_Eh?_" said the Rich Man.
+
+Our Aunt Esta was perfectly delighted with the suggestion.
+
+The Rich Man took her delight coldly.
+
+He glared at my Father. "I don't think I need any outside help," he
+said, "in the management of my affairs.--As the Owner indeed of one of
+the largest stores in the world I----"
+
+"That's all right," said my Father. "But you never yet have tried to
+manage the children's Aunt Esta.--Nothing can stop her!"
+
+Nothing could! She pinned an old plaid shawl around the Rich Man's
+waist! She blacked his face! He had to kneel at her feet while it was
+being blacked! He seemed to sweat easily! But our Aunt Esta blacked
+very easily too! He looked lovely! Even my Father thought he looked
+lovely! When he was done he wanted to look in a mirror. My Father
+advised him not to. But he insisted. My Father got up from making
+suggestions and came and stood behind him while he looked. They looked
+only once. Something seemed to hit them. They doubled right up. It was
+laughter that hit them. They slapped each other on the back. They
+laughed! And laughed! And laughed! They made such a noise that my Mother
+came running!
+
+It seemed to make our Aunt Esta a little bit nervous to have my Mother
+come running. She pointed her wand. She roared her voice.
+
+"Where is the Silver Bird?" she roared.
+
+My Mother looked just as swoone-y as she could. She fell on her knees.
+She clasped her hands.
+
+"Oh, Cruel Witch," she said. "I _saw_ the bird! But I couldn't reach
+him! He was in the Poplar Tree!--However in the world did you put him
+there?--Was that what you were bribing the Butcher's Boy about this
+morning? Was that----?"
+
+"Hush!" roared our Aunt Esta. "Your Doom has overtaken you! Go hence
+with the clatter of a Horse's Hoof until such time as your Incompetent
+Head may----"
+
+"Oh, it wasn't my head that was incompetent," said my Mother. "It was my
+legs. The Poplar Tree was so very tall! So very fluffy and undecided to
+climb! So----"
+
+"With the clatter of a Horse's Hoof!" insisted our Aunt Esta. "There can
+be no mercy!"
+
+"None?" implored my Mother.
+
+"None!" said our Aunt Esta.
+
+She gave my Mother two funny little wooden cups. They were something
+like clappers. You could hold them in your hand so they scarcely showed
+at all and make a noise like a horse galloping across a bridge! Or
+trotting! Or anything! It made quite a loud noise! It was wonderful! My
+Mother started right away for the village. She had on white shoes. Her
+feet were very small. She sounded like a great team horse stumbling up
+the plank of a ferry-boat. "I think I'll go get the mail!" she said.
+
+"Like that?" screamed my Father.
+
+My Mother turned around. Her hair was all curly. There were laughs in
+her eyes.
+
+"I _have_ to!" she said. "I'm bewitched!"
+
+"I'll go with you!" said my Father.
+
+My Mother turned around again. She looked at my Father! At his golden
+crown! At his white spangled wings! At the pink silk skirt over his arm!
+
+"Like--that?" said my Mother.
+
+My Father decided not to go.
+
+The Rich Man said he considered the decision very wise.
+
+They glared.
+
+Way over on the other side of the green lilac hedge we heard my Mother
+trotting down the driveway. _Clack_-clack--_clack_--clack sounded the
+hoof-beats!
+
+"My Lord--she's pacing!" groaned my Father.
+
+"Clever work!" said the Rich Man. "Was she ever in a Band? In a Jazz
+Band, you know, with Bantam Rooster whistles? And drums that bark like
+dogs?"
+
+"In a _what_?" cried my Father. He was awful mad.
+
+Our Aunt Esta tried to soothe him with something worse. She turned to
+me.
+
+"Now, Ruthy-the-Rabbit," she said. "Let us see what _you_ can do to
+redeem the ignominy of your impudent giggling!" She handed me the Bright
+Green and the Bright Red Celluloid fishes. She poked her wand at me.
+"Hopping all the way," she said. "Every step of the way, you
+understand,--bear these two fish to the Head-Waters of the Magic
+Brook,--the little pool under the apple tree will do,--and start them
+ex--ex--peditiously down the Brook towards Rosalee!"
+
+"Yes'm," I said.
+
+Our Aunt Esta turned to the Rich Man.
+
+"Foul Menial," she said. "Push my chariot a little further down the Lawn
+into the shade!"
+
+The Foul Menial pushed it.
+
+My Father pushed a little too.
+
+I hopped along beside them flopping my long ears. Our Aunt Esta looked
+_ex_-actly like a Witch! The Rich Man's black face was leaking a little
+but not much! It would have been easier if he hadn't tripped so often on
+his plaid shawl skirt! My Father's white wings flapped as he pushed! He
+looked like an angel who wasn't quite hatched! It was handsome!
+
+When we got to the thickest shade there was a man's black felt hat
+bobbing along the top of the Japonica Hedge. It was rather a
+soft-boiled looking hat. It was bobbing just as fast as it could towards
+the house.
+
+When our Aunt Esta saw the hat she screamed! She jumped from her chariot
+as though it had been flames! She tore the scraggly gray wig from her
+head! She tore the hump from her back! She kicked off her wooden shoes!
+Her feet were silk! She ran like the wind for the back door!
+
+My Father ran for the Wood-Shed!
+
+The Rich Man dove into the Lilac Bush!
+
+When the Rich Man was all through diving into the Lilac Bush he seemed
+to think that he was the only one present who hadn't done anything!
+
+"What you so scared about, Ruthy?" he said. "What's the matter with
+everybody? Who's the Bloke?"
+
+"It's the New Minister," I said.
+
+"Has he got the Cholera or anything?" said the Rich Man.
+
+"No, not exactly," I explained. "He's just our Aunt Esta's Suitor!"
+
+"Your Aunt Esta's _Suitor_?" cried the Rich Man. "_Suitor?_" He clapped
+his hand over his mouth. He burst a safety-pin that helped lash the
+plaid shawl around him. "What do you mean,--_'Suitor?'_" he said.
+
+It seemed queer he was so stupid.
+
+"Why a Suitor," I explained, "is a Person Who Doesn't Suit--so he keeps
+right on coming most every day to see if he does! As soon as he suits,
+of course, he's your husband and doesn't come any more at all--because
+he's already there! The New Minister," I explained very patiently, "is a
+Suitor for our Aunt Esta's hand!"
+
+We crawled through the Lilac Bush. We peeped out.
+
+Our Aunt Esta hadn't reached the back door at all. She sat all huddled
+up in a little heap on the embankment trying to keep the New Minister
+from seeing that she was in her stocking-feet. But the New Minister
+didn't seem to see anything at all except her hands. Being a Suitor for
+her hands it was natural, I suppose, that he wasn't interested in
+anything except her hands. Her hands were on her hair. The scraggly gray
+wig had rumpled all the seriousness out of her hair. It looked quite
+jolly. The New Minister stared! And stared! And stared! Except for
+having no lovingness in them, her hands looked _very_ much like my
+Mother's.
+
+"Our Aunt Esta's got--nice hands," I said.
+
+The Rich Man burst another safety pin.
+
+"Yes, by Jove," he said. "And nice feet, too!" He seemed quite
+surprised. "How long's this minister fellow been coming here?" he said.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," I said. "He comes whenever our Aunt Esta comes."
+
+The Rich Man made a grunt. He looked at the Minister's hat.
+
+"Think of courting a woman," he said, "in a hat like that!"
+
+"Oh, our Aunt Esta doesn't care anything at all about hats," I said.
+
+"It's time she did!" said the Rich Man.
+
+"We'll go out if you say so," I suggested, "and help them have a
+pleasant time."
+
+The Rich Man was awful mad. He pointed at his plaid shawl! He pointed at
+his black face!
+
+"_What?_" he said. "Go out like _this_? And make a fool of myself before
+that Ninny-Hat?"
+
+"Why, he'd love it!" I said.
+
+The Rich Man choked.
+
+"That's quite enough reason!" he said.
+
+There was a noise in the wood-shed. We could see the noise through the
+window. It was my Father trying to untie his wings. He couldn't.
+
+The Rich Man seemed to feel better suddenly. He began to mop his face.
+
+"It's a great Game, all right," he said, "if you don't weaken!" He
+pulled my ears. "But why in the world, Ruthy----" he worried, "did she
+have to go and tuck that forty-three cents on to the end of the bill?"
+
+"Why, that's her profit!" I explained.
+
+"Her--profit?" gasped the Rich Man. "Her _Profit_?"
+
+"Why, she had to have something!" I explained. "She was planning to have
+more, of course! She was planning to go to Atlantic City! But everything
+costs so big! Even toys! It's----"
+
+"Her _Profit_?" gasped the Rich Man. "Forty-three cents on a two hundred
+dollar deal?" He began to laugh! And laugh! "And she calls herself a
+Business Woman?" he said. "Why, she ought to be in an Asylum!--All
+women, in fact, ought to be in Asylums--or else in homes of their own!"
+Quite furiously he began to pull my ears all over again. "_Business
+Woman_," he said. "And both her feet would go at once in the hollow of
+my hand! _Business Woman!_"
+
+Out in the roadway suddenly somebody sneezed.
+
+It made the Rich Man jump awfully.
+
+"Ruthy, stay where you are!" he ordered.
+
+"I can't!" I called back. "I'm already hopped out!"
+
+From my hop-out I could see the Person Who Sneezed! Anybody would have
+known that it was Posie-with-the-Sick-Bones! She was sitting in an
+automobile peering through the hedge! There was a black woman with her!
+
+The Rich Man crackled in the bushes. He reached out and grabbed my foot.
+He pulled me back. His face looked pretty queer.
+
+"Yes, she's been there all the time," he whispered. "But not a soul
+knows it!--I wanted her to see it work!--I wanted to be sure that she
+liked it--But I was afraid to bring her in! She catches everything so!
+And I knew there were children here! And I was afraid there might be
+something contagious!"
+
+He peered out through the Lilac Branches. There was quite a good deal to
+peer at.
+
+Down in the meadow Rosalee was still running up and down the soft banks
+of the brook trying to catch the Celluloid Fish. She had on a green
+dress. It was a slim dress like a willow wand. She had her shoes and
+stockings in one hand. And a great bunch of wild blue Forget-me-Nots in
+the other. Her hair was like a gold wave across her face. She looked
+pretty. The Springtime looked pretty too.--Out in the wood-shed my
+Father was still wrestling with his wings.
+
+Up on the green mound by the house our Aunt Esta was still patting her
+hair while the New Minister stared at her hands.
+
+The Rich Man turned very suddenly and stared at me.
+
+"_Contagious?_" he gasped out suddenly. "Why, upon my soul, Ruthie--it's
+just about the most contagious place that I ever was in--in my life!"
+
+He gave a funny little laugh. He glanced back over his shoulder towards
+the road. He groaned.
+
+"But I shall certainly be ruined, Ruthie," he said, "if my little
+daughter Posie or my little daughter Posie's Black Woman ever see me at
+close range--in these clothes!" He took my chin in his hands. He looked
+very deep into my eyes. "Ruthie," he said, "you seem to be a _very_
+intelligent child.--If you can think of any way--_any_ way, I say--by
+which I can slink off undetected into the house--and be washed----"
+
+"Oh Shucks! That's easy!" I said. "We'll _make_ Posie be the Witch!"
+
+When I hopped out this time I stayed hopped! I hopped right up on the
+wall! And stroked my ears!
+
+When Posie-with-the-Sick-Bones saw me she began to laugh! And clap her
+hands! And kick the Black Woman with her toes!
+
+"Oh, I want to be the Witch!" she cried. "I want to be the Witch for
+ever and ever! And change everybody into everything! I'm going to wear
+it home in the automobile! And scare the Cook to Death! I'm going to
+change the Cook into a cup of Beef Tea! And throw her down the sink! I'm
+going to change my Poodle Dog into a New Moon!" she giggled. "I'm going
+to change my Doctor into a Balloon! And cut the string!"
+
+The Rich Man seemed perfectly delighted. I could see his face in the
+bushes. He kept rubbing his hands! And nodding to me to go ahead!
+
+I went ahead just as fast as I could.
+
+The Black Woman began to giggle a little. She giggled and opened the
+automobile door. She giggled and lifted Posie out. She giggled and
+carried Posie to the Witch's chariot. She giggled and tied the Witch's
+hat under Posie's chin. She giggled and tied the humped-back cape around
+Posie's neck.
+
+Posie never stopped clapping her hands except when the Witch's Wig
+itched her nose.
+
+It was when the Witch's Wig itched her nose that the Rich Man slunk away
+on all fours to be washed. He giggled as he slunk. It looked friendly.
+
+Carol came. He was pretty tired. But he had the Pink Breeze in his
+hands. It was Phlox! It was very pink! It was in a big flower pot! He
+puffed out his cheeks as he carried it and blew it into Breezes! It was
+pretty! It was very heavy! He knelt at the Witch's feet to offer it to
+her! When he looked up and saw the Strange Child in the Witch's Chair he
+dropped it! It broke and lay on the ground all crushed and spoiled! His
+mouth quivered! All the shine went out of his face!
+
+It scared Posie to see all the shine go out of his face.
+
+"Oh, Boy--Boy, put back your smile!" she said.
+
+Carol just stood and shook his head.
+
+Posie began to scream.
+
+"Why doesn't he speak?" she screamed.
+
+"He can't," I said. "He hasn't any speech!"
+
+"Why doesn't he cry?" screamed Posie.
+
+"He can't," I said. "He hasn't any cry!"
+
+Posie stopped screaming.
+
+"Can't he even swear?" she said.
+
+"No, he can't," I said. "He hasn't any swear!"
+
+Posie looked pretty surprised.
+
+"I can speak!" she said. "I can cry! I can swear!"
+
+"You sure can, Little Missy!" said the Black Woman.
+
+Posie looked at Carol. She looked a long time. A little tear rolled down
+her cheek.
+
+"Never mind, Boy," she said. "I will help you make a new Pink Breeze!"
+
+"Oh Lor, Little Missy," said the Black Woman. "You never helped no one
+do nothin' in your life!"
+
+"I will if I want to!" said Posie. "And we'll make a Larkspur-Colored
+Breeze too, if we want to!" she said. "And I'll have it on my
+window-sill all blue-y and frilly and fluttery when everything else in
+the room is horrid and hushed and smothery!--And we'll make a Green
+Breeze----" She gave a little cry. She looked at the Waving Meadow where
+all the long silver-tipped grasses ducked and dipped in the wind. She
+stretched out her arms. Her arms were no bigger than the handles of our
+croquet mallets. "We'll dig up _all_ the Waving Meadow," she cried. "And
+pot it into Window-Sill Breezes for the hot people in the cities!"
+
+"You can't!" I said. "It would take mor'n an hour! And you've got to be
+the Witch!"
+
+"I will _not_ be the Witch!" said Posie. She began to scream! "It's my
+Game!" she screamed. "And I'll do anything I like with it!" She tore off
+her black pointed hat! She kicked off her stubby wooden shoes! She
+screamed to the Black Woman to come and bear her away!
+
+While the Black Woman bore her away Carol walked beside them. He seemed
+very much interested that any one could make so much noise.
+
+When Posie saw how _much_ interested Carol was in the noise, she stopped
+en--tirely screaming to the Black Woman and screamed to Carol instead.
+
+While Carol walked beside the Noise, I saw the New Minister come down
+the Road and go away. His face looked red.
+
+Our Aunt Esta came running. She was very business-like. She snatched up
+her wooden shoes and put them on! She crammed on the scraggly gray wig
+and the humped-back cape!
+
+"Foul Menial!" she called. "Come at once and resume the Game!"
+
+The Black Woman stepped out of the bushes. She looked very much
+surprised. But not half as surprised as our Aunt Esta.
+
+Our Aunt Esta rubbed her eyes! She rubbed them again! And again! She
+looked at the Black Woman's face. It was a _real_ black face. She looked
+at the Black Woman's woolly hair.--It was _real_ woolly hair! Her jaw
+dropped!
+
+"Ruthy-the-Rabbit, hop here!" she gasped.
+
+I hopped.
+
+She put her lips close to my ear.
+
+"Ruthy-the-Rabbit," she gasped. "Do I see what I think I see?"
+
+"Yes, you do!" I said.
+
+She put her head down in her hands! She began to laugh! And laugh! And
+laugh! It was a queer laugh as though she couldn't stop! The tears ran
+out between her fingers!
+
+"Well--I certainly _am_ a Witch!" she laughed. Her shoulders shook like
+sobs.
+
+The Rich Man came running! He had his watch in his hand! He was all
+clean and shining! He saw the Black Woman standing by the Witch's chair!
+He saw the Witch in the chair! He thought the Witch was Posie! He
+grabbed her right up in his arms and _hugged_ her!
+
+"Though I'm late for a dozen Directors' Meetings," he cried, "it's worth
+it, my Precious, to see you laugh!"
+
+"I'm not your Precious!" cried our Aunt Esta. She bit! She tore! She
+scratched! She shook her scraggly gray wig-curls all over her face! It
+was like a mask! But all the time she kept right on laughing! She
+couldn't seem to stop!
+
+The Rich Man kissed her. And kissed her! Right through her scraggly gray
+wig-curls he kissed her! He couldn't seem to stop!
+
+"Now, at last, my Precious," he said. "We've learned how to live! We'll
+play more! We'll laugh more!"
+
+Our Aunt Esta tore off her wig! She tore off her hump! She shook her
+fist at the Rich Man! But she couldn't stop laughing!
+
+The Rich Man gave one awful gasp! He turned red! He turned white! He
+looked at the wood-shed window to see if my Father had seen him.
+
+My Father had seen him!
+
+The Rich Man said things under his breath. That is, most of them were
+under his breath. He stalked to his car. He ordered the Black Woman to
+pick up the Real Posie and stalk to his car! He looked madder than
+Pirates!
+
+But when he had climbed into his car, and had started his engine, and
+was all ready to go, he stood up on the seat instead, and peered over
+the hedge-top at our Aunt Esta! And grinned!
+
+Our Aunt Esta was standing just where he had left her. All the laughter
+was gone from her. But her eyes looked very astonished. Her cheeks were
+blazing red. Her hair was all gay and rumpled like a sky-terrier's. It
+seemed somehow to be rather becoming to our Aunt Esta to be kissed by
+mistake.
+
+The Rich Man made a little noise in his throat. Our Aunt Esta looked up.
+She jumped. The Rich Man fixed his eyes right on her. His eyes were full
+of twinkles.
+
+"Talk about Be-Witchments!" he said. "Talk about--_Be-Witchments_!--I'll
+be back on Tuesday! What for?--Great Jumping Jehosophats!" he said.
+"It's enough that I'll be back!"
+
+My Father stuck his head and the tip of one battered wing out the
+wood-shed window. He started to say something. And cocked his ear
+instead.
+
+It was towards the village that he cocked his ear.
+
+We all stopped and cocked our ears.
+
+It was a funny sound: Clack-Clack-_Clack_! Clack-Clack-_Clack_!
+Clack-Clack--_Clack_!
+
+It was my Mother cantering home across the wooden bridge.
+
+It sounded glad.
+
+My Father thought of a new way suddenly to escape from his wings! And
+ran to meet her!
+
+
+
+
+THE BLINDED LADY
+
+
+The Blinded Lady lived in a little white cottage by the Mill Dam.
+
+She had twenty-seven cats! And a braided rug! And a Chinese cabinet all
+full of peacock-feather fans!
+
+Our Father and Mother took us to see them.
+
+It smelt furry.
+
+Carol wore his blue suit. Rosalee wore an almost grown-up dress. I wore
+my new middy blouse.
+
+We looked nice.
+
+The Blinded Lady looked nice too.
+
+She sat in a very little chair in the middle of a very large room. Her
+skirts were silk and very fat. They fluffed all around her like a
+pen-wiper. She had on a white lace cap. There were violets in the cap.
+Her eyes didn't look blinded.
+
+We sat on the edge of our chairs. And stared at her. And stared. She
+didn't mind.
+
+All the cats came and purred their sides against our legs. It felt soft
+and sort of bubbly.
+
+The Blinded Lady recited poetry to us. She recited "Gray's Elegy in a
+Country Churchyard." She recited "The Charge of the Light Brigade." She
+recited "Bingen on the Rhine."
+
+When she got all through reciting poetry she asked us if we knew any.
+
+We did.
+
+We knew "Onward Christian Soldiers," and "Hey Diddle, Diddle, the Cat
+and the Fiddle." And Rosalee knew two verses about
+
+    It was many and many a year ago
+    In a kingdom by the sea,
+    That a maiden lived whom you may know
+    By the name of Annabel Lee.
+
+We hoped the Blinded Lady would be pleased.
+
+She wasn't!
+
+The Blinded Lady said it wasn't nearly enough just to know the first two
+verses of anything! That you ought to know all the verses of everything!
+The Blinded Lady said that every baby just as soon as it was born ought
+to learn every poem that it possibly could so that if it ever grew up
+and was blinded it would have something to amuse itself with!
+
+We promised we would!
+
+We asked the Blinded Lady what made her blinded.
+
+She said it was because she made all her father's shirts when she was
+six years old!
+
+We promised we wouldn't!
+
+"And now," said the Blinded Lady, "I'd like to have the Little Dumb Boy
+come forward and stand at my knee so I can touch his face!"
+
+Carol didn't exactly like to be called the Little Dumb Boy, but he came
+forward very politely and stood at the Blinded Lady's knee. The Blinded
+Lady ran her fingers all up and down his face. It tickled his nose. He
+looked puckered.
+
+"It's a pleasant face!" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"We like it!" said my Father.
+
+"Oh _very_ much!" said my Mother.
+
+"Has he always been dumb?" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"Always," said my Mother. "But never deaf!"
+
+"Oh _Tush_!" said the Blinded Lady. "Don't be stuffy! Afflictions were
+meant to talk about!"
+
+"But Carol, you see," said my Mother, "can't talk about his! So _we_
+don't!"
+
+"Oh--_Tush_!" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+She pushed Carol away. She thumped her cane on the braided rug.
+
+"There's one here, isn't there," she said, "that hasn't got anything to
+be sensitive about? Let the Young Lassie come forward," she said, "so I
+can touch her face!"
+
+It made Rosalee very pink to have her face explored.
+
+The Blinded Lady laughed as she explored it.
+
+"Ha!" she said. "Age about seventeen? Gold hair? Sky-blue eyes?
+Complexion like peaches and cream?--Not much cause here," laughed the
+Blinded Lady, "for this Young Lassie ever to worry when she looks in the
+glass!"
+
+"Oh but she does!" I cried. "She worries herself most to death every
+time she looks!--She's afraid her hair will turn gray before Derry
+comes!"
+
+"S-s-h!" said everybody.
+
+The Blinded Lady cocked her head. She ruffled herself. It looked like
+feathers.
+
+"Derry?" said the Blinded Lady. "Who's Derry?--A _beau_?"
+
+My Father gruffed his throat.
+
+"Oh Derry's just a young friend of ours," he said.
+
+"He lives in Cuba," said my Mother.
+
+"Cuba's an island!" I said. "It floats in water! They eat bananas! They
+have fights! It's very hot! There's lots of moonlight! Derry's father
+says that when Rosalee's married he'll build a----."
+
+"Hush, Ruthy!" said my Father. "You've talked quite enough already!"
+
+The Blinded Lady patted her skirts. They billowed all around her like
+black silk waves. It looked funny.
+
+"H-m-m-mmm!" she said. "Let the Child-Who's-Talked-Too-Much-Already come
+forward now so that I can feel her face!"
+
+I went forward just as fast as I could.
+
+The Blinded Lady touched my forehead.
+
+She smoothed my nose,--my cheeks,--my chin.
+
+"U-m-mmm," she said. "And 'Ruthy' you say is what you call her?"
+
+My Father twinkled his eyes.
+
+"We have to call her something!" he said politely.
+
+"And is this bump on the forehead a natural one?" said the Blinded Lady.
+"Or an accidental one?"
+
+"Both!" said my Father. "That is, it's pre-em-i-nently natural for our
+daughter Ruthy to have an accidental bump on her forehead."
+
+"And there are, I infer," said the Blinded Lady, "one or two freckles on
+either side of the nose?"
+
+"Your estimate," said my Father, "is conservative."
+
+"And the hair?" said the Blinded Lady. "It hasn't exactly the texture of
+gold."
+
+"'Penny-colored' we call it!" said my Mother.
+
+"And not exactly a _new_ penny at that, is it?" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"N--o," said my Mother. "But rather jolly all the same like a penny
+that's just bought two sticks of candy instead of one!"
+
+"And the nose turns up a little?" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"Well maybe just a--trifle," admitted my Mother.
+
+The Blinded Lady stroked my face all over again. "U-m-m-m," she said.
+"Well at least it's something to be thankful for that everything is
+perfectly normal!" She put her hands on my shoulders. She shook me a
+little. "Never, _never_, Ruthie," she said, "be so foolish as to
+complain because you're not pretty!"
+
+"No'm!" I promised.
+
+"Put all the Beauty you can _inside_ your head!" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"Yes'm!" I promised. "And I've just thought of another one that I know!
+It's about
+
+    You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,
+    For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be----"
+
+"_Foolish!_" said the Blinded Lady. "It wasn't sounds I was thinking of
+this time, but _sights_!" She pushed me away. She sighed and sighed. It
+puffed her all out. "O--h," she sighed. "O--h! Three pairs of Young Eyes
+and all the World waiting to be looked at!"
+
+She rocked her chair. She rocked it very slowly. It was like a little
+pain.
+
+"I never saw _anything_ after I was seventeen!" she said. "And God
+himself knows that I hadn't seen anywheres near enough before that! Just
+the little grass road to the village now and then on a Saturday
+afternoon to buy the rice and the meat and the matches and the soap!
+Just the wood-lot beyond the hill-side where the Arbutus always
+blossomed so early! Just old Neighbor Nora's new patch-work quilt!--Just
+a young man's face that looked in once at the window to ask where the
+trout brook was! But even these pictures," said the Blinded Lady,
+"They're fading! Fading! Sometimes I can't remember at all whether old
+Nora's quilt was patterned in diamond shapes or squares. Sometimes I'm
+not so powerful sure whether the young man's eye were blue or brown!
+After all, it's more'n fifty years ago. It's new pictures that I need
+now," she said. "New pictures!"
+
+She took a peppermint from a box. She didn't pass 'em. She rocked her
+chair. And rocked. And rocked. She smiled a little. It wasn't a real
+smile. It was just a smile to save her dress. It was just a little
+gutter to catch her tears.
+
+"Oh dear me--Oh dear me--Oh dear me!" said my Mother.
+
+"Stop your babbling!" said the Blinded Lady. She sniffed. And sniffed.
+"But I'll tell you what I'll do," she said. "These children can come
+back here next Saturday afternoon and----."
+
+"Why there's no reason in the world," said my Mother, "why they
+shouldn't come every day!"
+
+The Blinded Lady stopped rocking. She almost screamed.
+
+"Every day?" she said. "Mercy no! Their feet are muddy! And besides it's
+tiresome! But they can come next Saturday I tell you! And I'll give you
+a prize! Yes, I'll give two prizes--for the two best new pictures that
+they bring me to think about! And the first prize shall be a Peacock
+Feather Fan!" said the Blinded Lady. "And the second prize shall be a
+Choice of Cats!"
+
+"A Choice of Cats?" gasped my Father.
+
+The Blinded Lady thumped her cane. She thumped it pretty hard. It made
+you glad your toes weren't under it.
+
+"Now mind you, Children!" she said.
+
+"It's got to be a _new_ picture! It's got to be something you've seen
+yourself! The most _beautifulest_! The most _darlingest_ thing that
+you've ever seen! Go out in the field I say! Go out in the woods! Go up
+on the mountain top! And _look around_! Nobody I tell you can ever make
+another person see anything that he hasn't seen himself! Now be gone!"
+said the Blinded Lady. "I'm all tuckered out!"
+
+"Why I'm sure," said my Father, "we never would have come at all if we
+hadn't supposed that----."
+
+The Blinded Lady shook her cane right at my Father.
+
+"Don't be stuffy!" she said. "But get out!"
+
+We got out.
+
+Old Mary who washed and ironed and cooked for the Blinded Lady showed us
+the shortest way out. The shortest way out was through the wood-shed.
+There were twenty-seven little white bowls of milk on the wood-shed
+floor. There was a cat at each bowl. It sounded lappy! Some of the cats
+were black. Some of the cats were gray. Some of the cats were white.
+
+There was an old tortoise-shell cat. He had a crumpled ear. He had a
+great scar across his nose. He had a broken leg that had mended crooked.
+
+_Most_ of the cats were tortoise-shell _and_ black _and_ gray _and_
+white! It looked pretty! It looked something the way a rainbow would
+look if it was fur! And splashed with milk instead of water!
+
+"How many quarts does it take?" said my Mother.
+
+"_Quarts?_" said Old Mary. She sniffed. "_Quarts?_ It takes a whole
+Jersey cow!"
+
+The Blinded Lady called Rosalee to come back. I went with her. I held
+her hand very hard for fear we would be frightened.
+
+There was a White Kitten in the Blinded Lady's Lap. It was a white
+Angora. It wasn't any bigger than a baby rabbit. It had a blue ribbon on
+its neck. It looked very pure. Its face said "Ruthy, I'd like very much
+to be your kitten!"
+
+But the Blinded Lady's face didn't know I was there at all.
+
+"Young Lassie," said the Blinded Lady. "What is the color of your
+Derry's eyes?"
+
+"Why--why--black!" said Rosalee.
+
+"U-m-mmm," said the Blinded Lady. "Black?" She began to munch a
+peppermint. "U-m-m-m," she said. She jerked her head. Her nose looked
+pretty sharp. "That's right, Young Lassie!" she cried. "Love _early_!
+Never mind what the old folks say! Sometimes there isn't any late! Love
+all you can! Love----!" She stopped suddenly. She sank back in her
+skirts again. And rocked! Her nose didn't look sharp any more. Her voice
+was all whispers. "Lassie," she whispered, "when you choose your Peacock
+Feather Fan--choose the one on the top shelf! It's the best one! It's
+sandal wood! It's----"
+
+My boots made a creak.
+
+The Blinded Lady gave an awful jump!
+
+"There's someone else in this room besides the Young Lassie!" she cried.
+
+I was frightened. I told a lie.
+
+"You're en--tirely mistaken!" I said. I perked Rosalee's hand. We ran
+for our lives. We ran as fast as we could. It was pretty fast!
+
+When we got out to the Road our Father and Mother were waiting for us.
+They looked pleasant. We liked their looks very much.
+
+Carol was waiting too. He had his eyes shut. His mouth looked very
+surprised.
+
+"Carol's trying to figure out how it would feel to be blind," said my
+Mother.
+
+"Oh!" said Rosalee.
+
+"O--h!" said I.
+
+Carol clapped his hands.
+
+Rosalee clapped her hands.
+
+I clapped my hands.
+
+It was wonderful! We all thought of it at the same moment! We shut our
+eyes perfectly tight and played we were blinded all the way home!
+
+Our Father and Mother had to lead us. It was pretty bumpy! I peeped
+some! Rosalee walked with her hands stretched way out in front of her as
+though she was reaching for something. She looked like a picture. It was
+like a picture of something very gentle and wishful that she looked
+like. It made me feel queer. Carol walked with his nose all puckered up
+as though he was afraid something smelly was going to hit him. It didn't
+make me feel queer at all. It made me laugh.
+
+It didn't make my Father laugh.
+
+"Now see here, you young Lunatics," said my Father. "If you think your
+Mother and I are going to drag you up the main village street--acting
+like this?"
+
+We were sorry, we explained! But it _had_ to be!
+
+When we got to the village street we bumped right into the Old Doctor.
+We bumped him pretty hard! He had to sit down! I climbed into his lap.
+
+"Of course I don't know that it's _you_," I said. "But I think it is!"
+
+The Old Doctor seemed pretty astonished. He snatched at my Father and my
+Mother.
+
+"Great Zounds, Good People!" he cried. "What fearful calamity has
+overtaken your offspring?"
+
+"Absolutely nothing at all," said my Father, "compared to what is
+_going_ to overtake them as soon as I get them home!"
+
+"We're playing _blinded_," said Rosalee.
+
+"We've been to see the Blinded Lady!" I explained.
+
+"We're going to get prizes," said Rosalee. "Real prizes! A Peacock
+Feather Fan!"
+
+"And the Choice of Cats!" I explained.
+
+"For telling the Blinded Lady next Saturday," cried Rosalee, "the
+prettiest thing that we've ever seen!"
+
+"Not just the prettiest!" I explained. "But the most preciousest!"
+
+"So we thought we'd shut our eyes!" said Rosalee. "All the way home! And
+find out what Sight it was that we missed the most!--_Sunshine_ I think
+it is!" said Rosalee. "_Sunshine_ and all the pretty flickering little
+shadows! And the way the slender white church spire flares through the
+Poplar Trees! Oh I shall make up a picture about _sunshine_!" said
+Rosalee.
+
+"Oh, Sh--h!" said my Mother. "You mustn't tell each other what you
+decide. That would take half the fun and the surprise out of the
+competition!"
+
+"Would--it?" said Rosalee. "Would it?" She turned to the Old Doctor. She
+slipped into the curve of his arm. The curve of his arm seemed to be all
+ready for her. She reached up and patted his face. "You Old Darling,"
+she said. "In all the world what is the most beautiful--est sight that
+_you_ have ever seen?"
+
+The Old Doctor gave an awful swallow.
+
+"_Youth!_" he said.
+
+"Oh, youth Fiddle-sticks!" said my Father. "How ever would one make a
+picture of _that_? All arms and legs! And wild ideas! Believe me that if
+I ever once get _these_ wild ideas and legs and arms home to-day there
+will be----"
+
+We never heard what there would be! 'Cause we bumped into the
+Store-Keeping Man instead! And had to tell _him_ all about it!
+
+Nobody kissed the Store-Keeping Man. He smelt of mice and crackers. We
+talked to him just as we would have talked to Sugar or Potatoes.
+
+"Mr. Store-Keeping Man," we said. "You are very wise! You have a store!
+And a wagon! And a big iron safe! And fly-papers besides!--In all the
+world--what is the most beautifulest thing that you have ever seen?"
+
+The Store-Keeping Man didn't have to worry about it at all. He never
+even swallowed. The instant he crossed his hands on his white linen
+stomach he _knew_!
+
+"My Bank Book!" he said.
+
+My Father laughed. "_Now_ you naughty children," said my Father, "I
+trust you'll be satisfied to proceed home with your eyes open!"
+
+But my Mother said no matter how naughty we were we couldn't go home
+without buying pop-corn at the pop-corn stand!
+
+So we had to tell the Pop-Corn Man all about it too! The Pop-Corn Man
+was very little. He looked like a Pirate. He had black eyes. He had gold
+rings through his ears. We loved him a good deal!
+
+"In all the world--" we asked the Pop-Corn Man, "what is the most
+beautiful--est sight that you have ever seen?"
+
+It took the Pop-Corn Man an awful long time to think! It took him so
+long that while he was thinking he filled our paper bags till they
+busted! It was a nice bustedness!
+
+"The most beautifulest thing--in all zee world?" said the Pop-Corn Man.
+"In all zee world? It was in my Italy! In such time as I was no more
+than one bambino I did see zee peacock, zee great blue peacock stride
+out through zee snow-storm of apple-blossoms! And dance to zee sun!"
+
+"O--h," said Rosalee. "How pretty!"
+
+"Pretty?" said the Pop-Corn Man. "It was to zee eyes one miracle of
+remembrances! Zee blue! Zee gold! Zee dazzle! Zee soft fall of zee
+apple-blossoms!--Though I live to be zee hundred! Though I go blind!
+Though I go prison! Though my pop-corn all burn up! It fade not! Not
+never! That peacock! That apple-blossom! That shiver!"
+
+"Our supper will all burn up," said my Mother, "if you children don't
+open your eyes and run home! Already I _think_ I can smell scorched
+Ginger-bread!"
+
+We children all opened our eyes and ran home!
+
+My Mother laughed to see us fly!
+
+My Father laughed a little!
+
+We thought about the Peacock as we ran! We thought quite a little about
+the Ginger-bread! We wished we had a Peacock! We hoped we had a
+Ginger-bread!
+
+Our Home looked nice. It was as though we hadn't seen it for a long
+while. It was as though we hadn't seen anything for a long while! The
+Garden didn't look like Just a Garden any more! It looked like a
+_Bower_! Carol's tame crow came hopping up the gravel walk! We hadn't
+remembered that he was so black! The sun through the kitchen window was
+real gold! There _was_ Ginger-bread!
+
+"Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh _dear_!" said Rosalee. "In a world so full of
+beautiful things--however shall we choose what to tell the Blinded
+Lady?"
+
+Carol ran to the desk. He took a pencil. He took a paper. He slashed the
+words down. He held it out for us to see.
+
+     "I know what I'm going to choose," said the words.
+
+He took his pencil. He ran away.
+
+Rosalee took her pencil. She ran away. Over her shoulder she called back
+something. What she called back was "Oh Goody! I know what _I'm_ going
+to choose!"
+
+I took my Father's pencil. I ran away. I didn't run very far. I found a
+basket instead. It was a pretty basket. I made a nest for the White
+Kitten in case I should win it! I lined the nest with green moss. There
+was a lot of sunshine in the moss. And little blue flowers. I forgot to
+come home for supper. That's how I chose what I was going to write!
+
+When we woke up the next morning we all felt very busy. It made the day
+seem funny.
+
+It made every day that happened seem funny.
+
+Every day somebody took somebody's pencil and ran away! My Mother
+couldn't find anything! Not children! Not pencils!
+
+Rosalee took the Dictionary Book besides.
+
+"Anybody'd think," said my Father, "that this was a Graduation Essay you
+were making instead of just a simple little word-picture for a Blinded
+Lady!"
+
+"Word-picture?" said Rosalee. "What I'm trying to make is a Peacock
+Feather Fan!"
+
+"I wish there were three prizes instead of two!" said my Mother.
+
+"Why?" said my Father.
+
+Carol came and kicked his feet on the door. His hands were full of
+stones. He wanted a drink of water. All day long when he wasn't sitting
+under the old Larch Tree with a pencil in his mouth he was carrying
+stones! And kicking his feet on the door! And asking for a drink of
+water!
+
+"Whatever in the world," said my Mother, "are you doing with all those
+stones?"
+
+Carol nodded his head that I could tell.
+
+"He's building something," I said. "Out behind the barn!--I don't know
+what it is!"
+
+Carol dropped his stones. He took a piece of chalk. He knelt down on the
+kitchen floor. He wrote big white letters on the floor.
+
+"It's an Ar--Rena," is what he wrote.
+
+"An Arena?" said my Mother. "An _Arena_?" She looked quite sorry. "Oh
+Laddie!" she said. "I did so want you to win a prize!--_Couldn't_ you
+have kept your mind on it just a day or two longer?"
+
+It was the longest week I ever knew! It got longer every day! Thursday
+was twice as long as Wednesday! I don't seem to remember about Friday!
+But Saturday came so early in the morning I wasn't even awake when my
+Mother called me!
+
+We went to the Blinded Lady's house right after dinner. We couldn't wait
+any longer.
+
+The Blinded Lady pretended she was surprised to see us.
+
+"Mercy me!" she said. "What? Have these children come again? Muddy feet?
+Chatter? And all?" She thumped her cane! She rocked her chair! She
+billowed her skirts!
+
+We weren't frightened a bit! We sat on the edge of our chairs and
+laughed! And laughed!
+
+There was a little white table spread with pink-frosted cookies! There
+were great crackly glasses of raspberry vinegar and ice! Old Mary had on
+a white apron!--That's why we laughed! We _knew_ we were expected!
+
+My Father explained it to everybody.
+
+"As long as Carol couldn't speak his piece," he said, "It didn't seem
+fair that any of the children should speak 'em! So the children have all
+written their pieces to read aloud and----"
+
+"But as long as Carol wasn't able to read his aloud," cried my Mother,
+"it didn't seem fair that any of 'em should read theirs aloud! So the
+children's father is going to read 'em. And----"
+
+"Without giving any clue of course," said my Father, "as to which child
+wrote which. So that you won't be unduly influenced at all--in any way
+by--gold-colored hair, for instance or--freckles----"
+
+"Or _anything_!" said my Mother.
+
+"U-m-m-m," said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"Understanding of course," said my Father, "that we ourselves have not
+seen the papers yet!"
+
+"Nor assisted in any way with the choice of subject," said my Mother.
+"Nor with the treatment of it!"
+
+"U-m-m," said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"I will now proceed to read," said my Father.
+
+"So do," said the Blinded Lady.
+
+My Father so did.
+
+He took a paper from his pocket. He cleared his throat. He put on his
+eye-glasses. He looked a little surprised.
+
+"The first one," he said, "seems to be about 'Ginger-bread'!"
+
+"_Ginger-bread?_" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"Ginger-bread!" said my Father.
+
+"Read it!" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"I will!" said my Father.
+
+     Ginger-bread is very handsome! It's so brown! And every time
+     you eat a piece you have to have another! That shows its
+     worth as well as its handsomeness! And besides you can smell
+     it a long way off when you're coming home! Especially when
+     you're coming home from school! It has molasses in it too.
+     And that's very instructive! As well as ginger! And other
+     spices! The Geography is full of them! Molasses comes from
+     New Orleans! Spices come from Asia! Except Jamaica Ginger
+     comes from Drug Stores! There are eggs in ginger-bread too!
+     And that's Natural History and very important! They have to
+     be hen's eggs I think! I had some guineas once and they
+     looked like chipmunks when they hatched. You can't make
+     ginger-bread out of anything that looks like chipmunks! It
+     takes three eggs to make ginger-bread! And one cupful of
+     sugar! And some baking soda!  And----
+
+"Oh Tush!" said the Blinded Lady. "That isn't a picture! It's a
+recipe!--Read another!"
+
+"Dear me! Dear me!" said my Mother. "Now some child is suffering!" She
+looked all around to see which child it was.
+
+Carol kicked Rosalee. Rosalee kicked me. I kicked Carol. We all looked
+just as queer as we could outside.
+
+"Read _on_!" thumped the Blinded Lady.
+
+My Father read on.
+
+"This next one," he said, "seems to be about Soldiers!"
+
+"Soldiers?" said the Blinded Lady. "Soldiers?" She sat up very straight.
+She cocked her head on one side. "Read it!" she said.
+
+"I'm reading it!" said my Father.
+
+     The most scrumptious sight I've ever seen in my life is
+     Soldiers Marching! I saw them once in New York! It was
+     _glorious_! All the reds and the blues and the browns of the
+     Uniforms! And when the Band played all the different
+     instruments it seemed as though it was really _gold_ and
+     _silver_ music they were playing! It makes you feel so
+     brave! And so unselfish! But most of all it makes you wish
+     you were a milk-white pony with diamond hoofs! So that you
+     could _sparkle_! And _prance_! And _rear_! And _run away_
+     just for fun! And _run_ and _run_ and _run_ down clattery
+     streets and through black woods and across green pastures
+     _snorting fire_--till you met more Soldiers and more Bands
+     and more Gold and Silver Music! So that you could _prance_
+     and _sparkle_ and _rear_ and _run away_ all over
+     again,--with _flags flying_!
+
+"U-m-m," said the Blinded Lady. "That _is_ pretty! And spirited
+too!--But--But it doesn't exactly warm the heart.--And no one but a boy,
+anyway, would _want_ to think about soldiers every day.--Read the next
+one!" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"Oh all right," said my Father. "Here's the last one."
+
+"Read it!" said the Blinded Lady.
+
+"I'm trying to!" said my Father. He cleared his throat and put on his
+eye-glasses all over again. "Ahem!" he said.
+
+     "The most beautifulest thing I've ever seen in all my life
+     is my Mother's face. It's so----"
+
+"_What?_" cried my Mother.
+
+My Father looked at her across the top of his glasses. He smiled. "_Your
+face!_" he said.
+
+"W--what?" stammered my Mother.
+
+My Father cleared his throat and began all over again.
+
+     The most beautifulest thing I've ever seen in all my life is
+     my Mother's face! It's so pleasant! It tries to make
+     everything so pleasant! When you go away it smiles you away!
+     When you come home it smiles you home! When you're sick it
+     smiles you well! When you're bad it smiles you good! It's so
+     pretty too! It has soft hair all full of little curls! It
+     has brown eyes! It has the _sweetest_ ears!--It has a little
+     hat! The jolliest little hat! All trimmed with do-dabs! And
+     teeny pink roses! And there's a silver ribbon on it!  And----
+
+"My Mother had a hat like that!" cried the Blinded Lady.
+
+"_Did_ she?" said my Mother. Her face still looked pretty queer and
+surprised.
+
+The Blinded Lady perked way forward in her chair. She seemed all out of
+breath. She talked so fast it almost choked her!
+
+"Yes! Just _exactly_ like that!" cried the Blinded Lady. "My Mother
+bought it in Boston! It cost three dollars! My Father thought it was an
+awful price!--She wore it with a lavender dress all sprigged with yellow
+leaves! She looked like an angel in it! She _was_ an angel! _Her_ hair
+was brown too!--I haven't thought of it for ages!--And all full of
+little curls! She had the kindest smile! The minister said it was worth
+any two of his sermons! And when folks were sick she went anywhere to
+help them! _Anywhere!_--She went twenty miles once! We drove the old
+white horse! I can see it all! My brothers' and sisters' faces at the
+window waving good-bye! My father cautioning us through his long gray
+beard not to drive too fast!--The dark shady wood's road! The little
+bright meadows!--A blue bird that flashed across our heads at the
+watering trough! The gay village streets! A red plaid ribbon in a shop
+window! The patch on a peddler's shoe! The great hills over
+beyond!--There was hills all around us!--My sister Amy married a man
+from way over beyond! He was different from us! His father sailed the
+seas! He brought us dishes and fans from China! When my sister Amy was
+married she wore a white crepe shawl. There was a peacock embroidered in
+one corner of it! It was pretty! We curled her hair! There were yellow
+roses in bloom! There was a blue larkspur!----"
+
+The Blinded Lady sank back in her chair. She gave a funny little gasp.
+
+"I _remember_!" she gasped. "The Young Man's eyes were _blue_! His teeth
+were like pearls! When he asked the way to the trout brook he laughed
+and said----"
+
+The Blinded Lady's cheeks got all pink. She clapped her hands. She sank
+back into her Skirts. Her eyes looked awful queer.
+
+"I see _everything_!" she cried. "_Everything!_--Give the Peacock
+Feather Fan to the Magician!"
+
+Rosalee looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. I looked at Rosalee.
+
+"To the Magician?" said my Father.
+
+"To the Magician?" said my Mother.
+
+"To the Young Darling who wrote about her Mother's Face!" thumped the
+Blinded Lady.
+
+My Father twisted his mouth.
+
+"Will the 'Young Darling' who wrote about her Mother's Face please come
+forward--and get the Peacock Feather Fan!" said my Father.
+
+Carol came forward. He looked very ashamed. He stubbed his toe on the
+braided rug.
+
+"It seems to be our son Carol," said my Father, "who conjured up the
+picture of--of the blue larkspur!"
+
+"What?" said the Blinded Lady. "_What?_"
+
+She tapped her foot on the floor. She frowned her brows.
+"Well--well--well," she said. "It wasn't at all what I intended! Not at
+_all_!--Well--well--well!" She began to rock her chair. "But after all,"
+she said, "an agreement is an agreement! And the First Prize is the
+First Prize!--Let the Little Dumb Boy step forward to the Chinese
+Cabinet and choose his Peacock Feather Fan!"
+
+Rosalee gave a little cry. It sounded almost like tears. She ran
+forward. She whispered in Carol's ear.
+
+Carol opened his eyes. He took a chair. He pushed it against the
+cabinet. He climbed up to the highest shelf. There was a fan as big as
+the moon! It was sandalwood! It was carved! It was all peacock feathers!
+Blue! Bronze! It was _beautiful_! He took it! He went back to his seat!
+His mouth smiled a little! But he carried the Fan as though it was hot!
+
+"The second prize of course," said the Blinded Lady, "goes to the child
+who wrote about the soldiers!"
+
+Rosalee stepped forward.
+
+The Blinded Lady took her hand. "It is not exactly as I had wished,"
+said the Blinded Lady. "But a Choice of Cats is a Choice of Cats!--You
+will find them all in the wood-shed Young Lassie--awaiting your
+decision! Choose wisely! A good cat is a great comfort!"
+
+We went to the wood-shed to help Rosalee choose her cat.
+
+All the cats purred to be chosen. It was sad. My Father said it wasn't.
+My Father said one cat was plenty.
+
+The White Persian Kitten lay on a soap box. It looked like Easter
+Lilies. Rosalee saw it. She forgot all about the fan.
+
+Carol didn't forget about the fan. He stamped his foot. He shook his
+head. He took Rosalee's hand and led her to the old Tortoise Shell Cat.
+He put the old Tortoise Shell cat in Rosalee's arms. Rosalee looked
+pretty surprised. So did the cat.
+
+My sorrow made tears in my eyes. My Mother came running.
+
+"Bless your heart, Ruthy-Girl," she said. "You shall have a Ginger-bread
+to-night that _is_ a Picture!" She put a little box in my hand. There
+was a little gold pencil in the box. It was my Mother's best little gold
+pencil with the agate stone in the end. "Here's Mother's prize,
+Darling," she said. "The Prize Mother brought for _whichever_ child
+didn't win the Blinded Lady's prizes! Don't you worry! Mother'll always
+have a prize for whichever child doesn't win the other prizes!"
+
+My sorrow went away.
+
+We all ran back to the Blinded Lady to thank her for our Beautiful
+Party. And for the prizes.
+
+My Father made a speech to the Blinded Lady.
+
+"But after all, my dear Madam," he said, "I am afraid you have been
+cheated!--It was '_new_' pictures that you wanted, not old ones!"
+
+The Blinded Lady whacked at him with her cane. She was awful mad.
+
+"How do _you_ know what I want?" she said. "How do _you_ know what I
+want?"
+
+My Father and my Mother looked at each other. They made little laughs
+with their eyes.
+
+The Blinded Lady smoothed herself.
+
+"But I certainly am flabbergasted," she said, "about the Old Tom Cat!
+Whatever in the world made the Young Lassie choose the old
+battle-scarred Tom?"
+
+Rosalee looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. I looked at the Old Tom.
+
+"Maybe she chose him for--for his historicalness," said my Mother.
+
+"----Maybe," said my Father.
+
+We started for the door. We got as far as the Garden. I remembered
+something suddenly. I clapped my hands. I laughed right out! "No! She
+didn't either!" I said. "She chose him for Carol's Ar--Rena--I bet'cher!
+Carol's going to have him for a Cham--peen! We'll fight him every
+afternoon! Maybe there'll be tickets!"
+
+"Tickets?" said my Father.
+
+"Oh my dears," said my Mother. "A cat-fight is a dreadful thing!"
+
+My Father looked at the Old Tom! At his battered ears! At his scarred
+nose! At his twisted eye! The Old Tom looked at my Father! They both
+smiled!
+
+"Infamous!" said my Father. "How much will the tickets be?"
+
+We went home. We went home through the fields instead of through the
+village.
+
+Carol held the Peacock Feather Fan as though he was afraid it would bite
+him.
+
+Rosalee carried the Old Tom as though she _knew_ it would bite her.
+
+When we got to the Willow Tree they changed prizes. It made a
+difference.
+
+Rosalee carried the Peacock Feather as though it was a magic sail. She
+tipped it to the breeze. She pranced it. And danced it. It looked
+fluffy.
+
+Carol carried the Old Tom hugged tight to his breast. The Old Tom looked
+_very_ historical. Carol looked very shining and pure. He looked like a
+choir-boy carrying his singing book. He looked as though his voice would
+be very high.
+
+My Father and Mother carried each other's hands. They laughed very
+softly to themselves as though they knew pleasant things that no one
+else knew.
+
+_My_ hand would have felt pretty lonely if I hadn't had the little gold
+pencil to carry.
+
+I felt pretty tired. I walked pretty far behind.
+
+I decided that when I grew up I'd be a Writer! So that no matter what
+happened I'd always have a gold pencil in my hand and _couldn't_ be
+lonely!
+
+
+
+
+THE GIFT OF THE PROBABLE PLACES
+
+
+My Mother says that everybody in the world has got some special Gift.
+Some people have one kind and some have another.
+
+I got my skates and dictionary-book last Spring when I was nine. I've
+always had my freckles.
+
+My brother Carol's Gift is Being Dumb. No matter what anybody says to
+him he doesn't have to answer 'em.
+
+There was an old man in our town named Old Man Smith.
+
+Old Man Smith had a wonderful Gift.
+
+It wasn't a Christmas Gift like toys and games. It wasn't a Birthday
+Gift all stockings and handkerchiefs.
+
+It was the _Gift of Finding Things_!
+
+He called it "The Gift of the Probable Places."
+
+Most any time when you lost anything he could find it for you. He didn't
+find it by floating a few tea-leaves in a cup. Or by trying to match
+cards. Or by fooling with silly things like ghosts. He didn't even find
+it with his legs. He found it with his head. He found it by thinking
+very hard with his head.
+
+People came from miles around to borrow his head. He always charged
+everybody just the same no matter what it was that they'd lost. One
+dollar was what he charged. It was just as much trouble to him he said
+to think about a thimble that was lost as it was to think about an
+elephant that was lost.--I never knew anybody who lost an elephant.
+
+When the Post Master's Wife lost her diamond ring she hunted more than a
+hundred places for it! She was most distracted! She thought somebody had
+stolen it from her! She hunted it in all the Newspapers! She hunted it
+in all the stores! She hunted it all up and down the Village streets!
+She hunted it in the Depot carriage! She hunted it in the Hired Girl's
+trunk! Miles and miles and miles she must have hunted it with her hands
+and with her feet!
+
+But Old Man Smith found it for her without budging an inch from his
+wheel-chair! Just with his head alone he found it! Just by asking her a
+question that made her mad he found it! The question that made her mad
+was about her Baptismal name.--Her Baptismal name was Mehetabelle
+Euphemia.
+
+"However in the world," said Old Man Smith, "did you get such a
+perfectly hideous name as Mehetabelle Euphemia?"
+
+The Post Master's wife was madder than Scat! She wrung her hands. She
+snapped her thumbs! She crackled her finger-joints!
+
+"Never--_Never_," she said had she been "so insulted!"
+
+"U-m-m-m--exactly what I thought," said Old Man Smith. "Now just
+when--if you can remember, was the last time that you felt you'd never
+been so insulted before?"
+
+"Insulted?" screamed the Post Master's Wife. "Why, I haven't been so
+insulted as this since two weeks ago last Saturday when I was out in my
+back yard under the Mulberry Tree dyeing my old white dress peach-pink!
+And the Druggist's Wife came along and asked me if I didn't think I was
+just a little bit too old to be wearing peach-pink?--_Me_--_Too Old?
+Me?_" screamed the Post Master's Wife.
+
+"U-m-m," said Old Man Smith. "Pink, you say? Pink?--A little powdered
+Cochineal, I suppose? And a bit of Cream o' Tartar? And more than a bit
+of Alum? It's a pretty likely combination to make the fingers
+slippery.--And a lady what crackles her finger-joints so every time
+she's mad,--and snaps her thumbs--and?--Yes! Under the Mulberry Tree is
+a _very Probable Place_!--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.
+
+And when the Grocer's Nephew got suspended from college for sitting up
+too late at night and getting headaches, and came to spend a month with
+his Uncle and couldn't find his green plaid overcoat when it was time to
+go home he was perfectly positive that somebody had borrowed it from the
+store! Or that he'd dropped it out of the delivery wagon working
+over-time! Or that he'd left it at the High School Social!
+
+But Old Man Smith found it for him just by glancing at his purple socks!
+And his plaid necktie. And his plush waistcoat.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course, it's perfectly possible," said Old Man Smith, "that
+you dropped it from the basket of a balloon on your way to a Missionary
+Meeting.--But have you looked in the Young Widow Gayette's back hall?
+'Bout three pegs from the door?--Where the shadows are fairly
+private?--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.
+
+And when the Old Preacher lost the Hymn Book that George Washington had
+given his grandfather, everybody started to take up the floor of the
+church to see if it had fallen down through a crack in the pulpit!
+
+But Old Man Smith sent a boy running to beg 'em not to tear down the
+church till they'd looked in the Old Lawyer's pantry,--'bout the second
+shelf between the ice chest and the cheese crock. Sunday evening after
+meeting was rather a lean time with Old Preachers he said he'd always
+noticed.--And Old Lawyers was noted for their fat larders.--And there
+were certain things about cheese somehow that seemed to be soothin' to
+the memory.
+
+"Why, how perfectly extraordinary!" said everybody.
+
+"One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith again.
+
+And when Little Tommy Bent ran away to the city his Mother hunted all
+the hospitals for him! And made 'em drag the river! And wore a long
+black veil all the time! And howled!
+
+But Old Man Smith said, "Oh Shucks! It ain't at all probable, is it,
+that he was aimin' at hospitals or rivers when he went away?--What's the
+use of worryin' over the things he _weren't_ aimin' at till you've
+investigated the things he _was_?"
+
+"Aimin' at?" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "Aimin' at?--Who in the world could ever
+tell what any little boy was aimin' at?"
+
+"And there's something in that, too!" said Old Man Smith. "What did he
+look like?"
+
+"Like his father," said Mrs. Bent.
+
+"U-m-m. Plain, you mean?" said Old Man Smith.
+
+"He was only nine years old," sobbed Mrs. Bent. "But he did love
+Meetings so! No matter what they was about he was always hunting for
+some new Meetings to go to! He just seemed naturally to dote hisself on
+any crowd of people that was all facing the other way looking at
+somebody else! He had a little cowlick at the back of his neck!" sobbed
+Mrs. Bent. "It was a comical little cowlick! People used to laugh at it!
+He never liked to sit any place where there was anybody sitting behind
+him!"
+
+"Now you're talking!" said Old Man Smith. "Will he answer to the name of
+'Little Tommy Bent?'"
+
+"He will not!" said Mrs. Bent "He's that stubborn! He's exactly like his
+Father!"
+
+Old Man Smith wrote an entirely new advertisement to put in the papers.
+It didn't say anything about Rivers! Or Hospitals! Or 'Dead or Alive!'
+It just said:
+
+    LOST: In the back seat of Most Any Meeting,
+          a Very Plain Little Boy. Will _not_
+          answer to the name of "Little Tommy
+          Bent." Stubborn, like his Father.
+
+"We'll put that in about being 'stubborn,'" said Old Man Smith, "because
+it sounds quaint and will interest people."
+
+"It won't interest Mr. Bent!" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "And it seems awful
+cruel to make it so public about the child's being plain!"
+
+Old Man Smith spoke coldly to her.
+
+"Would you rather lose him--handsome," he said. "Or find him--_plain_?"
+
+Mrs. Bent seemed to think that she'd rather find him plain.
+
+She found him within two days! He was awful plain. His shoes were all
+worn out. And his stomach was flat. He was at a meeting of men who sell
+bicycles to China. The men were feeling pretty sick. They'd sent
+hundreds and hundreds of he-bicycles to China and the Chinamen couldn't
+ride 'em on account of their skirts!--It was the smell of an apple in a
+man's pocket that made Tommy Bent follow the man to the meeting.--And he
+answered to every name except 'Tommy Bent' so they knew it was he!
+
+"Mercy! What this experience has cost me!" sobbed Mrs. Bent.
+
+"One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.
+
+"It's a perfect miracle!" said everybody.
+
+"It 'tain't neither!" said Old Man Smith. "It's plain Hoss Sense!
+There's laws about findin' things same as there is about losin' 'em!
+Things has got regular habits and haunts same as Folks! And Folks has
+got regular haunts and habits same as birds and beasts! It ain't the
+Possible Places that I'm arguin' about!--The world is full of 'em! But
+the _Probable Places_ can be reckoned most any time on the fingers of
+one hand!--That's the trouble with folks! They're always wearin'
+themselves out on the Possible Places and never gettin' round at all to
+the _Probable_ ones!--Now, it's perfectly possible, of course," said Old
+Man Smith, "that you might find a trout in a dust-pan or a hummin' bird
+in an Aquarium--or meet a panther in your Mother's parlor!--But the
+chances are," said Old Man Smith, "that if you really set out to
+organize a troutin' expedition or a hummin' bird collection or a
+panther hunt--you wouldn't look in the dust pan or the Aquarium or your
+Mother's parlor _first_!--When you lose something that _ain't got_ no
+_Probable Place_--then I sure _am_ stumped!" said Old Man Smith.
+
+But when Annie Halliway lost her _mind_, everybody in the village was
+stumped about it. And everything was all mixed up. It was Annie
+Halliway's mother and Annie Halliway's father and Annie Halliway's
+uncles and aunts and cousins and friends who did all the worrying about
+it! While Annie Halliway herself didn't seem to care at all! But just
+sat braiding things into her hair!
+
+Some people said it was a railroad accident that she lost her mind in.
+Some said it was because she'd studied too hard in Europe. Some said it
+was an earthquake. Everybody said something.
+
+Annie Halliway's father and mother were awful rich. They brought her
+home in a great big ship! And gave her twelve new dresses and the front
+parlor and a brown piano! But she wouldn't stay in any of them! All
+she'd stay in was a little old blue silk dress she'd had before she went
+away!
+
+Carol and I got excused from school one day because we were afraid our
+heads might ache, and went to see what it was all about.
+
+It seemed to be about a great many things.
+
+But after we'd walked all around Annie Halliway twice and looked at her
+all we could and asked how old she was and found out that she was
+nineteen, we felt suddenly very glad about something.--We felt suddenly
+very glad that if she really was obliged to lose anything out of her
+face, it was her _mind_ that she lost! Instead of her eyes! Or her nose!
+Or her red, red mouth! Or her cunning little ears! _She was so pretty!_
+
+She seemed to like us very much too. She asked us to come again.
+
+We said we would.
+
+We did.
+
+We went every Saturday afternoon.
+
+They let us take her to walk if we were careful. We didn't walk her in
+the village because her hair looked so funny. We walked her in the
+pleasant fields. We gathered flowers. We gathered ferns. We explored
+birds. We built little gurgling harbors in the corners of the brook.
+Sometimes we climbed hills and looked off. Annie Halliway seemed to like
+to climb hills and look off.
+
+It was the day we climbed the Sumac Hill that we got our Idea!
+
+It was a nice day!
+
+Annie Halliway wore her blue dress! And her blue scarf! Her hair hung
+down like two long, loose black ropes across her shoulders! Blue
+Larkspur was braided into her hair! And a little tin trumpet tied with
+blue ribbon! And a blue Japanese fan! And a blue lead pencil! And a blue
+silk stocking! And a blue-handled basket! She looked like a Summer
+Christmas Tree. It was pretty.
+
+There were lots of clouds in the sky. They seemed very near. It sort of
+puckered your nose.
+
+"Smell the clouds!" said Annie Halliway.
+
+Somebody had cut down a tree that used to be there. It made a lonely
+hole in the edge of the hill and the sky. Through the lonely hole in the
+edge of the hill and the sky you could see miles and miles. Way down in
+the valley a bright light glinted. It was as though the whole sun was
+trying to bore a hole in a tiny bit of glass and couldn't do it.
+
+Annie Halliway stretched out her arms towards the glint. And started for
+it.
+
+I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. We knew where the glint was. It
+was Old Man Smith's house. Old Man Smith's house was built of tea cups!
+And broken tumblers! And bits of plates! First of all, of course, it
+was built of clay or mud or something soft and loose like that! And
+while it was still soft he had stuck it all full of people's broken
+dishes! So that wherever you went most all day long the sun was trying
+to bore a hole in it!--And couldn't do it!
+
+It seemed to be the glint that Annie Halliway wanted. She thought it was
+something new to braid in her hair, I guess. She kept right on walking
+towards it with her arms stretched out.
+
+Carol kept right on looking at me. His mouth was all turned white.
+Sometimes when people _talk_ to me I can't understand at all what they
+mean. But when Carol looks at me with his mouth all turned white, I
+always know just exactly what he means! It made my own mouth feel pretty
+white!
+
+"We shall be punished!" I said. "We'll surely be punished if we do it!"
+
+My brother Carol smiled. It was quite a white smile. He put out his
+hand. I took it. We ran down the hill after young Annie Halliway! And
+led her to the glint!
+
+Old Man Smith was pretty surprised to see us. He was riding round the
+door-yard in his wheel chair. He rolled his chair to the gate to meet
+us. The chair squeaked a good deal. But even if he'd wanted to walk he
+couldn't. The reason why he couldn't is because he's dumb in his legs.
+
+"What in the world do you want?" he asked.
+
+I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. He kicked me in the shins. My
+thoughts came very quickly.
+
+"We've brought you a young lady that's lost her mind!" I said. "What can
+you do about it?"
+
+Something happened all at once that made our legs feel queer. What
+happened was that Old Man Smith didn't seem pleased at all about it. He
+snatched his long white beard in his hands.
+
+"Lost her mind?" he said. "Her _mind_? Her _mind_? How dar'st you mock
+me?" he cried.
+
+"We _darsn't_ at all!" I explained. "On account of the bears! We've read
+all about the mocking bears in a book!"
+
+He seemed to feel better.
+
+"You mean in the good book?" he said. "The Elijah bears, you mean?"
+
+"Well, it was _quite_ a good book," I admitted. "Though my Father's got
+lots of books on Tulips that have heap prettier covers!"
+
+"U--m--m--m," said Old Man Smith. "U--m--m--m----. U--m----m----m."
+
+And all the time that he was saying "U--m----m----m--U--m----m----m,"
+young Annie Halliway was knocking down his house. With a big chunk of
+rock she was chipping it off. It was a piece of blue china cup with the
+handle still on it that she chipped off first.
+
+When Old Man Smith saw it he screamed.
+
+"Woman! What are you doing?" he screamed.
+
+"Her name is Young Annie Halliway," I explained.
+
+"Young Annie Halliway--_Come Here!_" screamed Old Man Smith.
+
+Young Annie Halliway came here. She was perfectly gentle about it. All
+her ways were gentle. She sat down on the ground at Old Man Smith's
+feet. She lifted her eyes to Old Man Smith's eyes. She looked holy. But
+all the time that she looked so holy she kept right on braiding the
+handle of the blue china cup into her hair. It cranked against the tin
+trumpet. It sounded a little like the 4th of July.
+
+Old Man Smith reached down and took her chin in his hands.
+
+"Oh my Lord--what a beautiful face!" he said. "What a beautiful
+face!--And you say she's lost her mind?" he said. "You say she's lost
+her mind?" He turned to Carol. "And what do _you_ say?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, please, Sir, Carol doesn't say anything!" I explained. "He can't!
+He's dumb!"
+
+"_Dumb?_" cried Old Man Smith. "So this is the Dumb Child, is it?" He
+looked at Carol. He looked at himself. He looked at my freckles. He
+rocked his hands on his stomach. "Merciful God!" he said. "How are we
+all afflicted!"
+
+"Oh, please, Sir," I said, "my brother Carol isn't afflicted at
+all!--It's a great _gift_ my Mother says to be born with the Gift of
+Silence instead of the Gift of Speech!"
+
+He made a little chuckle in his throat. He began to look at Young Annie
+Halliway all over again.
+
+"And what does your Mother say about _her_?" he pointed.
+
+"My Mother says," I explained, "that she only hopes that the person who
+finds her mind will be honest enough to return it!"
+
+"What?" said Old Man Smith. "To return it?--Honest enough to return it?"
+
+He began to do everything all over again!--To chuckle! To rock! To take
+Young Annie Halliway's chin in his hand!
+
+"And what did you say your name was, my pretty darling?" he asked.
+
+Young Annie Halliway looked a little surprised.
+
+"My name is Robin," she said. "Dearest--Robin--I think."
+
+"You think wrong!" said Old Man Smith. He frowned with ferocity.
+
+It made us pretty nervous all of a sudden.
+
+Carol went off to look at the bee-hive to calm himself. Young Annie
+Halliway picked up the end of one of her long braids and looked at that.
+There was still about a foot of it that didn't have anything braided
+into it. I didn't know where to look so I looked at the house. It was
+very glistening. Blue it glistened. And green it glistened! And red it
+glistened! And pink! And purple! And yellow!
+
+"Oh, see!" I pointed. "There's old Mrs. Beckett's rose-vase with the
+gold edge!--She dropped it on the brick garden-walk the day her son
+who'd been lost at sea for eleven years walked through the gate all
+alive and perfectly dry!--And that chunky white nozzle with the blue
+stripe on it?--I know what that is!--It's the nose of Deacon Perry's
+first wife's best tea pot!--I've seen it there! In a glass cupboard! On
+the top shelf!--She never used it 'cept when the Preacher came!"
+
+"The Deacon's second wife broke it--feeding chickens out of it," said
+Old Man Smith.
+
+"And that little scrap of saucer," I cried, "with the pansy petal on
+it?--Why--Why _that's_ little Hallie Bent's doll-dishes!--We played with
+'em down in the orchard! She died!" I cried. "She had the
+whooping-measles!"
+
+"That little scrap of saucer," said Old Man Smith, "was the only thing
+they found in Mr. Bent's bank box.--What the widow was lookin' for was
+gold!"
+
+"And that green glass stopper!" I cried. "Oh,
+Goodie----Goodie----_Goodie_!--Why, that----"
+
+"Hush your noise!" said Old Man Smith. "History is solemn!--The whole
+history of the village is written on the outer walls of my house!--When
+the Sun strikes here,--strikes there,--on that bit of glass,--on this
+bit of crockles--the edge of a plate,--the rim of a tumbler,--I read
+about folk's minds!--What they loved!--What they hated!--What they was
+thinking of instead when it broke!--" He snatched his long white beard
+in his hands. He wagged his head at me. "There's a law about breakin'
+things," he said, "same as there's a law about losin' them! My house is
+a sample-book," he said. "On them there walls--all stuck up like
+that--I've got a sample of most every mind in the village!--People give
+'em to me themselves," he said. "They let me rake out their trash
+barrels every now and then. They don't know what they're givin.'--Now,
+that little pewter rosette there----"
+
+"It would be nice--wouldn't it," I said, "if you could find a sample of
+Young Annie Halliway's mind? Then maybe you could match it!"
+
+"_Eh?_" said Old Man Smith. "A sample of her mind?" He looked jerky. He
+growled in his throat. "A--hem----A--hem," he said. He closed his eyes.
+I thought he'd decided to die. I screamed for Carol. He came running.
+He'd only been bee-stung twice. Old Man Smith opened his eyes. His voice
+sounded queer. "Where do they _think_ she lost her mind?" he whispered.
+
+"In Europe," I said. "Maybe in a train! Maybe on a boat! They don't
+know! She can't remember anything about it."
+
+"U--m--m," said Old Man Smith. He looked at Young Annie Halliway. "And
+where do _you_ think you lost it?" he said.
+
+Young Annie Halliway seemed very much pleased to be asked. She laughed
+right out.
+
+"In a March wind!" she said.
+
+"_Eh?_" said Old Man Smith. He turned to me again. "What did you say her
+name was?" he asked.
+
+I felt a little cross.
+
+"Halliway!" I said. "Halliway--Halliway--_Halliway_! They live in the
+big house out by the Chestnut Trees! They only come here in the Summers!
+Except now! The Doctors say it's Mysteria!"
+
+"The Doctors say _what_ is Mysteria?" said Old Man Smith.
+
+"What Annie's got!" I explained. "What made her lose her mind! Mysteria
+is what they call it."
+
+"U--m--m," said Old Man Smith. He reached way down into his pocket. He
+pulled out a box. He opened the box. It was full of pieces of colored
+glass! And of china! He juggled them in his hands. They looked gay. Red
+they were! And green! And white! And yellow! And blue! He snatched out
+all the blue ones and hid 'em quick in his pocket. "She seems sort of
+partial to blue," he said.
+
+There was one funny big piece of glass that was awful shiny. When he
+held it up to the light it glinted and glowed all sorts of colors. It
+made your eyes feel very calm.
+
+Annie Halliway reached out her hand for it. She didn't say a word. She
+just stared at it with her hand all reached out.
+
+But Old Man Smith didn't give it to her. He just sat and stared at her
+eyes.
+
+Her eyes never moved from the shining bit of glass. They looked awful
+funny. Bigger and bigger they got! And rounder and rounder! And stiller
+and stiller!
+
+It was like a puppy-dog pointing a little bird in the grass. It made you
+feel queer. It made you feel all sort of hollow inside. It made your
+legs wobble.
+
+Carol's mouth was wide open.
+
+So was Old Man Smith's.
+
+Old Man Smith reached out suddenly and put the shining bit of glass
+right into Annie Halliway's hand. It fell through her fingers. But her
+hand stayed just where it was, reaching out into the air.
+
+"Put down your arm!" said Old Man Smith.
+
+Annie Halliway put it down. Her eyes were still staring very wide.
+
+"Look!" said Old Man Smith. "Look!" He dropped several pieces of colored
+glass china into her lap.
+
+She chose the handle of a red tea cup and a little chunk of yellow
+crockery. She stared and stared at them. But all the time it was as
+though her eyes didn't see them. All the time it was as though she was
+looking at something very far away. Then all of a sudden she began to
+jingle them together in her hand,--the little piece of red china and the
+chunk of yellow bowl! And swing her shoulders! And stamp her foot! It
+looked like dancing. It sounded like clappers.
+
+"Oh, Ho! _This_ is Spain!" she laughed.
+
+Old Man Smith snatched all the blue pieces of china and glass out of his
+pocket again and tossed them into her lap. He looked sort of mad.
+
+"Spain?" he said. "Spain? What in the Old Harry has a handful of glass
+and china got to do with Spain?"
+
+"Harry?" said Annie Halliway. "Old--Harry?" Her eyes looked wider and
+blinder every minute. It was as though everything in her was wide awake
+except the thing she was thinking about. "Har--ry?" she puzzled.
+"Harry?" she dropped the red and yellow china from her hand and picked
+up a piece of blue glass and offered it to Old Man Smith. "Why, _that_
+is Harry!" she said. She reached for the pig-tail that had the blue
+Larkspur braided into it. She pointed to the pig-tail that had the blue
+fan braided into it. "Why, _that_ is Harry!" she said. She made a little
+sob in her throat.
+
+Old Man Smith jingled his hands at her.
+
+"There--There--There, my Pretty!" he said. "Never mind--Never mind!"
+
+He opened his hands. There were some little teeny-tiny pieces of plain
+glass in his hands. Little round knobs like beads they were. Very
+shining. They made a nice jingle.
+
+When Annie Halliway saw them she screamed! And snatched them in her
+hand! And threw them away just as far as she could! All over the grass
+she threw them!
+
+"I will not!" she screamed. "_I will not! I will not!_" Her tears were
+awful.
+
+When she got through screaming her face looked like a wet cloth that had
+everything else wrung out of it except shadows.
+
+"Where--is--Harry?" said Old Man Smith. He said it very slowly. And then
+all over again. "Where--is--Harry?--You wouldn't have dar'st not tell
+him if you'd known."
+
+Annie Halliway started to pick up some blue glass again. Then she
+stopped and looked all around her. It was a jerky stop. Her jaw sort of
+dropped.
+
+"Harry--is--in--prison!" she said. Even though she'd said it herself she
+seemed to be awfully surprised at the news. She shook and shook her head
+as though she was trying to wake up the idea that was asleep. Her eyes
+were all scrunched up now with trying to remember about it. She dragged
+the back of her hands across her forehead. First one hand and then the
+other. She opened her eyes very wide again and looked at Old Man Smith.
+
+"Where--is--Harry?" said Old Man Smith.
+
+Annie Halliway never took her eyes from Old Man Smith's face.
+
+"It--It was the night we crossed the border from France to Spain," she
+said. Her voice sounded very funny and far away. It sounded like
+reciting a lesson too. "There were seven of us and a teacher
+from the Paris art school," she recited. "It--It was the March
+holiday.----There--There--was a woman----a strange woman in the next
+compartment who made friends with me.--She seemed to be crazy over my
+hair.--She asked if she might braid it for the night."
+
+Without any tears at all Annie Halliway began to sob again.
+
+"When they waked us up at the Customs," she sobbed, "Harry came running!
+His face was awful! 'She's braided diamonds in your hair!' he cried. 'I
+heard her talking with her accomplice! A hundred thousand dollars' worth
+of diamonds! Smugglers and murderers both they are!--Everybody will be
+searched!'--He tore at my braids! I tore at my braids! The diamonds
+rattled out! Harry tried to catch them!--He pushed me back into the
+train! I saw soldiers running!--I thought they were going to shoot him!
+He thought they were going to shoot him!--I saw his eyes!--He looked
+so--so surprised!--I'd never noticed before how blue his eyes were!--I
+tell you I saw his eyes!--I couldn't speak!--There wasn't anybody to
+explain just why he had his hands full of diamonds!--I _saw_ his eyes! I
+tell you I couldn't speak!--I tell you I _never_ spoke!--My tongue went
+dead in my mouth! For months I never spoke!--I've only just begun to
+speak again!--I've only just----"
+
+She started to jump up from the ground where she was sitting! She
+couldn't!--She had braided Old Man Smith and his wheel chair into her
+hair! When she saw what she had done she toppled right over on her face!
+And fainted all out!
+
+Over behind the lilac bush somebody screamed.
+
+It was Annie Halliway's Mother! With her was a strange gentleman who had
+come all the way from New York to try and cure Annie Halliway. The
+strange gentleman was some special kind of a doctor.
+
+"Hush--Hush!" the Special Doctor kept saying to everybody. "This is a
+very crucial moment! Can't you see that this a very crucial moment?" He
+pointed to Annie Halliway on the grass. Her Mother knelt beside her
+trying very hard to comb Old Man Smith and his wheel-chair out of her
+pig-tail. "Speak to her!" said the Doctor. "Speak to her very gently!"
+
+"Annie?" cried her Mother. "Annie?--Annie--_Annie?_"
+
+Annie Halliway opened her eyes very slowly and looked up. It was a brand
+new kind of a look. It had a bottom to it instead of being just through
+and through and through. There was a little smile in it too. It was a
+pretty look.
+
+"Why, Mother," said Annie Halliway. "Where am I?"
+
+The Special Man from New York made a queer little sound in his throat.
+
+"Thank God!" he said. "She's all right _now_!"
+
+It seemed pretty quick to me.
+
+"You mean--" I said, "that her Mysteria is all cured--now?"
+
+"Not _Mys_teria," said the Special Man from New York, _"Hys_teria!"
+
+"No!--_Her_steria!" corrected Old Man Smith.
+
+The Special Man from New York began to laugh.
+
+But Annie Halliway's Mother began to cry.
+
+"Oh, just suppose we'd never found her?" she cried. She looked at Carol.
+She looked at me. She glared a little. But not so awfully much. "When
+you naughty children ran away with her?" she cried. "And we couldn't
+find her anywhere?--And the Doctor came? And there was only an hour to
+spare?--And we got a horse and drove round anywhere? And--And----"
+
+"I wouldn't have missed it for anything!" said the Special Man from New
+York.
+
+"And all your appointments waiting?" cried Annie Halliway's Mother.
+
+"Darn the appointments!" said the Special Man from New York. He slanted
+his head and looked at Old Man Smith. "We arrived," he said, "just at
+the moment when the young lady was gazing so--so intently at the piece
+of shiny glass." He made a funny grunt in his throat. "Let me
+congratulate you, Mr.--Mr. Smith!" he said. "Your treatment was most
+efficient!--Your hypnosis was perfect! Your----"
+
+"Hip _nothing_!" said Old Man Smith.
+
+"Of course, in a case like this," said the Special Man from New York,
+"the Power of Suggestion is always----"
+
+"All young folks," said Old Man Smith, "are cases of one kind or
+another--and the most powerful suggestion that I can make is that
+somebody find 'Harry!'"
+
+"'Harry?'" said Annie Halliway's Mother. "'_Harry?_'--Why, I've got four
+letters at home for Annie in my desk now--from some im--impetuous young
+man who signs himself 'Harry!'--He seems to be in an Architect's office
+in Paris! 'Robin' is what he calls Annie!--'_Dearest_ Robin'----"
+
+"Eh?" said Annie Halliway. "What? _Where?_" She sat bolt upright! She
+scrambled to her feet! She started for the carriage!
+
+Her Mother had to run to catch her.
+
+The Special Man from New York followed them just as fast as he could.
+
+Old Man Smith wheeled his chair to the gate to say "Good-bye."
+
+Everything seemed all mixed up.
+
+Annie Halliway's Mother never stopped talking a single second.
+
+"Oh, my Pet!" she cried. "My Precious. My Treasure!"
+
+With one foot on the carriage step the Special Man from New York turned
+round and looked at Old Man Smith. He smiled a funny little smile.
+
+"Seek--and ye shall find!" he said. "That is--if you only know _How_ and
+_Where_ to seek."
+
+Old Man Smith began to chuckle in his beard.
+
+"Yes, I admit that's quite a help," he said, "the knowing _How_ and
+_Where!_--But before you set out seekin' very hard for anything that's
+lost it's a pretty good idea to find out first just exactly what it is
+that you're seekin' for!--When a young lady's lost her _mind,_ for
+instance, that's one thing!--But if it's her _heart_ that's lost, why,
+that, of course, is quite another!"
+
+Annie Halliway's face wasn't white any more. It was as red as roses. She
+had it in her Mother's shoulder.
+
+The horses began to prance. The carriage began to creak.
+
+Annie Halliway's Mother looked all around.
+
+"Oh, dear--oh, dear--oh, dear, Mr.--Mr. Smith," she said. "How shall I
+ever repay you?"
+
+Old Man Smith reached out his hand across the fence. There was sort of a
+twinkle in his eye.
+
+"One dollar, please," said Old Man Smith.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF THE FUNNY SMELLS--AND EVERYTHING
+
+
+It was Carol who invented the Book. He didn't mean any harm.
+
+I helped him.
+
+We called it "The Book of the Funny Smells--and Everything."
+
+It was one Tuesday noon coming home from school that we stopped the Lady
+on the street.
+
+She was a very interesting looking lady. She looked like all sorts of
+different-colored silk roses. And a diamond brooch.
+
+"Excuse us, Madam," I said. "But we are making a book! And we have
+decided to begin it with you! If you were a Beautiful Smell instead of a
+Beautiful Lady,--what Beautiful Smell in the Whole Wide World would you
+choose to be?"
+
+The lady reeled back against the wall of the Post Office. And put on a
+gold eyeglass to support her.
+
+"Merciful Impudences!" she said. "What new kind of census is this?"
+
+We knew what a "census" was.
+
+"No! It isn't that at all!" I explained. "This is something important."
+
+Carol showed her the book. He showed her the pencil he was going to
+write the book with.
+
+"When it's all done," I explained, "everybody will want to read it!"
+
+"I can well believe it," said the Lady. She looked at Carol. Everybody
+looks at Carol.
+
+"Who are you children, anyway?" she said.
+
+"My name is Ruthy," I explained. "And this is my brother Carol."
+
+She began to look at Carol all over again. She reached out and shook him
+by the shoulder.
+
+"Dumbness!" she said. "Why let Sister do all the talking?"
+
+My stomach felt pretty queer.
+
+"My brother Carol _can't_ talk," I explained. "He _is_ dumb!"
+
+The Lady turned very red.
+
+"Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh dear," she said. She opened her purse. She took
+out a dollar bill. "Surely something could be done about it!" she said.
+
+"We are not looking for money," I explained. "We are perfectly rich. We
+have warm underalls. And two parents. And an older sister. We have a
+tame coon. And a tame crow. Our Father could paint the house any Autumn
+he wanted to if he'd rather do it than plant Tulips."
+
+The Lady looked at her watch. It was a bright blue watch no bigger than
+a violet is.
+
+"This is all very interesting," she said. "But at the obnoxious hotel
+which you run in this village dinner is at twelve o'clock and if I'm
+not there at exactly that moment there will not be another dinner, I
+suppose, until twelve o'clock the next day. So----"
+
+"Probably not," I said. "So if you don't feel timid at all about walking
+out with strangers, my brother Carol and I will walk home to the Hotel
+with you and write our book as we go."
+
+The Lady bit herself. She bit herself in the lip. She began to walk very
+fast.
+
+Carol walked very fast on one side of her. I walked very fast on the
+other. Carol carried the book. He carried it wide open so as to be all
+ready any moment. I carried the pencil.
+
+"Can you tell me," said the Lady, "just why you and your brother have
+picked upon me as the first victim of your most astonishing
+interrogations?"
+
+"Because you are the only Lady we ever saw in our lives that we didn't
+know who she was!" I explained. "And that makes it more interesting!"
+
+"O--h," said the Lady. She gave a queer little gasp. It was the Hotel
+happening! She ran up the hotel steps. There was a Gentleman waiting for
+her at the top of the steps. He was a tall Gentleman with a very cross
+mustache. The Lady whispered something to him. He shook his mustache at
+us.
+
+"Get out of here, you Young Scamps!" he cried. "Get out of here, I say!
+_Get out!_"
+
+No one had ever shaken his mustache at us before. We sat down on the
+step to think about it.
+
+The Gentleman ran off to call the Hotel Proprietor.
+
+The Lady looked a little sorry. She came running back. She stooped down.
+She took the book from Carol. And the pencil from me. She laughed a
+little.
+
+"You funny--funny children," she said. "What is it you want to know?
+The Most Beautiful Smell in the whole wide world,--is that it?--The Most
+Beautiful Smell in the whole wide world?" She looked back over her
+shoulder. She wrote very fast. Her cheeks looked pink. She banged the
+book together just the first second she had finished. She pulled my ear.
+"I'm--I'm sorry," she said.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," I assured her. "We'll be round and write the
+rest of the book some other day!"
+
+The Man with the Cross Mustache kept right on hunting all around.
+
+When the Hotel Proprietor came running and saw who we were he gave us
+two oranges instead, and a left-over roll of wall-paper with parrots on
+it, and all the old calendars that were in his desk.
+
+We had to race home across the railroad trestle to get there in time. It
+wasn't till we reached the Blacksmith Shop that we had a chance to stop
+and see what the Lady had written in our book. There was a Smoke Tree
+just outside the Blacksmith Shop. It was all in smoke. We sat down under
+it and opened our book.
+
+This is what the Lady had written in our book.
+
+     The most beautiful smell in the world is the smell of an old
+     tattered baseball glove--that's been lying in the damp
+     grass--by the side of a brook--in June Time.
+
+I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. We felt surprised. It wasn't
+exactly what you would have expected. Carol rolled over on his stomach.
+He clapped his heels in the air. He pounded his fists in the grass.
+
+We forgot all about going home. We went into the Blacksmith's Shop
+instead. It was a very earthy place. But nothing grew there. Not grass.
+Not flowers. Not even vines. Just Junk!
+
+The Blacksmith's name was Jason. He looked something like a Stove that
+could be doubled up in its stomach and carried round to all four corners
+of a horse for the horse to put his foot on. He was making shoes for a
+very stout black horse. The horse's name was Ezra. There were a great
+many sparks around! And iron noises! And flames! And smouches! Ezra's
+hoofs seemed to be burning! It smelt so funny we didn't think it would
+be polite to ask Jason what he'd rather smell like instead! So we
+decided to begin the other way about. But whatever way you decided you
+had to scream it.
+
+"Jason," I screamed. "If you were a Beautiful Sound instead of a
+Beautiful Blacksmith, what Beautiful Sound in the whole wide world would
+you choose to be?"
+
+"_Eh?_" screamed Jason. He stopped hammering. He stopped thumping. He
+stopped boiling poor Ezra's hoof with a red hot poker. "_Eh?_" he said
+all over again. "Well, that's a new one on me! What's the Big Idea?"
+
+"Well--I want to know," said Jason. He sat down on a great block of
+wood. He wiped his sleeve on his face. It made his sleeve all black. "If
+I was a Sound--?" he said. "Instead of a Man?--Instead of a man?" It
+seemed to puzzle him a good deal. "Not to be a man--any more you mean?
+No arms? Legs? Stomach? Eyes?--To get all worn out and busted stayin' on
+forever in one place? And then thrung away?--But to be just a--just a
+Sound?--Just a Sound? Well, of all the comical ideas! Of all the----"
+Then quite suddenly he whacked his hand down in a great black smouch on
+his knee and clanged his feet like dungeon chains across a clutter of
+horseshoes. "I've got it!" he cried. "I've got it!--If I was a Sound
+instead of a man I'd choose to be a Song!--Not great loud band-tunes, I
+mean, that nobody could play unless he was hired! And charged tickets!
+But some nice--pretty little Song--floatin' round all soft and easy on
+ladies' lips and in men's hearts. Or tinklin' out as pleasant as you
+please on moonlight nights from mandolin strings and young folks
+sparkin'. Or turnin' up just as likely as not in some old guy's whistle
+on the top of one of these 'ere omnibuses in London Town. Or travellin'
+even in a phonograph through the wonders of the great Sahara Desert.
+Something all simple--I mean that you could hum without even botherin'
+with the words. Something people would know who you was even if there
+_wasn't_ any words!--Something all sweet and low----'Sweet and Low,'
+that's it! My Mother used to sing it! I hain't thought of it for forty
+years! _That's_ the one I mean!"
+
+"Sweet and Low"--he began to sing.
+
+    Sweet and low--Sweet and low--
+    Wind of the Western Sea----
+
+His voice was all deep and full of sand like the way a bass drum makes
+you feel in your stomach. I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. We felt
+pretty surprised. Jason the Blacksmith looked more surprised than
+anyone! But he kept right on singing!
+
+    Over the rolling waters go--
+    Come from the--the something--moon and blow--
+    While my little one--while my pretty one--sleeps.
+    Father will come to his babe in the nest--
+    S-silvery--something--all out of the West--
+    Silvery----
+
+We ran!
+
+When we got to the Smoke Tree and looked back there was no sound at all
+in the Blacksmith Shop except the sound of Ezra thumping his hoofs. And
+Jason being a Song instead of a man!
+
+The faster we ran the more surprised we felt.
+
+When you _read_ a book, of course, you expect to be surprised. If you
+didn't think the person who made the book was going to tell you
+something that you didn't know before you wouldn't bother to read it.
+But when you're _writing_ a book it doesn't seem exactly as though so
+many unexpected things ought to happen to you!
+
+We were pretty glad when we ran right into the Old Minister who preaches
+sometimes when all the young ministers can't think of anything more to
+preach about.
+
+The Old Minister was leaning against the Bridge. The Old Lawyer was
+leaning against the Bridge with him. They were waving their canes. And
+their long white beards. And arguing about the "Thirty-Nine
+Articles."--Carol thinks it was the "Fifty-Seven Varieties" they were
+arguing about. But the "Fifty-Seven Varieties" I'm almost sure is
+Pickles. It's the "Thirty-Nine Articles" that is Arguments!
+
+The Old Minister laughed when he saw us coming. "Well--Well--Well!" he
+cried. "See who's here! And carrying such a big book too! And all out
+of breath!" He put his arm round Carol. I thought he was going to ask us
+our Catechisms. And there wasn't any breath left in our catechisms.
+
+"Oh, if you were a Beautiful Sound," I gasped, "instead of a Beautiful
+Preacher--what Beautiful Sound in the whole wide world--would you--would
+you choose to be?"
+
+"Eh?" said the Old Minister. "Eh?--What's--that? A--A--Sound instead of
+a Preacher? Well, upon my word!--This minute, you mean? Or any minute?
+If I was a Beautiful Sound instead of----?" He mopped his forehead. He
+looked pretty hot. He twinkled his eyes at the Old Lawyer. "Well--just
+_this_ minute," he said, "I'd rather be the Sound of Foaming Beer than
+anything else in the world that I can think of!" He thumped his cane on
+the ground. The Old Lawyer thumped his cane on the ground. They both
+started off down the road thumping as they walked. We heard them
+chuckling as they thumped. They weren't arguing any more about the
+"Thirty-Nine Articles." They were arguing about Cheese.
+
+And that was surprising too!
+
+There wasn't any dinner left when we got home except just knives and
+forks and spoons. My Mother found us two bowls to go with the spoons.
+And some milk to go with the bowls. And some crackers to go with the
+milk. Everything went very well.
+
+We told my Mother we were sorry to be late but that we were writing a
+book and it was very important.
+
+My Mother said yes,--she knew that writing books was very important and
+had always noticed that people who wrote 'em were very apt to be late to
+things. Her only regret, she said, was that Carol and I hadn't had a
+little more time in which to form habits of promptness before we began
+on such a chronic career as Literature.
+
+My Father said "Stuff and Nonsense!" My Father said that if we'd kindly
+condescend to tear ourselves away from the Charms of Literature for one
+brief afternoon he'd like to have us weed the Tulip Bed.
+
+We said we would.
+
+We forgot all about our book. It isn't that pulling up weeds is any
+special fun. It's the putting flowers back that you've pulled up by
+mistake that is such a Game in itself. You have to make little splints
+for them out of Forsythia twigs. You have to build little collars of
+pebble-stone all around them to keep marauding beetles from eating up
+their wiltedness. You have to bring them medicine-water from the brook
+instead of from the kitchen--so that nobody will scream and say, "Oh,
+what have you done now?--Oh, what have you done _now_?"
+
+It was Supper Time before we knew it. There was creamed chicken for
+supper. And wild strawberry preserve. And a letter from our sister
+Rosalee. Our sister Rosalee is in Cuba visiting her Betrother. She wrote
+seven pages about it. She seemed to like her Betrother very much.
+
+My Mother cried a little. My Father said "Oh, Pshaw! Oh, Pshaw! You
+can't keep 'em babies forever!" My Mother tried not to look at my
+Father's eyes. She looked at his feet instead. When she looked at his
+feet instead she saw that there were holes in his slippers. She seemed
+very glad. She ran and got a big needle. And a big thread. My Father had
+to sit very still.
+
+It seemed a very good time to remember about the Book.
+
+Carol went and got the Book. He put it down on the Dining Room table. It
+was a gray book with a red back to it. It said "Lanos Bryant" across the
+back of it. It was Lanos Bryant who had given us the book. Lanos Bryant
+was the Butcher. It was an old Account Book. The front of it was all
+mixed up with figurings. It was in the back of it that we were making
+Our Book.
+
+My Mother looked up. She smiled at us.
+
+"Why, bless my heart," she said, "we mustn't forget about the children's
+Book!"
+
+"No such luck," said my Father.
+
+Everybody smiled a little.
+
+"What's the Book about?" said my Mother.
+
+I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. He nudged me to go on.
+
+"It's about You!" I said. "And about Father! And about Jason the
+Blacksmith! And about the Old Preacher. And about most anybody I guess
+that would like to be About-ed!"
+
+"Well--Well--Well," said my Mother. "And what is it for?"
+
+"Oh, it's just for fun," I said. "But it's very important.--Just the
+first instant anybody reads it he'll know all there is to know about
+everybody without ever having to go and make calls on them! Everything
+interesting about them I mean! Everything that really matters! Lots of
+things that nobody would have guessed!"
+
+"Mercy!" said my Mother. She stopped mending my Father and jumped right
+up.
+
+My Father jumped right up too!
+
+"Oh, it isn't written yet!" I said. "It's only just begun!"
+
+"O--h," said my Mother. And sat down again.
+
+"We though maybe you and Father would help us," I said.
+
+"O--h," said my Father. And sat down again too.
+
+Carol began to laugh. I don't know why he laughed.
+
+"It's--it's just a set of questions," I explained.
+
+Carol opened the Book and found the questions.
+
+"Just five or six questions," I explained. "All you have to do is to
+answer the questions--and tell us how to spell it perhaps.--And then
+that makes the Book!"
+
+"It certainly sounds simple," said my Mother. She began mending my
+Father very hard. "And what are some of the questions?" she asked.
+
+"Well--the first question," I explained, "is 'What is your name?'"
+
+My Mother gave a little giggle. She hushed my Father with her hand.
+
+"Oh surely," she said, "there couldn't be any objection to telling these
+pleasant children our names?"
+
+"No--o," admitted my Father.
+
+My Mother looked up. She twinkled her eyes a little as well as her
+mouth.
+
+"Our names are 'Father' and 'Mother'," she said.
+
+Carol wrote the names in the Book. He wrote them very black and literary
+looking. "Father" at the top of one page. And "Mother" at the top of
+the other. They looked nice.
+
+"All right then," said my Father. "Fire away!"
+
+I looked at my Father. I looked at my Mother. I didn't know just which
+one to begin with. Carol kicked me in the shins for encouragement. I
+decided to begin with my Mother.
+
+"Oh Mother," I said. "If you were a Beautiful Smell instead of a
+Beautiful Mother,--what Beautiful Smell in the whole wide world--would
+you choose to be?"
+
+"Eh? What's that? _What?_" said my Father. "Well, of all the idiotic
+foolishness! Of all the--"
+
+"Why no--not at all," said my Mother. "Why--Why I think it's rather
+interesting! Why--Why--Though I must admit," she laughed out suddenly,
+"that I never quite thought of things in just that way before!" She
+looked out the window. She looked in the fire-place. She looked at my
+Father. She looked at Carol. She looked at me. She began to clap her
+hands. "I've got it!" she said. "I know what I'd choose! A White Iris!
+In all the world there's no perfume that can compare with the perfume of
+a White Iris!--Orris root they call it. Orris--"
+
+"Humph! What's the matter with Tulips?" said my Father.
+
+"Oh but Tulips don't have any smell at all," said my Mother. "Except
+just the nice earthy smell of Spring winds and Spring rains and Spring
+sunbeams!--Oh of course they _look_ as though they were going to smell
+tremendously sweet!" she acknowledged very politely. "But they're just
+so busy being _gay_ I suppose that--"
+
+"The Tulip Goldfinch," said my Father coldly, "is noted for its
+fragrance."
+
+"Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh dear," said my Mother. She seemed very
+sorry. She folded her hands. "Oh very well," she said.
+"Mondays,--Wednesdays,--Fridays,--and Sundays,--I will be the fragrance
+of the Tulip Goldfinch. But Tuesdays,--Thursdays and Saturdays I really
+must insist on being the fragrance of a White Iris!"
+
+"Humph!" said my Father. "There aren't any of them that are worth the
+nice inky lithograph smell of the first Garden Catalogues that come off
+the presses 'long about February!"
+
+My Mother clapped her hands again.
+
+"Oh Goodie!" she said. "Write Father down as choosing to smell like 'the
+nice inky lithograph smell of the first Garden Catalogues that come off
+the presses 'long about February'!"
+
+My Father had to tell us how to spell "Lithograph." Carol wrote it very
+carefully. My Mother laughed.
+
+"Well really," said my Mother, "I'm beginning to have a very good
+time.--What is Question No. 2?"
+
+"Question No. 2," I said, "is:--If you were a Beautiful Sound instead of
+a Beautiful Father and Mother,--what Beautiful Sound in the whole wide
+world would you choose to be?"
+
+My Father felt better almost at once.
+
+"Oh Pshaw!" he said. "That's easy. I'd be the Sound of Gold Pieces
+jingling in the pocket of a man--of a man--" He looked at my Mother.
+"--Of a man who had a Brown-Eyed Wife who looked something like my
+Brown-Eyed Wife--and three children whose names--when you spoke 'em
+quickly sounded very similar--yes, very similar indeed to 'Ruthy' and
+'Carol' and 'Rosalee'!"
+
+"Oh what nonsense!" said my Mother.
+
+"What does the jingle of Gold Pieces amount to?--Now if I could be any
+Sound I wanted to--I'd choose to be the sweet--soft--breathy little
+_stir_ that a nice little family makes when it wakes up in the
+morning--so that no matter how much you've worried during the long black
+night you can feel at once that everything's all right! And that
+everybody's all there!--In all the world," cried my Mother, "I know of
+no sweeter sound than the sound of a nice little family--waking up in
+the morning!"
+
+I turned to Carol's page. I laughed and laughed. "Bubbling Fat is what
+Carol would like to sound like!" I cried. "The noise that Bubbling Fat
+makes when you drop doughnuts into it!--But I?--If I could be any lovely
+Sound I wanted to,--I'd like to be the Sound of Rain on a Tin Roof--at
+night! All over the world people would be lying awake listening to you!
+And even if they didn't want to listen they'd have to! Till you were
+good and ready to stop!"
+
+It took Carol a good while to write down everything about "Gold Pieces"
+and a "Nice Little Family waking up in the Morning" and "Rain on a Tin
+Roof."
+
+"The next question is pretty hard," I explained. "Maybe you'd like to be
+thinking about it.--If you were a Beautiful Sight--that people came
+miles to see,--what Beautiful Sight in the whole wide world would you
+choose to be?"
+
+My Father didn't wait a minute. "A Field of Tulips!" he said.
+
+Carol pounded the table with his fists. His face was like an explosion
+of smiles. He pointed to my Father's page in the Book.
+
+"It's already written!" I said. "We guessed it all the time!"
+
+We turned to my Mother. We saw a little quiver go through my Mother's
+shoulders.
+
+"I'd choose to be a Storm at Sea!" said my Mother.
+
+"_What?_" cried my Father.
+
+"A Storm at Sea!" said my Mother.
+
+My Father stopped saying "What?" And made a little gasping sound
+instead. "_You?_--_You?_" he said. "The gentlest soul that ever
+breathed?--Would like to be a 'Storm at Sea'?"
+
+"It's only the 'mother' side of me that is gentle!" laughed my Mother.
+She threw back her head suddenly. She thrust out her hands. It jerked
+her soft, calm hair all fluffy and wild across her forehead. Her eyes
+danced! Her cheeks turned all pink! "Oh _wouldn't_ it be fun?" she
+cried. "All the roaring! And the ranting! And the foaming! And the
+_Furying_!--Racing up the beaches in great waves! And splashes!
+_Banging_ against the rocks! Scaring the fishes almost to pieces!
+Rocking the boats till people fell _Bump_ right out of their berths onto
+the floor! Ruffling the gulls till----"
+
+"You wouldn't actually--wreck a boat would you?" said my Father.
+
+My Mother stopped tossing her head. And waving her hands. She gave a
+little sigh. She began mending my Father again very hard.
+
+"Just----pirates," she said.
+
+"O--h," said my Father.
+
+"We intended to make the next one about 'Motions,'" I explained. "But it
+was too hard. Carol wanted to be an Elevator!--Carol says an Elevator is
+like quick-silver in a giant thermometer that's gone mad!--He wanted to
+be the motion it makes when the Elevator's going down and the floor's
+coming up! But it made me feel queer in my stomach!"
+
+"Merciful Heavens!" said my Father. "What kind of a family have I
+drawn?--My Wife wants to be a 'Storm at Sea' and my Son aspires to feel
+like an 'Elevator Gone Mad'!"
+
+Carol looked at my Mother. My Mother looked at Carol. They laughed their
+eyes together.
+
+"So we made it 'Money' and 'Memory' instead," I explained.
+
+"Made what 'Money' and 'Memory' instead?" said my Father.
+
+"The next two questions," I explained.
+
+"O--h," said my Mother.
+
+"Fire away!" said my Father.
+
+"Question No. 4," I said. "Which do you like best? _Times?_ or
+_Things?_"
+
+"Times or Things?" said my Father. "Whatever in the world do you mean?"
+His eyebrows looked pretty puzzled.
+
+"Why, we mean," I explained, "if somebody gave you five whole dollars
+for your birthday--how would you rather spend it?--What would you get
+most fun out of, we mean?--_Times?_ Or _Things?_--Would you be most apt
+to spend it for Rabbits, we mean? Or going to a Fair?"
+
+"Oh," said my Father, "I see!--Times or Things?--Times--or things?--Why
+_Things_!" he decided almost at once. "_Things_ of course!--When you
+buy a _Thing_ you've got something really tangible for your money!
+Something definite! Something really to show!--'Rabbits' I admit would
+probably not be my choice.--But a book, now! A set of garden tools?--A
+pair of rubber boots even?"
+
+"N--o," said my Mother very softly, "I'm almost sure I'd rather 'go to
+the Fair'!--'_Times_' or '_Things_'?--Yes I'm perfectly positive," she
+cried out, "that _Times_ give me more pleasure than _Things_ do!--Now
+that I think of it I can see quite plainly that always--always I've
+preferred to spend my money 'going to the Fair'!"
+
+"Yes, but how foolish," said my Father. "When the Fair's over it's
+over!--Nothing left to show for it but just a memory."
+
+My Mother laughed right out loud. It was the prettiest laugh.
+
+"Now that's where you're mistaken!" she laughed. "When the Fair's what
+you call 'over,'--that's the time it's really _just begun_!--Books get
+lost--or puppies chew them! Garden tools rust! Even the best rubber
+boots in the world get the most awful holes poked through their
+toes!--But a Happy Memory?--A Happy Memory--?" She jumped up suddenly
+and crept into my Father's arms.
+
+My Father stroked her hair. And stroked it.
+
+Carol kicked me in the shins.
+
+"There's only one more question!" I cried out pretty loud.
+
+"What is it?" said my Mother. It sounded pretty mumbly through my
+Father's shoulder.
+
+"Oh this one is very important," I said. "It's about _colors_."
+
+"Colors?" said my Father. He didn't seem to care nearly as much as you'd
+have thought he would.
+
+"C--Colors," mumbled my Mother.
+
+"Somewhere in a book," I explained, "we read about a man who wanted his
+memory 'kept green?'--Why _green?_ Why not pink?--Why not blue?--Or
+even red with a cunning little white line in it?"
+
+"_Eh?_" said my Father.
+
+"If you were going away," I explained.
+
+My Mother's hands clutched at his coat. She gave a queer little shiver.
+"Oh not--'away'!" she protested.
+
+"For ever and ever," I explained.
+
+My Mother's face came peering out from the shadow of my Father's
+shoulder. She started to laugh. And made a little sob instead. "Oh not
+for----ever----and _ever_?" she said.
+
+We all sat and looked at each other. I felt awful queer in my stomach.
+
+Carol kicked me in the shins. He wrote something quick on a piece of
+paper and shoved it across the table at me.
+
+"_China_ was the place that Carol meant!" I explained. "Oh he didn't
+mean--at all--what you thought he meant!--If you were going away to--to
+_China_--for ever and ever--and ever--and gave your Best Friend a whole
+lot of money like twenty-five dollars to remember you by--what color do
+you _hope_ he'd keep your memory?"
+
+"Oh--yes--why of course!" said my Father quite quickly. "It's a jolly
+one after all, isn't it!--Color--Color?--Let me see!--For twenty-five
+dollars you say? Yes Yes!--The very thing! _Yellow_ of course! I hope my
+Best Friend would have wit enough to buy a _Lamp_!--Nothing fancy you
+know but something absolutely reliable.--Daytimes to be sure your memory
+wouldn't be much use to him. But nights--the time everybody needs
+everybody the most,--Nights I say,--looking back from--from _China_, was
+it that you designated?--Nights it would be rather pleasant I think to
+feel that one lived on and on--as a yellow glow in his friend's life."
+
+My Father reached out and pinched my ear.
+
+"How about it, Ruthy?" he asked.
+
+"Oh that's all right," I admitted. "But if _I_ gave my Best Friend
+twenty-five dollars to remember me by--I hope he'd buy a Blueberry
+Bush!--Just _think_ of all the colors it would keep your memory!--White
+in blossom-time! And blue in fruit-season! And red as blood all the
+Autumn! With brown rabbits hopping through you!--And speckled birds
+laying--goodness knows _what_ colored eggs! And--"
+
+Somebody banged the front door. Somebody scuffled on the threshold.
+Somebody shouted "Hello--Hello--Hello--!" It was the Old Doctor.
+
+We ran to see if he had peppermints in his pocket.
+
+He had!
+
+After the Old Doctor had given us all the peppermints he thought we
+ought to have--and seven more besides, he sat down in the big cretonne
+chair by the window, and fanned his neck with a newspaper. He seemed to
+be pretty mad at the people who had made his collars.
+
+"W-hew!" he said. "The man who invented a 21-inch collar ought to be
+forced to suck boiling starch through the neck of a Blueing Bottle!"
+
+We didn't see just why.
+
+The Old Doctor said he didn't care to discuss it.
+
+"Any news to-day?" asked my Father.
+
+"News enough!" said the Old Doctor. He seemed pretty mad about that too!
+
+"Such as what?" asked my Father.
+
+"There's a Prince and Princess in town!" said the Old Doctor. "Or a Duch
+and Duchess!--Or a Fool and Fooless!--I don't care what you call
+'em!--They've got some sort of a claim on the old Dun Voolees estate.
+Brook,--meadow,--blueberry----hillside,--popple grove,--everything!
+They've come way from Austria to prove it! Going to build a Tannery! Or
+a Fertilizer Factory! Or some other equally odoriferous industry! Fill
+the town with foreign laborers!--String a line of lowsy shacks clear
+from the Blacksmith Shop to the river!--Hope they _choke_!"
+
+"Oh my dear--my dear!" said my Mother.
+
+The Old Doctor looked a little funny.
+
+"Oh I admit it's worth something," he said, "to have you call me your
+'dear.'--But I'm mad I tell you clear through. And when you've got as
+much '_through_' to you as I have, that's _some mad_!--W-hew!"
+he said. "When I think of our village,--our precious, clean,
+decent, simple little All-American village--turned into a
+cheap--racketty--crowd-you-off-the-sidewalk Saturday Night Hell
+Hole...?"
+
+"Oh--Oh--OH!" cried my Mother.
+
+"Quick! Get him some raspberry shrub," cried my Father.
+
+"Maybe he'd like to play the Children's new Game!" cried my Mother.
+
+"It isn't a Game," I explained. "It's a Book!"
+
+My Mother ran to get the Raspberry Shrub. She brought a whole pitcher.
+It tinkled with ice. It sounded nice. When the Old Doctor had drunken it
+he seemed cooled quite a little. He put the glass down on the table. He
+saw the Book. He looked surprised.
+
+"Lanos--Bryant? Accounts?" he read. He looked at the date. He looked at
+my Father. "What you trying to do, Man?" he said. "Reconstruct a
+financial picture of our village as it was a generation ago? Or trace
+your son Carol's very palpable distaste for a brush, back to his
+grandfather's somewhat avid devotion to pork chops?" He picked up the
+book. He opened the first pages. He read the names written at the tops
+of the pages. Some of the names were pretty faded.--"Alden, Hoppin,
+Weymoth, Dun Vorlees," he read. He put on his glasses. He scrunched his
+eyes. He grunted his throat. "W-hew!" he said. "A hundred pounds of
+beans in one month?--Is it any wonder that young Alden ran away to
+sea--and sunk clear to the bottom in his first shipwreck?--'Roast
+Beef'?--'Roast Beef'?--'Malt and Hops'?--'Malt and Hops'?--'Roast
+Beef'?--'Malt and Hops'?--Is _that_ where Old Man Weymoth got his
+rheumatism?--And Young Weymoth--his blood pressure?--Dun Vorlees?--Dun
+Vorlees?--_What?_ No meat at all from November to February?--No
+fruit?--Only three pounds of sugar?--Great Gastronomics! Back of all
+that arrogance,--that insulting aloofness,--was _real_ Hunger gnawing at
+the Dun Vorlees vitals?--Was _that_ the reason why--?--Merciful
+Heavens!" cried the Old Doctor. "This book is worth twenty dollars to
+me--this very minute in my Practice! The light it sheds on the Village
+Stomach,--the Village Nerves,--the--"
+
+"Please, Sir," I said. "The Book is Carol's. Mr. Lanos Bryant gave it
+to him.--And we're planning to get a great deal more than twenty dollars
+for it when we sell it!"
+
+"_Eh?_" said the Old Doctor. "_What?_"
+
+He jerked round in his chair and _glared_ at Carol.
+
+"_This_ I'll have you understand, my Young Man," he said, "is in the
+cause of Science!"
+
+Carol looked pretty nervous. He began to smooth his hair as well as he
+could without bristles. It didn't smooth much.
+
+"Oh please, Sir," I explained, "people who write books _never_ have
+smooth hair!"
+
+"Who's talking about writing books?" roared the Old Doctor.
+
+"Please, Sir, _we're_ trying to talk about it," I said. My voice sounded
+pretty little. "It's the _back_ part of the book that's the important
+part," I explained. "It's the back part of the book that we're writing!"
+
+"_Eh?_" said the Old Doctor.
+
+He slammed the book together. He stood up and began to look for his hat.
+
+There didn't seem a moment to lose if we we're going to get him into our
+book. I ran and caught him by the hand. Even if his face was busy his
+hands always had time to be friends with Carol and me.
+
+"Oh please--please--_please_," I besought him. "If you were a Beautiful
+Smell instead of a Beautiful Doctor,--what Beautiful Smell in the whole
+wide world would you choose to be?"
+
+"What?" said the old Doctor. "_What? W-h-a-t?_" he kept saying over and
+over. He looked at my Father. He looked at my Mother. My Mother told him
+about our Book. He made a loud Guffaw. "Guffaw" I _think_ is the noise
+he made. Carol is _sure_ that it is! He looked at Carol. He looked at
+me. He began to Guffaw all over again.
+
+"Well really, Young Authorettes," he said, "I hardly know how to answer
+you or how to choose. Ether or Chloroform and general Disinfectants
+being the most familiar savors of my daily life,--the only savors indeed
+that I ever expect to suggest to anybody--" He looked out the window.
+There was an apple-blossom tree. It made the window look very full of
+June. His collar seemed to hurt him. It made him pretty serious. It made
+his voice all solemn.
+
+"But I'll tell you, Kiddies," he said quite suddenly. "I'll tell you the
+Sweetest Thing that I ever smelled in my life!--It was the first Summer
+I was back from College.--I was out on the Common playing ball. Somebody
+brought me word that my Father was dead.--I didn't go home.--I slunk off
+instead to my favorite trout-brook--and sat down under a big white birch
+tree--and _cursed_!--I was very bitter. I needed my Father very much
+that year. And my step-mother was a harsh woman.--Late that night when I
+got home,--ugly with sorrow,--I found that I'd left my Catcher's glove.
+It happened to be one that my Father had given me.--With matches and a
+tin-can lantern I fumbled my way back to the brook. The old glove lay
+palm-upward in the moss and leaves. Somebody had filled the palm with
+wild violets.--I put my face down in it--like a kid--and bawled my heart
+out.--It was little Annie Dun Vorlees it seemed who had put the violets
+there. Trailed me clear from the Ball Field. Little kid too. Only
+fourteen years to my twenty. Why her Mother wouldn't even let me come to
+the house. Had made Annie promise even not to speak to me.--But when
+Trouble hit me, little Annie--?" The Old Doctor frowned his eyebrows.
+"Words!" he said. "It's _words_ after all that have the real fragrance
+to 'em!--Now take that word 'Loyalty' for instance. I can't even see it
+in a Newspaper without--" He put back his head suddenly. He gave a queer
+little chuckle. "Sounds funny, doesn't it, Kiddies," he laughed, "to
+say that the sweetest thing you ever smelled in your life was an old
+baseball glove thrown down on the mossy bank of a brook?"
+
+I looked at Carol. Carol looked at me. His eyes were popping. We ran to
+the Book. We snatched it open. It bumped our heads. We pointed to the
+writing. I read it out loud.
+
+     The most beautiful smell in the world is the smell of an old
+     tattered baseball glove that's been lying in the damp
+     grass--by the side of a brook--in June Time.
+
+My Mother looked funny.
+
+"Good Gracious," she said. "Are my children developing 'Second
+Sight'?--First it was the 'Field of Tulips' already written down as
+their Father's choice before he could even get the words out of his
+mouth!--And now, hours before the Old Doctor ever even dreamed of the
+Book's existence they've got his distinctly unique taste in perfumes
+all--"
+
+"But this isn't the Old Doctor!" I cried out. "She wrote it herself.
+It's the Lady down at the hotel. It's the--the Empress that the Old
+Doctor was talking about!"
+
+"The--Empress?" gasped the Old Doctor.
+
+"Well maybe you said 'Princess,'" I admitted. "It was some one from
+Austria anyway--come to fuss about the old Dun Vorlees place! You said
+it was! You said that's who it was!--It's the only Strange Lady in the
+village!"
+
+"What?" gasped the Old Doctor. "_What?_" He looked at the book. He read
+the Lady's writing. Anybody could have seen that it wasn't our writing.
+It was too dressy. He put on his glasses. He read it again.
+
+     --the smell of an old tattered baseball glove--that's been
+     lying in the damp grass--side of a brook--June Time.
+
+"Good Lord!" he cried out. "Good Lord!"--He couldn't seem to swallow
+through his collar. "Not anyone else!" he gasped. "In all the
+world!--There couldn't possibly be anyone else! It must--It _must_ be
+little Annie Dun Vorlees herself!"
+
+He rushed to the window. There was a grocery boy driving by.
+
+"Hi! Hi there!" he called out. "Don't mind anybody's orders just now!
+Take me quick to the Hotel!--It's an Emergency I tell you! She may be
+gone before I get there!"
+
+We sat down on the sofa and curled up our legs. Our legs felt queer.
+
+My Mother and Father sat down on the other sofa. They looked queer all
+over. They began to talk about the Village. It wasn't exactly the
+Village that we knew. It was as though they talked about the Village
+when it was a _child_. They talked about when the Bridge was first
+built. They talked about the Spring when the Big Freshet swept the
+meadow. They talked about the funny color of Jason the Blacksmith's
+first long trousers. They talked about a tiny mottled Fawn that they
+had caught once with their own hands at a Sunday School picnic in the
+Arbutus Woods. They talked about the choir rehearsals in the old white
+church. They talked about my Father's Graduation Essay in the High
+School. It was like History that was sweet instead of just true. It made
+you feel a little lonely in your throat. Our Tame Coon came and curled
+up on our legs. It made our legs feel better. The clock struck nine. Our
+Father and Mother forgot all about us. Pretty soon we forgot all about
+ourselves. When we woke up the Old Doctor had come back. He was standing
+by the table in the lamplight talking to my Father and my Mother.
+
+He looked just the same--only different--like a portrait in a newspaper
+that somebody had tried to copy. All around the inner edges of his
+bigness it was as though someone had sketched the outline of a slimmer
+man.--It looked nice.
+
+"Well it _was_ little Annie Dun Vorlees!" he said.
+
+"Was it indeed?" said my Father.
+
+"Hasn't changed a mite!" said the Old Doctor. "Not a mite!--Oh of course
+she's wearing silks now instead of gingham.--And her hair?--Well perhaps
+it's just a little bit gray but----"
+
+"Gray hair's very pretty," said my Mother.
+
+"Humph!" said the Old Doctor. "I expected of course that she'd think me
+changed a good deal. I've grown stout. 'Healthy' she called it.--She
+thought I looked 'very healthy'!" The Old Doctor shifted his feet. He
+twitched at a newspaper on the table. "That Austrian gentlemen with her
+isn't her Husband," he said. "She's a--she's a widow now.--It's her
+Husband's brother."
+
+"Really?" said my Father.
+
+"Oh _Thunder_!" said the Old Doctor. "I guess perhaps I spoke a little
+bit hastily when I was here before--about their ruining the
+Village!--I've been talking a bit with Annie and--" His face turned
+quite red suddenly. He laughed a little. "There won't be any changes
+made at present in the old Dun Vorlees place--I imagine.--Not at present
+anyhow."
+
+He looked over at us. We scrunched our eyes perfectly tight.
+
+"Asleep," he said. He picked up our Book. He tucked it under his arm. He
+looked at my Father and Mother. "It's quite time," he said, "that you
+started a Bank Account for these children's college education.--It costs
+a great deal to send children to college nowadays. Carol will surely
+want a lot of baseball bats.--And girls I know are forever needing
+bonnets!" He took two Big Gold Pieces from his pocket and put them down
+on the table where our Book had been. They looked very shining.
+
+My Father gave a little gasp. He jumped up! He started to argue!
+
+My Mother hushed him with her hand. "S--sh----not to-night!" she
+whispered. "Not to-night!"
+
+She looked at the Old Doctor. She looked at our Book all hugged up tight
+under his arm. Her eyes looked as though they were going to cry. But her
+mouth looked as though it was going to laugh.
+
+"Oh of course--if it's in the Cause of Science," she said. "If it's in
+the Cause of Science."
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE DOG WHO COULDN'T SLEEP
+
+
+It was our Uncle Peter who sent us the little piece of paper.
+
+It was a piece of paper torn out of that part of a newspaper where
+people tell what they want if they've got money enough to pay for it.
+
+This is what it said:
+
+     "WANTED a little dog who can't sleep to be night companion
+     for a little boy who can't sleep. Will pay fifty dollars."
+
+Our Uncle Peter sent it to my Father and told him to give it to us.
+
+"Your children know so many dogs," he said.
+
+"Not--fifty dollars' worth," said my Father. He said it with points in
+his eyes.
+
+"Oh--I'm not so sure," said my Mother. She said it with just a little
+smile in her voice.
+
+It was my Mother who gave us the big sheet of brown paper to make our
+sign. My brother Carol mixed the paint. I mixed the letters. It was a
+nice sign. We nailed it on the barn where everybody who went by could
+see it. It said:
+
+    "Carol and Ruthy.
+    Dealers in Dogs who
+    Can't Sleep."
+
+Nobody dealt with us. We were pretty discouraged.
+
+We asked the Grocer if he had a little dog who couldn't sleep. We asked
+the Postman. We asked the Butcher. They hadn't.
+
+We asked the old whiskery man who came every Spring to buy old bottles
+and papers. HE HAD!
+
+He brought the dog on a dungeon chain. He said if we'd give him fifty
+cents for the dungeon chain we could have the dog for nothing.
+
+It seemed like a very good bargain.
+
+Our Father lent us the fifty cents.
+
+He was a nice dog. We named him Tiger Lily. His hair was red and smooth
+as Sunday all except his paws and ears. His paws and ears were sort of
+rumpled. His eyes were gold and very sweet like keepsakes you must never
+spend. He had a sad tail. He was a setter dog. He was meant to hunt. But
+he couldn't hunt because he was so shy. It was guns that he was so shy
+about.
+
+Our Mother invited us to wash him. He washed very nicely.
+
+We wrote our triumph to our Uncle Peter and asked him to send us the
+fifty dollars.
+
+Our Uncle Peter came instead in an automobile and took Tiger Lily and
+Carol and me to the city.
+
+"Of course he isn't exactly a 'little dog,'" we admitted. "But at least
+he's a dog! And at least he 'can't sleep'!"
+
+"Well--I wonder," said our Uncle Peter. He seemed very pleased to wonder
+about it. He twisted his head on one side and looked at Tiger Lily.
+"What do you mean,--'doesn't sleep'?" he said.
+
+Because my brother Carol is dumb and never talks I always have to do the
+explaining. It was easy to explain about Tiger Lily.
+
+"Why when you're in bed and fast asleep," I explained, "he comes and
+puts his nose in your neck! It feels wet! It's full of sighs and a cool
+breeze! It makes you jump and want your Mother!--All the rest of the
+time at night he's roaming! And prowling! And s'ploring!--Up the front
+stairs and down the back--and up the front and down the back!--Every
+window he comes to he stops and listens! And listens!--His toe-nails
+have never been cut!--It sounds lonely!"
+
+"What does he seem to be listening for?" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"Listening for gun-bangs," I explained.
+
+"O--h," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+The city was full of noises like gun-bangs. It made Tiger Lily very
+nervous. He tried to get under everything. It took us most all the
+afternoon to get him out.
+
+The little boy's name was Dicky. He wasn't at home. "Come again," said
+the man at the door. We came again about eight o'clock at night. It
+seemed as late as Christmas Eve and sort of lonely without our Parents
+or any other presents. We had to climb a lot of stairs. It made Tiger
+Lily puff a little and look very glad. It made our Uncle Peter puff some
+too. It made the little boy's Mother puff a good deal. There wasn't any
+Father. The Mother was all in black about it. Her clothes looked very
+sorrowful. But her face was just sort of surprised. She had white hands.
+She carried them all curved up like pond-lilies. She was pretty. Even
+if you'd never seen her but once in a train window you'd always have
+remembered.
+
+The little boy's room was very large and full of lights. There were
+tinkly glass things hanging everywhere. There was a music-box playing.
+There was a tin railroad train running round and round the room all by
+itself making a bangy noise. There was a wound-up bird in a toy cage
+crying "Hi! Hi!" There was a crackling fire. Everything was tinkling or
+playing or singing or banging or crackling. It sounded busy. You had to
+talk very loud to make any one hear you.
+
+The little boy sat on top of a table in a big bay window looking out at
+the night. His knees were all cuddled up into the curve of his arms. He
+had on a little red wrapper and bare legs and fur slippers. He was lots
+littler than us. He looked cunning.
+
+We stamped our feet on the rug.
+
+"Here's your dog!" I said.
+
+When the little boy saw Tiger Lilly he jumped right down from the table
+and screamed. It was with joy that he screamed. He threw his arms right
+around Tiger Lily's neck and screamed all over again. Tiger Lily liked
+it very much.
+
+"What makes his paws so fluffy?" he screamed. "How soft his face is!
+He's got sweet eyes! He's got a sad tail! What's his name? Where did you
+get him? Is he for me? Do I have to pay money for him? What does he eat?
+Will he drink coffee?" Just as though he was mad about something he
+began suddenly to jump up and down and cry tears. "Why doesn't somebody
+answer me?" he screamed. "Why doesn't somebody tell me?"
+
+He got so excited about it that he hit Carol on the nose and blooded him
+quite a good deal.
+
+The little boy's mother came running.
+
+"Oh hush--hush, Dicky!" she cried. "Don't be in such a hurry! The boy
+will tell you all about it in time! Give him time I say! Give him
+time!"
+
+"No he won't," I explained. "My brother Carol never tells anything. He
+can't."
+
+"He's--dumb," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+The Lady looked sort of queer.
+
+"Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh dear," she said. "What a misfortune!"
+
+Our Uncle Peter sort of sniffed his expression.
+
+"Misfortune?" he said. "I call it the greatest blessing in the world!"
+He glared at little Dicky. "Yes the greatest blessing in the world!" he
+said. "A child who doesn't babble or fuss!--Or SCREAM!"
+
+The Lady looked more and more surprised. She turned to the little boy.
+
+"'Dumb,' Dicky," she said. "You understand? Doesn't speak?"
+
+Dicky looked at his Mother. He looked at Carol. A little pucker came and
+blacked itself between his eyebrows. As though to toss the pucker away
+he tossed back his whole head and ran to Tiger Lily and threw his arms
+around Tiger Lily's neck.
+
+"Doesn't----EVER?" he said.
+
+"Doesn't ever--what?" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"Sleep?" said Dicky.
+
+"It was the boy we were talking about," laughed his Mother. "Not the
+doggie." She tried to put her arms around him.
+
+He wiggled right out of them and ran back to Tiger Lily.
+
+"Is it his adenoids?" he cried. "Have you had his eyes tested? How do
+you know but what it's his teeth?"
+
+"Whose teeth?" frowned our Uncle Peter.
+
+"Tiger Lily's!" cried Dicky.
+
+His Mother made a sorry sound in her throat.
+
+"Poor Dicky," she said. "He's had most everything done to
+him!--Tonsils,--spine,--eyes,--ears,--teeth!--Why the last Doctor I saw
+was almost positive that the Insomnia was due entirely to--" In the very
+middle of what it was due to she turned to our Uncle Peter. Her voice
+got very private. Our Uncle Peter had to stoop his head to hear it. He
+had a proud head. It didn't stoop very easily.
+
+"He isn't my own little boy," she whispered.
+
+As though his ears were magic the little boy looked up and grinned. His
+eyes looked naughty.
+
+"Nobody's own little boy," he said. "Nobody's own little boy!" As though
+it was a song without any tune he began to sing it. "Nobody's--Nobody's
+own little boy!"
+
+The Lady tried to stop him. He struck at her with his feet. It made a
+hurt on her arm. He snatched Tiger Lily by the collar and started for
+the door.
+
+"Going to find Cook and get a bone!" he said. He said it like a boast.
+He slammed the door behind him. It made a rude noise. He came running
+back and looked a little sorry, but mostly bashful. He pointed at Tiger
+Lily. "What--What's HE afraid of?" he said.
+
+"Noises," I explained.
+
+"Noises?" cried the little boy. He cried it with a sort of a hoot. It
+sounded scornful.
+
+"Oh pshaw!" he said. "There isn't a noise in the world that I'm afraid
+of! Not thunder! Not guns! Not ANYTHING! Noises are my friends! In the
+night I take torpedoes and crack 'em on the hearth just to hear them
+sputter! I've got three tin pans tied on a string! I've got a pop-gun!"
+
+He ran back to the table to get the gun. It was a nice gun. It was
+painted bright blue. It looked loud.
+
+When Tiger Lily saw it he dove under the bed. It was hard to get him
+out. The little boy looked very astonished.
+
+"It's gun-bangs--specially--that Tiger Lily is afraid of," I explained.
+
+"Gun-bangs?" said the little boy.
+
+"That's why he can't ever hunt," I explained.
+
+"Hunt?" said the little boy. "Not--ever you mean?" He looked at Tiger
+Lily. He looked at the blue pop-gun. "Not ever? Ever? Ever?" Way down in
+his little fur slippers it was as though a little sigh started and
+shivered itself up-up-up--up till it reached his smile. It made his
+smile sort of wobbly. "Oh all right!" he said and ran away as fast as he
+could to hide the blue pop-gun in the bottom of the closet. A velocipede
+he piled on top of it and two pillows and a Noah's Ark and a stuffed
+squirrel. When the piling was all done he looked back at our Uncle
+Peter. It was across one shoulder that he looked back. It made his
+little smile look twisty as well as wobbly. One of his eyebrows had
+crooked itself. "It's--It's SILENCES that I'm afraid of," he said.
+
+He grabbed Tiger Lily by the collar again and started for the door. As
+though he was playing a Game he reached out one finger and tagged
+everybody as he passed them. Everybody except Carol. When he started to
+tag Carol he snatched back his finger and screamed instead. "He's a
+Silence!" he screamed. "He's a Silence!" Still holding tight to Tiger
+Lily's collar he ran for the stairs.
+
+Flop-Flop-Flop his little fur slippers thudded on the hard wood floor.
+Tick-Tick-Tick Lily's toe-nails clicked along beside him. It sounded
+cool. And slippery.
+
+His Mother wrung her hands. It seemed to be with despair that she wrung
+them.
+
+"Yes that's just it," she despaired. "It's 'Silences' that he's afraid
+of! That's what keeps him awake all night banging at things! That's what
+worries him so!"
+
+"But he gave up the noisy pop-gun," said our Uncle Peter. "Gave it up of
+his own accord when he saw that it frightened the dog."
+
+"Why so he did!" said the Mother. She seemed very much surprised. "Why
+so he did!--Why I don't know that I ever knew him to give up anything
+before. He's been so delicate--and--and the only child and
+everything--I'm afraid we've spoiled him."
+
+"U--m--m," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"And all the circumstances of the case are so bewildering," despaired
+the lady.
+
+Like white pond-lilies floating in a black gloom her sad hands curled in
+her lap. It seemed to be at our Uncle Peter that they curled.
+
+"Are they indeed?" said our Uncle Peter. It was the "circumstances" that
+he meant.
+
+"Very bewildering," said the Lady. Her cheeks got a little pink. She
+jumped up and went to the door and listened a minute at the head of the
+stairs. When she came back to her chair she shut the door behind her.
+
+"As I told you," she whispered, "the little boy isn't my own little
+boy."
+
+"So I understood," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"His Mother died when he was born," said the Lady.
+
+"Very sad indeed," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"Dicky is six years old," said the Lady. "I married his Father a year
+and a half ago. His Father was killed in an accident a year ago--"
+
+"Oh dear--Oh dear," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+The Lady began all over again as though it was a lesson.
+
+"Dicky is six years old," she said. "I married his Father a year and a
+half ago. He was killed in an accident a year ago. It was all so
+sudden,--the marriage,--the accident,--everything--!" She began to cry a
+little. It made her clothes look sorrowfuller and sorrowfuller and her
+face more and more surprised. Once again she curled up her white
+pond-lily hands at our Uncle Peter. It was as though she thought that
+our Uncle Peter could help her perhaps with some of her surprises.
+"I--I didn't know his Father very long," she cried. "I never knew his
+Mother at all!----It's--It's pretty bewildering," she said, "to be left
+all alone--for life--with a perfectly, strange little boy--who isn't any
+relation at all!--All his funny little suits to worry about--and his
+mumps and his measles--and--and whether he ought to play marbles 'for
+keeps'--and shall I send him to college or not? And suppose he turns out
+a burglar or something dreadful like that?--And how in the world am I
+going to tackle his first love affair? Or his choice of a
+profession?--Merciful Heavens!--Perhaps he'll want to fly!"
+
+"Why--you're just like a Hen," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+The Lady didn't like to be called a Hen.
+
+It ruffled her all up.
+
+Our Uncle Peter had to talk about Base Ball to soothe her.
+
+The Lady didn't know anything about Base Ball but it seemed to soothe
+her considerably to hear about it.
+
+When our Uncle Peter was all through soothing her she looked up as
+pleasant as pleasant could be.
+
+"WHY?" she said.
+
+"Why--what?" said our Uncle Peter. He seemed a little perplexed.
+
+"Why--am I like a Hen?" said the Lady.
+
+"O--h," said our Uncle Peter. He acted very much relieved. "O--h," he
+said. "I was afraid it was something you were going to ask me about Base
+Ball. But a Hen----?" He looked with smiles at the Lady. "Oh but a
+Hen--?--Why even a Hen, my dear Madam," he smiled, "a real professional
+true-enough hen doesn't take any too easily to the actual chick itself
+until she's served a certain sit-tightly, go-lightly, egg-shell sort of
+apprenticeship as it were to the IDEA.--Thrust a bunch of chicks under
+her before she's served this apprenticeship and----"
+
+I jumped up and down and clapped my hands. I just couldn't help it.
+
+"Oh, I know what happens!" I cried. "She sits too heavy! And squashes
+'em perfectly flat!--There was a hen," I cried. "Her name was Lizzie!
+She was a good hen! But childless! The Grocer gave us some day-old
+chicks to put under her! But when we went out to the nest the next
+morning to see 'em--they couldn't have been flatter if they'd been
+pressed in the Bible!--My Brother Carol cried,--I cried,--my Mother----"
+
+"I don't care at all who cried," said the Lady. It was true. She didn't.
+All she cared was to look at our Uncle Peter. The look was a stern look.
+
+"And are you trying to imply, Mr.--Mr.--?"
+
+"Merredith," said our Uncle Peter. "Percival Merredith.--'Uncle Peter'
+for short."
+
+"Mr. Merredith," repeated the Lady coldly. "Are you trying to imply that
+my----step-son looks as though he had been pressed in a--a--Bible?"
+
+I shook in my boots. Carol shook in his boots. You could hear us.
+
+Our Uncle Peter never shook a bit. He just twinkled.
+
+"Well--hardly," he said.
+
+The Lady looked pretty surprised. When she wasn't looking surprised she
+looked thoughtful.
+
+Her voice sounded little when she got it started again.
+
+"Maybe--Maybe I DO take my responsibilities too heavily," she said. "But
+it's this--this sleeping business that worries me so."
+
+"I should think it would," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"No Nurse Maid will stay with me," said the Lady. "They say it gives
+them the creeps.--It's enough to give anyone the creeps.--A grown
+person of course expects a certain amount of wakefulness, but a
+child,--a little care-free--heedless child--? Just when you think you've
+got him safely to sleep--all cuddled up in your own bed or even in his
+own bed--and are just drowsing off into the first real sleep you've had
+for a week--?--Patter--Patter--Patter in the hall! Creak--Creak--Creak
+on the stairs! A chair bumped over in the Library!--Bumped over on
+purpose you understand! Just to make a noise! 'Noises are his friends,'
+he says. Why once--once--" The Lady's mouth smiled a little. "Once when
+I woke and missed him and hunted everywhere--I found him at last in the
+Pantry--on the floor--with his ear cuddled close up to a mouse-hole!
+Mouse-Nibble Noises he says are his special friends in the middle of the
+night when there isn't anything else.--ANYTHING to break the silence it
+seems to be!--Why in the world should he be afraid of a Silence? Nobody
+can account for it!"
+
+"Possibly not," said our Uncle Peter. "Yet the fact remains that either
+within or just outside the borders of his consciousness the only two
+people responsible for his Being have disappeared unaccountably into a
+Silence----from which they have not returned."
+
+"Oh dear," said the Lady. "I never thought of that! You mean--You
+mean--that perhaps he thinks that a Silence is a Hole that you might
+fall into if you don't fill it up with a Noise? Why the poor little
+fellow!--How in the world is one ever to tell?--Oh dear--Oh dear----"
+She sank back in her chair and floated her hands in her lap. Her eyes
+looked as though she was going to cry again. But she didn't cry. That
+is, not much. Mostly she just sighed. "It isn't as though he was an easy
+child to understand," she sighed. "He catches cold so easily, and mumps
+and everything.--And he's so irritable.--He kicks,--he bites,--he
+scratches!"
+
+"So I have seen demonstrated," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"Oh, it's quite evident," cried the Lady, "that you think I'm harsh with
+him!--But whatever in the world would YOU do?" She threw out her hands
+toward the pretty room,--the rugs,--the pictures,--the fire,--the toys.
+"Perhaps you can tell me what he NEEDS?" she said.
+
+"A good spanking," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+The Lady gave a little gasp.
+
+"Oh, not for punishment," said our Uncle Peter. "But just for
+exercise.--It's the only exercise that a lot of pampered, sedentary
+children ever get!"
+
+"P--Pampered?" gasped the Lady. "S--Sed--entary?" As though her head was
+bursting with the noises all around the room she clapped her hands over
+her ears.
+
+Our Uncle Peter jumped up from his chair and began to chase the little
+tin railroad train. It looked funny to see so large a man running after
+so small a train. When he caught it it was having a railroad accident in
+the tunnel under the table where a book had fallen on the track. Like a
+beetle with no paint on its stomach he left it lying on its back with
+its little wheels kicking in the air.
+
+"If only all the racket was as easily disposed of!" said the Lady.
+
+"It IS!" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+Like turning off faucets of water he turned off the noises one by
+one,--the window-breeze that made the glass dangles tinkle,--the funny
+jiggly spring that kept the toy bird screaming "Hi-Hi" in its wicker
+cake,--the music box that tooted horns and beat drums right in the
+middle of its best tunes! He looked like a giant stalking through the
+Noah's Ark animals! His foot was longer than the village store!
+
+"If only I figured as largely in a less miniature world!" he said.
+
+He looked at the Lady very hard when he said it as though he was saying
+something very important.
+
+The Lady didn't seem to consider it important at all. She looked at her
+skirts instead and smoothed them very tidily.
+
+"It's a--It's a pleasant day--isn't it?" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"V--very," said the Lady. Quite suddenly she looked up at him. Her
+cheeks were pink. She seemed to want to speak but didn't know quite how.
+She looked more surprised than ever. She bent forward very suddenly and
+stared and stared at him.
+
+"Why--Why you're the gentleman," she said, "who was in the Fruit Store
+the day I bought the Alligator pears and dropped my pocket-book down
+behind the trash-barrel?"
+
+"Also the day you bought the Red Mackintosh Apples," said our Uncle
+Peter. "The Grocer cheated you outrageously on them.--Also the day you
+wore the bunch of white violets and pricked your finger so
+brutally,--also the day on the ferry when there was a slight collision
+with a tug-boat and I had the privilege of--of----."
+
+The Lady looked very haughty.
+
+"It was the day of the Alligator Pears--that I referred to," she said.
+"The only day in my recollection!" Very positively she said it,--"the
+only day in my recollection." But all the time that she said it her
+cheeks got pinker and pinker. It was when she looked in the glass and
+saw how mistaken her positiveness looked that her cheeks got so pink.
+Tap--Tap--Tap her foot stamped on the rug. "Did--Did you know who it was
+going to be----when you brought the dog?" she said. "That is,--did you
+know when you first saw the advertisement in the paper." Her white
+forehead got all black and frowny. "How in the world did you know--my
+name?" she said.
+
+Our Uncle Peter made an expression on his face. It was the
+expression that our Mother calls his "Third-Helping-of-Apple-Pie
+Expression,"--bold and unashamed.
+
+"I asked the Grocer," he said.
+
+"It was a--a great liberty," said the Lady.
+
+"Was it?" said our Uncle Peter. He didn't seem as sorry as you'd have
+expected.
+
+The Lady looked at Carol. The Lady looked at me.
+
+"How many children have you?" she said.
+
+"None of my own," said our Uncle Peter. "But three of my brother
+Philip's,--Carol and Ruthy as here observed, and Rosalee aet. eighteen
+who is at present in Cuba engaging herself to be married."
+
+"O--h," said the Lady.
+
+"I am in short," said our Uncle Peter, "that object of Romance and Pity
+popularly known as a 'Bachelor Uncle.'"
+
+"O--h," said the Lady. She seemed more relieved than you'd have
+supposed.
+
+"But in my own case, of course--" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+In the very midst of his own case he stopped right off short to look all
+around the room again as though he was counting how heavy the toys were
+and how heavy the money was that had bought the toys. All the twinkle
+came back to his eyes.
+
+"But in my own case," he said, "I've always known ahead--of course--for
+a very long time--that I was going to have 'em.--Learned to sit lightly
+on the idea,--re-balance my prejudices,--re-adjust my--"
+
+"Have--what?" gasped the Lady.
+
+"Nephews and nieces," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"O--h," said the Lady.
+
+"Had their names all selected I mean," explained our Uncle Peter. "Their
+virtues, their vices, their avocations, all decided upon.----Ruthy of
+course might have done with less freckles, and Carol here doesn't quite
+come up to specifications yet concerning muscle and brawn--and it was
+never my original intention of course that any young whipper-snapper
+niece of mine should engage herself to the first boy she fell in love
+with.--But taken all in all,--all in all I say--"
+
+"I think," frowned the Lady, "you are perfectly----absurd."
+
+The word "absurd" didn't seem to be at all the word she meant to say.
+She tried to bite it back but got it all mixed up with a little giggle.
+She bit the giggle instead. It twisted her mouth like a bitter taste.
+
+Our Uncle Peter looked very sympathetic.
+
+"You ought to get away somewhere on a journey," he said. "There's
+nothing like it as a tonic for the mind. Even if it's a place you don't
+like very much it clarifies the vision so,--dissipates all one's minor
+worries."
+
+"--Minor worries?" said the Lady.
+
+"Travel! Yes that's the thing!" said our Uncle Peter quite positively.
+All in a minute he seemed to rustle with time tables and maps and smell
+of cinders and railroad tickets. "Now there's Bermuda for instance!" he
+suggested. "Just a month of blue waters and white sand would put the
+roses back in your cheeks.--And Dicky--"
+
+"Impossible," said the Lady.
+
+"Or if Bermuda's too far," insisted our Uncle Peter. "What about
+Atlantic City? Think how Dicky would enjoy romping on the board
+walk--while you followed more sedately of course in a luxurious wheel
+chair!--The most diverting place in the world!--Yes quite surely you
+must go to Atlantic City!"
+
+The Lady made a little gasp as though her Patience was bursted.
+
+"You don't seem to understand," she said. "I tell you it's quite
+impossible!"
+
+"W-H-Y?" said our Uncle Peter. He said it sharply like a Teacher. It HAD
+to be answered.
+
+The Lady looked up. She looked down. She looked sideways. She wrung her
+hands in her lap. Her face got sort of white.
+
+"It isn't very kind of you," she said, "to force me so to a confession
+of poverty."
+
+"'Poverty'?" laughed our Uncle Peter. He looked around at the
+furniture,--at the toys,--at the pictures. It was at most everything
+that he looked around. He seemed to be very cheerful about it.
+
+The Lady didn't like his cheerfulness.
+
+"Oh I've always had a little for myself," she explained. "Enough for one
+person to live very simply on. But NOW----? With this strange little boy
+on my hands,--I--I intend to go to work!"
+
+"Go to----work?" said our Uncle Peter. "WORK?" He said it with a sort of
+a hoot. "Work? Work? Why, what in the world could YOU do?"
+
+"I can crochet," said the Lady proudly. "And embroider. I can mend. I
+can play the piano. And really you know I can make the most beautiful
+pies."
+
+"Apple pies," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"Apple pies," said the Lady. Like a handful of black tissue paper she
+crumpled up suddenly in her chair. Her shoulders shook and shook. The
+sound she made was like a sob going down and a laugh coming up. "I'm not
+crying," she said, "because it's so hard--but b--because the idea is so
+f--funny."
+
+"F--F--Funny?" said our Uncle Peter. "It's preposterous! It's
+gro--tesque! It's--it's fantastic!"
+
+He began to walk very fast from the book-case to the window and from the
+window back to the book-case again. It wasn't till he'd stubbed his toe
+twice on a toy Ferris Wheel that the twinkle came back to his eyes.
+
+"Carol!" he said. "Ruthy!--In consideration of the reduced circumstances
+in which this very pleasant Lady finds herself don't you think that you
+could afford to offer her a reduced price on the dog,--your original
+profit on the deal being as noted $49.50?"
+
+The Lady jumped to her feet.
+
+"Oh no--no--no!" she said. "Not for a moment! Fifty dollars is what I
+offered! And fifty dollars it shall be! All dogs I'm sure are worth
+fifty dollars. Especially if they don't sleep! Why all the other dogs
+that people brought me did nothing except sleep! On my sofas! In my
+chairs! Under my tables! Night or day you couldn't drop even so much as
+a handkerchief on the floor that one or the other of them didn't camp
+right down and go to sleep on it! Oh, no--no--no," protested the Lady,
+"whatever my faults, a bargain is a bargain and----"
+
+"Whatever your faults, my dear Madam," said our Uncle Peter, "they are
+essentially feminine and therefore enchanting! It is only when ladies
+ape the faults of men that men resent the same!--Your extravagant
+indulgency--" he bowed towards the toys--"your absolute innocence of
+all business guile--" he bowed towards Tiger Lily--"nerves strung so
+exquisitely that the slightest--the slightest--"
+
+The Lady shivered her clothes like a black frost.
+
+"It was advice that I was looking for, not compliments," she said.
+
+"Oh ho!" said Uncle Peter. "I'm infinitely more adept with advice than I
+am with compliments!"
+
+The Lady looked a little bit surprised. She frowned.
+
+"It's my little boy that I want advice about," she said. "What IS the
+best thing I can do for him?"
+
+Our Uncle Peter looked at the ceiling. He looked at the rug. He looked
+at the pictures on the wall. But it seemed to satisfy him most to look
+at the Lady's face.
+
+"U--m--m," he said. "U--m--mmmm.--That isn't an easy question to answer
+unless you're willing first to answer a question of mine."
+
+"Ask any question you want to," said the Lady.
+
+"U--m--m," said our Uncle Peter all over again.
+"U--m--m--Um--m--m--U--m--m. It takes a great deal of patience," said
+our Uncle Peter, "to bring up a little boy.--Unless every time he's
+naughty you can say to yourself 'Well, even so--think what a good man
+his Father grew to be!'----Or every time he's good you're fair enough to
+admit that 'Even his naughty Father was once as nice as this!'"----All
+the twinkle went suddenly out of our Uncle Peter's eyes. It left them
+looking narrow. He made a quick glance at Carol. He made a quick glance
+at me. He seemed very pleased that we were so busy looking at a map of
+Bermuda. He stepped a little nearer to the Lady. His voice sounded
+funny. "Were you--were you very fond of the little boy's Father?" he
+said.
+
+The Lady's face went blazing like a flame out of her black clothes. It
+was like a white flame that it went blazing. Her eyes looked screaming.
+
+"How dare you?" she said. "You have no business!--What if I was?--What
+if I wasn't?" All the scream in her eyes fell down her throat into a
+whisper. "Suppose--Suppose--I--WASN'T?" she whispered.
+
+"Then indeed I CAN give you advice," said our Uncle Peter.
+
+The Lady reached out a hand to the book-case to make herself more
+steady.
+
+"What--what is it?" she said.
+
+Our Uncle Peter looked funnier and funnier. It wasn't like Christmas
+that he looked. Nor Fourth of July. Nor even like when we've got the
+mumps or the measles. It was like Easter Sunday that he looked! There
+was no twinkle in it. Nor any smoke. Nor even paper dolls. But just
+SHININGNESS! His voice was all SHININGNESS too!--If it hadn't been you
+never could have heard it 'cause he made his words so little.
+
+"It's almost a year now," he said, "since our eyes first met.--You've
+tried your best to hide from me--but you couldn't do it.--Fate had other
+ideas in mind.--A chance encounter on the street,--that day on the ferry
+boat,--your funny little dog-advertisement in the paper?"
+
+Quite suddenly our Uncle Peter straightened up like a soldier and spoke
+right out loud again.
+
+"About your little boy," he said, "my advice about your little boy?--It
+being indeed so well-nigh impossible, Madam, for a woman to bring up a
+little boy very successfully unless--she did love his Father,--my advice
+to you is that without the slightest unnecessary delay you proceed to
+get him a Father whom you COULD love!"
+
+Whereupon, as people always say in books, our Uncle Peter turned upon
+his heel and started for the door.
+
+The Lady swooned into her chair.
+
+Our Uncle Peter had to get a glass of water to un-swoon her.
+
+I ran for a fan. It bursted my garter. When our Uncle Peter tried to
+mend it he swore instead.
+
+The Lady came out of her swoon without an instant's hesitation.
+
+"Here at least," she said, "is something that I know enough to do."
+
+Her mouth was full of scorn and pins. It was with pins that she knew
+enough to do it.
+
+Our Uncle Peter looked very humble.
+
+The Lady patted my knees.
+
+"Little girls are so much easier to manage than little boys," she said.
+"I don't seem to understand little boys."
+
+"Nor big boys either!" said our Uncle Peter. He said it with gruffness.
+It sounded cross.
+
+"Perhaps I--don't want to understand them," said the Lady.
+
+Our Uncle Peter's cheeks got sort of red.
+
+"Suit yourself, my dear Madam," he said and started for the door. He
+picked up my hat and put it on Carol's head.--Carol's head looked pretty
+astonished. He took Carol's cap and put it on my head. He handed us our
+coats upside down.--All our pennies and treasures fell out on the floor.
+He snatched up the little boy's gloves by mistake and thrust them into
+his own pockets.
+
+The Lady collected everything again and re-distributed them. She seemed
+to think it was funny. Not very funny but just a little. She looked at
+Carol sort of specially.
+
+"Oh my dear Child," she said. "I hope you didn't mind because Dicky
+called you a 'Silence'?"
+
+Carol did mind. He minded very much. I could tell by the way he carried
+his ears. They looked very stately. Our Uncle Peter whirled round in the
+door-way. His ears looked pretty stately too.
+
+"All the men in our family," he said, "aim to meet the exigencies of
+life--sensibly."
+
+The Lady seemed to consider the fact quite a long time before she smiled
+again.
+
+"Oh very well," she said. "If the Uncle really is as sensible as the
+nephew perhaps he will consent to leave the children here with me
+to-night--instead of bearing them off to the confusion and general
+mis-button-ness of hotels."
+
+Our Uncle Peter's face fairly burst into relief.
+
+"Oh, do you really mean that?" he cried. "It IS their infernal buttons
+that makes most of the worry!--And their prayers?--What IS the
+difference anyway between a morning and an evening prayer?--And this
+awful responsibility about cereals? And how in the world do you make
+sure about their necks?"
+
+"Oh those are the things I know perfectly," said the Lady. "All the nice
+gentle in-door things."
+
+Our Uncle Peter began to strut again.
+
+"Oh pshaw!" he said. "It's only the outdoor things that are really
+important,--how to climb mountains, how to stop a runaway horse,--how to
+smother a grass fire!"
+
+It put the Lady all in a flutter.
+
+"Oh pshaw!" said our Uncle Peter. "That's nothing!--The very first
+instant you hear the maddened hoofs on the pavement you place yourself
+thus! And THUS!--And----"
+
+The Lady tried to explain to him the difference between a morning and an
+evening prayer. "Now at night, of course," she explained, "everything is
+so very lonely that--"
+
+Our Uncle Peter didn't seem to care at all how lonely it was.
+
+"The instant you see the horses's blood-red nostrils,--JUMP!" cried our
+Uncle Peter.
+
+It sounded pretty muddled to me.
+
+"Personally," insisted the Lady, "I consider a rather soft sponge best
+for the neck."
+
+"So that with your hands clutched like a vise on either side of the
+mouth," cried our Uncle Peter, "you can saw up and down with all the
+violence at your command! Now in fighting a grass fire, it's craft, not
+might, that you need. In that case of course--"
+
+"Two hours if you're using a double boiler," explained the Lady, "but
+many people consider a rapider action more digestible, I suppose."
+
+"My dear Lady----let me finish my explanation!" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+"But I want to finish mine!" said the Lady.
+
+Our legs got pretty tired waiting for all the explanations to get
+un-mixed up again.
+
+It was nine o'clock before the Lady gave our Uncle Peter a cup of hot
+chocolate and turned him out doors.
+
+"Just like a dog," said our Uncle Peter. We heard him say it across his
+shoulder as he went down the steps.
+
+It made the Lady laugh a little.
+
+It was warm milk in two great blue bowls that she gave us. "Just like
+kittens," we thought it was!
+
+We heard the little boy's feet come thud-thud-thudding up the stairs. We
+heard Tiger Lily's toe-nails click-click-click along behind him.
+
+The little boy looked very full of chicken and joyfulness. So did Tiger
+Lily.
+
+"Cook says I've got to romp him!" he said. "Every day!--Twice every
+day!--More'n a hundred times some days! Out doors too! Not just in
+parks,--parks are good enough for cats,--but in real fields! Else he'll
+DIE!" Almost as though he was frightened he stooped down suddenly and
+laid his little ear on Tiger Lily's soft breast. "He's alive now!" he
+boasted. "You can hear his heart nibbling!" He threw back his little
+head and laughed and laughed and clapped his hands. He took Tiger Lily
+by the collar and led him over to the table by the window. He climbed
+up on the table and pulled Tiger Lily after him.
+
+Tiger Lily was frightened, but not too much. He felt proud. His ears
+looked fluffy. His back was shining silk. His tail hung down across the
+edge of the table like a plume.
+
+Far off in the city streets somewhere there was a noise that trolly cars
+make when they're climbing up a hill and the switch is too hard for
+them. It was a sour sound.
+
+Tiger Lily started to make a little quiver in his back. The little boy
+threw his arm around him. A mouse nibbled in the wall. Tiger Lily cocked
+his head to listen but kissed the little boy's cheek instead. It was a
+nice kiss. But wet. The little boy laughed right out loud. Way down on
+the very tip end of Tiger Lily's plumey tail about two hairs wagged.
+When the little boy saw it his face went all shining. He threw both arms
+around Tiger Lily's neck. "T--Tiger Lily's--little boy!" he said.
+"T--T--" Something funny happened to his mouth. It was a teeny-weeny
+yawn that didn't seem to know just what to do about it. Nothing in all
+the world felt lonely any more.
+
+Except me.
+
+The Lady put me to bed.
+
+Carol put himself to bed all except the knots in his shoestrings.
+
+We went to sleep.
+
+Pretty soon it was morning. And we went home.
+
+Our Uncle Peter changed a lot of our dog-money into nickles so it would
+jingle. We sounded like cow-bells. It felt rich. Our Uncle Peter held us
+very tight by the hands all the way. He said he was afraid we might step
+into something wet and sink.
+
+It had been Wednesday when we went away. It was only Thursday when we
+got home. It seemed later than that.
+
+Our Mother was very glad to see us. So was our Father.
+
+The Tame Crow flew down out of the Maple Tree and sat on Carol's head.
+
+Our Tame Coon came out of the hole under the piazza and sniffed at our
+heels.
+
+The posie bed in front of the house was blue with violets. The white
+Spirea bush foamed like a wave against the wood-shed window.
+
+In spite of our absence nothing seemed changed.
+
+We gave our Father a dollar of our money to buy some Tulips. We gave our
+Mother a dollar to spend any way she wanted to. We put the rest of it in
+a book. It was a Savings Bank Book that we put it into.
+
+"For your old age," our Father said.
+
+Our Father's eyes had twinkles in them.
+
+"I hope you've thanked your Uncle Peter properly!" he said.
+
+"For what?" said our Uncle Peter.
+
+Our Father jingled the twenty nickles in his hand. "For all favors," he
+said.
+
+Our Uncle Peter said he was perfectly repaid. He made a frown at my
+Father.
+
+When bed-time came I climbed up into my Mother's lap and told her all
+about it,--the house,--the cocoa,--the toy Ferris Wheel,--the blue
+daisies on the stair carpet,--the pigeon that lit on my window-sill in
+the morning,--the splashy way Tiger Lily lapped his milk.
+
+"It will be interesting," said my Mother, "to see what we hear from
+Tiger Lily as Time goes on."
+
+Time went on pretty quickly. Pansies happened and yellow poppies and
+ducks and two kittens and August.
+
+It wasn't till almost Autumn that we ever heard from Tiger Lily or the
+little boy again.
+
+When the letter came it was from the little boy. But it was the Lady who
+wrote it.
+
+We thought her writing would be all black and sorrowful. But it was
+violet-colored instead, with all the ends of her letters quirked up
+with surprise like her face, only prancier.
+
+     "My dear little friends," wrote the Lady, "Dicky wishes me
+     to tell you how much we enjoyed your delightful visit, and
+     to say that Tiger Lily is a sweet dog. He thinks you are
+     mistaken about Tiger Lily not hunting. Tiger Lily hunts very
+     well he says,--'only different.' It's mice, he wants me to
+     tell you, that Tiger Lily is very fierce about. And bugs of
+     any sort. All in-door hunting in fact. Certainly our
+     wood-boxes and our fire-places have been kept absolutely
+     free of mice this entire season. And Cook says that not a
+     June Bug has survived. Truly it's very gratifying. Also
+     Dicky wants me to tell you that there's a field. It's got a
+     brook in it where you can sail boats and everything. It's
+     most a mile. This is all for this time Dicky says.
+
+     "With affectionate regards, I am, etc.----"
+
+Our Mother looked up across the top of the letter. It was at my Father
+that she looked.
+
+"Poor dear Lady," she said. "I hope she's happier now. It's that Mrs.
+Harnon, you know. Her marriage was so unfortunate to that dreadful
+Harnon man."
+
+"U--m--m," said my Father.
+
+We read the letter over and over waiting for the next one and wondering
+about Tiger Lily.
+
+There wasn't any next one till most Thanksgiving. When it came at last
+it was Dicky's letter just the same, but it was written in our Uncle
+Peter's handwriting this time. It seemed funny. But perhaps the Lady's
+hand was lame and she advertised for help.--Our Uncle Peter reads all
+the newspapers.
+
+The letter was awful short. And there weren't any quirks in it or
+anything. Just ink. This is what it said:
+
+     "Mutts:
+
+     Tiger Lily's got nine puppies. We're sleeping fine.
+
+                              Dicky."
+
+Our Mother looked at our Father. Our Father looked at our Mother. They
+both looked at the letter again.
+
+"My brother Peter's handwriting just as sure as you're born!" said my
+Father.
+
+"Of course it's Peter's writing," said our Mother. Her cheeks were quite
+pink. "Well of all the unexpected romances--" she said.
+
+"Whose?" I said.
+
+"Tiger Lily's," said my Father. He seemed to be in an awful hurry to say
+it.
+
+I looked at my Mother. Her eyes were shining.
+
+"Is a--Is a 'Romance' a something that you make a story out of?" I said.
+
+"Yes it is," said my Mother.
+
+I thought of my gold pencil.
+
+"Oh, all right," I said, "when I get tall enough and more spelly I'll
+make a little story about it."
+
+"You already have!" said my Mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Prince and Other Stories, by
+Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY PRINCE AND OTHER STORIES ***
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