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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eyebright, by Susan Coolidge
+
+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: Eyebright
+       A Story
+
+Author: Susan Coolidge
+
+Release Date: November 10, 2008 [EBook #27223]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EYEBRIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Ruth and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Some printer's errors, such as missing periods,
+commas printed as periods and other minor punctuation errors have
+been corrected. Variations in spelling and capitalisation have been
+retained as they appear in the original.
+
+
+
+
+  EYEBRIGHT.
+
+
+
+  _A STORY._
+
+
+
+  By SUSAN COOLIDGE,
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN," "WHAT KATY DID,"
+  "WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL," "MISCHIEF'S THANKSGIVING,"
+  "NINE LITTLE GOSLINGS."
+
+
+  With Illustrations.
+
+
+  BOSTON:
+  ROBERTS BROTHERS.
+  1894.
+
+
+ _Copyright_,
+  By Roberts Brothers.
+  1879.
+
+
+  UNIVERSITY PRESS:
+  John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                  PAGE
+
+    I.  LADY JANE AND LORD GUILDFORD          1
+
+   II.  AFTER SCHOOL                         18
+
+  III.  MR. JOYCE                            43
+
+   IV.  A DAY WITH THE SHAKERS               66
+
+    V.  HOW THE BLACK DOG HAD HIS DAY        85
+
+   VI.  CHANGES                             104
+
+  VII.  BETWEEN THE OLD HOME AND THE NEW    122
+
+ VIII.  CAUSEY ISLAND                       143
+
+   IX.  SHUT UP IN THE OVEN                 166
+
+    X.  A LONG YEAR IN A SHORT CHAPTER      188
+
+   XI.  A STORM ON THE COAST                204
+
+  XII.  TRANSPLANTED                        226
+
+
+
+
+EYEBRIGHT.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+LADY JANE AND LORD GUILDFORD.
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE FALCON'S NEST."]
+
+It wanted but five minutes to twelve in Miss Fitch's schoolroom, and a
+general restlessness showed that her scholars were aware of the fact.
+Some of the girls had closed their books, and were putting their desks
+to rights, with a good deal of unnecessary fuss, keeping an eye on the
+clock meanwhile. The boys wore the air of dogs who see their master
+coming to untie them; they jumped and quivered, making the benches
+squeak and rattle, and shifted their feet about on the uncarpeted
+floor, producing sounds of the kind most trying to a nervous teacher.
+A general expectation prevailed. Luckily, Miss Fitch was not nervous.
+She had that best of all gifts for teaching,--calmness; and she
+understood her pupils and their ways, and had sympathy with them. She
+knew how hard it is for feet with the dance of youth in them to keep
+still for three long hours on a June morning; and there was a
+pleasant, roguish look in her face as she laid her hand on the bell,
+and, meeting the twenty-two pairs of expectant eyes which were fixed
+on hers, rang it--dear Miss Fitch--actually a minute and a half before
+the time.
+
+At the first tinkle, like arrows dismissed from the bow-string, two
+girls belonging to the older class jumped from their seats and flew,
+ahead of all the rest, into the entry, where hung the hats and caps of
+the school, and their dinner-baskets. One seized a pink sun-bonnet
+from its nail, the other a Shaker-scoop with a deep green cape; each
+possessed herself of a small tin pail, and just as the little crowd
+swarmed into the passage, they hurried out on the green, in the middle
+of which the schoolhouse stood. It was a very small green, shaped like
+a triangle, with half a dozen trees growing upon it; but
+
+    "Little things are great to little men,"
+
+you know, and to Miss Fitch's little men and women "the Green" had all
+the importance and excitement of a park. Each one of the trees which
+stood upon it possessed a name of its own. Every crotch and branch in
+them was known to the boys and the most daring among the girls; each
+had been the scene of games and adventures without number. "The
+Castle," a low spreading oak with wide, horizontal branches, had been
+the favorite tree for fights. Half the boys would garrison the boughs,
+the other half, scrambling from below and clutching and tugging, would
+take the part of besiegers, and it had been great fun all round. But
+alas, for that "had been!" Ever since one unlucky day, when Luther
+Bradley, as King Charles, had been captured five boughs up by Cromwell
+and his soldiers, and his ankle badly sprained in the process, Miss
+Fitch had ruled that "The Castle" should be used for fighting purposes
+no longer. The boys might climb it, but they must not call themselves
+a garrison, nor pull nor struggle with each other. So the poor oak was
+shorn of its military glories, and forced to comfort itself by bearing
+a larger crop of acorns than had been possible during the stirring and
+warlike times, now for ever ended.
+
+Then there was "The Dove-cote," an easily climbed beech, on which rows
+of girls might be seen at noon-times roosting like fowls in the sun.
+And there was "The Falcon's Nest," which produced every year a few
+small, sour apples, and which Isabella Bright had adopted for her
+tree. She knew every inch of the way to the top; to climb it was like
+going up a well-known staircase, and the sensation of sitting there
+aloft, high in air, on a bough which curved and swung, with another
+bough exactly fitting her back to lean against, was full of delight
+and fascination. It was like moving and being at rest all at once;
+like flying, like escape. The wind seemed to smell differently and
+more sweetly up there than in lower places. Two or three times lost in
+fancies as deep as sleep, Isabella had forgotten all about recess and
+bell, and remained on her perch, swinging and dreaming, till some one
+was sent to tell her that the arithmetic class had begun. And once,
+direful day! marked with everlasting black in the calendar of her
+conscience, being possessed suddenly, as it were, by some idle and
+tricksy demon, she stayed on after she was called, and, called again,
+she still stayed; and when, at last, Miss Fitch herself came out and
+stood beneath the tree, and in her pleasant, mild voice told her to
+come down, still the naughty girl, secure in her fastness, stayed. And
+when, at last, Miss Fitch, growing angry, spoke severely and ordered
+her to descend, Isabella shook the boughs, and sent a shower of hard
+little apples down on her kind teacher's head. That was dreadful,
+indeed, and dreadfully did she repent it afterward, for she loved Miss
+Fitch dearly, and, except for being under the influence of the demon,
+could never have treated her so. Miss Fitch did not kiss her for a
+whole month afterward,--that was Isabella's punishment,--and it was
+many months before she could speak of the affair without feeling her
+eyes fill swiftly with tears, for Isabella's conscience was tender,
+and her feelings very quick in those days.
+
+This, however, was eighteen months ago, when she was only ten and a
+half. She was nearly twelve now, and a good deal taller and wiser. I
+have introduced her as Isabella, because that was her real name, but
+the children and everybody always called her Eyebright. "I. Bright" it
+had been written in the report of her first week at Miss Fitch's
+school, when she was a little thing not more than six years old. The
+droll name struck some one's fancy and from that day she was always
+called Eyebright because of that, and because her eyes were bright.
+They were gray eyes, large and clear, set in a wide, low forehead,
+from which a thick mop of hazel-brown hair, with a wavy kink all
+through it, was combed back, and tied behind with a brown ribbon. Her
+nose turned up a little; her mouth was rather wide, but it was a
+smiling, good-tempered mouth; the cheeks were pink and wholesome, and
+altogether, though not particularly pretty, Eyebright was a
+pleasant-looking little girl in the eyes of the people who loved her,
+and they were a good many.
+
+[Illustration: To her there was a great charm in all that goes to the
+making of pictures.--PAGE 7.]
+
+The companion with whom she was walking was Bessie Mather, her most
+intimate friend just then. Bessie was the daughter of a
+portrait-painter, who didn't have many portraits to paint, so he was
+apt to be discouraged, and his family to feel rather poor. Eyebright
+was not old enough to perceive the inconveniences of being poor. To
+her there was a great charm in all that goes to the making of
+pictures. She loved the shining paint-tubes, the palette set with its
+ring of many-colored dots, and the white canvases; even the smell of
+oil was pleasant to her, and she often wished that her father, too,
+had been a painter. When, as once in a great while happened, Bessie
+asked her to tea, she went with a sort of awe over her mind, and
+returned in a rapture, to tell her mother that they had had biscuits
+and apple-sauce for supper, and hadn't done any thing in particular;
+but she had enjoyed it so much, and it had been so interesting! Mrs.
+Bright never could understand why biscuits and apple-sauce, which
+never created any enthusiasm in Eyebright at home, should be so
+delightful at Bessie Mather's, neither could Eyebright explain it, but
+so it was. This portrait-painting father was one of Bessie's chief
+attractions in Eyebright's eyes, but apart from that, she was
+sweet-tempered, pliable, and affectionate, and--a strong bond in
+friendship sometimes--she liked to follow and Eyebright to lead; she
+preferred to listen and Eyebright to talk; so they suited each other
+exactly. Bessie's hair was dark; she was not quite so tall as
+Eyebright; but their heights matched very well, as, with arms round
+each other's waist, they paced up and down "the green," stopping now
+and then to take a cookie, or a bit of bread and butter, from the
+dinner-pails which they had set under one of the trees.
+
+Not the least attention did they pay to the rest of the scholars, but
+Eyebright began at once, as if reading from some book which had been
+laid aside only a moment before:
+
+"At that moment Lady Jane heard a tap at the door.
+
+"'See who it is, Margaret,' she said.
+
+"Margaret opened the door, and there stood before her astonished eyes
+a knight clad in shining armor.
+
+"'Who are you, Sir Knight, and wherefore do you come?' she cried, in
+amaze.
+
+"'I am come to see the Lady Jane Grey,' he replied; 'I have a message
+for her from Lord Guildford Dudley.'
+
+"'From my noble Guildford,' shrieked Lady Jane, rushing forward.
+
+"'Even so, madam,' replied the knight, bowing profoundly."
+
+Here Eyebright paused for a large bite of bread and butter.
+
+"Go on--please go on," pleaded Bessie, whose mouth happened to be
+empty just then.
+
+Mumble, mumble,--"the Lady Jane sank back on her couch"--resumed
+Eyebright, speaking rather thickly by reason of the bread and butter.
+"She was very pale, and one tear ran slowly down her pearly cheek.
+
+"'What says my lord?' she faintly uttered.
+
+"'He bids me to tell you to hope on, hope ever,' cried the knight;
+'the jailer's daughter has promised to steal her father's keys
+to-night, unbar his door, and let him escape.'
+
+"'Can this be true?' cried Margaret--that's you, you know, Bessie--be
+ready to catch me.'Help! my lady is about to faint with joy.'"
+
+Here Eyebright sank on the grass, while Bessie made a dash, and raised
+her head.
+
+"'Is it? Can it be--true?' murmured the Lady Jane,"--her languid hand
+meanwhile stealing into the dinner-pail, and producing therefrom a big
+red apple.
+
+"'It is true--the blessed news is indeed true,' cried the true-hearted
+Margaret.
+
+"'I feel new life in my veins;' and the Lady Jane sprang to her feet."
+Here Eyebright scrambled to hers.
+
+"'Come, Margaret,' she cried, 'we most decide in what garb we shall
+greet my dearest lord when he comes from prison. Don't you think the
+cram--cram--cramberry velvet, with a net-work of pearls, and,'--what
+else did they wear, Bessie?"
+
+"Girdles?" ventured Bessie.
+
+"'And a girdle of gems,'" went on Eyebright, easily, and quite
+regardless of expense. "'Don't you think that will be best, girl?'"
+
+"Oh, Eyebright, would she say 'girl?'" broke in Bessie; "it doesn't
+sound polite enough for the Lady Jane."
+
+"They all do,--I assure you they do. I can show you the place in
+Shakespeare. It don't sound so nice, because when people say 'girl,'
+now, it always means servant-girl, you know; but it was different
+then; and Lady Jane did say 'my girl.' And you mustn't interrupt so,
+Bessie, or we shan't get to the execution this recess, and after
+school I want to play the little Princes in the Tower."
+
+"I won't interrupt any more," said Bessie; "go on."
+
+"'Yes, the cramberry velvet is my choice,'" resumed Eyebright. "'Sir
+Knight, accept my grateful thanks.'
+
+"He bent low and kissed her fair hand.
+
+"'May naught but good tidings await you ever-more!' he murmured.
+'Sorrow should never light on so fair a being.'
+
+"'Ah,' she said, 'sorrow seems my portion. What is rank or riches or
+ducality to a happy heart!'"
+
+"What did you say? What was that word, Eyebright?"
+
+"Ducality. Lady Jane's father was a duke, you know."
+
+"The knight sighed deeply, and withdrew.
+
+"'Ah, Guildford,' murmured the Lady Jane, laying her head on the
+shoulder of her beloved Margaret, 'shall I indeed see you once more?
+It seems too good to be true.'"
+
+Eyebright paused, and bit into her apple with an absorbed expression.
+She was meditating the next scene in her romance.
+
+"So the next day and the next went by, and still the Lady Jane prayed
+and waited. Night came at last, and now Lord Guildford might appear at
+any moment. Margaret dressed her lovely mistress in the velvet robe,
+twined the pearls in her golden hair, and clasped the jewelled girdle
+round her slender waist. One snow-white rose was pinned in her bosom.
+Never had she looked so wildly beautiful. But still Lord Guildford
+came not. At last a tap at the door was heard.
+
+"'It is he!' cried the Lady Jane, and flew to meet him.
+
+"But alas! it was not he. A stern and gigantic form filled the
+door-way, and, entering, looked at her with fiery eyes. No, his helmet
+was shut tight. Wouldn't that be better, Bessie?"
+
+"Oh yes, much better. Do have it shut," said the obliging Bessie.
+
+"His lineaments were hidden by his helmet," resumed Eyebright,
+correcting herself; "but there was something in his aspect which made
+her heart thrill with terror.
+
+"'You are looking to see if I am one who will never cross your path
+again,' he said, in a harsh tone. 'Lady Jane Grey--no! Guildford
+Dudley has this day expiated his crimes on Tower Hill. His headless
+trunk is already buried beneath the pavement where traitors lie.'
+
+"'Oh no, no; in mercy unsay the word!' shrieked the Lady Jane, and
+with one quick sob she sank lifeless to the earth, while Margaret sank
+beside her. We won't really sink, I think, Bessie, because the grass
+stains our clothes so, and they get so mussed up. Wealthy says she
+can't imagine what I do to my things; there was so much grass-green in
+them that it greened all the water in the tub last wash, she told
+mother; that was when we played the Coramantic Captive, you know, and
+I had to keep fainting all the time. We'll just make believe we sank,
+I guess.
+
+"'Rouse yourself, Lady,' went on the stern warrior 'I have more to
+communicate. You are my prisoner. Here is the warrant to arrest you,
+and the soldiers wait outside.'
+
+"One dizzy moment, and Lady Jane rallied the spirit of her race. Her
+face was deadly pale, but she never looked more lovely.
+
+"'I am ready,' she said, with calm dignity; 'only give me time to
+breathe one prayer,' and, sinking at the foot of her crucifix, she
+breathed an Ave Maria in such melodious tones that all present
+refrained from tears.
+
+"'Lead on,' she murmured.
+
+"We now pass to the scene of execution," proceeded Eyebright, whose
+greatest gift as a storyteller was her power of getting over difficult
+parts of the narrative in a sort of inspired, rapid way. "I guess we
+won't have any trial, Bessie, because trials are so hard, and I don't
+know exactly how to do them. It was a chill morning in early spring.
+The sun had hid his face from the awful spectacle. The bell was
+tolling, the crowd assembled, and the executioner stood leaning on the
+handle of his dreadful axe. The block was ready!--"
+
+"Oh, Eyebright, it is awful!" interposed Bessie, on the point of
+tears.
+
+"At last the door of the Tower opened," went on the relentless
+Eyebright, "and the slender form of the Lady Jane appeared, led by the
+captain of the guard, and followed by a long procession of monks and
+soldiers. Her faithful Margaret was by her side, drowned in tears. She
+was so young, so fair and so sweet that all hearts pitied her, and
+when she turned to the priest and said, 'Fa-ther, do not we-ep'--"
+
+Eyebright here broke down and began to cry. As for Bessie, she had
+been sobbing hard, with her handkerchief over her eyes for nearly two
+minutes.
+
+"'I am go-ing to hea-ven,'" faltered Eyebright, overcome with emotion.
+"'Thank my cousin, Bloody Mary, for sending me th-ere.'"
+
+"Can you tell me the way to Mr. Bright's house?" said a voice just
+behind them.
+
+The girls jumped and looked round. In the excitement of the execution,
+they had wandered, without knowing it, to the far edge of the green,
+which bordered on the public road. A gentleman on horseback had
+stopped close beside them, and was looking at them with an amused
+expression, which changed to one of pity, as the two tear-stained
+faces met his eye.
+
+"Is any thing the matter? Are you in any trouble?" he asked,
+anxiously.
+
+"Oh no, sir; not a bit. We are only playing; we are having a splendid
+time," explained Eyebright.
+
+And then, anxious to change the subject, and also to get back to Lady
+Jane and her woes, she made haste with the direction for which the
+stranger had asked.
+
+"Just down there, sir; turn the first street, and it's the fourth
+house from the corner. No, the fifth,--which is it, Bessie?"
+
+"Let me see," replied Bessie, counting on her fingers. "Mrs. Clapp's,
+Mr. Potter's, Mr. Wheelwright's,--it's the fourth, Eyebright."
+
+The gentleman thanked them and rode away. As he did so, the bell
+tinkled at the schoolhouse door.
+
+"Oh, there's that old bell. I don't believe it's time one bit. Miss
+Fitch must have set the clock forward," declared Eyebright.
+
+Alas, no; Miss Fitch had done nothing of the sort, for at that moment
+clang went the town-clock, which, as every one knew, kept the best of
+time, and by which all the clocks and watches in the neighborhood were
+set.
+
+"Pshaw, it really is!" cried Eyebright. "How short recess seems! Not
+longer than a minute."
+
+"Not more than half a minute," chimed in Bessie. "Oh, Eyebright, it
+was too lovely! I hate to go in."
+
+The cheeks and eyelids of the almost executed Lady Jane and her bower
+maiden were in a sad state of redness when they entered the
+schoolroom, but nobody took any particular notice of them. Miss Fitch
+was used to such appearances, and so were the other boys and girls,
+when Eyebright and Bessie Mather had spent their recess, as they
+almost always did, in playing the game which they called "acting
+stories."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+AFTER SCHOOL.
+
+
+Four o'clock seemed slow in coming; but it struck at last, as hours
+always will if we wait long enough; and Miss Fitch dismissed school,
+after a little bit of Bible-reading and a short prayer. People
+nowadays are trying to do away with Bibles and prayers in schools, but
+I think the few words which Miss Fitch said in the Lord's ear every
+night--and they were very few and simple--sent the little ones away
+with a sense of the Father's love and nearness which it was good for
+them to feel. All the girls and some of the boys waited to kiss Miss
+Fitch for good-night. It had been a pleasant day. Nobody, for a
+wonder, had received a fault-mark of any kind; nothing had gone wrong,
+and the children departed with a general bright sense that such days
+do not often come, and that what remained of this ought to be made the
+most of.
+
+There were still three hours and a half of precious daylight. What
+should be done with them?
+
+Eyebright and a knot of girls, whose homes lay in the same direction
+with hers, walked slowly down the street together. It was a beautiful
+afternoon, with sunshine of that delicious sort which only June knows
+how to brew,--warm, but not burning; bright, but not dazzling. It lay
+over the walk in broad golden patches, broken by soft, purple-blue
+shadows from the elms, which had just put out their light leaves and
+looked like fountains of green spray tossed high in air. There was a
+sweet smell of hyacinths and growing grass and cherry-blossoms;
+altogether it was not an afternoon to spend in the house, and the
+children felt the fact.
+
+"I don't want to go home yet," said Molly Prime. "Let's do something
+pleasant all together instead."
+
+"I wish my swing were ready, and we'd all have a swing in it," said
+Laura Wheelwright. "Tom said he would put it up to-day, but mother
+begged him not, because she said I had a cold and would be sure to run
+in the damp grass and wet my feet. What shall we do? We might go for a
+walk to Round Pond; will you?"
+
+"No; I'll tell you," burst in Eyebright. "Don't let's do that, because
+if we do, the big boys will see us and want to come too, and then we
+sha'n't have any fun. Let's all go into our barn; there's lots of hay
+up in the loft, and we'll open the big window and make thrones of hay
+to sit on and tell stories. It'll be just as good as out-doors, and no
+one will know where we are or come to interrupt us. Don't you think it
+would be nice? Do come, Laura."
+
+"Delicious! Come along, girls," answered Laura, crumpling her soft
+sun-bonnet into a heap, and throwing it up into the air, as if it had
+been a ball.
+
+"Oh, may we come too?" pleaded little Tom and Rosy Bury.
+
+"No, you can't," answered their sister, Kitty, sharply. "You'd be
+tumbling down and getting frightened, and all sorts of things. You'd
+better run right home by yourselves."
+
+The little ones were silent, but they looked anxiously at Eyebright.
+
+"I think they might come, Kitty," she said. "They're almost always
+good, and there's nothing in the loft to hurt them. Yes; they can
+come."
+
+"Oh, very well, if you want the bother of them. I'm sure I don't
+mind," replied Kitty.
+
+Then they all ran into the barn. The eight pairs of double-soled boots
+clattered on the stairs like a sudden hail-storm on a roof. Brindle,
+old Charley, and a strange horse who seemed to be visiting them, who
+were munching their evening hay, raised their heads, astonished; while
+a furtive rustle from some dim corner in the loft showed that Mrs.
+Top-knot or Mrs. Cochin-China, hidden away there, heard too, and did
+not like the sound at all.
+
+"Oh, isn't this lovely!" cried Kitty Bury, kicking the fine hay before
+her till it rose in clouds. "Barns are so nice, I think."
+
+"Yes, but don't kick that way," said Romaine Smith, choking and
+sneezing. "Oh dear, I shall smother. Eyebright, please open the
+window. Quick, I am strangling."
+
+Eyebright, who was sneezing too, made haste to undo the rusty hook,
+and swing the big wooden shutter back against the outside wall of the
+barn. It made an enormous square opening, which seemed to let in all
+out-doors at once. Dark places grew light, the soft pure air, glad of
+the chance, flew in to mix with the sweet, heavy smell of the dried
+grasses; it was as good as being out-doors, as Eyebright had said.
+
+The girls pulled little heaps of hay together for seats, and ranged
+themselves in a half-circle round the window, with Mr. Bright's
+orchard, pink and white with fruit blossoms, underneath them; and
+beyond that, between Mr. Bury's house and barn, a glimpse of valley
+and blue river, and the long range of wooded hills on the opposite
+bank. It was a charming out-look, and though the children could not
+have put into words what pleased them, they all liked it, and were the
+happier for its being there.
+
+"Now we're ready. Who will tell the first story?" asked Molly Prime,
+briskly.
+
+"I'll tell the first," said Eyebright, always ready to take the lead.
+"It's a splendid story. I read it in a book. Once upon a time, long,
+long ago, there was a little tailor, who was very good, and his name
+was Hans. He lived all alone in his little house, and had to work very
+hard because he was poor. One day as he sat sewing away, some one
+knocked at the door.
+
+"'Come in,' said Hans, and an old, old man came in. He was wrapped up
+in a cloak, and looked very cold and tired.
+
+"'Please may I warm myself by your fire?' he said.
+
+"'Why of course you may,'--said good little Hans. 'A warm at the fire
+costs nothing, and you are welcome.'
+
+"So the old man sat down and warmed himself.
+
+"'Have you come a long way to-day?' Hans said.
+
+"'Yes,' said the old man,--'a long, long way. And I'm ever so cold and
+hungry.'
+
+"'Poor old fellow,' thought Hans. 'I wish I had something for him to
+eat; but I haven't, because there is nothing for my own dinner except
+a piece of bread and a cup of milk.' But then he thought, 'I can do
+with a little less for once. I'll give the old man half of that.' So
+he broke the bread in two, and poured half the milk into another cup,
+and gave them to the old man, who thanked him, and ate it up. But he
+still looked so hungry, that Hans thought, 'Poor fellow, he is a great
+deal older than I. I can go without a dinner for once, and I'll give
+him the rest.' Wasn't that good of Hans?"
+
+"Yes, very good," replied the children, beginning to get interested.
+
+"When the old man had eaten up all the bread and milk, he looked much
+better. And he got up to go, and said, 'You have been very good, and
+given me all your own dinner. I wish I had something to give you in
+return, but I have only got this,' and he took from under his cloak a
+shabby, old coffee-mill--the shabbiest old thing you ever saw, all cut
+up with jack-knives, you know, and scratched with pins, with ink-spots
+on it,"--Eyebright, drawing on her imagination for shabby particulars,
+was thinking, you see, of her desk at school, which certainly _was_
+shabby.
+
+"Hans could hardly keep from laughing; but the old man said severely,
+'Don't smile. This mill is better than it looks. It is a _magic mill_.
+Whenever you want any thing, you have only to give the handle one
+turn, and say, "Little mill, grind so and so, open sesame," and, no
+matter what it is, the mill will begin of itself and grind it for you.
+Then when you have enough, you must say, "Little mill, stop grinding,
+Abracadabra," and it will stop. Good-by,' and before Hans could say a
+word, the old man hurried out of the door and was gone, leaving the
+queer old mill behind him.
+
+"Of course Hans thought he must be crazy."
+
+"I should have thought so," said Bessie Mather, who was cuddled in the
+hay close to Eyebright.
+
+"Well, he wasn't! Hans at first thought he would throw the mill away,
+it looked so dirty and horrid, but then he thought, 'I might as well
+try it. Let me see, what do I want most at this moment? why, my dinner
+to be sure. I gave mine to the old man. I'll ask for a goose--roast
+goose, with hot buttered rolls and coffee. That's a dinner for a
+prince, let alone a tailor like me.'
+
+"So he gave the handle a turn, and said to the mill, 'Little mill,
+grind a fat roast goose, open sesame,'--not believing a bit that it
+would, you know. And, just think! all of a sudden, the handle began to
+fly round as fast as the wind, and, in one second, out of the top came
+a beautiful roast goose, all covered with stuffing and gravy. It came
+so fast that Hans had to catch hold of its drumsticks and take it in
+his hand, there wasn't time to fetch a dish. He was so surprised that
+he stood stock-still, staring at the mill with his mouth open, and the
+handle went on turning, and another goose began to come out of the
+top. Then Hans was frightened, for he thought, 'What shall I do with
+two roast geese at once?' and he shouted loudly, 'Little mill, stop
+grinding, Abracadabra,' and the mill stopped, and the other goose,
+which had only began to come out, you see, doubled itself up, and went
+back again into the inside of the mill as fast as it came.
+
+"Then Hans fetched a pitcher, and he said, 'Little mill, grind hot
+coffee with cream and sugar,' and immediately a stream of coffee came
+pouring out, till the pitcher was full. Then he ground some
+_delicious_ rolls and butter, and then he set the mill on his shelf,
+and danced about the shop for joy.
+
+"'Hans,' he said, 'your fortune is made.'
+
+"And so it was. Because, you know, if people came and asked, 'How soon
+could you make me a coat?' Hans just had to answer, 'Why, to-morrow of
+course;' and then, when they were gone, he would go to the mill, and
+say, 'Little mill, grind a coat to fit Mr. Jones,' and there it would
+be. The coats all fitted splendidly and wore twice as long as other
+coats, and all the town said that Hans was the best tailor that ever
+was, and they all came to him for things, and he got very rich and
+took a big shop. But he was just as kind to poor people as ever, and
+the mill did every thing he wanted. Wasn't it nice?"
+
+"I wish there really was a mill like that; I know what I would grind,"
+said Romaine.
+
+"Well, what would you, Romy?"
+
+"A guitar with a blue ribbon, like my cousin Clara Cunningham's. She
+puts the ribbon round her neck and sings, and it's just lovely."
+
+"But you don't know how to play, do you?" inquired Molly.
+
+"No, but afterwards I'd grind a big music-box, and just as I began to
+play--no, to pretend to play--I'd set it off, and it would sound as if
+I was playing."
+
+"Pshaw, I'd grind something a great deal better than that," cried
+Kitty. "I'd grind a real piano, and I'd learn to play on it my own
+self. I wouldn't have any old make-believe music-boxes to play for
+me."
+
+"You never saw a guitar, I guess," rejoined Romaine, pouting, "or you
+wouldn't think so."
+
+"I'd grind a kitten," put in Rosy, "a white one, just like my
+Snowdrop. Snowdrop has runned away. I don't know where she is."
+
+"How funny she'd look, coming out of the coffee-mill, mewing and
+purring," said Eyebright. "Now stop telling what you'd grind, and let
+me go on. Hans had a neighbor, a very bad man, whose name was Carl.
+When he saw how rich Hans was getting to be, he became very enverous."
+
+"Very what?"
+
+"Enverous. He didn't like it, you know."
+
+"Don't you mean envious?" said Molly Prime.
+
+"Yes, didn't I say so? Mother says I mispronounce awfully, and it's
+because I read so much to myself. I meant enver--envious, of course.
+Well,--Carl noticed that every day when people had gone home to their
+dinners, Hans shut his door, and stayed alone for an hour, and didn't
+let anybody come in. This made him suspect something. So one day he
+bored a little round hole in the back door of Hans' house, and he sat
+down and put his eye to it, and thought, 'Here I stay, if it is a
+month, till I find out what that little rascal does when he is alone.'
+
+"So he watched and watched, and for a long time he didn't see any
+thing but Hans sewing away and waiting on his customers. But at last
+the clock struck twelve, and then Hans shut his door and locked it
+tight, and Carl said to himself, 'Ha, ha, now I have him!'
+
+"Hans brought out the coffee-mill, and set it on the table, and Carl
+heard him say, 'Little mill, grind roast veal, open sesame,' and a
+nice piece of veal came out of the mill, and fell into a platter which
+Hans held to catch it, and then Carl snapped his fingers and jumped
+for joy, and ran off to the wharf, where there was a pirate ship whose
+captain was a friend of his, and he said to the pirate captain, 'Our
+fortunes are made.'
+
+"'What do you mean?" asked the pirate.
+
+"'I mean,' said Carl, 'that that little villain, Hans the tailor, has
+got a fairy mill which grinds every thing he asks for, and I know
+where he keeps it, and what he says to make it grind, and if you will
+go shares, I'll steal it this very night, and we'll sail off to a
+desert island, and there we'll grind gold and grind gold till we are
+as rich as all the people in the world put together. What do you say
+to that?'
+
+"So the pirate captain was delighted, of course, because you know
+that's all that pirates want, just to get gold, and he said 'Yes,' and
+that very night, when Hans was asleep, Carl crept in, stole the mill,
+ran to the wharf, and he and the pirate captain sailed away, and Hans
+never saw his mill again."
+
+"Oh, what a shame! Poor little Hans," cried the children.
+
+"Well, it didn't make so much matter," explained Eyebright, comforting
+them, "because Hans by this time had got to be so well known, and
+people liked him so much, that he kept on getting richer and richer,
+and was always kind to the poor, and happy, so he didn't miss his mill
+much. The pirate ship sailed and sailed, and by and by, when they were
+'way out at sea, the captain said to Carl, 'Suppose we try the mill,
+and see if it is really as good as you think.'
+
+"'Very well,' said Carl, 'what shall we grind?'
+
+"'We won't grind any gold yet,' said the captain, 'because gold is
+heavy, and we can do it better on the desert island. We'll just grind
+some little thing now for fun.' Then he called out to the cook, and
+said, 'Hollo, cook, is there any thing wanting there in your kitchen?'
+
+"'Yes, sir, please,' said the cook, 'we're out of salt; we sailed so
+quick that I couldn't get any.'
+
+"So Carl fetched the mill, and set it on the cabin table, and said,
+'Little mill, grind salt, open sesame.'
+
+"And immediately a stream of beautiful white salt came pouring out,
+till two bags which the cook had brought were quite full, and then the
+captain said, 'That's enough, now stop it.'
+
+"_Just at that moment Carl recollected that he didn't know how to stop
+the Mill._"
+
+Here Eyebright made a dramatic pause.
+
+"Oh, what next? What did he do?" cried the others.
+
+"He said all the words he could think of," continued Eyebright;
+"'Shut, sesame!' and 'Stop!' and 'Please stop!' and 'Don't!' and ever
+so many others; but he couldn't say the right one, because he didn't
+know it, you see! So the salt kept pouring on, and it filled all the
+bags, and boxes, and barrels, and--and--all the--salt-cellars, in the
+ship, and it ran on to the table, and it ran on to the floor; and the
+pirate captain caught hold of the handle and tried to keep it from
+turning; and it gave him such a pinch that he put his fingers into his
+mouth, and danced with pain. Then he was so mad that he got an axe and
+chopped the mill in two, to punish it for knocking him. But
+immediately another handle sprouted out on the half which hadn't any,
+and that made two mills, and the salt came faster than ever. At last,
+when it was up to their knees, Carl and the pirate captain ran to the
+deck to consult what they should do; and, while they were consulting,
+the mills went on grinding. And the ship got so full, and the salt was
+so heavy, that, all of a sudden, down they all sank, ship and Carl and
+the pirates and the mills and all, to the bottom of the sea."
+
+Eyebright came to a full stop. The children drew long breaths.
+
+"Didn't anybody ever get the mill again?" asked Bessie.
+
+"No, never. There they both are at the bottom, grinding away as hard
+as they can; and that's the reason why the sea is so salt!"
+
+"Is it salt?" asked little Rosy, who never had seen the sea.
+
+"Why, Rosy, of course. Didn't you ever eat codfish? They come out of
+the sea, and they're just as salt as salt can be," said Tom, who was
+about a year older than Rosy.
+
+"Now, Molly, you tell one," said Eyebright. "Tell us that one which
+your grandma told you,--the story about the Indian. Don't you
+recollect?"
+
+"Oh, yes; the one I told you that day in the pasture. It's a true
+story, too, every bit of it. My grandma knew the lady it happened to.
+It was ever and ever so long ago, when the country was all over woods
+and Indians, you know, and this lady went to the West to live with her
+husband. He was a pio-nary,--no, pioneer,--no, missionary,--that was
+what he was. Missionaries teach poor people and preach, and this one
+was awfully poor himself, for all the money he had was just a little
+bit which a church in the East gave him.
+
+"Well, after they had lived at the West for a year, the missionary had
+to come back, because some of the people said he wasn't orthodox. I
+don't know what that means. I asked father once, and he said it meant
+so many things that he didn't think he could explain them all; but ma,
+she said, it means 'agreeing with the neighbors.' Anyhow, the
+missionary had to come back to tell the folks that he was orthodox,
+and his wife and children had to stay behind, in the woods, with
+wolves and bears and Indians close by.
+
+"The very day after he started, his wife was sitting by the fire with
+her baby in her lap, when the door opened, and a great, enormous
+Indian walked in and straight up to her.
+
+"I guess she was frightened; don't you?
+
+"'He gone?' asked the Indian in broken English.
+
+"'Yes,' she said.
+
+"Then the Indian held out his hands and said,--'Pappoose. Give.'"
+
+"Oh, my!" cried Romaine. "I'd have screamed right out."
+
+"Well, the lady didn't," continued Molly. "What was the use? There
+wasn't any one to scream to, you know. Beside, she thought perhaps the
+Indian was trying her to see if she trusted him. So she let him take
+the child, and he marched away with it, not saying another word.
+
+"All that night, and all next day, she watched and waited, but he did
+not come back. She began to think all sorts of dreadful things,--that
+perhaps he had killed the child. But just at sunset he came with the
+baby in his arms, and the little fellow was dressed like a chief, in a
+suit of doe-skins which the squaws had made, with cunning little
+moccasins on his feet and a feather stuck in his hair. The Indian put
+him in his mother's lap, and said,--
+
+"'Now red man know white squaw friend, for she not afraid give child.'
+
+"And after that, all the time her husband was gone, the Indians
+brought venison and game, and were real kind to the lady. Wasn't it
+nice?"
+
+The children drew long breaths of relief.
+
+"I don't think I could have been so brave," declared Kitty.
+
+"Now I'll tell you a story which I made up myself," said Romaine, who
+was of a sentimental turn. "It's called the Lady and the Barberry
+Bush.
+
+"Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a lady who loved a
+barberry bush, because its berries were so pretty, and tasted so nice
+and sour. She used to water it, and come at evening to lay her
+snow-white hand upon its leaves."
+
+"Didn't they prick?" inquired Molly, who was as practical as Romaine
+was sentimental.
+
+"No, of course they didn't prick, because the barberry bush was
+enchanted, you know. Nobody else cared for barberry bushes except the
+lady. All the rest liked roses and honeysuckles best, and the poor
+barberry was very glad when it saw the lady coming. At last, one
+night, when she was watering it, it spoke, and it said,--'The hour of
+deliverance has arrived. Lady, behold in me a Prince and your lover!'
+and it changed into a beautiful knight with barberries in his helmet,
+and knelt at her feet, and they were very happy for ever after."
+
+"Oh, how short!" complained the rest. "Eyebright's was a great deal
+longer."
+
+"Yes, but she read hers in a book, you know. I made mine up, all
+myself."
+
+"I'll tell you a 'tory now," broke in little Rosy. "It's a nice
+'tory,--a real nice one. Once there was a little girl, and she wanted
+some pie. She wanted some weal wich pie. And her mother whipped her
+because she wanted the weal wich pie. Then she kied. And her mother
+whipped her. Then she kied again. And her mother whipped her again.
+And the wich pie made her sick. And she died. She couldn't det well,
+'cause the dottor he didn't come. He couldn't come. There wasn't any
+dottor. He was eated up by tigers. Isn't that a nice 'tory?"
+
+The girls laughed so hard over Rosy's story that, much abashed, she
+hid her face in Kitty's lap, and wouldn't raise it for a long time.
+Eyebright tried to comfort her.
+
+"It's a real nice story," she said. "The nicest of all. I'm so glad
+you came, Rosy, else you wouldn't have told it to us."
+
+"Did you hear me tell how the dottor was eated up by tigers?" asked
+Rosy, peeping with one eye from out of the protection of Kitty's
+apron.
+
+"Yes, indeed. That was splendid."
+
+"I made that up!" said Rosy, triumphantly revealing her whole face,
+joyful again, and bright as a full moon.
+
+"Who'll be next?" asked Eyebright.
+
+"I will," said Laura. "Listen now, for it's going to be perfectly
+awful, I can tell you. It's about robbers."
+
+As she spoke these words, Laura lowered her voice, into a sort of
+half-groan, half-whisper.
+
+"There was once a girl who lived all alone by herself, with just one
+Newfoundland dog for company. He wasn't a big Newfoundland,--he was
+pretty small. One night, when it was all dark and she was just going
+to sleep, she heard a rustle underneath her bed."
+
+The children had drawn closer together since Laura began, and at this
+point Romaine gave a loud shriek.
+
+"What was that?" she asked.
+
+All held their breaths. The loft was getting a little dusky now, and
+sure enough, an unmistakable rustle was heard among the hay in a
+distant corner!
+
+"This loft would be a very bad place for a robber," said Eyebright, in
+a voice which trembled considerably, though she tried to keep it
+steady. "A robber wouldn't have much chance with all our men down
+below. James, you know, girls, and Samuel and John."
+
+"Yes,--and Benjamin and Charles," chimed in the quick-witted Molly;
+"and your father, Eyebright, and Henry,--all down there in the barn."
+
+While they recited this formidable list, the little geese were staring
+with wide-open, affrighted eyes into the corner where the rustle had
+been heard.
+
+"And,--" continued Eyebright, her voice trembling more than ever,
+"they have all got pitchforks, you know, and guns, and--oh, mercy!
+what was that? The hay moved, girls, it did move, I saw it!"
+
+All scrambled to their feet prepared to fly, but before any one could
+start, the hay in the corner parted, and, cackling and screaming, out
+flew Mrs. Top-knot, tired of her hidden nest, or of the story-telling,
+and resolved on escape. Eyebright ran after, and shoo-ed her
+downstairs. Then she came back laughing, and said,--
+
+"How silly we were! Go on, Laura."
+
+But the nerves of the party were too shaky still to enjoy
+robber-stories, and Eyebright, perceiving this, made a diversion.
+
+"I know what we all want," she said; "some apples. Stay here all of
+you, and I'll run in and get them. I won't be but a minute."
+
+"Mayn't I come too?" asked the inseparable Bessie.
+
+"Yes, do, and you can help me carry 'em. Don't tell any stories while
+we're gone, girls. Come along, Bess."
+
+Wealthy happened to be in the buttery, skimming cream, so no one spied
+them as they ran through the kitchen and down the cellar stairs. The
+cellar was a very large one. In fact, there were half a dozen cellars
+opening one into the other, like the rooms of a house. Wood and coal
+were kept in some of them, in others vegetables, and there was a
+swinging shelf where stood Wealthy's cold meat, and odds and ends of
+food. All the cellars were dark at this hour of the afternoon, very
+dark, and Bessie held Eyebright's hand tight, as, with the ease of one
+who knew the way perfectly, she sped toward the apple-room.
+
+In the blackest corner of all, Eyebright paused, fumbled a little on
+an almost invisible shelf with a jar which had a lid and clattered,
+and then handed to her friend a dark something whose smell and taste
+showed it to be a pickled butternut.
+
+"Wealthy keeps her pickles here," she said, "and she lets me take one
+now and then, because I helped to prick the butternuts when she made
+'em. I got my fingers awfully stained too. It didn't come off for
+almost a month. Aren't they good?"
+
+"Perfectly splendid!" replied Bessie, as her teeth met in the spicy
+acid oval. "I do think butternut pickles are just too lovely!"
+
+The apple-room had a small window in it, so it was not so dark as the
+other cellars. Eyebright went straight to a particular barrel.
+
+"These are the best ones that are left," she said. "They are those
+spotty russets which you said you liked, Bessie. Now, you take four
+and I'll take four. That'll make just one apiece for each of us."
+
+"How horrid it would be," said Bessie, as the two went upstairs again
+with the apples in their aprons,--"how horrid it would be if a hand
+should suddenly come through the steps and catch hold of our ankles."
+
+"Good gracious, Bessie Mather!" cried Eyebright, whose vivid
+imagination represented to her at once precisely how the hand on her
+ankle would feel, "I wish you wouldn't say such things,--at least till
+we're safely up," she added.
+
+Another moment, and they were safely up and in the kitchen. Alas,
+Wealthy caught sight of them.
+
+"Eyebright," she called after them, "tea will be ready in ten minutes.
+Come in and have your hair brushed and your face washed."
+
+"Why, Wealthy Judson, what an idea! It's only twenty minutes past
+five."
+
+"There's a gentleman to tea to-night, and your pa wants it early, so's
+he can get off by six," replied Wealthy. "I'm just wetting the tea
+now. Don't argue, Eyebright, but come at once."
+
+"I've got to go out to the barn for one minute, anyhow," cried
+Eyebright, impatiently, and she and Bessie flashed out of the door and
+across the yard before Wealthy could say another word.
+
+"It's too bad," she said, rushing upstairs into the loft and beginning
+to distribute the apples. "That old tea of ours is early to-night, and
+Wealthy says I must come in. I'm so sorry now that I went for the
+apples at all, because if I hadn't I shouldn't have known that tea was
+early, and then I needn't have gone! We were having such a nice time!
+Can't you all stay till I've done tea? I'll hurry!"
+
+But the loft, with its rustles and dark corners, was not to be thought
+of for a moment without Eyebright's presence and protection.
+
+"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly; we must go home," the children said,
+and down the stairs they all rushed.
+
+Brindle and old Charley and the strange horse raised their heads and
+stared as the little cavalcade trooped by their stalls. Perhaps they
+were wondering that there was so much less laughing and talking than
+when it went up. They did not know, you see, about the "perfectly
+awful" robber story, or the mysterious rustle, or how dreadfully Mrs.
+Top-knot in the dark corner had frightened the merry little crowd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MR. JOYCE.
+
+
+Wealthy was waiting at the kitchen-door, and pounced on Eyebright the
+moment she appeared. I want you to know Wealthy, so I must tell you
+about her. She was very tall and very bony. Her hair, which was black
+streaked with gray, was combed straight, and twisted round a hair-pin,
+so as to make a tight, solid knot, about the size of a half-dollar, on
+the back of her head. Her face was kind, but such a very queer face
+that persons who were not used to it were a good while in finding out
+the kindness. It was square and wrinkled, with small eyes, a wide
+mouth, and a nose that was almost flat, as if some one had given it a
+knock when Wealthy was a baby, and driven it in. She always wore dark
+cotton gowns and aprons, as clean as clean could be, but made after
+the pattern of Mrs. Japhet's in the Noah's arks,--straight up and
+straight down, with almost no folds, so as to use as little material
+as possible. She had lived in the house ever since Eyebright was a
+baby, and looked upon her almost as her own child,--to be scolded,
+petted, ordered about, and generally taken care of.
+
+Eyebright could not remember any time in her life when her mother was
+not ill. She found it hard to believe that mamma ever had been young
+and active, and able to go about and walk and do the things which
+other people did. Eyebright's very first recollections of her were of
+a pale, ailing person always in bed or on the sofa, complaining of
+headache and backache, and general misery,--coming downstairs once or
+twice in a year perhaps, and even then being the worse for it. The
+room in which she spent her life had a close, dull smell of medicines
+about it, and Eyebright went past its door and down the entry on
+tiptoe, hushing her footsteps without being aware that she did so, so
+fixed was the habit. She was so well and strong herself that it was
+not easy for her to understand what sickness is, or what it needs; but
+her sympathies were quick, and though it was not hard to forget her
+mother and be happy when she was rioting out-of-doors with the other
+children, she never saw her without feeling pity and affection, and a
+wish that she could do something to please or to make her feel better.
+
+Tea was so nearly ready that Wealthy would not let Eyebright go
+upstairs, but carried her instead into a small bedroom, opening from
+the kitchen, where she herself slept. It was a little place, bare
+enough, but very neat and clean, as all things belonging to Wealthy
+were sure to be. Then, she washed Eyebright's face and hands, and
+brushed her hair, retying the brown bow, crimping with her fingers the
+ruffle round Eyebright's neck, and putting on a fresh white apron to
+conceal the ravages of play in the school frock. Eyebright was quite
+able to wash her own face, but Wealthy was not willing yet to think
+so; she liked to do it herself, and Eyebright cared too little about
+the matter, and was too fond of Wealthy beside, to make any
+resistance.
+
+When the little girl was quite neat and tidy,--"Go into the
+sitting-room," said Wealthy, with a final pat. "Tea will be ready in a
+few minutes. Your pa is in a hurry for it."
+
+So Eyebright went slowly through the kitchen, which looked very bright
+and attractive with its crackling fire and the sunlight streaming
+through its open door, and which smelt delightfully of ham and eggs
+and new biscuit,--and down the narrow, dark passage, on one side of
+which was the sitting-room, and on the other a parlor, which was
+hardly ever used by anybody. Wealthy dusted it now and then, and kept
+her cake in a closet which opened out of it, and there were a mahogany
+sofa and some chairs in it, upon which nobody ever sat, and some books
+which nobody ever read, and a small Franklin stove, with brass knobs
+on top, in which a fire was never lighted, and an odor of mice and
+varnish, and that was all. The sitting-room on the other side of the
+entry was much pleasanter. It was a large, square room, wainscoted
+high with green-painted wood, and had a south window and two westerly
+ones, so that the sun lay on it all day long. Here and there in the
+walls, and upon either side of the chimney-piece, were odd, unexpected
+little cupboards, with small green wooden handles in their doors. The
+doors fitted so closely that it was hard to tell which was cupboard
+and which wall; anybody who did not know the room was always a long
+time in finding out just how many cupboards there were. The one on the
+left-hand side of the chimney-piece was Eyebright's special cupboard.
+It had been called hers ever since she was three years old, and had to
+climb on a chair to open the door. There she kept her treasures of all
+kinds,--paper dolls and garden seeds, and books, and scraps of silk
+for patchwork; and the top shelf of all was a sort of hospital for
+broken toys, too far gone to be played with any longer, but too dear,
+for old friendship's sake, to be quite thrown away. The furniture of
+the sitting-room was cherry-wood, dark with age; and between the west
+windows stood a cherry-wood desk, with shelves above and drawers
+below, where Mr. Bright kept his papers and did his writing.
+
+He was sitting there now as Eyebright came in, busy over something,
+and in the rocking-chair beside the fire-place was a gentleman whom
+she did not recognize at first, but who seemed to know her, for in a
+minute he smiled and said:--
+
+"Oho! here is my friend of this morning. Is this your little girl, Mr.
+Bright?"
+
+"Yes," replied papa, from his desk; "she is mine--my only one. That is
+Mr. Joyce, Eyebright. Go and shake hands with him, my dear."
+
+Eyebright shook hands, blushing and laughing, for now she saw that Mr.
+Joyce was the gentleman who had interrupted their play at recess. He
+kept hold of her hand when the shake was over, and began to talk in a
+very pleasant, kind voice, Eyebright thought.
+
+"I didn't know that you were Mr. Bright's little daughter when I asked
+the way to his house," he said "Why didn't you tell me? And what was
+the game you were playing, which you said was so splendid, but which
+made you cry so hard? I couldn't imagine, and it made me very
+curious."
+
+"It was only about Lady Jane Grey," answered Eyebright. "I was Lady
+Jane, and Bessie, she was Margaret; and I was just going to be
+beheaded when you spoke to us. I always cry when we get to the
+executions; they are so dreadful."
+
+"Why do you have them, then? I think that's a very sad sort of play
+for two happy little girls like you. Why not have a nice merry game
+about men and women who never were executed? Wouldn't it be
+pleasanter?"
+
+"Oh, no! It isn't half as much fun playing about people who don't have
+things happen to them," said Eyebright, eagerly. "Once we did, Bessie
+and I. We played at George and Martha Washington, and it wasn't amusing
+a bit,--just commanding armies, and standing on platforms to receive
+company, and cutting down one cherry-tree! We didn't like it at all.
+Lady Jane Grey is much nicer than that. And I'll tell you another
+splendid one, 'The Children of the Abbey.' We played it all through
+from the very beginning chapter, and it took us all our recesses for
+four weeks. I like long plays so much better than short ones which are
+done right off."
+
+Mr. Joyce's eyes twinkled a little, and his lips twitched; but he
+would not smile, because Eyebright was looking straight into his face.
+
+"I don't believe you are too big to sit on my knee," he said; and
+Eyebright, nothing loth, perched herself on his lap at once. She was
+such a fearless little thing, so ready to talk and to make friends,
+that he was mightily taken with her, and she seemed equally attracted
+by him, and chattered freely as to an old friend.
+
+She told him all about her school, and the girls, and what they did in
+summer, and what they did in winter, and about Top-knot, and the other
+chickens, and her dolls,--for Eyebright still played with dolls by
+fits and starts, and her grand plan for making "a cave" in the garden,
+in which to keep label-sticks and bits of string and her cherished
+trowel.
+
+"Won't it be lovely?" she demanded. "Whenever I want any thing, you
+know, I shall just have to dig a little bit, and take up the shingle
+which goes over the top of the cave, and put my hand in. Nobody will
+know that it's there but me. Unless I tell Bessie--," she added,
+remembering that almost always she did tell Bessie.
+
+Mr. Joyce privately feared that the trowel would become very rusty,
+and Eyebright's cave be apt to fill with water when the weather was
+wet; but he would not spoil her pleasure by making these objections.
+Instead, he talked to her about his home, which was in Vermont, among
+the Green Mountains, and his wife, whom he called "mother," and his
+son, Charley, who was a year or two older than Eyebright, and a great
+pet with his father, evidently.
+
+"I wish you could know Charley," he said; "you are just the sort of
+girl he would like, and he and you would have great fun together.
+Perhaps some day your father'll bring you up to make us a visit."
+
+"That would be very nice," said Eyebright. "But"--shaking her
+head--"I don't believe it'll ever happen, because papa never does take
+me away. We can't leave poor mamma, you know. She'd miss us so much."
+
+Here Wealthy brought in supper,--a hearty one, in honor of Mr. Joyce,
+with ham and eggs, cold beef, warm biscuit, stewed rhubarb, marmalade,
+and, by way of a second course, flannel cakes, for making which
+Wealthy had a special gift. Mr. Joyce enjoyed every thing, and made an
+excellent meal. He was amused to hear Eyebright say, "Do take some
+more rhubarb, papa. I stewed it my own self, and it's better than it
+was last time," and to see her arranging her mother's tea neatly on a
+tray.
+
+"What a droll little pussy that is of yours!" he said to her father,
+when Eyebright had gone upstairs with the tray. "She seems all
+imagination, and yet she has a practical turn, too. It's an odd
+mixture. We don't often get the two things combined in one child."
+
+"No, you don't," replied Mr. Bright. "Sometimes I think she has too
+much imagination. Her head is stuffed with all sorts of notions picked
+up out of books, and you'd think, to hear her talk, that she hadn't an
+idea beyond a fairy-tale. But she has plenty of common sense, too, and
+is more helpful and considerate than most children of her age. Wealthy
+says she is really useful to her, and has quite an idea of cooking and
+housekeeping. I'm puzzled at her myself sometimes. She seems two
+different children rolled into one."
+
+"Well, if that is the case, I see no need to regret her vivid
+imagination," replied his friend. "A quick fancy helps people along
+wonderfully. Imagination is like a big sail. When there's nothing
+underneath it's risky; but with plenty of ballast to hold the vessel
+steady, it's an immense advantage and not a danger."
+
+Eyebright came in just then, and as a matter of course went back to
+her perch upon her new friend's knee.
+
+"Do you know a great many stories?" she asked suggestively.
+
+"I know a good many. I make them up for Charley sometimes."
+
+"I wish you'd tell me one."
+
+"It will have to be a short one then," said Mr. Joyce, glancing at his
+watch. "Bright, will you see about having my horse brought round? I
+must be off in ten minutes or so." Then, turning to Eyebright,--"I'll
+tell you about Peter and the Wolves, if you like. That's the shortest
+story I know."
+
+"Oh, do! I like stories about wolves so much," said Eyebright,
+settling herself comfortably to listen.
+
+"Little Peter lived with his grandmother in a wood," began Mr. Joyce
+in a prompt way, as of one who has a good deal of business to get
+through in brief time.
+
+"They lived all alone. He hadn't any other boys to play with, but once
+in a great while his grandmother let him go to the other side of the
+wood, where some boys lived, and play with them. Peter was glad when
+his grandmother said he might go.
+
+"One day in the autumn, he said: 'Grandmother, may I go and see
+William and Jack?' Those were the names of the other boys.
+
+"'Yes,' she said, 'you can go, if you will promise to come home at
+four o'clock. It gets dark early, and I am afraid to have you in the
+wood later than that.'
+
+"So Peter promised. He had a nice time with William and Jack, and at
+four o'clock he started to go home; for he was a boy of his word.
+
+"As he went along, suddenly, on the path before him, he saw a most
+beautiful gray squirrel, with a long bushy tail.
+
+"'Oh, you beauty!' cried Peter. 'I must catch you and carry you home
+to grandmother.'
+
+"Now, this was humbug in Peter, because grandmother did not care a bit
+about gray squirrels. But Peter did.
+
+"So Peter ran to catch the squirrel, and the squirrel ran, too. He did
+not go very fast, but kept just out of reach. More than once, Peter
+thought he had laid hold of him, but the cunning squirrel always
+slipped through his fingers.
+
+"At last the squirrel darted up into a thick tree, where Peter could
+not see him any more. Then Peter began to think of going home. To his
+surprise it was almost dark. He had been running so hard that he had
+not noticed this before, nor which way he had come, and when he looked
+about him, he saw that he had lost his way.
+
+"This was bad enough, but worse happened; for, pretty soon, as he
+plodded on, trying to guess which way he ought to go, he heard a long,
+low howl far away in the wood,--the howl of a wolf. Peter had heard
+wolves howl before, and he knew perfectly well what the sound was. He
+began to run, and he ran and ran, but the howl grew louder, and was
+joined by more howls, and they sounded nearer every minute, and Peter
+knew that a whole pack of wolves was after him. Wolves can run much
+faster than little boys, you know. They had almost caught Peter, when
+he saw--"
+
+Mr. Joyce paused to enjoy Eyebright's eyes, which had grown as round
+as saucers in her excitement.
+
+"Oh, go on!" she cried, breathlessly.
+
+"--when he saw a big hollow tree with a hole in one side. There was
+not a moment to spare; the hole was just big enough for him to get
+into; and in one second he had scrambled through and was inside the
+tree. There were some large pieces of bark lying inside, and he picked
+one up and nailed it over the hole with a hammer which he happened to
+have in his pocket. So there he was, in a safe little house of his
+own, and the wolves could not get at him at all."
+
+"That was splendid," sighed Eyebright, relieved.
+
+"All night the wolves stayed by the tree, and scratched and howled and
+tried to get in," continued Mr. Joyce. "By and by the moon rose, and
+Peter could see them putting their noses through the knotholes in the
+bark, and smelling at him. But the knotholes were too small, and,
+smell as they might, they could not get at him. At last, watching his
+chance he whipped out his jack-knife and cut off the tip of the
+biggest wolf's nose. Then the wolves howled awfully and ran away, and
+Peter put the nose-tip in his pocket, and lay down and went to sleep."
+
+"Oh, how funny!" cried Eyebright, delighted. "What came next?"
+
+"Morning came next, and he got out of the tree and ran home. His poor
+grandmother had been frightened almost to death, and had not slept a
+wink all night long; she hugged and kissed Peter for half an hour and
+then hurried to cook him a hot breakfast. That's all the story,--only,
+when Peter grew to be a man, he had the tip of the wolf's nose set as
+a breast pin, and he always wore it."
+
+Here Mr. Joyce set Eyebright down, and rose from his chair, for he
+heard his horse's hoofs under the window.
+
+"Oh, do tell me about the breast-pin before you go!" cried Eyebright.
+"Did he really wear it? How funny! Was it set in gold, or how?"
+
+"I shall have to keep the description of the breast-pin till we meet
+again," replied Mr. Joyce. "My dear," and he stooped and kissed her,
+"I wish I had a little girl at home just like you. Charley would like
+it too. I shall tell him about you. And if you ever meet, you will be
+friends, I am sure."
+
+Eyebright sat on the door-steps and watched him ride down the street.
+The sun was just setting, and all the western sky was flushed with
+pink, the very color of a rosy sea-shell.
+
+"Mr. Joyce is the nicest man that ever came here, I think," she said
+to Wealthy, who passed through the hall with her hands full of
+tea-things. "He told me a lovely story about wolves. I'll tell it to
+you when you put me to bed, if you like. He's the nicest man I ever
+saw."
+
+"Nicer than Mr. Porter?" asked Wealthy, grimly, walking down the hall.
+
+Eyebright blushed and made no answer. Mr. Porter was a sore subject,
+though she was only six years old when she knew him, and had never
+seen him since.
+
+He was a young man who for one summer had rented a vacant room in Miss
+Fitch's school building. He took a great fancy to Eyebright, who was a
+little girl then, and he used to play with her, and carry her about
+the green in his arms. Several times he promised her a doll, which he
+said he would fetch when he went home. At last, he went home and came
+back, but no doll appeared and whenever Eyebright asked after it, he
+replied that it was "in his trunk."
+
+One day, he carelessly left open the door of his room and Eyebright,
+peeping in, spied it, and saw that his trunk was unlocked. Now was her
+chance, she thought, and, without consulting anybody, she went in,
+resolved to find the doll for herself.
+
+Into the trunk she dived. It was full of things, all of which she
+pulled out and threw upon the floor, which had no carpet, and was
+pretty dusty. Boots, and shirts, and books, and blacking-bottles, and
+papers,--all were dumped one on top of the other; but though she went
+to the very bottom, no doll was to be found, and she trotted away,
+almost crying with disappointment, and leaving the things just as they
+lay, on the floor.
+
+Mr. Porter did not like it at all, when he found his property in this
+condition, and Miss Fitch punished Eyebright, and Wealthy scolded
+hard; but Eyebright never could be made to see that she had done any
+thing naughty.
+
+"He's a wicked man, and he didn't tell the trufe," was all she would
+say. Wealthy was deeply shocked at the affair, and never let Eyebright
+forget it, so that even now, after six years had passed, the mention
+of Mr. Porter's name made her feel uncomfortable. She left the
+door-step presently, and went upstairs to her mother's room, where she
+usually spent the last half-hour before going to bed.
+
+It was one of Mrs. Bright's better days, and she was lying on the
+sofa. She was a pretty little woman still, though thin and faded, and
+had a gentle, helpless manner, which made people want to pet her, as
+they might a child. The room seemed very warm and close after the
+fresh door-step, and Eyebright thought, as she had thought many times
+before, "How I wish that mother liked to have her window open!" But
+she did not say so. "Was your tea nice, mamma?" she asked, a little
+doubtfully, for Mrs. Bright was hard to please with food, probably
+because her appetite was so fickle.
+
+"Pretty good," her mother answered; "my egg was too hard, and I don't
+like quite so much sugar in rhubarb, but it did very well. What have
+you been about all day, Eyebright?"
+
+"Nothing particular, mamma. School, you know; and after school, some
+of the girls came into our hayloft and told stories, and we had such a
+nice time. Then Mr. Joyce was here to tea. He's a real nice man,
+mamma. I wish you had seen him."
+
+"How was he nice? It seems to me you didn't see enough of him to
+judge," said her mother.
+
+"Why, mamma, I can always tell right away if people are nice or not.
+Can't you? Couldn't you, when you were well, I mean?"
+
+"I don't think much of that sort of judging," said Mrs. Bright,
+languidly. "It takes a long time to find out what people really
+are,--years."
+
+"Why, mamma!" cried Eyebright, with wide-open eyes. "I couldn't know
+but just two or three people in my whole life if I had to take such
+lots of time to find out! I'd a great deal rather be quick, even if I
+changed my mind afterward."
+
+"You'll be wiser when you're older," said her mother. "It's time for
+my medicine now. Will you bring it, Eyebright? It's the third bottle
+from the corner of the mantel, and there's a tea-cup and spoon on the
+table."
+
+[Illustration: Eyebright fetched the medicine and the cup, and her
+mother measured out the dose.--PAGE 61.]
+
+Poor Mrs. Bright! Her medicine had grown to be the chief interest of
+her life! The doctor who visited her was one of the old-fashioned kind
+who believed in big doses and three pills at a time, and something new
+every week or two; but, in addition to his prescriptions, Mrs. Bright
+tried all sorts of queer patent physics which people told her of, or
+which she read about in the newspapers. She also took a great deal of
+herb tea of different sorts. There was always a little porringer of
+something steaming away on her stove,--camomile, or boneset, or
+wormwood, or snakeroot, or tansy, and always a long row of fat bottles
+with labels on the chimney-piece above it.
+
+Eyebright fetched the medicine and the cup, and her mother measured
+out the dose.
+
+"I can't help hoping that this is going to do me good," she said.
+"It's something new which I read about in the 'Evening Chronicle,'--Dr.
+Bright's Cosmopolitan Febrifuge. It seems to work the most wonderful
+cures. Mrs. Mulravy, a lady in Pike's Gulch, Idaho, got entirely well
+of consumptive cancer by taking only two bottles; and a gentleman from
+Alaska writes that his wife and three children, who were almost dead of
+cholera collapse and heart-disease, recovered entirely after taking the
+Febrifuge one month. It's very wonderful."
+
+"I've noticed that those folks who get well in the advertisements
+always live in Idaho and Alaska and such like places, where people
+ain't very likely to go a-hunting after them," said Wealthy, who came
+in just then with a candle.
+
+"Now, Wealthy, how can you say so! Both these cures are certified to
+by regular doctors. Let me see,--yes,--Dr. Ingham and Dr. H. B.
+Peters. Here are their names on the bottle!"
+
+"It's easy enough to make up a name or two if you want 'em," muttered
+Wealthy. Then, seeing that Mrs. Bright looked troubled, she was sorry
+she had spoken, and made haste to add, "However, the medicine may be
+first-rate medicine, and if it does you good, Mrs. Bright, we'll crack
+it up everywhere,--that we will."
+
+Eyebright's bedtime was come. She kissed her mother for good-night
+with the feeling which she always had, that she must kiss very gently,
+or some dreadful thing might happen,--her mother break in two,
+perhaps, or something. Wealthy, who was in rather a severe mood for
+some reason, undressed her in a sharp, summary way, declined to listen
+to the wolf story, and went away, taking the candle with her. But
+there was little need of a candle in Eyebright's room that night, for
+the shutters stood open, and a bright full moon shone in, making every
+thing as distinct, almost, as it was in the daytime. She was not a bit
+sleepy, but she didn't mind being sent to bed, at all, for bedtime
+often meant to her only a second playtime which she had all to
+herself. Getting up very softly, so as to make no noise, she crept to
+the closet, and brought out a big pasteboard box which was full of old
+ribbons and odds and ends of lace and silk. With these she proceeded
+to make herself fine; a pink ribbon went round her head, a blue one
+round her neck, a yellow and a purple round either ankle, and round
+her waist, over her night-gown a broad red one, very dirty, to serve
+as a sash. Each wrist was adorned with a bit of cotton edging, and,
+with a broken fan in her hand, Eyebright climbed into bed again, and
+putting one pillow on top of the other to make a seat, began to play,
+telling herself the story in a low, whispering tone.
+
+"I am a Princess," she said; "the most beautiful Princess that ever
+was. But I didn't know that I was a Princess at all, because a wicked
+fairy stole me when I was little, and put me in a lonely cottage, and
+I thought I wasn't any thing but a shepherdess. But one day, as I was
+feeding my sheep, a ne-cro-answer he came by and he said:--
+
+"'Princess, why don't you have any crown?'
+
+"Then I stared, and said, 'I'm not a Princess.'
+
+"'Oh, but you are,' he said; 'a real Princess.'
+
+"Then I was so surprised you can't think, Bessie.--Oh, I forgot that
+Bessie wasn't here. And I said, 'I cannot believe such nonsense as
+that, sir.'
+
+"Then the necroanswer laughed, and he said:--
+
+"'Mount this winged steed, and I will show you your kingdom which you
+were stolen away from.'
+
+"So I mounted."
+
+Here Eyebright put a pillow over the foot-board of the bed, and
+climbed upon it, in the attitude of a lady on a side-saddle.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful it is!" she murmured. "How fast we go! I do love
+horseback."
+
+Dear silly little Eyebright! Riding there in the moonlight, with her
+scraps of ribbon and her bare feet and her night-gown, she was a
+fantastic figure, and looked absurd enough to make any one laugh. I
+laugh, too, and yet I love the little thing, and find it delightful
+that she should be so easily amused and made happy with small fancies.
+Imagination is like a sail, as Mr. Joyce had said that evening; but
+sails are good and useful things sometimes, and carry their owners
+over deep waters and dark waves, which else might dampen, and drench,
+and drown.
+
+[Illustration: EYEBRIGHT MAKING HERSELF FINE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A DAY WITH THE SHAKERS.
+
+
+Three weeks after Mr. Joyce's visit, the long summer vacation
+began. The children liked school, but none the less did they
+rejoice over the coming of vacation. It brought a sense of
+liberty, of long-days-all-their-own-to-do-as-they-liked-with,
+which it was worth going to school the rest of the year to feel.
+Each new morning was like a separate beautiful gift, brought and
+laid in their hands by an invisible somebody, who must be kind
+and a friend, since he continually did this delightful thing for
+them.
+
+One hot August afternoon, Eyebright and two or three of her special
+cronies had gone for coolness to the ice-house, a place which they had
+used as a playroom before on especially sultry days. It was a large,
+square underground cave, with a shingled roof set over it, whose eaves
+rested on the ground. The ice when first put in, filled all the space
+under the roof, and it was necessary to climb up to reach the top
+layer; later, ice and ground were on a level, but by August so much
+ice had been used or had melted away, that a ladder was wanted to help
+people down to the surface. The girls had left the door a little open,
+but still the place was dark, and they could only dimly see the tin
+chest in the corner where Wealthy kept her marketing, and the shapes
+of two or three yellow crocks which lay half buried, their round lids
+looking like the caps of droll little drowning Chinamen.
+
+It was so hot outside, that the dullness of the ice was as refreshing
+as very cold water is to people who have been walking in the sun. The
+girls drew long breaths of relief as they entered. Such a sharp change
+from heat to cold is not quite safe, and I imagine Wealthy would
+probably have had a word to say on the subject, had she spied them
+going into the ice-house; but Wealthy happened to be looking another
+way that afternoon, so she did not interfere; and as, strange to say,
+it harmed nobody that time, we need not discuss the wisdom of the
+proceeding, only don't any of you who read this go and sit in an
+ice-house without getting leave from someone wiser than yourselves.
+
+"Oh, this is delightful," said Romaine. "It's just like the North Pole
+and the Arctic regions which Pa read about in the book. Don't you come
+here sometimes and play shipwreck and polar bears, Eyebright? I should
+think you would."
+
+"We did once, but Harry Prime broke a butter-jar, and Wealthy was as
+mad as hops, and said we must never play here again, and I must never
+let another boy come into the ice-house. She didn't say we girls
+mustn't come, though, and I'm glad she didn't; for it's lovely in hot
+weather, I think."
+
+"I wish _we_ had an ice-house," sighed Kitty Bury, "you do have such
+lots of nice things, Eyebright, ice-houses and hay-lofts and a great
+big garret, and a room to yourself; I wish I was an only child."
+
+"I'd rather have some brothers and sisters than all the ice-houses in
+creation," said Eyebright, who never had agreed with Kitty as to the
+advantages of being 'only.' "It's a great deal nicer."
+
+"That's because you don't know any thing about it. Brothers and
+sisters are nice enough sometimes, but other times they're nothing but
+a plague," snapped Kitty, who seemed out of sorts for some reason or
+other; "you can't imagine what a bother Sarah Jane is to me. She's
+always taking my things, and turning my drawers over, and tagging
+round after me when I don't want her; and if I bolt the door, and try
+to get a little peace and quiet, she comes and bangs, and says it's
+her room too, and I've no business to lock her out; and then mother
+takes her part, and it isn't nice a bit. I would a great deal rather
+be an only child than have Sarah Jane."
+
+"But don't you have splendid times at night and in the morning? I
+always thought it must be so nice to wake up and find another girl
+there ready to play and talk." Eyebright's tone was a little wistful.
+
+"Well, it's nice _sometimes_," admitted Kitty.
+
+Just then the door at the top of the ladder opened, and a fresh face
+peeped in.
+
+"Oh, it's Molly Prime," they all cried. "Here we are, Molly, come
+along."
+
+Molly scrambled down the ladder.
+
+"I guessed where you were," she said. "Wealthy didn't know, so I took
+care not to say a word to her, but just crept round and looked in. Oh,
+girls! what do you think is going to happen?--something nice."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Miss Fitch is going to have a picnic and take us to the Shakers."
+
+The Shaker settlement was about ten miles from Tunxet. I am not sure
+that I have remembered to tell you that Tunxet was the name of the
+place where Eyebright and the other children lived, but it was, Tunxet
+Village. They were used to see the stout, sober-looking brethren in
+their broad-brimmed hats, driving about the place in wagons and
+selling vegetables, cheese, and apple-butter. But, as it happened,
+none of the children had ever visited the home of the community, and
+Molly's news produced a great excitement.
+
+"Goody! goody!" they all cried, "when are we going, Molly, and how did
+you know?"
+
+"Miss Fitch told father. She came to borrow our big wagon, and Ben to
+drive, and Pa said she could have it and welcome, because he thinks
+ever so much of Miss Fitch, and so does mother. We are going on
+Friday, and we are not to carry any thing to eat, because we're sure
+to get a splendid dinner over there. Mother says nobody makes such
+good things as the Shakers do. Won't it be lovely? All the school is
+going, little ones and all, except Washington Wheeler, and he can't,
+because he's got the measles."
+
+"Oh, poor little Washington, that's too bad," said Eyebright, "but I'm
+too glad for any thing that we're going. I always did want to see the
+Shakers. Wealthy went once, and she told me about it. She says they're
+the cleanest people in the world, and that you might eat off their
+kitchen floor."
+
+"Well, if Wealthy says that, you may be sure it is true," put in Laura
+Wheelwright. "Ma declares _she's_ the cleanest person she ever saw."
+
+"Oh, Wealthy says the Shakers wouldn't call her clean a bit," replied
+Eyebright. "They'd never eat off _her_ floor, she says."
+
+"Shall we really have to eat off a floor?" inquired Bessie, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, no. That's only a way of saying very clean indeed!" explained
+Eyebright.
+
+All was expectation from that time onward till Friday came. The
+children were afraid it might rain, and watched the clouds anxiously.
+Thursday evening brought a thunder-storm, and many were the groans and
+sighs; but next morning dawned fresh and fair, with clear sunshine,
+and dust thoroughly laid on the roads, so that every thing seemed to
+smile on the excursion. There was but one discord in the general joy,
+which was that poor little Washington Wheeler must be left behind,
+with his measles and his disappointment. Eyebright felt so sorry for
+him that she told Wealthy she was afraid she shouldn't enjoy herself;
+but bless her! no sooner were they fairly off, than she forgot
+Washington and every thing else, except the nice time they were
+having; and neither she nor any one beside noticed the very red and
+very tear-stained little face, pressed against the pane of the upper
+window of Mr. Wheeler's house, to watch the big wagon roll through the
+village.
+
+Such a big wagon, and packed so very full! There were twenty-three of
+them, including Miss Fitch, and Ben, the driver, and how they all got
+in is a mystery to this day. The big girls held the little ones in
+their laps, the boys were squeezed into the bottom, which was made
+soft with straw, and somehow every body did have a place, though how,
+I can't explain. The road was new to them after the first two or three
+miles, and a new road is always exciting, especially when, as this
+did, it winds and turns, now in the woods, and now out, now sunshiny,
+and now shady, and does not give you many chances to look ahead and
+see what you are coming to. They passed several farmhouses, where boys
+whom they had never seen before ran out and raised a shout at the
+sight of the wagon and its merry load. A horse in a field, who looked
+like a very tame, good-natured horse indeed, took a fancy to them, and
+trotted alongside till stopped by a fence. Then he flung up his head
+and whinnied, as if calling them to come back, which made the children
+laugh. Soon after that they reached a bit of woodland, where trees
+arched over the road and made it cool and shady, and there they saw a
+squirrel, running just ahead of the wagon over the pine needles. He
+did not seem to notice them at first, but the boys whooped and
+hurrahed, and _then_ he was off in a minute, flashing up a tree-trunk
+like a streak of striped lightning. This was delightful; and no less
+so a flight of crows which passed overhead, cawing, and flying so low
+that the children could see every feather in their bodies, which shone
+in the sun like burnished green-black jet, and the glancing of their
+thievish eyes.
+
+"Going to steal from some farmer's wheat-crop," said Miss Fitch, and
+she repeated these verses about a crow, which amused the children
+greatly.
+
+    "Where are you bound to, you sooty-black crow?
+     What is that noise which you make as you go?
+     You are a sad wicked thief, as I know,
+     Held by no honesty, keeping no law--
+     What do you say, sir?" The crow he said--
+                                      "Caw."
+
+    "Corn is still green, oh, you naughty, bad crow,
+     Wheat is not ripe in the meadow below.
+     What is your errand? I think it is low
+     Thus to be stuffing and cramming your maw,
+     Robbing the farmers!--" The crow he said--
+                                      "Caw."
+
+    "Bring me my gun. Now you sinful old crow,
+     Right at your back I take aim as you go.
+     You are a thief and the honest man's foe!
+     Therefore I shoot you." Click! Bang!--but, oh pshaw!
+     Off flew the crow, and he laughed and said--
+                                      "Caw."
+
+By the time that the children had done giggling over the crow-rhymes,
+the Shaker village was in sight, looking, against its back-ground of
+green trees, like a group of nice yellow cheeses,--only the cheeses
+were not round. All the buildings were cream-colored, and seemed
+freshly painted, they were so very clean. The windows had no shutters,
+but inside some of them hung blue paper shades to keep out the sun.
+Every thing looked thrifty and in excellent order. The orchard trees
+were heavy with half-grown apples and pears; the grass fields had been
+newly cut, and nothing could be imagined neater than the vegetable
+gardens which lay on one side of the houses. All the green things
+stood in precise straight rows,--every beet, and carrot, and cucumber
+with his hands in his own pocket, so to speak; none of that reaching
+about and intruding on neighboring premises which most vegetables
+indulge in; but every one at home, with a sedate air, and minding his
+own business. Not a single squash-vine could be detected tickling
+another squash-vine; each watermelon lay in the middle of his hill
+with a solemn expression on his large face; the tomatoes looked
+ashamed of being red; and only a suit of drab apiece seemed wanting,
+to make the pumpkins as respectably grave as the other members of the
+community. Two small boys, in wide-brimmed hats and legs of discreet
+tint, were weeding these decorous vegetables. They raised their heads
+and took one good stare as the big wagon rattled past, then they
+lowered them again, and went on with their work, laying the pig-weeds,
+which they pulled out of the ground, in neat little piles along the
+garden walk.
+
+At the door of the principal building, a stout, butternut-colored
+Elder stood waiting, as if to learn their business.
+
+"We have driven over to see your village," said Miss Fitch, in her
+pleasant voice, "and we should like dinner, if you can give it to us."
+
+"Yea," said the Elder. He pronounced the word as if it were spelled
+"ye." That was all he said; but he helped the children to get down
+from the wagon, and led the way through a very clean, bare passage to
+a room equally clean and bare, where four women in drab gowns with
+wide collars and stiff white caps were sitting, each on a little
+platform by herself, darning stockings, with a basket of mending
+beside her.
+
+One of these introduced herself to Miss Fitch as Sister Samantha. She
+had a round, comfortable face, and the boys and girls, who had felt an
+awe of the grave Elder, recovered courage as they looked at her. She
+said they could "go round" if they wanted to, and called a younger
+sister named Dorcas to show them the way.
+
+Sister Dorcas had a pale, rather dissatisfied face. She did not seem
+so happy as Sister Samantha. She showed the children all that there
+was to see, but she said very little and took no pains to explain any
+thing, or to make the visit pleasant. They saw the bedrooms where the
+sisters slept, and the bedrooms where the brothers slept, all exactly
+alike, comfortable, plain, and unadorned, except for wonderful
+patchwork quilts on the beds, and the gay "pulled" rugs on the floors.
+They were shown the kitchen where the food for all the community was
+cooked, a kitchen as clean and shining as the waxen cell of a bee, and
+the storerooms, full of dried fruits and preserved fruits, honey,
+cheeses, beeswax, wooden ware, brooms, herbs, and soap. There was an
+"office" also, where these things were for sale to any one who should
+choose to buy, and great consultations took place among the children,
+who had almost all brought a little shopping money. Some chose
+maple-sugar, some, silk-winders, some, little cakes of white wax for
+use in work-baskets. Molly Prime had a sudden bright thought, which
+she whispered about, and after much giggling and mysterious
+explanations in corners, they clubbed together and got a work-basket
+for Miss Fitch. It cost a dollar and a quarter, and was a great
+beauty, the children thought. Miss Fitch was very much pleased with
+it, and that added to their pleasure, so that the purchase of the
+work-basket was one of the pleasantest events of the day. Eyebright
+spent what was left of her money in buying a new mop-handle as a
+present for Wealthy, who wanted one, she knew. She was a good deal
+laughed at by the other boys and girls, but she didn't mind that a
+bit, and shouldering her mop-handle as if it had been a flag-staff,
+followed with the rest wherever Sister Dorcas chose to lead them.
+
+Sister Dorcas took them to see the big barns, sweet with freshly made
+hay, and to the dairy and cheese-house, with white shelves laden with
+pans of rich milk and curds, the very sight of which made the children
+hungry. Next they peeped into the meeting-house for Sundays, and then
+they were taken to the room where fruit was packed and sorted. Here
+they found half-a-dozen young Shakeresses, busy in filling baskets
+with blackberries for next day's market.
+
+These Shaker girls pleased the children very much; they looked so
+fresh and prim and pretty in their sober costume, and so cheerful and
+smiling. Eyebright fell in love at once with the youngest and
+prettiest, a girl only two or three years older than herself. She
+managed to get close to her, and, under pretence of helping with the
+blackberries, drew her a little to one side, where they could talk
+without being overheard.
+
+"Do you like to live here?" she asked confidentially, as their fingers
+met in the blackberry basket.
+
+"Yea," said the little Shakeress, glancing round shyly. Then as she
+saw that nobody was noticing them, she became more communicative.
+
+"I like it--pretty well," she said. "But I guess I shan't stay here
+always."
+
+"Won't you? What will you do then? Where will you go?"
+
+"I don't know yet; but Ruth Berguin--she is my sister in the
+flesh--was once of this family, and she left, and went back to the
+world's people and got married. She lives up in Canada now, and has
+got two babies. She came for a visit once, and fetched one of them.
+Sister Samantha felt real badly when Ruth went, but she liked the baby
+ever so much. I mean to go back to the world's people too, some day."
+
+"Oh my! perhaps _you_ will get married," suggested Eyebright, greatly
+excited at the idea.
+
+"Perhaps I shall," answered the small Shakeress with unmoved gravity.
+
+Then she told Eyebright that her name was Jane, and she was an orphan,
+and that she and sister Orphah, whom she pointed out, slept together
+in one of the bedrooms which the children had seen upstairs, and had
+very "good times" after the lights were out, whispering to each other
+and planning what they would do when they were old enough to do any
+thing. Sister Orphah, too, had a scheme for returning to the world's
+people--perhaps they might go together. The idea of these "good times"
+rather tickled Eyebright's imagination. For a few minutes she
+reflected that perhaps it might be a pleasant thing to come and join
+the Shakers. She and sister Jane grew intimate so fast, and chattered
+so merrily, that Bessie became jealous and drew near to hear what they
+were saying, and presently one of the elder Shakeresses joined them,
+and gently sent Jane away on an errand. Eyebright's chance for
+confidences was over: but she had made the most of it while it lasted,
+and that is always a comfort.
+
+By the time that they had finished the round of the premises dinner
+was ready,--welcome news; for the children were all very hungry. It
+was spread in an enormous dining-room on two long tables. The men
+Shakers sat at one table, and the women Shakers at the other. Miss
+Fitch and her scholars were placed with the latter, and some of the
+young sisters waited on them very neatly and quietly. Sister Jane was
+one of these and she took especial care of Eyebright whom she seemed
+to regard as a friend of her own. No one spoke at either table except
+to ask for something or to say "thank you"; but to make up for this
+silence, a prodigious amount of eating was done. No wonder, for the
+dinner was excellent, the very best dinner, the children thought, that
+they had ever tasted. There was no fresh meat, but capital pork and
+beans, vegetables of all kinds, delicious Indian pudding, flooded with
+thick, yellow cream, brown bread and white, rusk, graham gems,
+oat-meal and grits, with the best of butter, apple-sauce,
+maple-molasses, and plenty of the richest milk. Every thing was of the
+nicest material, and as daintily clean as if intended for a queen.
+Miss Fitch praised the food, and Sister Samantha, who looked pleased,
+said they tried to do things thoroughly, "as to the Lord." Miss Fitch
+said afterward that she thought this was an admirable idea, and she
+wished more people would try it, because then there would be less bad
+cooking in the world, and less saleratus and dyspepsia. She said that
+to be faithful and thorough in every thing, even in getting dinner
+ready, was a real way of serving God, and pleased Him too, because He
+looks beyond things, and sees the spirit in which we do them.
+
+At three o'clock the wagon came to the door, and they said good-by to
+the kind Shakers. Miss Fitch paid for the dinner; but the elder was
+not willing to take much. They entertained the poor for nothing, he
+said. A small compensation from those who were able and willing to
+pay, did not come amiss, but a dinner for boys and girls like those,
+he guessed, didn't amount to much. Miss Fitch privately doubted this.
+It seemed to her that a regiment of grown men could hardly have
+devoured more in the same space of time than her hungry twenty-one;
+but she was grateful to the elder for his kindness, and told him so.
+Eyebright parted from Sister Jane with a kiss, and gave her, by way of
+keepsake, the only thing she had,--a china doll about two inches long,
+which chanced to be at the bottom of her pocket. It was a droll gift
+to make to a solemn little Shakeress in drab; but Jane was pleased,
+and said she should always keep it. Then they were packed into the
+wagon again, and with many good-bys they drove away, kissing their
+hands to the sisters at the door, and carrying with them a sense of
+cleanliness, hospitality, and quiet peace, which would make them for
+ever friendly to the name of Shaker.
+
+The drive home was as pleasant as that of the morning had been. The
+children were not at all tired, and in the most riotous spirits. They
+hurrahed every five minutes. They made jokes and guessed riddles, and
+sang choruses,--"_Tranquidillo_" was one; "We'll bear the storm, it
+won't be long," another; and "Ubidee," which Herman Bury had picked up
+from a cousin in college, and which they all thought grand. Past the
+farmhouses they went, past the tree where the squirrel had curled
+himself to sleep, and the fields from which the thievish crows had
+flown. They stopped a minute at Mr. Wheeler's to leave some
+maple-sugar for Washington,--not the best diet for measles, perhaps,
+but pleasant as a proof of kind feeling, and then, one by one, they
+were dropped at the doors of their own homes.
+
+"Well!" said Wealthy, eying her mop-handle with great satisfaction.
+"That's what I call sensible. I expected you'd spend your money on
+some pesky gimcrack or other. I never thought 't would be a handy
+thing like this, and I am obliged to you for it, Eyebright. Now run up
+and see your ma. She was asking after you a while ago."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+HOW THE BLACK DOG HAD HIS DAY.
+
+
+"You've got the black dog on your shoulder, this morning; that's
+what's the matter with you," said Wealthy.
+
+This metaphorical black dog meant a bad humor. Eyebright had waked up
+cross and irritable. What made her wake up cross I am not wise enough
+to explain. The old-fashioned doctors would probably have ascribed it
+to indigestion, the new-fashioned ones to nerves or malaria or a
+"febrile tendency"; Deacon Bury, I think, would have called it
+"Original Sin," and Wealthy, who did not mince matters, dubbed it an
+attack of the Old Scratch, which nothing but a sound shaking could
+cure. Very likely all these guesses were partly right and all partly
+wrong. When our bodies get out of order, our souls are apt to become
+disordered too, and at such times there always seem to be little imps
+of evil lurking near, ready to seize the chance, rush in, fan the
+small embers of discontent to a flame, make cross days crosser, and
+turn bad beginnings into worse endings.
+
+The morning's mischances had begun with Eyebright's being late to
+breakfast;--a thing which always annoyed her father very much. Knowing
+this, she made as much haste as possible, and ran downstairs with her
+boots half buttoned, fastening her apron as she went. She was in too
+great a hurry to look where she was going, and the result was that
+presently she tripped and fell, bumping her head and tearing the skirt
+of her frock half across. This was bad luck indeed, for Wealthy, she
+knew, would make her darn it as a punishment, and that meant at least
+an hour's hard work indoors on one of the loveliest days that ever
+shone. She picked herself up and went into the sitting-room, pouting,
+and by no means disposed to enjoy the lecture on punctuality, which
+papa made haste to give, and which was rather longer and sharper than
+it would otherwise have been, because Eyebright looked so very sulky
+and obstinate while listening to it.
+
+You will all be shocked at this account, but I am not sorry to show
+Eyebright to you on one of her naughty days. All of us have such days
+sometimes, and to represent her as possessing no faults would be to
+put her at a distance from all of you; in fact, I should not like her
+so well myself. She has been pretty good, so far, in this story; but
+she was by no means perfect, for which let us be thankful; because a
+perfect child would be an unnatural thing, whom none of us could quite
+believe in or understand! Eyebright was a dear little girl, and for
+all her occasional naughtiness, had plenty of lovable qualities about
+her; and I am glad to say she was not often so naughty as on this day.
+
+When a morning begins in this way, every thing seems to go wrong with
+us, as if on purpose. It was so with Eyebright. Her mother, who was
+very poorly, found fault with her breakfast. She wanted some hotter
+tea, and a slice of toast a little browner and cut very thin. These
+were simple requests, and on any other day Eyebright would have danced
+off gleefully to fulfil them. To-day she was annoyed at having to go,
+and moved slowly and reluctantly. She did not say that she felt
+waiting on her mother to be a trouble, but her face, and the
+expression of her shoulders, and her dull, dawdling movements said it
+for her; and poor Mrs. Bright, who was not used to such unwillingness
+on the part of her little daughter, felt it so much that she shed a
+few tears over the second cup of tea after it was brought. This
+dismayed Eyebright, but it also exasperated her. She would not take
+any notice, but stood by in silence till her mother had finished, and
+then, without a word, carried the tray downstairs. A sort of double
+mood was upon her. Down below the anger was a feeling of keen remorse
+for what she had done, and a voice inside seemed to say: "Oh dear, how
+sorry I am going to be for this by and by!" But she would not let
+herself be sorry then, and stifled the voice by saying, half aloud, as
+she went along: "I don't care. It's too bad of mother. I wish she
+wouldn't."
+
+Wealthy met her at the stair-foot.
+
+"How long you've been!" she said, taking the tray from her.
+
+"I can't be any quicker when I have to keep going for more things,"
+said Eyebright.
+
+"Nobody said you could," retorted Wealthy, speaking crossly herself,
+because Eyebright's tone was cross. "Mercy on me! How did you tear
+your frock like that? You'll have to darn it yourself, you know;
+that's the rule. Fetch your work-box as soon as you've done the cups
+and saucers."
+
+Eyebright almost replied "I won't," but she did not quite dare, and
+walked, without speaking, into the sitting-room, where the table was
+made ready for dish-washing, with a tub of hot water, towels, a bit of
+soap, and a little mop. Since vacation began, Wealthy had allowed her
+to wash the breakfast things on Mondays and Tuesdays, days on which
+she herself was particularly busy.
+
+Ordinarily, Eyebright was very proud to be trusted with this little
+job. She worked carefully and nicely, and had proved herself capable,
+but to-day her fingers seemed all thumbs. She set the cups away
+without drying the bottoms, so that they made wet rings on the
+shelves; she only half rinsed the teapot, left a bit of soap in its
+spout, and ended by breaking a saucer. Wealthy scolded her, she
+retorted, and then Wealthy made the speech, which I have quoted, about
+the black dog.
+
+Very slowly and unwillingly Eyebright sat down to darn her frock. It
+was a long, jagged rent, requiring patience and careful slowness, and
+neither good-will nor patience had Eyebright to bring to the task. Her
+fingers twitched, she "pshawed," and "oh deared," ran the needle in
+and out and in irregularly, jerked the thread, and finally gave a
+fretful pull when she came to the end of the first needleful, which
+tore a fresh hole in the stuff and puckered all she had darned, so
+that it was not fit to be seen. Wealthy looked in just then, and was
+scandalized at the condition of the work.
+
+"You can just pick it out from the beginning," she said. "It's a
+burning shame that a great girl like you shouldn't know how to do
+better. But it's temper--that's what it is. Nothing in the world but
+temper, Eyebright. You've been as cross as two sticks all day, Massy
+knows for what, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself," whereon she
+gave Eyebright a little shake.
+
+The shake was like a match applied to gunpowder. Eyebright flamed into
+open revolt.
+
+"Wealthy Ann Judson!" she cried, angrily. "Let me alone. It's all your
+fault if I am cross, you treat me so. I won't pick it out. I won't
+darn it at all. And I shall just tell my father that you shook me; see
+if I don't."
+
+Wealthy's reply was a sound box on the ear. Eyebright's naughtiness
+certainly deserved punishment, but it was hardly wise or right of
+Wealthy to administer it, or to do it thus. She was far too angry to
+think of that, however.
+
+"That's what you want," said Wealthy, "and you'd be a better girl if
+you got it oftener." Then she marched out of the room, leaving
+Eyebright in a fury.
+
+"I won't bear it! I won't bear it!" she exclaimed, bursting into
+tears. "Everybody is cruel, cruel! I'll run away! I'll not stay in
+this house another minute--not another minute," and, catching up her
+sun-bonnet, she darted through the hall and was out of the gate and
+down the street in a flash. Wealthy was in the kitchen, her father was
+out, no one saw her go. Rosy and Tom Bury, who were swinging on their
+gate, called to her as she passed, but their gay voices jarred on her
+ear, and she paid no attention to the call.
+
+Tunxet village was built upon a sloping hill whose top was crowned
+with woods. To reach these woods, Eyebright had only to climb two
+stone walls and cross a field and a pasture, and as they seemed just
+then the most desirable refuge possible, she made haste to do so. She
+had always had a peculiar feeling for woods, a feeling made up of
+terror and attraction. They were associated in her mind with fairies
+and with robbers, with lost children, redbreasts, Robin Hood and his
+merry men; and she was by turns eager and shy at the idea of exploring
+their depths, according to which of these images happened to be
+uppermost in her ideas. To-day she thought neither of Robin Hood nor
+the fairies. The wood was only a place where she could hide away and
+cry and be unseen, and she plunged in without a thought of fear.
+
+In and in she went, over stones and beds of moss, and regiments of
+tall brakes, which bowed and rose as she forced her way past their
+stems, and saluted her with wafts of woodsy fragrance, half bitter,
+half sweet, but altogether pleasant. There was something soothing in
+the shade and cool quiet of the place. It fell like dew on her hot
+mood, and presently her anger changed to grief, she knew not why. Her
+eyes filled with tears. She sat down on a stone all brown with soft
+mosses, and began to cry, softly at first, then loudly and more loud,
+not taking any pains to cry quietly, but with hard sobs and great
+gulps which echoed back in an odd way from the wood. It seemed a
+relief at first to make as much noise as she liked with her crying,
+and to know that there was no one to hear or be annoyed. It was
+pleasant, too, to be able to talk out loud as well as to cry.
+
+"They are _so_ unkind to me," she wailed, "so very unkind. Wealthy
+never slapped me before. She has no right to slap me. I'll never kiss
+Wealthy again,--never. O-h, she was so unkind"--
+
+"O-h!" echoed back the wood in a hollow tone. Eyebright jumped.
+
+"It's like a voice," she thought. "I'll go somewhere else. It isn't
+nice just here. I don't like it."
+
+So she went back a little way to the edge of the forest, where the
+trees were less thick, and between their stems she could see the
+village below. Here she felt safer than she had been when in the thick
+wood. She threw herself down in a comfortable hollow at the foot of an
+oak, and, half sitting, half lying, began to think over her wrongs.
+
+"I guess if I was dead they'd be sorry," she reflected. "They'd hunt
+and hunt for me, and not know where I was. And at last they'd come up
+here, and find me dead, with a tear on my cheek, and then they'd know
+how badly they had made me feel, and their hearts would nearly break.
+I don't believe father would ever smile again. He'd be like the king
+in the 'Second Reader':--
+
+    'But waves went o'er his son's bright hair,
+     He never smiled again.'
+
+Only, I'm a daughter, and it would be leaves and not waves! Mother,
+she'd cry and cry, and as for that old Wealthy"--but Eyebright felt it
+difficult to imagine what Wealthy would do under these circumstances.
+Her thoughts drifted another way.
+
+"I might go into a convent instead. That would be better, I guess. I'd
+be a novice first, with a white veil and a cross and a rosary, and I'd
+look so sweet and holy that all the other children,--no, there
+wouldn't be any other children,--never mind!--I'd be lovely, anyhow.
+But I'd be a Protestant always! I wouldn't want to be a Catholic and
+have to kiss the Pope's old toe all the time! Then by and by I should
+take that awful black veil. Then I could never come out any more--not
+ever! And I should kneel in the chapel all the time as motionless as a
+marble figure. That would be beautiful." Eyebright had never been able
+to sit still for half an hour together in her life, but that made no
+difference in her enjoyment of this idea. "The abbess will be
+beautiful, too, but stern and unrelenting, and she'll say 'Daughters'
+when she speaks to us nuns, and we shall say 'Holy Mother' when we
+speak to her. It'll be real nice. We shan't have to do any darning,
+but just embroidery in our cells and wax flowers. Wealthy'll want to
+come in and see me, I know, but I shall just tell the porter that I
+don't want her, not ever. 'She's a heretic,' I shall say to the
+porter, and he'll lock the door the minute he sees her coming. Then
+she'll be mad! The Abbess and _Mere Genefride_"--Eyebright had just
+read for the fourth time Mrs. Sherwood's exciting novel called "The
+Nun," so her imaginary convent was modelled exactly after the one
+there described--"the abbess and _Mere Genefride_ will always be
+spying about and listening in the passage to hear what we say, when we
+sit in our cells embroidering and telling secrets, but me and my
+Pauline--no, I won't call her Pauline--Rosalba--sister Rosalba--that
+shall be her name--we'll speak so low that she can't hear a word. Then
+we shall suspect that something strange is taking place down in the
+cellar,--I mean the dungeons,--and we'll steal down and listen when
+the abbess and the bishop and all of them are trying the sister, who
+has a bible tied on her leg!" Here Eyebright gave an enormous yawn.
+"And--if--the--mob--does come--Wealthy--will be sure to--sure to--"
+
+But of what we shall never know, for at this precise moment Eyebright
+fell asleep.
+
+[Illustration: ASLEEP IN THE WOODS.]
+
+She must have slept a long time, for when she waked the sun had
+changed his place in the sky, and was shining on the western side of
+the village houses. Had some good angel passed by, lifted the "black
+dog" from her shoulder, and swept from her mind all its foolish and
+angry thoughts, while she dreamed there under the trees? For behold!
+matters and things now looked differently to her, and, instead of
+blaming other people and thinking hard things of them, she began to
+blame herself.
+
+"How naughty I was," she thought, "to be so cross with poor mamma,
+just because she wanted another cup of tea! Oh dear, and I made her
+cry! I know it was me--just because I looked so cross. How horrid I
+always am! And I was cross to papa, too, and put my lip out at him.
+How could I do so? What made me? Wealthy hadn't any business to slap
+me, though--
+
+"But then I was pretty ugly to Wealthy," she went on, her conscience
+telling her the truth at last, as consciences will, if allowed. "I
+just tried to provoke her--and I called her Wealthy Ann Judson! That
+always makes her mad. She never slapped me before not since I was a
+little mite of a girl. Oh, dear! And only yesterday she washed all
+Genevieve's dolly things--her blue muslin, and her overskirt, and
+all--and she said she didn't mind trouble when it was for my doll.
+She's very good to me sometimes. Almost always she's good. Oh, I
+oughtn't to have spoken so to Wealthy--I oughtn't--I oughtn't!" And
+Eyebright began to cry afresh; not angry tears this time, but bright,
+healthful drops of repentance, which cleansed and refreshed her soul.
+
+"I'll go right home now and tell her I am sorry," she said, impetuously;
+and, jumping from her seat, she ran straight down the hill and across
+the field, eager to make her confession and to be forgiven. Eyebright's
+fits of temper, big and little, usually ended in this way. She had none
+of that dislike of asking pardon with which some persons are afflicted.
+To her it was a relief--a thing to be met and gone through with for the
+sake of the cheer, the blue-sky-in-the-heart, which lay on the other
+side of it, and the peace which was sure to follow, when once the
+"forgive me" was spoken.
+
+In at the kitchen door she dashed. Wealthy, who was ironing, with a
+worried frown on her brow, started and exclaimed at the sight of
+Eyebright, and sat suddenly down on a chair. Before she could speak,
+Eyebright's arms were round her neck.
+
+"I was real horrid and wicked this morning," she cried. "Please
+forgive me, Wealthy. I won't be so naughty again--not ever. Oh, don't,
+don't!" for, to her dismay, Wealthy, the grim, broke down and began to
+cry. This was really dreadful. Eyebright stared a moment; then her own
+eyes filled, and she cried, too.
+
+"What a fool I be!" said Wealthy, dashing the drops from her eyes.
+"There, Eyebright, there! Hush, dear; we won't say any more about it."
+And she kissed Eyebright, for perhaps the tenth time in her life.
+Kisses were rare things, indeed, with Wealthy.
+
+"Where have you been?" she asked presently. "It's four o'clock and
+after. Did you know that? Have you had any dinner?"
+
+"No, but I don't want any, Wealthy. I've been in the woods on top of
+the hill. I ran away and sat there, and I guess I fell asleep," said
+Eyebright, hanging her head.
+
+"Well, your pa didn't come home to dinner, for a wonder; I reckon he
+was kept to the mill; so we hadn't much cooked. I took your ma's up to
+her; but I never let on that I didn't know where you was, for fear of
+worrying her. She has worried a good lot any way. Here, let me brush
+your hair a little, and then you'd better run upstairs and make her
+mind easy. I'll have something for you to eat when you come down."
+
+Eyebright's heart smote her afresh when she saw her mother's pale,
+anxious face.
+
+"You've been out so long," she said. "I asked Wealthy, and she said
+she guessed you were playing somewhere, and didn't know how the time
+went. I was afraid you felt sick, and she was keeping it from me. It
+is so bad to have things kept from me; nothing annoys me so much. And
+you didn't look well at breakfast. Are you sick, Eyebright?"
+
+"No, mamma, not a bit. But I have been naughty--very naughty indeed,
+mamma; and I ran away."
+
+Then she climbed up on the bed beside her mother, and told the story
+of the morning, keeping nothing back--all her hard feelings and anger
+at everybody, and her thoughts about dying, and about becoming a nun.
+Her mother held her hand very tight indeed when she reached this last
+part of the confession. The idea of the wood, also, was terrible to
+the poor lady. She declared that she shouldn't sleep a wink all night
+for thinking about it.
+
+"It wasn't a dangerous wood at all," explained Eyebright. "There
+wasn't any thing there that could hurt me. Really there wasn't, mamma.
+Nothing but trees, and stones, and ferns, and old tumbled-down trunks
+covered with tiny-weeny mosses,--all green and brown and red, and some
+perfectly white,--so pretty. I wish I had brought you some, mamma."
+
+"Woods are never safe," declared Mrs. Bright, "what with snakes, and
+tramps, and wildcats, and getting lost, and other dreadful things, I
+hardly take up a paper without seeing something or other bad in it
+which has happened in a wood. You must never go there alone again,
+Eyebright. Promise me that you won't."
+
+Eyebright promised. She petted and comforted her mother, kissing her
+over and over again, as if to make up for the anxiety she had caused
+her, and for the cross words and looks of the morning. The sad thing
+is, that no one ever does make up. All the sweet words and kind acts
+of a lifetime cannot undo the fact that once--one bad day far away
+behind us--we were unkind and gave pain to some one whom we love. Even
+their forgiveness cannot undo it. How I wish we could remember this
+always before we say the words which we afterward are so sorry for,
+and thus save our memories from the burden of a sad load of regret and
+repentance!
+
+When Eyebright went downstairs, she found a white napkin, her favorite
+mug filled with milk, a plateful of bread and butter and cold lamb,
+and a large pickled peach, awaiting her on the kitchen table. Wealthy
+hovered about as she took her seat, and seemed to have a disposition
+to pat Eyebright's shoulder a good deal, and to stroke her hair.
+Wealthy, too, had undergone the repentance which follows wrath. Her
+morning, I imagine, had been even more unpleasant than Eyebright's,
+for she had spent it over a hot ironing table, and had not had the
+refreshment of running away into the woods.
+
+"It's so queer," said Eyebright, with her mouth full of bread and
+butter. "I didn't know I was hungry a bit, but I am as hungry as can
+be. Every thing tastes so good, Wealthy."
+
+"That's right," replied Wealthy, who was a little upset, and tearful
+still. "A good appetite's a good thing,--next best to a good
+conscience, I think."
+
+Eyebright's spirits were mounting as rapidly as quicksilver. Bessie
+Mather appeared at the gate as she finished her last mouthful, and,
+giving Wealthy a great hug, Eyebright ran out to meet her, with a
+lightness and gayety of heart which surprised even herself. The blue
+sky seemed bluer than ever before, the grass greener, the sunshine was
+like yellow gold. Every little thing that happened made her laugh. It
+was as though a black cloud had been rolled away from between her and
+the light.
+
+"I wonder what makes me so particularly happy to-night," she thought,
+as she sat on the steps waiting for papa, after Bessie was gone. "It's
+queer that I should, when I've been so naughty--and all."
+
+But it was not queer, though Eyebright felt it so. The world never
+looks so fair and bright as to eyes newly washed by tears of sorrow
+for faults forgiven; and hearts which are emptied of unkind feelings
+grow light at once, as if happiness were the rule of the world and not
+the exception.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHANGES.
+
+
+It happens now and then in life that small circumstances link
+themselves on to great ones, and in this way become important, when
+otherwise they might pass out of mind and be forgotten. Such was the
+case with that day's naughtiness. Eyebright remembered it always, and
+never without a sharp prick of pain, because of certain things that
+followed soon afterward, and of which I must tell you in this chapter.
+
+Miss Fitch's winter term opened on the 15th of September. The boys and
+girls were not sorry to begin school, I think. They had "played
+themselves out" during the long vacation, and it was rather a pleasant
+change now to return to lessons and regular hours. Every thing seemed
+new and interesting after three months' absence, the schoolhouse, the
+Green, all the cubby-holes and hiding-places, just as shabby
+playthings laid aside for a while come out looking quite fresh, and do
+not seem like old ones at all. There was the beautiful autumn weather,
+beside, making each moment of liberty doubly delightful. Day after
+day, week after week, this perfect weather lasted, till it seemed as
+though the skies had forgotten the trick of raining, or how to be of
+any color except clear, dazzling blue. The wind blew softly and made
+lovely little noises in the boughs, but there was a cool edge to its
+softness now which added to the satisfaction of breathing it. The
+garden beds were gay as ever, but trees began to show tips of crimson
+and orange, and now and then a brown leaf floated gently down, as
+though to hint that summer was over and the autumn really begun. Small
+drifts of these brown leaves formed in the hollows of the road and
+about fence corners. The boys and girls kicked them aside to get at
+the chestnut burs which had fallen and mixed with them,--spiky burs,
+half open, and showing the glossy-brown nut within. It was a great
+apple-year, too, and the orchards were laden with ripe fruit. Nearly
+all the Saturday afternoons were spent by the children in
+apple-gathering or in nutting, and autumn seemed to them as summer had
+seemed before autumn, spring before summer, and winter in its turn
+before spring,--the very pleasantest of the four pleasant seasons of
+the year.
+
+With so many things to do, and such a stock of health and spirits to
+make doing delightful, it is not strange that for a long time
+Eyebright remained unconscious of certain changes which were taking
+place at home, and which older people saw plainly. It did cross her
+mind once or twice that her mother seemed feebler than usual, and
+Wealthy and papa worried and anxious, but the thought did not stay,
+being crowded out by thoughts of a more agreeable kind. She had never
+in her life been brought very close to any real trouble. Wealthy had
+spoken before her of Mrs. So-and-so as being "in affliction," and she
+had seen people looking sad and wearing black clothes, but it was like
+something in a book to her,--a story she only half comprehended;
+though she vaguely shrank from it, and did not wish to read further.
+With all her quick imagination, she was not in the least morbid.
+Sorrow must come to her, she would never take a step to meet it. So
+she went on, busy, healthy, happy, full of bright plans and fun and
+merriment, till suddenly one day sorrow came. For, running in from
+school, she found Wealthy crying in the kitchen, and was told that her
+mother was worse,--much worse,--and the doctor thought she could only
+live a day or two longer.
+
+"Oh, no, no, Wealthy," was all she could say at first. Then, "Why
+doesn't Dr. Pillsbury give mamma something?" she demanded; for
+Eyebright had learned to feel a great respect for medicine, and to
+believe that it must be able to cure everybody.
+
+Wealthy shook her head.
+
+"It ain't no use specylating about more medicines," she said, "your
+ma's taken shiploads of 'em, and they ain't never done her any good
+that I can see. No, Eyebright dear; it's got to come, and we must make
+the best of it. It's God's will I s'pose, and there ain't nothing to
+be said when that's the case."
+
+"Oh, dear! how can God will any thing so dreadful?" sobbed Eyebright,
+feeling as if she were brought face to face with a great puzzle.
+Wealthy could not answer. It was a puzzle to her, also. But she took
+Eyebright into her lap, held her close, and stroked her hair gently;
+and that helped, as love and tenderness always do.
+
+Some very sad days followed. The doctor came and went. There was a
+hush over the house. It seemed wrong to speak aloud even, and
+Eyebright found herself moving on tiptoe, and shutting the doors with
+anxious care; yet no one had said, "Do not make a noise." Everybody
+seemed to be waiting for something, but nobody liked to think what
+that something might be. Eyebright did not think, but she felt
+miserable. A great cloud seemed to hang over all her bright little
+world, so happy till then. She moped about, with no heart to do any
+thing, or she sat in the hall outside her mother's door, listening for
+sounds. Now and then they let her creep in for a minute to look at
+mamma, who lay motionless as if asleep; but Eyebright could not keep
+from crying, and after a little while, papa would sign to her to go,
+and she would creep out again, hushing her sobs till she was safely
+downstairs with the door shut. It was such a melancholy time that I do
+not see how she could have got through with it, had it not been for
+Genevieve, who, dumb as she was, proved best comforter of all. With
+her face buried in the lap of Genevieve's best frock, Eyebright might
+shed as many tears as she liked, whispering in the waxen ear how much
+she wished that mamma could get well, how good, how very good she
+always meant to be if she did, and how sorry she was that she had ever
+been naughty or cross to her; especially on that day, that dreadful
+day, when she ran off into the woods, the recollection of which
+rankled in her conscience like a thorn, Genevieve listened
+sympathizingly, but not even her affection could pull out the thorn,
+or make its prick any easier to bear.
+
+I do not like to tell about sad things half so well as about happy
+ones, so we will hurry over this part of the story. Mrs. Bright lived
+only a week after that evening when Eyebright first realized that she
+was so much worse. She waked up before she died, kissed Eyebright for
+good-by, and said, "My helpful little comfort." These sweet words were
+the one thing which made it seem possible to live just then. All her
+life long they came back to Eyebright like the sound of music, and
+when the thought of her childish faults gave her pain, these words,
+which carried full forgiveness of the faults, soothed and consoled
+her. After a while, as she grew older, she learned to feel that mamma
+in heaven knew much better than mamma on earth could, how much her
+little daughter really had loved her, and how it grieved her now to
+remember that ever she should have been impatient or unkind.
+
+But this was not for a long time afterward, and meanwhile her chief
+pleasure was in remembering, that, for all her naughtiness, mamma had
+kissed her and called her "a comfort" before she died.
+
+After the funeral, Wealthy opened the blinds, which had been kept
+tight shut till then, and life returned to its usual course.
+Breakfast, dinner, and supper appeared regularly on the table, papa
+went again to to the mill, and Eyebright to school. She felt shy and
+strange at first, and the children were shy of her, because of her
+black alpaca frock, which impressed their imaginations a good deal.
+This wore off as the frock wore out, and by the time that Eyebright
+had ripped out half the gathers of the waist and torn a hole in the
+sleeve, which was pretty soon, the alpaca lost its awfulness in their
+eyes, and had become as any common dress. In the course of a week or
+two, Eyebright found herself studying, playing, and walking at recess
+with Bessie, quite in the old way. But all the while she was conscious
+of a change, and a feeling which she fought with, but could not get
+rid of, that things were not, nor ever could be, as they had been
+before this interruption came.
+
+Home was changed and her father was changed. Eyebright was no longer
+careless or unobservant, as before her mother's death, and she noticed
+how fast papa's hair was turning gray, and how deep and careworn the
+lines about his mouth and eyes had become. He did not seem to gain in
+cheerfulness as time went on, but, if any thing, to look more sad and
+troubled; and he spent much of his time at the cherry-wood desk
+calculating and doing sums and poring over account-books. Eyebright
+noticed all these little things, she had learned to use her eyes now,
+and though nobody said any thing about it, she felt sure that papa was
+worried about something, and in need of comfort.
+
+She used to come early from play, and peep into the sitting-room to
+see what he was doing. If he seemed busy, she did not interrupt him,
+but drew her low chair to his side and sat there quietly, with
+Genevieve in her lap, and perhaps a book; not speaking, but now and
+then stroking his knee or laying her cheek gently against it. All the
+time she felt so sorry that she could not help papa. But I think she
+did help, for papa liked to have her there, and the presence of a love
+which asks no questions and is content with loving, is most soothing
+of all, sometimes, to people who are in perplexity, and trying to see
+their way out.
+
+But none of Eyebright's strokes or pats or fond little ways could
+drive the care away from her father's brow. His trouble was too heavy
+for that. It was a kind of trouble which he could not very well
+explain to a child; trouble about business and money,--things which
+little people do not understand; and matters were getting worse
+instead of better. He was like a man in a thorny wood, who cannot see
+his way out, and his mind was more confused and anxious than any one
+except himself could comprehend.
+
+At last things came to such a pass that there was no choice left, and
+he was forced to explain to Eyebright. It was April by that time. He
+was at his desk as usual, and Eyebright, sitting near, had Genevieve
+cuddled in her lap, and the "Swiss Family Robinson" open before her.
+
+"Now you're done, arn't you, papa!" she cried, as he laid down his
+pen. "You won't write any more to-night, will you, but sit in the
+rocking-chair and rest." She was jumping up to get the chair, when he
+stopped her.
+
+"I'm not through yet, my dear. But I want to talk with you for a
+little while."
+
+"O papa, how nice! May I sit on your knee while you talk?"
+
+Papa said yes, and she seated herself. He put his arm round her, and
+for a while stroked her hair in silence. Eyebright looked up,
+wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, dear, I'll tell you presently. I'm trying to think how to begin.
+It's something disagreeable, Eyebright,--something which will make you
+feel very bad, I'm afraid."
+
+"Oh dear! what is it?" cried Eyebright, fearfully. "Do tell me, papa."
+
+"What should you say if I told you that we can't live here any longer,
+but must go away?"
+
+"Away from this house, do you mean, papa?"
+
+"Yes, away from this house, and away from Tunxet, too."
+
+"Not away for always?" said Eyebright, in an awe-struck tone. "You
+don't mean that, papa, do you? We couldn't live anywhere else for
+always!" giving a little gasp at the very idea.
+
+"I'm afraid that's what it's coming to," said Mr. Bright, sadly. "I
+don't see any other way to fix it I've lost all my money, Eyebright.
+It is no use trying to explain it to a child like you, but that is the
+case. All I had is gone, nearly. There's scarcely any thing left,--not
+enough to live on here, even if I owned this house, which I don't."
+
+Not own their own house! This was incomprehensible. What could papa
+mean?
+
+"But, papa, it's _our_ house!" she ventured timidly.
+
+Papa made no answer, only stroked her hair again softly.
+
+"And the mill? Isn't the mill yours, papa?" she went on.
+
+"No, dear, I never did own the mill. You were too little to understand
+about the matter when I took up the business. It belongs to a company;
+do you know what a 'company' means?--and the company has failed, so
+that the mill is theirs no longer. It's going to be sold at auction
+soon. I was only a manager, and of course I lose my place. But that
+isn't so much matter. The real trouble is that I've lost my own
+property, too. We're poor people now, Eyebright. I've been
+calculating, and I think by selling off every thing here I can just
+clear myself and come out honest but that's all. There'll be almost
+nothing left."
+
+"Couldn't you get another mill to manage?" asked Eyebright, in a
+bewildered way.
+
+"No, there is no other mill; and if there were, I shouldn't want to
+take it. I'm too old to begin life over again in the place where I
+started when I was a boy to work my way up. I _have_ worked,
+too,--worked hard,--and now I come out in the end not worth a cent.
+No, Eyebright, I couldn't do it!"
+
+He set her down as he spoke, and began to walk the room with heavy,
+unequal steps. The old floor creaked under his tread. There was
+something very sad in the sound.
+
+A child feels powerless in the presence of sudden misfortune.
+Eyebright sat as if stunned, while her father walked to and fro.
+Genevieve slipped from her lap and fell with a bump on the carpet, but
+she paid no attention. Genevieve wasn't real to her just then; only a
+doll. It was no matter whether she bumped her head or not.
+
+Mr. Bright came back to his chair again.
+
+"I'll tell you what I've been thinking of," he said. "I own a little
+farm up in Maine. It's about the only thing I do own which hasn't got
+a mortgage on it, or doesn't belong to some one else in one way or
+another. It's a very small farm, but there's a house on it,--some kind
+of a house,--and I think of moving up there to live. I don't know much
+about the place, and I don't like the plan. It'll be lonely for you,
+for the farm is on an island, it seems, and there's no one else living
+there, no children for you to play with, and no school. These are
+disadvantages; but, on the other hand, the climate is said to be good,
+and I suppose I can raise enough up there for our living, and not run
+into debt, which is the thing I care most for just now. So I've about
+decided to try it. I'm sorry to break up your schooling, and to take
+you away from here, where you like it so much; but it seems the only
+way open. And if you could go cheerfully, my dear, and make the best
+of things, it would be a great comfort to me. That's all I've got to
+say."
+
+Eyebright's mind had been at work through this long sentence. Her
+reply astonished her father not a little, it was so bright and eager.
+
+"What is the island in, papa? A lake?"
+
+"No, not a lake. It's in the sea, but very near the coast. I think
+there's some way of walking across at low tide, but I'm not sure."
+
+"I think--I'm rather glad," said Eyebright slowly. "I always did want
+to live on an island and I never saw the sea. Don't feel badly, papa,
+I guess we shall like it."
+
+Mr. Bright was relieved; but he couldn't help shaking his head a
+little, nevertheless.
+
+"You must make up your mind to find it pretty lonesome," he said,
+compassionately.
+
+"The Swiss Family Robinson didn't," replied Eyebright. "But then," she
+added, "there were six of them. And there'll only be four of
+us--counting Genevieve."
+
+If Eyebright had taken the news too calmly, Wealthy made up for it by
+her wild and incredulous wrath when in turn it was broken to her.
+
+"Pity's sakes!" she cried. "Whatever is the man a-thinking about?
+Carry you off to Maine, indeed, away from folks and church and every
+thing civilized! He's crazy,--that's what he is,--as crazy as a loon!"
+
+"Papa's not crazy. You mustn't say such things, Wealthy," replied
+Eyebright, indignantly. "He feels real badly about going. But we've
+got to go. We've lost all our money, and we can't stay here."
+
+"A desert island, too!" went on Wealthy, pursuing her own train of
+reflection. "Crocodiles and cannibals, I suppose! I've heard what a
+God-forsaken place it is up there. Who's going to look after you, I'd
+like to know?--you, who never in your life remembered your rubber
+shoes when it rained, or knew winter flannels from summer ones, or
+best frocks from common?" Words failed her.
+
+"Why, Wealthy, shan't you come with us?" cried Eyebright, in a
+startled tone.
+
+"I? No, indeed, and I shan't then!" returned Wealthy. "I'm not such a
+fool as all that. Maine, indeed!" Then, her heart melting at the
+distress in Eyebright's face, she swooped upon her, squeezed her hard,
+and said: "What a cross-grained piece I be! Yes, Eyebright dear, I'll
+go along. I'll go, no matter where it is. You shan't be trusted to
+that Pa of yours if I can help it; and that's my last word in the
+matter."
+
+Eyebright flew to papa with the joyful news that Wealthy was willing
+to go with them. Mr. Bright looked dismayed.
+
+"It's out of the question," he replied. "I can't afford it, for one
+thing. The journey costs a good deal, and when she got there, Wealthy
+would probably not like it, and would want to come back again, which
+would be money thrown away. Beside, it is doubtful if we shall be able
+to keep any regular help. No, Eyebright; we'd better not think of it,
+even. You and I will start alone, and we'll get some woman there to
+come and work when it's necessary. That'll be as much as I can
+manage."
+
+Of course, when Wealthy found that there were objections, her wish to
+go increased tenfold. She begged, and Eyebright pleaded, but papa held
+to his decision. There was no helping it, but this difference in
+opinion made the household very uncomfortable for a while. Wealthy
+felt injured, and went about her work grimly, sighing conspicuously
+now and then, or making dashes at Eyebright, kissing her furiously,
+shedding a few tears, and then beginning work again, all in stony
+silence. Papa shut himself up more closely than ever with his
+account-books, and looked sadder every day; and Eyebright, though she
+strove to act as peacemaker and keep a cheerful face, felt her heart
+heavy enough at times, when she thought of what was at hand.
+
+They were to start early in May, and she left school at once; for
+there was much to be done in which she could help Wealthy, and the
+time was but short for the doing of it all. The girls were sorry when
+they heard that Eyebright was going away to live in Maine, and Bessie
+cried one whole recess, and said she never expected to be happy again.
+Still, the news did not make quite as much sensation as Eyebright had
+expected, and she had a little sore feeling at her heart, as if the
+others cared less about losing her than she should have cared had she
+been in their place. This idea cost her some private tears; she
+comforted herself by a poem which she called "Fickleness," and which
+began:
+
+    "It is wicked to be fickle,
+      And very, very unkind,
+    And I'd be ashamed"--
+
+but no rhyme to fickle could she find except "pickle," and it was so
+hard to work that in, that she gave up writing the verses, and only
+kept away from the girls for a few days. But for all Eyebright's
+doubts, the girls did care, only Examination was coming on, and they
+were too busy in learning the pieces they were to speak, and
+practising for a writing prize which Miss Fitch had promised them, to
+realize just then how sorry they were. It came afterward, when the
+Examination was over, and Eyebright really gone; and it was a long
+time--a year or two at least--before any sort of festival or picnic
+could take place in Tunxet without some child's saying, wistfully: "I
+wish Eyebright was here to go; don't you?" Could Eyebright have known
+this, it would have comforted her very much during those last weeks;
+but the pity is, we can't know things beforehand in this world.
+
+So, after all, her chief consolation was Genevieve, to whom she could
+tell any thing without fear of making mischief or being contradicted.
+
+"There's just one thing I'm glad about," she said to this chosen
+confidante, "and that is that it's an island. I never saw any islands,
+neither did you, Genevieve; but I know they must be lovely. And I'm
+glad it's in the sea, too. But, oh dear, my poor child, how will you
+get along without any other dolls to play with? You'll be very lonely
+sometimes--very lonely, indeed--I'm afraid."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+BETWEEN THE OLD HOME AND THE NEW.
+
+
+"Wealthy," said Eyebright, "I want to tell you something."
+
+Wealthy was kneading bread, her arms rising and falling with a strong,
+regular motion, like the piston of a steam-engine. She did not even
+turn her head, but dusting a little flour on to the dough, went
+straight on saying briefly,--
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"I've been thinking," continued Eyebright, "that when papa and I get
+to the Island, perhaps some days there won't be anybody to do the
+cooking but me, and it would be so nice if you would teach me a few
+things,--not hard ones, you know,--little easy things. I know how to
+toast now, and how to boil eggs, and make shortcake, and stew rhubarb,
+but papa would get tired of those if he didn't have any thing else, I
+am afraid."
+
+"You and your Pa'll go pretty hungry, I guess, if there's no one but
+you to do the cooking," muttered Wealthy. "Well, what would you like
+to learn?"
+
+"Is bread easy to make? I'd like to learn that."
+
+"You ain't hardly strong enough," said Wealthy, with a sigh, but she
+set her bowl on a chair as she spoke, and proceeded to give Eyebright
+a kneading lesson on the spot. It was much more fatiguing than
+Eyebright had supposed it would be. Her back and arms ached for a long
+time afterward, but Wealthy said she "got the hang of it wonderfully
+for a beginner," and this praise encouraged her to try again. Every
+Wednesday and Saturday, after that, she made the bread, from the
+sifting of the flour to the final wrap of the hot loaf in a brown
+towel, Wealthy only helping a very little, and each time the task
+seemed to grow easier, so that, before they went away, Eyebright felt
+that she had that lesson at her fingers' ends. Wealthy taught her
+other things also,--to broil a beefsteak, and poach an egg, to make
+gingerbread and minute biscuit, fry Indian pudding, and prepare and
+flavor the "dip" for soft toast. All these lessons were good for her,
+and in more senses than one. Many a heart-ache flew up the chimney and
+forgot to come down again, as she leaned over her saucepans, stirring,
+tasting, and seasoning. Many a hard thought about the girls and their
+not caring as they ought about her going, slipped away, and came back
+brightened into good-humor, in the excitement of watching the biscuits
+rise, or moulding them into exact form and size. And how pleasant it
+was if Wealthy praised her, or papa asked for a second helping of
+something and said it was good.
+
+Meanwhile, the business of breaking up was going on. Wealthy, whose
+ideas were of the systematic old-fashioned kind, began at the very top
+of the house and came slowly down, clearing the rooms out in regular
+order, scrubbing, sweeping, and leaving bare, chill cleanness behind
+her. Part of the furniture was packed to go to the Island, but by far
+the greater part was brought down to the lower floor, and stacked in
+the best parlor, ready for an auction, which was to take place on the
+last day but one. It was truly wonderful how many things the house
+seemed to contain, and what queer articles made their appearance out
+of obscure holes and corners, in the course of Wealthy's rummagings.
+There were old fire-irons, old crockery, bundles of herbs, dried so
+long ago that all taste and smell had departed, and no one now could
+guess which was sage and which catnip; scrap-bundles, which made
+Eyebright sigh and exclaim, "Oh dear, what lots of dresses I would
+have made for Genevieve, if only I had known we had these!" There were
+boxes full of useless things, screws without heads, and nails without
+points, stopples which stopped nothing, bottles of medicine which had
+lost their labels, and labels which had lost their bottles. Some
+former inhabitant of the house had evidently been afflicted with mice,
+for six mouse-traps were discovered, all of different patterns, all
+rusty, and all calculated to discourage any mouse who ever nibbled
+cheese. There were also three old bird-cages, in which, since the
+memory of man, no bird had ever lived; a couple of fire-buckets of
+ancient black leather, which Eyebright had seen hanging from a rafter
+all her life without suspecting their use, and a gun of Revolutionary
+pattern which had lost its lock. All these were to be sold, and so was
+the hay in the barn, as also were the chickens and chicken-coops; even
+Brindle and old Charley.
+
+The day before the auction, a man came and pasted labels with numbers
+on them upon all the things. Eyebright found "24" stuck on the side of
+her own special little stool, which papa had said she might take to
+the Island, but which had been forgotten. She tore off the label, and
+hid the stool in a closet, but it made her feel as if every thing in
+the house was going to be sold whether or no, and she half turned and
+looked over her shoulder at her own back, as if she feared to find a
+number there also. Wealthy, who was piling the chairs together by
+twos, laughed.
+
+"I guess they won't put you up to 'vandoo,'" she said; "or, if they
+do, I'll be the first to bid. There, that's the last! I never did see
+such a heap of rubbish as come out of that garret; your Ma, and your
+Grandma, too, I reckon, never throwed away any thing in all their
+days. Often and often I used to propose to clean out and kind of sort
+over the things, but your Ma, she wouldn't ever let me. They was sure
+to come in useful some day, she said; but that day never come,--and
+there they be, moth-and-rust-corrupted, sure enough! Well, 'tain't no
+use layin' up treasures upon earth. We all find that out when we come
+to clear up after fifty years' savin'."
+
+Next morning proved fine and sunny, and great numbers of people came
+to the auction. Some of them brought their dinners in pails, and
+stayed all day, for auctions do not occur very often in the country,
+and are great events when they do. Eyebright, who did not know exactly
+how to dispose of herself, sat on the stairs, high up, where no one
+could see her, and listened to the auctioneer's loud voice calling off
+the numbers and bids. "No. 17, one clock,--who bids two dollars for
+the clock? No. 18, lounge covered with calliker. I am offered
+seven-fifty for the lounge covered with calliker. I am offered
+seven-fifty for the lounge covered with calliker. Who bids eight?
+Thank you, Mr. Brown--going at eight--gone." And No. 17 was the
+kitchen clock, which had told her the hour so many, many times; the
+lounge covered with "calliker" was mother's lounge, on which she had
+so often lain. It seemed very sad, somehow, that they should be
+"going--gone."
+
+Later in the day she saw, from the window, people driving away in
+their wagons with their bargains piled in behind them, or set between
+their knees,--papa's shaving-glass, Wealthy's wash-tubs, the bedstead
+from the best room. She could hardly keep from crying. It seemed as if
+the pleasant past life in the old house were all broken up into little
+bits, and going off in different directions in those wagons.
+
+She was still at the window when Wealthy came up to search for her.
+Eyebright's face was very sober, and there were traces of tears on her
+cheeks.
+
+"Eyebright, where are you? Don't stay mopin' up here, 'tain't no use.
+Come down and help me get tea. I've made a good fire in the
+sittin'-room, and we'll all be the better for supper, I reckon.
+Auctions is wearin' things, and always will be to the end of time.
+Your Pa looks clean tuckered out."
+
+"Are all the people gone?" asked Eyebright.
+
+"Yes, they have, and good riddance to them. It made me madder than
+hops to hear 'em a-boastin' of the bargains they'd got. Mrs.
+Doolittle, up to the corner, bid in that bureau from the keepin'-room
+chamber for seven dollars. It was worth fifteen; the auction-man said
+so himself. But to kind of match that, her daughter-in-law, she giv'
+thirty cents a yard for that rag-carpet in your room, and it didn't
+cost but fifty when it was new, and that was twelve years ago next
+November! So I guess we come out pretty even with the Doolittle
+family, after all!" added Wealthy, with a dry chuckle.
+
+Eyebright followed downstairs. The rooms looked bare and unhomelike
+with only the few pieces of furniture left which Wealthy had bid in
+for her private use; for Wealthy did not mean to live out any more,
+but have a small house of her own, and support herself by "tailorin'."
+She had bought a couple of beds, a table, a few chairs, and some
+cooking things, so it was possible, though not very comfortable, to
+spend one night more in the house. Eyebright peeped into the empty
+parlor and shut the door.
+
+"Don't let's open it again," she said. "We'll make believe that every
+thing is there still, just as it used to be, and then it won't seem so
+dismal."
+
+But in spite of "make-believes," it would have been dismal enough had
+they not been too busy to think how altered and forlorn the house
+looked. One more day of hard work, and all was cleared out and made
+clean. Wealthy followed with her broom and actually "swept herself
+out," as Eyebright said, brushing the last shreds and straws through
+the door on to the steps, where the others stood waiting. Mr. Bright
+locked the door. The key turned in the rusty lock with a sound like a
+groan. Mr. Bright stood a moment without speaking; then he handed the
+key to Wealthy, shook hands with her, and walked quickly away in the
+direction of Mr. Bury's house, where he and Eyebright were to spend
+the night.
+
+Wealthy was feeling badly over the loss of her old home; and emotion,
+with her, always took the form of gruffness.
+
+"No need to set about kissing to-night," she said, as Eyebright held
+up her face, "I'm a-comin' round to see you off to-morrow."
+
+Then she, too, stalked away. Eyebright looked after her for a little
+while, then very slowly she opened the garden-gate, and went the round
+of the place once more, saying good-by with her eyes to each
+well-known object. The periwinkle bed was blue with flowers, the
+daffodils were just opening their bright cups. "Old maids," Wealthy
+had been used to call them, because their ruffled edges were so neatly
+trimmed and pinked. There was the apple-tree crotch, where, every
+summer since she could remember, her swing had hung. There was her own
+little garden, bare now and brown with the dead stalks of last year.
+How easy it would be to make it pretty again if only they were going
+to stay! The "cave" had fallen in, to be sure, and was only a hole in
+the ground, but a cave is soon made. She could have another in no time
+if only--here Eyebright checked herself, recollecting that "if only"
+did not help the matter a bit, and, like a sensible child, she walked
+bravely away from the garden and through the gateway. She paused one
+moment to look at the sun, which was setting in a sky of clear yellow,
+over which little crimson clouds drifted like a fleet of fairy boats.
+The orchards and hedges were budding fast. Here and there a
+cherry-tree had already tied on its white hood. The air was full of
+sweet prophetic smells. Altogether, Tunxet was at its very prettiest
+and pleasantest, and, for all her good resolutions, Eyebright gave
+way, and wept one little weep at the thought that to-morrow she and
+papa must leave it all.
+
+She dried her eyes soon, for she did not want papa to know she had
+been crying, and followed to Mrs. Bury's, where Kitty and the children
+were impatiently looking out for her, and every one gave her a hearty
+welcome.
+
+But in spite of their kindness, and the fun of sleeping with Kitty for
+the first time, it seemed grave and lonesome to be anywhere except in
+the old place where she had always been, and Eyebright began to be
+glad that she and papa were to go away so soon. The home feeling had
+vanished from Tunxet, and the quicker they were off, the better, she
+thought.
+
+The next morning, they left, starting before six o'clock, for the
+railroad was five miles away. Early as it was, several people were
+there to say good-by,--Bessie Mather, Laura Wheelwright,--who hadn't
+taken time even to wash her face,--Wealthy, very gray and grim and
+silent, and dear Miss Fitch, to whom Eyebright clung till the very
+end. The last bag was put in, Mr. Bury kissed Eyebright and lifted her
+into the wagon, where papa and Ben were already seated. Good-bys were
+exchanged. Bessie, drowned in tears, climbed on the wheel for a last
+hug, and was pulled down by some one. Ben gave a chirrup, the horses
+began to move, and that was the end of dear old Tunxet. The last thing
+Eyebright saw, as she turned for a final look, was Wealthy's grim, sad
+face,--poor Wealthy, who had lost most and felt sorriest of all,
+though she said so little about it.
+
+It was a mile or two before Eyebright could see any thing distinctly.
+She sat with her head turned away, that papa might not notice her wet
+eyes. But perhaps his own were a little misty, for he, too, turned his
+head, and it was a long time before he spoke. The beautiful morning
+and the rapid motion were helps to cheerfulness, however, and before
+they reached the railroad station Mr. Bright had begun to talk to Ben,
+and Eyebright to smile.
+
+She had never travelled on a railroad before, and you can easily
+imagine how surprising it all seemed to her. At first it frightened
+her to go so fast, but that soon wore off, and all the rest was
+enjoyment. Little things, which people used to railroads hardly
+notice, struck her as strange and pleasant. When the magazine-boy
+chucked "Ballou's Dollar Monthly" into her lap, she jumped, and said,
+"Oh, thank you!" and she was quite overcome by the successive gifts,
+as she supposed, of a paper of pop-corn, a paper of lozenges, and a
+"prize package," containing six envelopes, six sheets of note-paper,
+six pens, a wooden pen-handle and a "piece of jewelry,"--all for
+twenty-five cents!
+
+"Did he really give them to me?" she asked papa, quite gasping at the
+idea of such generosity.
+
+Then the ice-water boy came along, with his frame of tumblers; she had
+a delicious cold drink, and told papa "she did think the railroad was
+so kind," which made him laugh; and, as seeing him laugh brightened
+her spirits, they journeyed on very cheerfully.
+
+About noon, they changed cars, and presently after that Eyebright
+became aware of a change in the air, a cool freshness and odor of salt
+and weeds, which she had never smelt before, and liked amazingly. She
+was just going to ask papa about it when the train made a sudden curve
+and swept alongside a yellow beach, beyond which lay a great shining
+expanse,--gray and silvery and blue,--over which dappled foamy waves
+played and leaped, and large white birds were skimming and diving. She
+drew a long breath of delight, and said, half to herself and half to
+papa, "That is the sea!"
+
+"How did you know?" asked he, smiling.
+
+"Oh, papa, it couldn't be any thing else. I knew it in a minute."
+
+After that, they were close to the sea almost all the way. Eyebright
+felt as if she could never be tired of watching the waves rise and
+fall, or of breathing the air, which seemed to fill and satisfy her
+like food though it made her hungry, too, and she was glad of the nice
+luncheon which Mr. Bury had packed up for them. But even pleasant
+things have a tiring side to them, and as night drew on, Eyebright
+began to think she should be as glad of bed as she had been of dinner.
+
+Her heavy head had been nodding for some time, and had finally dropped
+upon papa's shoulder, when he roused her with a shake and said,--
+
+"Wake up, Eyebright, wake up! Here we are."
+
+"At the Island?" she asked, drowsily.
+
+"No, not at the Island yet. This is the steamboat."
+
+To see a steamboat had always been one of Eyebright's chief wishes,
+but she was too sleepy at that moment to realize that it was granted.
+Her feet stumbled as papa guided her down the stair; she could not
+keep her eyes open at all. The stewardess--a colored woman--laughed
+when she saw the half-awake little passenger; but she was very
+good-natured, whipped off Eyebright's boots, hat, and jacket, in a
+twinkling, and tucked her into a little berth, where in three minutes
+she was napping like a dormouse. There was a great deal of whistling
+and screeching and ringing of bells when the boat left her dock, heavy
+feet trampled over the deck just above the berth, the water lapped and
+hissed; but not one of these things did Eyebright hear, nor was she
+conscious of the rock-ing motion of the waves. Straight through them
+all she slept; and when at last she waked, the boat was no longer at
+sea, and there was hardly any motion to be felt.
+
+It was not yet six o'clock. The shut-up cabin was dark and close,
+except for one ray of yellow sun, which straggled through a crack, and
+lay across the carpet like a long finger. It flickered, and seemed to
+beckon, as if it wanted to say, "Get up, Eyebright, it is morning at
+last; get up, and come out with me." She felt so rested and fresh that
+the invitation was irresistible; and slipping from the berth, she put
+on dress and boots, which were laid on a chair near by, tied the hat
+over her unbrushed hair, and with her warm jacket in hand, stole out
+of the cabin and ran lightly upstairs to the deck.
+
+Then she gave a great start, and said, "Oh!" with mingled wonder and
+surprise; for, instead of the ocean which she had expected to see, the
+boat was steaming gently up a broad river. On either side was a bold,
+wooded shore. The trees were leafless still, for this was much farther
+north than Tunxet, but the rising sap had tinted their boughs with
+lovely shades of yellow, soft red, and pink-brown, and there were
+quantities of evergreens beside, so that the woods did not look cold
+or bare. Every half mile or so the river made a bend and curved away
+in a new direction. It was never possible to see far ahead, and, as
+the steamer swept through the clear green and silver water, it
+continually seemed that, a little farther on, the river came to end,
+and there was no way out except to turn back. But always when the boat
+reached the place where the end seemed to be, behold, a new reach of
+water, with new banks and tree-crowned headlands, appeared, so that
+their progress was a succession of surprises. Here and there were dots
+of islands too, just big enough to afford standing-room to a dozen
+pines and hemlocks, so closely crowded together that the trees next
+the edge almost seemed to be holding fast by their companions while
+they leaned over to look at their own faces in the water.
+
+These tiny islets enchanted Eyebright. With each one they passed she
+thought, "Oh, I hope ours is just like that!" never reflecting that
+these were rather play islands than real ones, and that Genevieve was
+the only member of the family likely to be comfortable in such limited
+space as they afforded. She had the deck and the river to herself for
+nearly an hour before any of the passengers appeared; when they did,
+she remembered, with a blush, that her hair was still unbrushed, and
+ran back to the cabin, when the stewardess made it tidy, and gave her
+a basin of fresh water for her face and hands. She came back just in
+time to meet papa, who was astonished at the color in her cheek and
+the appetite she displayed at breakfast, which was served in a stuffy
+cabin smelling of kerosene oil and bed-clothes, and calculated to
+discourage any appetite not sharpened by early morning air.
+
+Little did Eyebright care for the stuffy cabin. She found the boat and
+all its appointments delightful; and when, after breakfast, the old
+captain took her down to the engine-room and showed her the machinery,
+she fairly skipped with pleasure. It was a sort of noisy fairy-land to
+her imagination; all those wonderful cogs and wheels, and shining rods
+and shafts, moving and working together so smoothly and so powerfully.
+She was sorry enough when, at eleven o'clock, they left the boat, and
+landed at a small hamlet, which seemed to have no name as yet, perhaps
+because it was so very young. Eyebright asked a boy what they called
+the town, but all he said in reply was, "'Tain't a teown"--and
+something about a "Teownship," which she didn't at all understand.
+
+Here they had some dinner, and Mr. Bright hired a wagon to take them
+"'cross country" to Scrapplehead, which was the village nearest to
+"Causey Island," as Eyebright now learned that their future home was
+called. "Cosy," papa pronounced it. The name pleased her greatly, and
+she said to herself, for perhaps the five-hundredth time, "I _know_ it
+is going to be nice."
+
+It was twenty-two miles from the nameless village to Scrapplehead, but
+it took all the afternoon to make the journey, for the roads were
+rough and hilly, and fast going was impossible. Eyebright did not care
+how slowly they went. Every step of the way was interesting to her,
+full of fresh sights and sounds and smells. She had never seen such
+woods as those which they passed through. They looked as if they might
+have been planted about the time of the Deluge, so dense and massive
+were their growths. Many of the trees were old and of immense size.
+Some very large ones had fallen, and their trunks were thickly crusted
+with fungi and long hair-like tresses of gray moss. Here and there
+were cushions of green moss, so rich and luxuriant as to be the
+softest sitting-places imaginable. Eyebright longed to get out and
+roll on them; the moss seemed at least a yard deep. Once they passed
+an oddly shaped broad track by the road-side, which the driver told
+them was the foot-mark of a bear. This was exciting. And a little
+farther on, at the fording of a shallow brook, he showed them where a
+deer had stopped to drink the night before, and left the impression of
+his slender hoofs in the wet clay.
+
+It was as interesting as a story to be there, so near the haunts of
+these wild creatures. Then, leaving the woods, they would come to wide
+vistas of country, with pine-clad hills and slopes and beautiful
+gleaming lakes. And twice from the top of an ascent they caught the
+outlines of a bold mountain-range. A delicious air blew down from
+these mountains, cool, crystal clear, and spiced with the balsamic
+smell of hemlocks and firs and a hundred lovely wood-odors beside.
+
+"Oh, isn't Maine beautiful!" cried Eyebright, in a rapture. She felt a
+sort of resentment against Wealthy for having called it a
+"God-forsaken" place. "But Wealthy didn't know: she never was here,"
+was her final conclusion. "If she ever had been here, she couldn't
+have been so silly."
+
+It was too dark to see much of Scrapplehead when at last they got
+there. It was a small place, nestled in an angle of the hills. The
+misty gray ocean lay beyond. Its voice came to their ears as they
+descended the last steep pitch, a hushed low voice with a droning
+tone, as though it were sleepy-time with the great sea. There was no
+tavern in the village, and they applied at several houses before
+finding any one willing to accommodate them. By this time, Eyebright
+was very tired, and could hardly keep from crying as they drove away
+from the third place.
+
+"What shall we do if nobody will take us in?" she asked papa
+dolefully. "Shall we have to sit in the wagon all night?"
+
+"Guess 't won't come to that," said the cheery driver. "Downs'll take
+you. I'll bet a cookie he will." When he came to "Downs's," he jumped
+out and ran in. "They're real clever folks," he told Mrs. Downs; "and
+the little gal is so tired, it's a pity to see."
+
+So Mrs. Downs consented to lodge them; and their troubles were over
+for that day. Half blind with sleep and fatigue, Eyebright ate her
+bread and milk, fried eggs, and doughnuts, fell asleep while she
+undressed, gave her head a knock against the bedpost, laughed, hurried
+into bed, and in three minutes was lost in dreamless slumber. The wind
+blew softly up the bay, the waves sang their droning lullaby, a
+half-grown moon came out, twinkled, and flashed in the flashing water,
+and sent one long beam in to peep at the little sleeper in bed. The
+new life was begun, and begun pleasantly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CAUSEY ISLAND.
+
+
+When Eyebright awoke next morning, she ran straight to the window,
+with the hope that she might see Causey Island. But the window did not
+look toward the sea. Only a barn, a bit of winding road, and a green
+hill with a rocky top, were to be seen; and she dropped the paper
+shade with a sense of disappointment.
+
+Dressing herself as fast as she could, she ran downstairs. Mrs. Downs,
+who was frying fish in the kitchen, pointed with a spoon in answer to
+her question, and said,--
+
+"It's up that way the island is, but 'taint much to look at. It's too
+fur for you to see the house."
+
+Eyebright didn't particularly care about seeing the house. She was
+satisfied with seeing the island. There it lay, long and green, raised
+high out of the blue sea like a wall, with the water washing its stony
+shore. There seemed to be a good many trees and bushes on top, and
+altogether she thought it a beautiful place, and one where a little
+girl might be happy to live.
+
+"You ain't the folks that's coming to live up to the island, be you?"
+said Mrs. Downs. "Do tell if you are? We heard there was some one.
+There hain't been nobody there for quite a spell back, not since the
+Lotts went away last year. Job Lott, he farmed it for a while; but
+Miss Lott's father, he was took sick over to Machias, and they moved
+up to look after him, and nobody's been there since, unless the boys
+for blueberries. I guess your Pa'll find plenty to do to get things
+straightened out, and so will the rest of you."
+
+"There isn't any 'rest' but me."
+
+"Do tell now. Hain't you any Ma?"
+
+"No," said Eyebright, sadly. "Mother died last November."
+
+"You poor little thing!" cried kind Mrs. Downs; "and hain't you got no
+brothers and sisters either?"
+
+"No; not any at all."
+
+"Why, you'll be lonesome, I'm afraid, up to the island. You never
+lived in such a sort of a place before, did you?"
+
+"Oh, no; we always lived in Tunxet. But I don't believe I shall be
+lonesome. It looks real pretty from here. Why is it called Cosy
+Island, Mrs. Downs?"
+
+"Well, I'm sure I don't know. Folks always called it that. I never
+thought to ask nobody. Perhaps he'll know when he comes in."
+
+"He" was Mr. Downs; but he knew no more than his wife about the name
+of the island. Mr. Bright, however, was better informed. He told them
+that the name, in the first place, was "Causeway," from the natural
+path, uncovered at each low tide, which connected it with the shore,
+and that this had gradually been changed to "Causey," because it was
+easier to pronounce. Eyebright was rather disappointed at this
+explanation.
+
+"I thought it was 'Cosy,'" she said, "because the island was cosey."
+
+Mr. Downs gave a great laugh at this, but papa patted her head kindly,
+and said,--
+
+"We'll see if we can't make it so, Eyebright."
+
+The tide would not serve for crossing the causeway till the afternoon,
+but Mr. Downs offered to put them over in his boat without waiting for
+that. It was arranged that they should come back for the night, and
+Mrs. Downs packed some bread and cheese and doughnuts in a basket to
+serve them as dinner. Eyebright took the basket on her arm, and ran
+down to the shore in high spirits. It was a lovely day. The sea was as
+blue as the sky, and, as the boat pushed off, little ripples from the
+incoming tide struck the pebbly beach, with swift flashes of white,
+like gleaming teeth, and a gay little splash, so like a laugh that
+Eyebright laughed too, and showed her teeth.
+
+"What are you smiling at?" asked her father.
+
+"I don't know," she answered, in a tone of dreamy enjoyment. "I like
+it here, papa."
+
+Near as the island looked, it took quite a long time to reach it,
+though Mr. Downs pulled strongly and steadily. It was very
+interesting, as each stroke took them nearer and nearer, and showed
+more and more distinctly what their future home was like. The trees,
+which at first had seemed a solid green mass, became distinct shapes
+of pines, hemlocks, and sumachs. A little farther, and openings
+appeared between them, through which open spaces on top could be seen,
+bushes, a field, and yes, actually! a little brown patch, which was a
+house. There it was, and Eyebright held Genevieve up that she might
+see it, too.
+
+"That's our house, my child," she whispered. "Aren't you glad? But my!
+don't it look small?"
+
+It was small, smaller even than it looked, as they found, when, after
+saying good-by to Mr. Downs, and getting directions for crossing the
+"Causey," they climbed the steep path which led to the top, and came
+out close to the house. Mr. Bright gave a low whistle as he looked at
+it, and Eyebright opened her eyes wide.
+
+"It's a comfort that we're not a large family, isn't it?" she said,
+quaintly. "I'm almost glad now that Wealthy didn't come, papa.
+Wouldn't she say it was little? Littler than Miss Fitch's schoolhouse,
+I do believe."
+
+The front door was fastened only by a large cobweb, left by some
+industrious spider of last year, so it was easy to make their way in.
+There was no entrance-hall. The door opened directly into a square
+kitchen, from which opened two smaller rooms. One had shelves round
+it, and seemed to be a sort of pantry or milk-room. As they went into
+the other, a trickling sound met their ears, and they saw a slender
+stream of clear spring water running into a stone sink. The sink never
+seemed to get any fuller, but the water ran on and on, and there was
+no way to stop it, as Eyebright found after a little examination.
+
+"Isn't that splendid?" she cried. "It just runs all the time, and we
+shan't have to pump or any thing. I do like that so much!" Then, as if
+the sound made her thirsty, she held her head under the spout, and
+took a good long drink.
+
+"Do taste it. It's the best water that ever was," she declared.
+
+This spring-water, always at hand, was the only luxury which the
+little house afforded. All the rest was bare and plain as could be.
+Upstairs were two small chambers, but they were more like
+chicken-coops than bedrooms; for the walls, made of laths not yet
+plastered, were full of cracks and peep-holes, and the staircase which
+led to them resembled a ladder more than was desirable. There was
+plenty of sunshine everywhere, for there were no blinds, and the sweet
+yellow light made a cheerfulness in the place, forlorn as it was.
+Eyebright did not think it forlorn. She enjoyed it very much as though
+it had been a new doll's-house, and danced about gleefully, planning
+where this should go, and that; how papa's desk should have a corner
+by one window, and her little chair by the other, and the big mahogany
+table, which Wealthy had persuaded them to bring, by the wall. She
+showed a good deal of cleverness and sense in their arrangement, and
+papa was well content that things should be as she liked.
+
+"We must have the upstairs rooms plastered, I suppose," he said.
+"That'll require some time, I'm afraid. Plaster takes so long to dry.
+We must arrange to wait at Mr. Downs's for a week or two, Eyebright."
+
+He sighed as he spoke, and sat down on the door-step, his elbows on
+his knees, his chin in his hands, looking tired and discouraged.
+
+"Oh, must we?" cried Eyebright, her face falling. "That won't be nice
+a bit. Papa! I've got an idea. Don't plaster the walls. Let me fix
+them. I'll make them real nice, just as nice as can be, if you will,
+and then we shan't have to wait at all."
+
+"Why, what can you do with them? How do you mean?" demanded her
+father.
+
+"Oh, papa, it's a secret, I'd rather not tell you. I'd rather have it
+a surprise,--mayn't I?"
+
+Papa demurred, but Eyebright coaxed and urged, and at last he said,--
+
+"Well, I don't care about it one way or the other. Try your idea if
+you like, Eyebright. It will amuse you perhaps, and any thing will do
+for the summer. We can plaster in the fall."
+
+"I don't believe you'll want to," remarked Eyebright, shaking her head
+mysteriously. "My way is much prettier than plaster. Just you wait and
+see, papa. I'm sure you'll like it."
+
+But papa seemed down-hearted, and it was not easy to make him smile.
+To tell the truth, the look of the farm was rather discouraging. He
+kicked the earth over with his foot, and said the soil was poor and
+every thing seemed run down. But Eyebright would not give in to this
+view at all. It was a lovely place, she insisted, and she ran about
+discovering new beauties and advantages every moment. Now it was a
+thicket of wild roses just budding into leaf. Next a patch of
+winter-green, with white starry blossoms and red berries. Then,
+peeping over the bank, she called papa's attention to a strip of
+pebbly beach on the side of the island next the sea.
+
+"Here's where we can take baths," she said. "Why, I declare, here's a
+path down to it. I guess the people who used to live here made it;
+don't you? Oh, do come and see the beach, papa!"
+
+It was a rough little path which led to the beach, and overgrown with
+weeds; but they made their way down without much trouble, and
+Eyebright trampled the pebbles under foot with great satisfaction.
+
+"Isn't it splendid!" she cried. "See that great stone close to the
+bank, papa. We can go behind there to dress and undress. It's a real
+nice place. I'm going to call it the 'The Dressing-room.' How wide the
+sea is on this side! And what is that long point of land, papa?"
+
+For the island lay within a broad curving bay. One end of the curve
+projected only a little way, but toward the north a long, cape-like
+tongue of land, with a bold, hilly outline, ran out to sea, and made a
+striking feature in the landscape.
+
+"Those are the Guinness Hills," said Mr. Bright. "Canada begins just
+the other side of them. Do you see those specks of white on the point?
+That is Malachi, and in the summer there is a steamboat once a week
+from there to Portland. We can see it pass in clear weather, Mr. Downs
+says."
+
+"That will be nice," said Eyebright, comfortably. "I'm glad we've got
+a beach of our own, papa; aren't you? Now I want to look about some
+more."
+
+To the left of the house the ground rose in a low knoll, whose top was
+covered with sassafras bushes. This was the source of the spring whose
+water ran into the back kitchen. They came upon it presently, and
+could trace the line of spouts, each made of a small tree-trunk,
+halved and hollowed out, which led it from the hill to the house.
+Following these along, Eyebright made the discovery of a cubby,--a
+veritable cubby,--left by some child in a choice and hidden corner
+formed by three overlapping moosewood bushes. The furniture, except
+for a table made of three shingles, consisted entirely of corn-cobs;
+but it was a desirable cubby for all that, and would be a pleasant
+out-door parlor for Genevieve on hot days, Eyebright thought. It made
+the island seem much more home-like to know that other children had
+lived there and played under the trees; and, cheered by this idea, she
+became so merry, that gradually papa brightened, too, and began to
+make plans for his farming operations with more heart than he had
+hitherto shown, deciding where to plant corn and where potatoes, and
+where their little vegetable garden would better be.
+
+"I suppose it's no use to try for fruit," he said; "the climate is too
+cold."
+
+"Not too cold for blueberries," Eyebright replied. "There are lots of
+them, Mrs. Downs says, and lots of cranberries, and Mr. Downs's
+brother has got an apple-tree."
+
+"An apple-tree! Dear! dear! Think of getting to a place where people
+have only one apple-tree," muttered Mr. Bright.
+
+By the time that they had made the circuit of the island it was twelve
+o'clock. This was dinner-time, Eyebright declared, and she produced
+the lunch-basket. Mrs. Downs's bread had yellow specks of saleratus in
+it, and was very different from Wealthy's delicious loaves; but they
+were too hungry to criticise, though Eyebright shook her head over it,
+and thought with satisfaction of the big parcel of yeast-powder which
+she and Wealthy had packed up. She knew exactly where it was, in the
+corner of a certain red box, and that reminded her to ask papa when
+the boxes would be likely to come.
+
+"They are due at this moment," he replied, "I suppose we may look for
+them at any time now. Mr. Downs says there have been head winds for
+this week past, and I presume that has kept the sloop back. Perhaps
+she may come to-day."
+
+"I do hope she will. I want dreadfully to begin and fix the house.
+Doesn't it seem a great while since we left Tunxet, papa? I can't
+believe that it is only three days, so much has happened."
+
+The tide had been going out since eleven o'clock, and by four, when
+they were ready to cross, the causeway was uncovered. It was a wide
+pathway of sand, not flat and even all the way, but high in some
+places and low in others, with shells and pebbles shining here and
+there on its surface. It was like a beach, except for being narrower,
+and having water on both sides of it, instead of on only one. The sand
+was still wet enough to make good hard footing, and Eyebright skipped
+gayly over it, declaring that she felt just like the children of
+Israel in the middle of the Red Sea.
+
+"It is so strange to think that, just a little while ago, this was all
+water," she said; "and just a little while longer, and it will be all
+water again. It is the most interesting thing we've got on our island,
+I think, papa; but it makes me feel a little afraid, too."
+
+"There's nothing to be afraid of if you're only careful not to come
+here except when the tide is going out," said her father. "Now
+remember this, Eyebright,--you must never try to cross when the tide
+is rising, even if the sand looks perfectly dry and the water seems a
+good way off. The sea comes in very fast up here on these northern
+shores, and if you made a misstep and sprained your ankle, or had an
+accident of any kind, you might be drowned before any one could come
+to your help. Remember, my child."
+
+"Yes, papa, I will," said Eyebright, looking rather nervously at the
+water. It was slipping farther away every moment, and seemed the most
+harmless thing in the world; but papa's words made her feel as if it
+were a dangerous and deceitful creature which could not be trusted.
+
+It was over a mile from the causeway to the village, though at first
+sight the distance looked much less Plodding along the sandy shore was
+slow work, so that they did not reach the village till nearly six. A
+smell of frying met them as they entered the door. Mrs. Downs, wishing
+to do them honor, was making blueberry flapjacks for tea. Did any of
+you ever eat blueberry flapjacks? I imagine not, unless you have
+summered on the coast of Maine. They are a kind of greasy pancake, in
+which blueberries are stirred till the cakes are about the color of a
+bruise. They are served swimming in melted butter and sugar, and in
+any other place or air would be certain indigestion, if not sudden
+death, to any person partaking of them. But, somehow, in that place
+and that air they are not only harmless but seem quite delicious as
+well. Eyebright thought so. She ate a great many flapjacks, thought
+them extremely nice, and slept like a top afterward, with never a bad
+dream to mar her rest.
+
+A big gray sail at the wharf was the glad sight that met their eyes
+when they came down next morning. The sloop had come in during the
+night, with all Mr. Bright's goods on board. He had hoped that it
+might be possible to land them on the island, but the captain said it
+was out of the question; he couldn't get near enough, for one thing,
+and if he could, he wouldn't; for how were heavy things like them to
+be dumped on a shelvin' bank like that, he'd like to know? So the
+goods were landed on the dock at Scrapplehead, and Mr. Downs undertook
+to find an ox-team to draw them across the causeway at low tide.
+
+Getting oxen was not an easy matter at that season of the year, but
+Mr. Downs, who had taken a fancy to his lodgers, bestirred himself,
+and at last found some one willing to let his yoke go in consideration
+of a dollar and a quarter. So, at exact low tide, the great cart,
+piled with boxes and barrels, creaked slowly across the sandy bar, Mr.
+Downs driving, and papa walking behind with Eyebright, who was more
+than ever reminded of the crossing of the Red Sea. It took much
+lugging and straining and "gee"-ing and "haw"-ing to get the load up
+the steep bank on the other side; but all arrived safely at last in
+front of the house. There the cart was unloaded as fast as possible, a
+few things set indoors, the rest left outside, and, getting into the
+cart, they all drove back across the causeway. It was harder work than
+when they came, for the tide was rising, and the sand had grown soft
+and yielding. One great swirling wave ran up and curled around the
+oxen's hoofs just as they reached firm ground, but, though Eyebright
+gave a little scream, and Mr. Downs frowned and said, "by gosh!" no
+harm was done, and the momentary fright only made pleasanter their
+drive to Scrapplehead, which they reached just as the sun sank for the
+night into a great soft-looking bed of purple and crimson clouds.
+
+This was their last night with the Downs family. Early next morning
+they started for the island in Mr. Downs's boat, taking with them
+their last bundles and bags, and Mrs. Downs, who had kindly offered to
+give them a day's help. Very helpful it proved, for there was every
+thing to do.
+
+Mr. Bright, like all men, wanted to do every thing at once, and
+Eyebright was too inexperienced to know what should come first and
+what second; so Mrs. Downs's good sense and advice were of great
+value. Under her directions the bedrooms were swept and cleaned, and
+the bedsteads put together, first of all, for, as she said, "You've
+got to sleep, anyhow, and if you don't do it comfortable you'll be
+sick, and that would never do." Next, while Eyebright swept the
+kitchen, she and Mr. Bright got the stove into place, fixed the pipe,
+and lighted a fire, after which Mrs. Downs scoured the pantry shelves,
+and unpacked china and tins.
+
+"There," she said, surveying the result with great satisfaction. "That
+begins to look folksy. What's sewed up in that old comforter? A
+rocking-cheer. Let's have it out!"
+
+So the rocking-chair was unsewed, and papa's desk and the big table
+were unpacked; and as each familiar article came to view, Eyebright
+felt as though an old friend were restored to her. She patted the arm
+of her own little chair, and put the plaided cover from the old
+sitting-room over the table, with a sense of cheer and comfort. She
+and papa and Mrs. Downs dined on bread and cheese in the intervals of
+work, and by five o'clock they were very fairly in order, and Mrs.
+Downs made ready to go back to her own family. Eyebright walked with
+her as far as the causeway, and parted with a hearty kiss. Mrs. Downs
+seemed like a second Wealthy, almost, she had been so kind and
+thoughtful all that busy day.
+
+Papa was sitting in the rocking-chair, by the stove, when she went
+back. She stopped to kiss him as she passed, and proceeded to set the
+table and get supper. Mrs. Downs had started them with a supply of
+bread, butter, and milk; but the tea and sugar came out of one of the
+Tunxet boxes, and so did the tumbler of currant-jam, opened in honor
+of the occasion. Wealthy had made it, and it seemed to taste of the
+pleasant old times. Eyebright did not care to think much about Wealthy
+just then. The tide was drawing over the causeway, cutting them off
+from everybody else in the world. She felt lonely and the least bit
+afraid, in spite of papa's being there; and only keeping very busy
+till bedtime saved her from homesickness, which she felt would be a
+bad beginning, indeed, for that first evening in her new home.
+
+Next morning was fair. All the days had been good so far, which was
+fortunate, for a half-settled house is a dismal place enough in rainy
+weather. Eyebright opened her eyes, and after one bewildered stare
+began to laugh, for through the slats of her "coop," she could
+distinctly see papa, half-dressed, and brushing his hair in his, on
+the other side of the entry. This was not to be endured, so after
+breakfast, while he went to the village for some provisions, she set
+to work with great energy on her plan for reforming the bedroom walls.
+This was to cover them with "picture papers." There was an abundance
+of material for the purpose at hand, for her mother had taken Harper's
+Bazar and Frank Leslie's Illustrated for several years; and as she
+saved all the back numbers, a large pile had collected, which Wealthy
+had carefully packed. These Eyebright sorted over, setting aside all
+the pictures of cows, and statesmen, and steamboats, and railroad
+trains for papa's room, and keeping the kittens, and dogs, and boys,
+and girls, and babies for her own. She fastened the papers to the
+laths with tacks, and the ceilings were so low that she was able to do
+all but the very top row herself. That she was forced to leave for
+papa. So hard did she work that the whole of his room was done before
+he appeared, climbing the path, with a big bundle under one arm, a
+basket in his hand, and looking very warm and tired.
+
+"It's a hard pull up the shore," he said, wiping his forehead. "I
+shall have to get a boat whether I can afford it or not, I'm afraid.
+It'll be worse when hot weather comes, and there'll always be the need
+of going over to the village for something or other."
+
+"A boat," cried Eyebright, clapping her hands "Oh, papa, that would be
+splendid. I can learn to row it my own self, can't I? It'll be as nice
+as a carriage of our own,--nicer, for we shan't have to catch the
+horse, or feed him either. Now, papa, let me carry the basket, and oh,
+do come quick. I want to show you how beautifully I have done your
+bedroom."
+
+Papa liked the bedroom very much. He was glad to be saved the expense
+and delay of plastering, only he said he was afraid he should always
+be late to breakfast, because he should want to lie in bed and study
+his picture-gallery, which joke delighted Eyebright highly.
+
+It was several days before she had time to attend to her own papering,
+for there was a great deal else to do,--boxes to unpack, places to
+settle, and outside work to begin. Mr. Bright hired a man for one week
+to plow and plant and split wood. After that, he thought he could keep
+things in running order by himself. He had been brought up on a farm,
+but years of disuse had made him stiff and awkward at such labor, and
+he found the work harder than he had expected. Eyebright was glad to
+see the big woodpile grow. It had a cosey look to her, and gradually
+the house was beginning to look cosey too. The kitchen, with its strip
+of carpet and easy-chairs and desk, made quite a comfortable
+sitting-room. Eyebright kept a glass of wild roses or buttercups or
+white daisies always on the table. She set up a garden of her own,
+too, after a while, and raised some balsams and "Johnny-jump-ups" from
+seeds which Mr. Downs gave her, and some golden-brown coreopsis. As
+for the housekeeping, it fared better than could have been expected
+with only a little girl of thirteen to look after things. Once a week,
+a woman came from the village for the day (and half a dollar), did the
+washing and part of the ironing, roasted a joint of meat if there was
+one to roast, made a batch of pies, perhaps, or a pan of gingerbread,
+and scoured the pots and pans and the kitchen floor. This lightened
+the work for the next seven days, and left Eyebright only vegetables
+and little things to cook, and the ordinary cleaning, bed-making, and
+dusting to do, which she managed very well on the whole, though
+sometimes she got extremely tired, and wished for Wealthy's strong
+hands to help her. Milk and butter came from Mr. Downs's every other
+day, and papa was very good and considerate about his food, and quite
+contented with a dinner of potatoes or mush if nothing better was to
+be had, so the little housekeeper did not have any heavy burden on her
+mind so far as he was concerned.
+
+The boat proved a great comfort when it came, which was not till more
+than a month after their settlement on Causey Island. Eyebright took
+regular rowing lessons and practised diligently, so that after a few
+weeks she became really expert, and papa could trust her to go alone
+as far as the village, when the weather was fair and the sea smooth.
+These rows to and fro were the greatest treats and refreshments after
+house-work. Sometimes it happened that her errands kept her till
+sunset, and she floated home on the incoming tide, just dipping the
+oars gently in now and then, and carried along by the current and a
+"singing" wind, which followed close behind and pushed the boat on its
+way. These were Eyebright's real "play" times. She kept a story going
+about a princess and a boat, and some water-fairies and a
+water-prince, and whenever the chance came for a solitary row, she
+"acted" it by herself in the old pleasant way, always wishing that
+Bessie or some other girl could be along to play it with her. Another
+girl,--some one to share work and fun, waking and sleeping, with
+her,--that was all which was wanted, she thought, to make Causey
+Island as pleasant as Tunxet.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SHUT UP IN THE OVEN.
+
+
+You will probably think that it was a dish of pork-and-beans, or an
+Indian pudding of the good, old-fashioned kind, which was shut up in
+the Oven. Not at all. You are quite mistaken. The thing shut up in the
+Oven was Eyebright herself! And the Oven was quite different from any
+thing you are thinking of,--cold, not hot; wet, not dry; with a door
+made of green sea-water instead of black iron. This sounds like a
+conundrum; and, as that is hardly fair, I will proceed to unriddle it
+at once and tell you all about it.
+
+The Oven was a sort of cave or grotto in the cliffs, four miles from
+Scrapplehead, but rather less than three from the causeway. Its real
+name was "The Devil's Oven." Country people, and Maine country people
+above all others, are very fond of calling all sorts of strange and
+striking places after the devil. If Eyebright had ever heard the whole
+name, perhaps she might not have ventured to go there alone as she
+did, in which case I should have no adventure to write about. But
+people usually spoke of it for shortness' sake as the "Oven," and she
+had no idea that Satan had any thing to do with the place, nor, for
+that matter, have I.
+
+It was from Mrs. Downs that she first heard about the Oven. Mrs. Downs
+had been there once, years before. It was a "natteral curosity," she
+said, with all sorts of strange sea-creatures growing in pools, and
+the rocks were red and quite beautiful. It wasn't a dangerous place,
+either, and here Mr. Downs confirmed her. You couldn't get in after
+half-tide, but anybody could stay in for a week in ordinary weather,
+and not be drowned. There were plenty of places a-top of the cave,
+where you could sit and keep dry even at high water, though it would
+be "sort of poky," too. Eyebright's imagination was fired by this
+description, and she besought papa to take her there at once. He
+promised that he would "some day," but the day seemed long in coming,
+as holidays always do to busy people; and June passed, and July, and
+still the Oven was unvisited, though Eyebright did not forget her wish
+to go.
+
+August came at last,--the delicious north-of-Maine August, with hot,
+brilliant noons, and cool, balmy nights, so different from the murky,
+steamy August of everywhere else,--and was half over, when one
+afternoon papa came in with a piece of news.
+
+"What should you say, Eyebright, if I were to go off for the whole day
+to-morrow?" he asked.
+
+"Why, papa Bright, what do you mean? You can't! There isn't anywhere
+to go to."
+
+"There's Malachi."
+
+"Oh, papa, not in our little boat!"
+
+"No, in a schooner belonging to Mr. Downs's brother. It has just put
+in with a load of lumber, and the captain has offered me a passage if
+I like to go. He expects to get back to-morrow evening about nine
+o'clock. Should you be lonesome, do you think, Eyebright, if I went?"
+
+"Not a bit," cried Eyebright, delighted at the idea of papa's having a
+sail. "I'll do something or other that is pleasant. Perhaps I'll go
+and stay all day with Mrs. Downs. Anyhow, I'll not be lonely. I'm glad
+the captain asked you to go, papa. It'll be nice, I think."
+
+But next morning, when she had given papa his early breakfast, watched
+him across the causeway, and seen the sails of the schooner diminish
+into two white specks in the distance, she was not sure that it was
+nice. She sang at her dish-washing and clattered her cups and spoons,
+to make as much noise as possible; but for all she could do, the house
+felt silent and empty, and she missed papa very much. Her plan had
+been to go to the village as soon as her work was done, and make Mrs.
+Downs a visit, but later another idea popped into her mind. She would
+go to the Oven instead.
+
+"I know about where it is," she thought. "If I keep close to the shore
+I can't miss it, anyway. Mr. Downs said it wasn't more than two miles
+and three-quarters from the causeway. Two miles and three-quarters
+isn't a very long walk. It won't be half-tide till after ten. I can
+get there by a little after nine if I start at once. That'll give me
+an hour to see the cave, and when I come back I'll go down to the
+village and stay to dinner with Mrs. Downs. I'll take some bread and
+butter, though, because one does get so hungry up here if you take the
+least little walk. What a good idea it is to do this! I am glad papa
+went to Malachi, after all."
+
+Her preparations were soon made, and in ten minutes she was speeding
+across the causeway, which was safe walking still, though the tide had
+turned,--her pocket full of bread and butter, and Genevieve in her
+arms. She had hesitated whether or not to take Genevieve, but it
+seemed too sad to leave her all alone on the island, so it ended in
+her going too, in her best bonnet and a little blanket shawl. The
+morning was most beautiful, dewy and fresh, and the path along the
+shore was scented with freshly cut hay from inland fields, and with
+spicy bayberry and sweet fern. A belated wild rose shone here and
+there in the hedges, pale and pink. Tangles of curly, green-brown
+fringe lay over the clustering Virgin's Bower. The blue lapping waves,
+as they rose and fell, were full of sea-weeds of a lovely red-brown
+tint, and a frolicsome wind played over the surface of the sea, and
+seemed to be whispering something funny to it, for the water trembled
+in the sun and dimpled as if with sudden laughter.
+
+The way, as a general thing, lay close by the shore, winding over the
+tops of low cliffs covered with dry yellow grasses. Now and then it
+dipped down to strips of shingle beach, or skirted little coves with
+boundaries of bushes and brambles edging the sand. Miles are not easy
+to reckon when people are following the ins and outs of an irregular
+coast. Half a dozen times Eyebright clambered to the water's edge and
+peeped round the shoulder of a great rock, thinking that she must have
+got to the cave at last. Yet nothing met her eyes but more rocks, and
+surf, and fissures brown with rust and barnacles. At last, she came on
+a group of children, playing in the sand, and stopped to ask the way
+of them.
+
+There were two thin, brown little girls in pink-and-gray gingham
+frocks, and pink-and-gray striped stockings appearing over the tops of
+high, laced boots. They were exactly the same size, and made Eyebright
+think of grasshoppers, they were so wiry and active, and sprang about
+so nimbly. Then there were three rosy, hearty-looking country
+children, and a pair of little boys, with sharp, delicately cut faces,
+who seemed to be brothers, for they looked like each other and quite
+unlike the rest. All seven were digging holes in the sand with sticks
+and shovels, and were as much absorbed in their work as a party of
+diligent beavers. When Eyebright appeared, with Genevieve in her arms,
+they stopped digging and looked at her curiously.
+
+"Do you know how far the Oven is from here?" asked Eyebright.
+
+"No," and "What's the Oven?" answered the children, and one of the
+gray-and-pink little girls added: "My, what a big doll!" Eyebright
+scarcely heeded these answers, she was so delighted to see some
+children after her long fast from childhood.
+
+"What are you making?" she asked.
+
+"A fort," replied one of the boys.
+
+"Now, Fweddy, you said you'd call it a castle," put in one of the
+girls.
+
+"Well, castles are just the same things as forts. My mother said so."
+
+"Is that your mother sitting there?" asked Eyebright catching a
+glimpse of a woman and a baby under a tree not far off.
+
+"Oh, dear, no! That's Mrs. Waurigan. She's Jenny's mother, you know,
+and 'Mandy's and Peter Paul Rubens's. She's not our mother at all. My
+mother's name is Mrs. Brown, and my papa is Dr. Azariah P. Brown. We
+live in New York city. Did you ever see New York city?"
+
+[Illustration: When Eyebright appeared with Genevieve in her arms,
+they stopped digging and looked at her curiously.--PAGE 172.]
+
+"No, never. I wish I had," said Eyebright.
+
+"It's a real nice place," went on the pink-and-gray midge. "You'd
+better make haste and come and see it quick, 'cause it's de-te-rotting
+every day; my papa said so. Don't you think Dr. Azariah P. Brown is a
+beau-tiful name? I do. When I'm mallied and have a little boy, I'm
+going to name him Dr. Azariah P. Brown, because it's the beautifulest
+name in the world."
+
+"She's 'gaged already," said the other little sister. "She's 'gaged to
+Willy Prentiss. And she's got a 'gagement wing; only, she turns the
+stone round inside, so's to make people b'lieve it's a plain gold wing
+and she's mallied already. Isn't that cheating? It's just as bad as
+telling a weal story."
+
+"No, it isn't either!" cried the other, twirling a small gilt ring
+round on a brown finger, and revealing a gem made, apparently, of
+second-rate sealing-wax, and about the color of a lobster's claw. "No,
+it isn't cheating, not one bit; 'cause sometimes the wing gets turned
+round all by itself, and then people can see that it isn't plain gold.
+And Nelly's 'gaged, too, just as much as I am, only she hasn't got any
+wing, because Harry Sin--"
+
+"Now, Lotty!" screamed Nelly, flinging herself upon her, "you mustn't
+tell the name."
+
+"So your name is Lotty, is it?" said Eyebright, who had abandoned
+Genevieve to the embraces of Jenny, and was digging in the sand with
+the rest.
+
+"No, it isn't. My really name is Charlotte P., only Mamma calls me
+Lotty. I don't like it much. It's such a short name, just Lotty. Look
+here, you didn't ever see me till to-day, so it can't make much
+difference to you, so won't you please call me Charlotte P.? I'd like
+it so much if you would."
+
+Eyebright hastened to assure Charlotte P. of her willingness to grant
+this slight favor.
+
+"Are these little boys your brothers, Lot--Charlotte P., I mean?" she
+asked.
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Nelly. "Our bwother is lots and lots bigger than they
+are. That's Sinclair and Fweddy. They ain't no 'lation at all, 'cept
+that they live next door."
+
+"Their mamma's a widow," interposed Charlotte P. "She plays on the
+piano, and a real handsome gentleman comes to see her 'most every day.
+That's what being a widow means."
+
+"Look here what I've found!" shouted Sinclair, who had gone farther
+down the beach. "I guess it's a shrimp. And if I had a match I'd make
+a fire and cook it, for I read in a book once that shrimps are
+delicious."
+
+"Let me see him! Let me see him!" clamored the little ones. Then, in a
+tone of disgust: "Oh, my! ain't he horrid-looking and little. He isn't
+any bigger than the head of a pin."
+
+"That's not true," asserted Sinclair: "he's bigger than the head of my
+mamma's shawl-pin, and that's ever so big."
+
+"I don't believe he's good a bit," declared Lotty.
+
+"Then you shan't have any of him when he's cooked," said Sinclair.
+"I've got a jelly-fish, too. He's in a hole with a little water in it,
+but he can't get out. I mean to eat him, too. Are jelly-fish good?" to
+Eyebright.
+
+"I don't believe they are," she replied. "I never heard of anybody's
+eating them."
+
+"I like fishes," went on Sinclair. "My mamma says she guesses I've got
+a taste for nat-nat-ural history. When I grow up I mean to read all
+the books about animals."
+
+"And what do you like?" asked Eyebright of the other little boy, who
+had not spoken yet, and whose fair baby face had an odd, almost
+satirical expression.
+
+"Fried hominy," was the unexpected reply, uttered in a sharp, distinct
+voice. The children shouted and Eyebright laughed, but Freddy only
+smiled faintly in a condescending way. And now Eyebright remembered
+that she was on her road to the cave,--a fact quite forgotten for the
+moment,--and she jumped up and said she must go.
+
+"Perhaps Mrs. Waurigan will know where the Oven is," she added.
+
+"I guess so," replied Lotty; "because she does know about a great
+many, many things. Good-by!--do come again to-morrow, and bring
+Dolly, won't you?" and she gave Genevieve one kiss and Eyebright
+another. "You're pretty big to play with dolls, I think.
+But then"--meditatively--"she's a pretty big doll too."
+
+Mrs. Waurigan was knitting a blue-yarn stocking. She could tell
+Eyebright nothing about the Oven.
+
+"I know it's not a great way off," she said. "But I've never been
+there. It can't be over a mile, if it's so much as that; that I'm sure
+of. Have you walked up all the way from Scrapplehead? I want to know?
+It's a long way for you to come."
+
+"Not so far as New York city," said Eyebright, laughing. "Those little
+girls tell me they come from there."
+
+"Yes; the twins and Sinclair and Freddy all come from New York. Their
+mother, Mis' Brown, who is a real nice lady, was up here last year.
+She took a desprit fancy to the place, and when the children had
+scarlet fever in the spring, and Lotty was so sick that the doctor
+didn't think she'd ever get over it, she just packed their trunk and
+sent them right off here just as soon as they was fit to travel. She
+said all she asked was that I'd feed 'em and do for 'em just as I do
+for my own; and you wouldn't believe how much they've improved since
+they came. They look peaked enough still, but for all that nobody'd
+think that they were the same children."
+
+"And did the little boys come with them?"
+
+"Yes. They're neighbors, Miss' Brown wrote, and their mother wanted to
+go to the Springs, or somewhere, so she asked mightn't they come, too.
+At first, I thought I couldn't hardly manage with so many, but they
+haven't been a bit of trouble. Just set them anywheres down on the
+shore, and they'll dig all day and be as happy as clams. The only bad
+things is boots. Miss' Brown, she sent seven pairs apiece in the
+trunk, and, you would hardly believe it, they're on the sixth pair
+already. Rocks is dreadful hard on leather, and so is sand. But I
+guess their Ma wont care so's they go back strong and healthy."
+
+"I'm sure she won't," said Eyebright. "Now I must be going, or I
+shan't be able to get into the cave when I find it."
+
+"You'd better come in and get a bite of something to eat as you come
+back," said Mrs. Waurigan. "That's the house just across that pasture.
+'T ain't but a step out of your way."
+
+"Oh, thank you. How kind you are!" replied Eyebright. Then she said
+good-by and hurried on, thinking to herself,--"Maine is full of good
+people, I do believe. I wish Wealthy could come up here and see how
+nice they are."
+
+It seemed more than a mile to the Oven, but she made the distance
+longer than it was by continually going down to the water's edge to
+make sure that she was not passing the cave without knowing it. It was
+almost by accident that in the end she lighted upon it. Strolling a
+little out of her way to pick a particularly blue harebell which had
+caught her eye, she suddenly found herself on the edge of a hollow
+chasm, and, peeping over, perceived that it must be the place she was
+in search of. Scrambling down from her perch, which was about half-way
+up one side, she found herself in a deep recess, overhung by a large
+rock, which formed a low archway across its front. The floor ran back
+for a long distance, rising gradually, in irregular terraces, till it
+met the roof; and here and there along these terraces were basin-like
+holes full of gleaming water, which must be the pools Mrs. Downs had
+talked about.
+
+Eyebright had never seen a cave before, though she had read and played
+about caves all her life, so you can imagine her ecstasy and
+astonishment at finding herself in a real one at last. It was as good
+as the "Arabian Nights," she thought, and a great deal better than the
+cave in the "Swiss Family Robinson." Indeed, it was a beautiful place.
+Cool green light filled it, like sunshine filtered through sea-water.
+The rocky shelves were red, or rather a deep rosy pink, and the water
+in the pools was of the color of emerald and beautifully clear. She
+climbed up to the nearest pool, and gave a loud scream of delight, for
+there, under her eye, was a miniature flower-garden, made by the
+fairies, it would seem, and filled with dahlia-shaped and
+hollyhock-shaped things, purple, crimson, and deep orange; which were
+flowers to all appearance, and yet must be animals; for they opened
+and shut their many-tinted petals, and moved and swayed when she
+dipped her fingers in and splashed the water about. There were green
+spiky things, too, exactly like freshly fallen chestnut burrs,
+lettuce-like leaves,--pale red ones, as fine as tissue-paper,--and
+delicate filmy foliage in soft brown and in white. Yellow snails clung
+to the sides of the pool, vivid in color as the blossom of a
+trumpet-creeper; and, as she lay with her face close to the surface of
+the water, a small, bright fish swam from under the leaves, and darted
+across the pool like a quick sun ray. Never, even in her dreams, had
+Eyebright imagined any thing like it, and in her delight she gave
+Genevieve a great hug, and cried:--
+
+"Aren't you glad I brought you, dear, and oh, isn't it beautiful?"
+
+There were several pools, one above another, and each higher one
+seemed more beautiful than the next below. The very biggest "dahlia"
+of all--Anemone was its real name, but Eyebright did not know
+that--was in the highest of these pools, and Eyebright lay so long
+looking at it and giving it an occasional tickle with her forefinger
+to make it open and shut, that she never noticed how fast the tide was
+beginning to pour in. At last, one great wave rolled up and broke
+almost at her feet, and she suddenly bethought herself that it might
+be time to go. Alas! the thought came too late, as in another minute
+she saw. The rocks at the side, down which she had climbed, were cut
+off by deep water. She hurried across to the other side to see if it
+were not possible to get out there; but it was even worse, and the
+tide ran after as she scrambled back, and wetted her ankles before she
+could gain the place where she had been sitting before she made this
+disagreeable discovery. That wasn't safe either, for pretty soon a
+splash reached her there, and she took Genevieve in her arms and
+climbed up higher still, feeling like a hunted thing, and as if the
+sea were chasing her and would catch her if it possibly could.
+
+It was a great comfort just then to recollect what Mr. Downs had said
+about the cave being safe enough for people who were caught there by
+the tide, "in ordinary weather." Eyebright worried a little over that
+word "ordinary," but the sun was shining outside, and she could see
+its gleam through the lower waves; the water came in quietly, which
+proved that there wasn't much wind; and altogether she concluded that
+there couldn't be any thing extraordinary about this particular day. I
+think she proved herself a brave little thing, and sensible, too, to
+be able to reason this out as she did, and avoid useless fright; but,
+for all her bravery, she couldn't help crying a little as she sat
+there like a limpet among the rocks, and realized that the Oven door
+was fast shut, and she couldn't get out for ever so many hours. All of
+a sudden it came to her quite distinctly how foolish and rash it was
+to have come there all alone, without permission from papa, or letting
+anybody know of her intention. It was one comfort that papa at that
+moment was in Malachi, and couldn't be anxious about her; but, "Oh
+dear!" Eyebright thought, "how dreadfully he would feel if I never did
+get out, and he came back and found me gone, and nobody could tell him
+where I was. I'll never do such a bad, naughty thing again, never,--if
+I ever do get out, that is--" she reflected, as the water climbed
+higher and higher, and again she moved her seat to avoid it, still
+with the sense of being a hunted thing which the sea was trying to
+catch.
+
+Her seat was now too far from the pools for her to note how the
+anemones and snails were enjoying their twice-a-day visit from the
+tide, how the petals quivered and widened, the weeds grew brighter,
+and the fish darted about with renewed life and vigor. I don't believe
+it would have been much comfort to her if she had seen them. Fishes
+are unfriendly creatures; they never seem to care any thing about
+human beings, or whether they are feeling glad or sorry. Genevieve,
+for all her being made of wax, was much more satisfactory. What was
+particularly nice, she lent Eyebright her blanket-shawl to wear, for
+the cave had begun to feel very chilly. The shawl was not large, but
+it was better than nothing; and with this round her shoulders, and
+Dolly cuddled in her arms, she sat on the very highest ledge of all
+and watched the water rise. She couldn't go any higher, so she hoped
+_it_ couldn't, either; and as she sat, she sang all the songs and
+hymns she knew, to keep her spirits up,--"Out on an Ocean," "Shining
+Shore" (how she wished herself on one!), "Rosalie, the Prairie
+Flower," "Old Dog Tray," and ever so many others. It was a very
+miscellaneous concert, but did as well for Eyebright and the fishes as
+the most classical music could have done; better, perhaps, for Mozart
+and Beethoven might have sounded a little mournful, and "songs without
+words" would never have answered. Songs _with_ words were what were
+wanted in that emergency.
+
+The tide halted at last, after filling the cave about two-thirds full.
+Once sure that it had turned and was going down, Eyebright felt
+easier, and could even enjoy herself again. She ate the bread and
+butter with a good appetite, only wishing there was more of it, and
+then made up a delightful story about robbers and a cave and a
+princess, in which she herself played the part of the princess, who
+was shut in the cave of an enchanter till a prince should come and
+release her through a hole in the top. By the time that this happened
+and the princess was safely out, the uppermost pool was uncovered, and
+Eyebright clambered down the wet rocks and took another long look at
+it, "making believe" that it was a garden which a good fairy had
+planted to amuse the princess; and, indeed, no fairy could have
+invented a prettier one. So, little by little, and following the
+receding sea, she was able at last, with a jump and a long step, to
+reach the rocky pathway by which she had come down, and two minutes
+later she was on top of the cliff again, and in the sunshine, which
+felt particularly warm and pleasant. The sun was half-way down the
+sky; she had been in the cave almost six hours, and she knew it must
+be late in the afternoon.
+
+Neither Mrs. Waurigan nor the party of children was visible as she
+passed the house. They had probably gone in for tea, and she did not
+stop to look them up, for a great longing for home had seized upon
+her. The tide delayed her a little while at the causeway, so that it
+was past six when she finally reached the island, and her boots were
+wet from the soaked sand; but she didn't mind that a bit, she was so
+very glad to be safely there again. She pulled them off, put on dry
+stockings and shoes, made the fire, filled the tea-kettle, set the
+table, and, after a light repast of bread and milk, curled herself up
+in the rocking-chair for a long nap, and did not wake till nearly
+nine, when papa came in, having been set ashore by the schooner's boat
+as it passed by. He had a large codfish in his hand, swung from a loop
+of string.
+
+"Well, it has been a nice day," he said, cheerfully, rubbing his
+hands. "The wind was fair both ways. We did some fishing, and I caught
+this big fellow. I don't know when I have enjoyed any thing so much.
+What sort of a day have you had, little daughter?"
+
+Eyebright began to tell him, but at the same time began to cry, which
+made her story rather difficult to understand. Mr. Bright looked very
+grave when at last he comprehended the danger she had been in.
+
+"I shan't dare to go anywhere again," he said. "I thought I could
+trust you, Eyebright. I supposed you were too sensible and steady to
+do such a wild thing as this. I am very much surprised and very much
+disappointed."
+
+These words were the heaviest punishment which Eyebright could have
+had, for she was proud of being trusted and trustworthy. Papa had sat
+down and was leaning his head on his hand in a dispirited way. All his
+bright look was overclouded,--the pleasant day seemed forgotten and
+almost spoiled. She felt that it was her fault, and reproached herself
+more than ever.
+
+"Oh, please don't say that, papa," she pleaded, tearfully. "I _can_ be
+trusted, really and truly I can. I won't ever go to any dangerous
+place alone again, really I won't. Just forgive me this time, and
+you'll see how good I'll be all the rest of my life."
+
+So papa forgave her, and she kept her promise, and never did go off on
+any thoughtless expeditions again, as long as she lived on Causey
+Island.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A LONG YEAR IN A SHORT CHAPTER.
+
+
+It was Christmas Eve, and Eyebright, alone in the kitchen, was hanging
+up the stockings before going to bed. Papa, who had a headache, had
+retired early, so there was no one to interrupt her. She only wished
+there had been. Half the fun of Christmas seems missing when there is
+nobody from whom to keep a secret, no mystery, no hiding of things in
+corners and bringing them out at just the right moment. Very carefully
+she tied papa's stocking to the corner of the chimney and proceeded to
+"fill" it; that is, to put in a pair of old fur gloves which she had
+discovered in one of the boxes, and had mended by way of a surprise,
+and a small silk bag full of hickory-nut meats, carefully picked from
+the shells. These were all the Christmas gifts she had been able to
+get for papa, and the long gray stocking-leg looked very empty to her
+eyes. She had wished much to knit him a comforter, but it was three
+weeks and more since either of them had been able to get to the
+village; besides which, she knew that papa felt very poor indeed, and
+she did not like to ask for money, even so little as would have
+carried out her wish. "This must do," she said, with a quick sigh.
+Then she hung up her own stocking, and went upstairs. Eyebright always
+had hung up her stocking on Christmas Eve ever since she could
+remember, and she did it now more from the force of habit than any
+thing else, forgetting that there was no Wealthy at hand to put things
+in, and that they were living on an island which, since winter began,
+seemed to have changed its place, and swung a great deal farther away
+from things and people and the rest of the world than it had been.
+
+For winter comes early to the Maine coasts. Long before Thanksgiving,
+the ground was white with snow, and it stayed white from that time on
+till spring. After the first heavy storm, the farmers turned out with
+snow-ploughs to break paths through the village. As more snow fell, it
+was shovelled out and thrown on either side of the path, till the long
+double mounds half hid the people who walked between. But there was no
+one to break a path along the shore toward the causeway. The tide,
+rising and falling, kept a little strip of sand clear for part of the
+distance, and on this Eyebright now and then made her way to the
+village. But it was a hard and uncertain walk, and as rowing the boat
+was very cold work, it happened sometimes that for weeks together
+neither she nor papa left the island, or saw anybody except each
+other.
+
+This would have seemed very lonely, indeed, had not the house-work
+filled up so much of her time. Papa had no such resource. After the
+wood was chopped, and the cow fed, and a little snow shovelled,
+perhaps,--that was all. He could not find pleasure, as Eyebright did,
+in reading over and over again a book which he already knew by heart;
+the climate did not brace and stimulate him as it did her; the cold
+affected him very much; he moped in the solitude, and time hung
+heavily upon his hands.
+
+Eyebright often wondered how they could ever have got along--or, in
+fact, if it could have been possible to get along at all--without
+their cow. Papa had bought her in the autumn, when he began to realize
+how completely they were to be shut off from village supplies in bad
+weather. She was a good-natured, yellow beast, without any pedigree,
+or any name till Eyebright dubbed her "Golden Rod," partly because of
+her color, and partly because the field in which she grazed before she
+came to them was full of goldenrod, which the cow was supposed to eat,
+though I dare say she didn't. She gave a good deal of milk, not of the
+richest quality, for her diet was rather spare, but it was a great
+help and comfort to have it. With milk, potatoes, cabbages, and beets
+from their own garden; flour, Indian meal, and a barrel of salt beef
+in store, there was no danger of starvation on Causey Island, though
+Eyebright at times grew very tired of ringing the changes on these few
+articles of diet, and trying to invent new dishes with which to tempt
+papa's appetite, which had grown very poor since the winter set in.
+
+Altogether, life on the island was a good deal harder and less
+pleasant now than it had been in summer-time, and the sea was a great
+deal less pleasant. Eyebright loved it still; but her love was mingled
+with fear, and she began to realize what a terrible thing the ocean
+can be. The great gray waves which leaped and roared and flung
+themselves madly on the rocks, were so different from the blue,
+rippling waves of the summer, that she could hardly believe it the
+same sea. And even when pleasant days came, and the waves grew calm,
+and the beautiful color returned to the water, still the other and
+frightful look of the ocean remained in her memory, and her bad dreams
+were always about storms and shipwrecks. Many more boats passed
+between Malachi and Scrapplehead in winter than in summer. Now that
+the inland roads were blocked with snow, and the Boston steamer had
+ceased to run, the mails came that way, being brought over every week
+in a sail-boat. Even row-boats passed to and fro in calm weather, and
+what with lumber vessels and fishing smacks, and an occasional
+traveller from out-of-the-way Canada, sails at sea, or the sound of
+clinking oars off the bathing-beach, became of frequent occurrence.
+These little boats out in the great fierce ocean weighed heavily on
+Eyebright's mind sometimes. Especially was this the case when heavy
+fogs wrapped the coast, as occasionally they did for days together,
+making all landmarks dangerously dim and indistinct. At such times it
+seemed as if Causey Island were a big rocky lump which had got in the
+way, and against which ships were almost certain to run. She wished
+very much for a light-house, and she coaxed papa to let her keep a
+kerosene lamp burning in the window of her bedroom on all foggy and
+very dark nights. "The little gal's lamp," the Malachi sailors called
+it, and they learned to look for it as a guide, though its reflective
+power was not enough to make it serviceable in a fog, which was the
+chief danger of all.
+
+There was no fog, however, when she opened her eyes on Christmas
+morning, but a bright sun, just rising, which was a sort of Christmas
+present in itself. She made haste to dress, for she heard papa moving
+in his room, and she wished to get down first, but he was as quick as
+she, and they finally met at the stair-top, and went down together.
+
+When he saw the stockings, he looked surprised and vexed.
+
+"Dear me! did you hang up your stocking, Eyebright?" he asked, in a
+depressed tone. "I quite forgot it was Christmas. You'll have no
+presents, my child, I'm afraid."
+
+"Never mind, papa, I don't care; I don't want any thing," said
+Eyebright.
+
+She spoke bravely, but there was a lump in her throat, and she could
+hardly keep from tears. It seemed so strange and dreadful not to have
+any thing at all in her stocking,--not one single thing! She had not
+thought much about the matter, but with childish faith had taken it
+for granted that she must have something--some sort of a present, and
+for a moment the disappointment was hard to bear.
+
+Papa looked very much troubled, especially when he spied his own
+stocking and perceived that his little daughter had remembered him
+while he had forgotten her. He spent the morning rummaging his desk
+and the trunks upstairs, as if in search of something, and after
+dinner announced that he was going to the village to get the mail. The
+mails came into Scrapplehead twice a week, but he seldom had any
+letters, and Eyebright never, so, as a general thing, they were not
+very particular about calling regularly at the post-office.
+
+Eyebright wanted to go, too, but the day was so cold that papa thought
+she would better not. She wrapped him in every warm thing she could
+find, and drew the fur-gloves over his fingers with great
+satisfaction.
+
+"They will keep you quite warm, won't they?" she said. "Your fingers
+would almost freeze without them, wouldn't they? You like them, don't
+you, papa?"
+
+"Very much," said Mr. Bright, giving her a good-by kiss.
+
+Then he stepped into the boat and took the oars, while she wrapped her
+arms in her shawl and watched him row away. Her breath froze on the
+air like a cloud of white steam. She felt her ears tingle, and
+presently ran back to the house, feeling as if Jack Frost were nipping
+her as she ran, but with glowing cheeks and spirits brightened by the
+splendid air.
+
+Just before sunset papa came rowing back. He was almost stiff with
+cold, but when once he had thawed out in the warm kitchen, he seemed
+none the worse for that. It was quite exciting to hear from the
+village after such a long silence. Papa had seen Mrs. Downs and Mr.
+Downs and the children. Benny had had the mumps, but he was almost
+well again. Mrs. Downs sent her love to Eyebright, and a mince pie
+pinned up in a towel. This was very nice, but when Eyebright unpinned
+the towel and saw the pie, she gave a scream of dismay.
+
+"Why, papa, it's all hard," she said, "and it's just like ice. Touch
+it, papa; did you ever feel any thing so cold?"
+
+In fact, the pie was frozen hard, and had to be thawed for a long time
+in the oven before it was fit to eat. While this process was going on,
+papa produced a little parcel from his pocket. It was a Christmas
+present,--a pretty blue neck-tie. Eyebright was delighted, and showed
+her gratitude by kissing papa at least a dozen times, and dancing
+about the kitchen.
+
+"Oh, and here's a letter for you, too," he said.
+
+"A letter for me. How queer! I never had a letter before, that I
+remember. Why, it's from Wealthy! Papa, I wish you'd read it to me. It
+looks very hard to make out, Wealthy writes such a funny hand. Don't
+you recollect how she used to work over her copy-book, with her nose
+almost touching the paper, and how inky she used to get?"
+
+It was the first time they had heard from Wealthy since they left
+Tunxet, more than eight months before. Wealthy wrote very few letters,
+and those few cost an amount of time, trouble, and ink-spots, which
+would have discouraged most people from writing at all.
+
+This was the letter:--
+
+    DEAR EYEBRIGHT: I take my pen in hand to tell you that I am
+    well, and hope you are the same. All the friends here is
+    well, except Miss Bury. She's down with intermitting fever,
+    and old Miss Beadles is dead and buried. Whether that's being
+    well or not I can't say. Some folks think so, and some folks
+    don't. I haint written before. I aint much of a scribe, as
+    you know, so I judge you haven't been surprised at not
+    hearing of me. I might have writ sooner, but along in the
+    fall my arm was kind of lamed with rheumatism, and when I got
+    over that, there was Mandy Harmon's weddin' things to
+    do,--Pelatiah Harmon's daughter, down to the corners, you
+    know. What girls want so many clothes for when they get
+    married, I cant for the life of me tell. The shops don't shut
+    up for good just afterward, so far as anybody knows, but
+    you'd think they did from the fuss some of them make. Mandy
+    had five new dresses. They was cut down to Worcester, but I
+    made them, besides two calikus and ten of every thing, and a
+    double gown and an Ulster and the Lord knows what not. I've
+    had to stick to it to put 'em through, but they're all done
+    at last, and she got married last week and went off, and
+    she'll spend the next few years a-alterin' of them things
+    over, or I miss my guess. That Mather girl keeps asking me
+    about you, but I tell her you haint wrote but twice, and I
+    don't know no more than she does. Mr. Bury got your Pa's
+    letter. We was glad to hear you liked it up there, but most
+    places is pleasant enough in summer. Winter is the tug. I
+    suppose it's cold enough where you are, sometimes, judging
+    from Probbabillities. Mr. Asher has took the house. Tell your
+    Pa. It dont look much like old times. He has put wooden
+    points on top of the barn and mended the back gate, and he's
+    got a nasty Newfoundland which barks most all the time. Now I
+    must conclude.--Yours truly,
+
+                                              WEALTHY A. JUDSON.
+
+    P. S.--My respects to your Pa and to all inquiring friends. I
+    was thinking that that water-proof of your Ma's had better be
+    cut over for you in the spring. What kind of help do you get
+    up in Maine?
+
+"Oh, how like dear, funny old Wealthy that is!" cried Eyebright, as
+between smiles and tears she listened to the reading of this letter.
+"Whom do you suppose she means by 'all inquiring friends'? And isn't
+it just like her to call Bessie 'that Mather girl'? Wealthy never
+could endure Bessie,--I can't imagine why. Well, this has been a real
+nice Christmas, after all. I'm glad you didn't go to the post-office
+last week, papa, for then we should have got the letter sooner, and
+shouldn't have had it for to-day. It was much nicer to have it now."
+
+"Winter's the tug." Eyebright thought often of this sentence of
+Wealthy's as the long weeks went by, and still the cold continued and
+the spring delayed, till it seemed as though it were never coming at
+all, and papa grew thinner and more listless and discouraged all the
+time. The loneliness and want of occupation hurt him more than it did
+Eyebright, and when spring came, as at last it did, his spirits did
+not revive as she had hoped they would. Farming was trying and
+depressing work on Causey Island. The land was poor and rocky,--"out
+of heart," as the saying is,--and Mr. Bright had neither the spirit
+nor the money to bring it into condition. He missed his old occupation
+and his old neighbors more than he had expected; he missed newspapers;
+and a growing anxiety about the future, and about Eyebright,--who was
+getting no schooling of any kind,--combined to depress him and give
+him the feeling that he had dropped out of life, and there was no use
+in trying to make things better.
+
+It was certainly a disadvantage to Eyebright, at her age, to be taken
+out of school; still life on the island was a schooling for all that,
+and schooling of a very useful kind. History and geography are
+excellent things, but no geography or history can take the place of
+the lessons which Eyebright was now learning,--lessons in patience,
+unselfishness, good-humor, and helpfulness. When she fought with her
+own little discontents and vexations, and kept her face bright and
+sunny for papa's sake, she was gaining more good than she could have
+done from the longest chapter in the best school-book ever printed.
+Not that the school-books are not desirable, too, or that Eyebright
+did not miss them. After the first novelty of their new life was over,
+she missed school very much,--not the fun of school only, but the
+actual study itself. Her mind felt as they say teething dogs do, as if
+it must have something to bite on. She tried the experiment of setting
+herself lessons, but it did not succeed very well. There was no one to
+explain the little difficulties that arose, and she grew puzzled and
+confused, and lost the desire to go on.
+
+Another thing which she missed very much was going to church. There
+had never been either a church or a Sunday-school in Scrapplehead, and
+the people who made any difference for Sunday made it by idling about,
+which was almost worse than working. At first, Eyebright tried to
+observe the day after a fashion, by learning a hymn and studying a
+short Bible lesson, but such good habits drop off after a while, when
+there is nothing and nobody to remind or help us, and little by little
+she got out of the way of keeping it up, and sometimes quite forgot
+that it was Sunday till afterward. Days were much alike on the island,
+especially in winter, and it was not easy to remember, which must be
+her excuse; but it was a sad want in her week, and a want which was
+continually growing worse as she grew older.
+
+Altogether, it was not a good or wholesome life for a child to lead,
+and only her high spirits and sweet, healthful temper kept her from
+being seriously hurt by it. It was just now that Mr. Joyce's words
+were proved true, and the quick power of imagination with which nature
+had gifted her became her best friend. It enabled her to take sights
+and sounds into the place of play-fellows and friends, mixing them
+with her life as it were, and half in fun, half in earnest, getting
+companionship out of them. Skies and sunsets, flowers, waves,
+birds,--all became a part of the fairy-world which lay always at hand,
+and to which her mind went for change and rest from work too hard and
+thoughts over-anxious for a child to bear. She was growing fast, but
+the only signs she gave of growing older were her womanly and
+thoughtful ways about papa and his comforts, and a slight, very
+slight, difference in her feeling toward Genevieve, whom she played
+with no longer, though she took her out now and then when she was
+quite alone, and set her in a chair opposite, as better than no
+company at all. Eyebright had no idea of being disloyal to this dear
+old friend, but her eyes had opened to the fact that Genevieve was
+only wax, and do what she could, it was impossible to make her seem
+alive any more.
+
+Her rapid growth was another trouble, for she could not wear the
+clothes which she had brought with her to the island, and it was very
+hard to get others. Papa had no money to spare, she knew, and she
+could not bear to worry him with her difficulties, so she went to Mrs.
+Downs instead. Mrs. Downs had her hands full of sewing for "him" and
+her three boys; still she found time to advise and help, and between
+her fitting and Eyebright's sewing, a skirt and jacket were concocted
+out of the water-proof designated by Wealthy, which though rather
+queer in pattern, did nicely for cool days, and relieved Eyebright
+from the long-legged sensation which was growing over her. This, with
+a calico, some of Mrs. Bright's underclothing altered a little, and a
+sun-bonnet with a deep cape, made a tolerable summer outfit. Gloves,
+ruffles, ribbons, and such little niceties, she learned to do without;
+and when the sweet summer came again with long days and warm winds,
+when she could row, sit out-doors as much as she liked, and swing in
+the wild-grape hammocks which festooned the shore, she did not miss
+them. Girls on desert islands can dispense with finery.
+
+But summers in Maine are very short, and, as lengthening days and
+chilly nights began to hint at coming winter, Eyebright caught herself
+shivering, and knew that she dreaded it very much indeed.
+
+"How long it will seem!" she thought. "And how will poor papa bear it?
+And what am I to do when all mamma's old clothes are worn out? I don't
+suppose I ever shall have any new ones, and how I am to manage, I
+cannot imagine!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A STORM ON THE COAST.
+
+
+Summers _are_ short in Maine; still the autumn that year seemed in no
+haste to begin its work. September came and went, bringing only
+trifling frosts, and the equinoctial week passed without a storm. In
+its place appeared an odd yellow mist, which wrapped the world in its
+folds and made the most familiar objects look strange and unnatural.
+Not a fog,--it was not dense enough for that. It seemed more like air
+made visible, thickened just a little, and tinted with color, but
+common air still, warm, thin, and quiet. The wind blew softly for many
+days; there was a general hush over land and sea, and the sun blinked
+through the golden haze like a bigger and hotter moon.
+
+This strange atmosphere lasted so long that people grew accustomed and
+ceased to wonder at it. Some of the old sailors shook their heads and
+said it would end with a gale; but old sailors are fond of prophesying
+gales, and nobody was frightened by the prediction, or saw any reason
+for being so, as long as the weather remained thus warm and perfectly
+calm.
+
+The little steamer from Malachi to Portland made her last trip for the
+season on the 30th of September; and the day before, Mr. Bright, who
+had some potatoes to ship to market, went over with them to Malachi,
+in a small sail-boat belonging to Captain Jim, Mr. Downs's brother's
+son. They were not to return till next day, so it was arranged that
+Eyebright should spend the night with Mrs. Downs, as papa did not like
+to leave her alone on the island. She went with him as far as the
+village, and kissed him for good-by on the dock, when the little cargo
+was all on board and Captain Jim just ready to push off.
+
+"I shall go home early to-morrow, and make some egg-toast and some
+frizzled beef for your supper, papa, so mind you don't stop to tea
+with Mrs. Downs," were her last words.
+
+"All right--I won't," said her father; and Captain Jim laughed and
+said:--
+
+"You'd better not put the frying-pan on till you see us a-coming, for
+with this light wind there's no knowing when we'll get over, and the
+frizzle might be sp'iled."
+
+Then the sail flapped and filled, and off they went over the yellow
+sea. Eyebright watched till the boat passed behind the island, and out
+of sight; then she walked up the road to the Downs's, saying to
+herself,--
+
+"What funny weather! I never saw any thing like it. It isn't a bit
+like last September."
+
+Next morning showed the same sultry mist, a little thicker if any
+thing. Eyebright stayed with Mrs. Downs till after dinner, helped in
+the weekly baking, hemmed two crash towels, told Benny a story, and
+set out for home a little after four, carrying a blueberry pie in a
+basket for papa's supper. As she toiled over the sand of the causeway
+and up the steep path, she was conscious of a singular heaviness in
+the air, and it struck her that the sea was making a sound such as she
+had never heard before,--a sort of odd shuddering moan, as if some
+great creature was in pain a long way out from shore. The water looked
+glassy calm, and there did not seem to be much wind, which made the
+sound even stranger and more startling. But she forgot about the sound
+when she reached the house, for there was a great deal to do and not
+much time to do it in, for Captain Jim expected to get back by six
+o'clock or soon after. What with sweeping and dusting and fire-making,
+an hour passed rapidly, when suddenly a dusky darkness settled over
+the house, and at the same moment a blast of wind blew the door open
+with a bang.
+
+"Oh dear, there is going to be a thunder-storm," thought Eyebright.
+She was afraid of thunder and lightning and did not like the idea at
+all.
+
+Going to the door to shut it, she stopped short, for she saw a strange
+sight. One side of the heavens was still thick with the yellow haze,
+but toward the sea a bank of black clouds was whirling rapidly up from
+the horizon. It had nearly reached the zenith, and had already hidden
+the sun and turned the afternoon into temporary twilight. The sea was
+glassy smooth near the shore--as smooth as oil; but farther out, the
+waves had begun to toss and tumble, and the moaning sound was become a
+deep hollow boom, which might easily be imagined the very voice of the
+approaching storm.
+
+Filled with anxiety, Eyebright ran down to the cliff above the
+bathing-beach and looked toward the long cape at the end of which lay
+Malachi. The dots of houses showed plainer and whiter than usual
+against the cape, which had turned of a deep slate-gray, almost black.
+Two or three ships were in sight, but they were large ships far out at
+sea, and the strange darkness and the confusion and tumble of the
+waves, which every instant increased, made it difficult to detect any
+object so small as a boat. She was just turning away, when a sudden
+gleam of light showed what seemed to be a tiny sail far out in the
+bay, but it disappeared and, at the same moment, a sudden, violent
+wind swept in from the sea, and almost threw her down. She caught hold
+of a sapling-stem to steady herself, and held tightly till the gust
+passed. Next instant came a great roar of blinding rain, and she was
+forced to run as fast as she could to the house. It took but two
+minutes to reach it; but already she was drenched to the skin, and the
+water was running in streams from her dress and the braids of her
+hair.
+
+She had to change all her clothes. As she sat before the fire, drying
+her hair with a rough towel, she could hear the rain pouring on the
+roof with a noise like thunder, and every few minutes great waves of
+wind surged against the house, making it shake and tremble till the
+rafters creaked. There were other sounds, too,--odd rattlings, deep
+hollow notes like groans, and a throbbing as of some mighty
+pulse,--but there was no thunder; indeed Eyebright doubted if she
+could have heard it had there been any, so loud was the tumult of
+noises.
+
+She sat by the fire and dried her hair--what else was there to
+do?--but feeling all the time as if she ought to be out in the rain
+helping papa somehow. The tears ran down her cheeks; now and then she
+wrung her hands tightly, and said, "O papa! O papa!" Never had she
+felt so little and helpless and lost in all her life before. She tried
+to say a prayer, but it seemed to her just then that God could not
+hear a weak, small voice like hers through such a rage of storm. She
+could not realize what it would have been such a comfort to
+feel,--that God is never so near his children or so ready to listen,
+as when storms are wildest and they need him most. And so she sat,
+till by and by the clock struck six, and made her jump at the idea
+that papa might come in soon and find no supper ready for him.
+
+"I mustn't let _that_ happen," she thought, as, with shaking hands,
+she mended the fire, laid the table, and set the kettle on to boil.
+She would not allow herself to question the fact that papa would
+come--_must_ come, though he might be a little late; and she shaved
+the dried beef, broke the eggs, and sliced bread for toasting, so as
+to be able to get supper as soon as possible after he should appear.
+This helped her through with another hour. Still no sign of papa, and
+still the storm raged, as it seemed, more furiously than ever.
+
+Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten, half-past ten. I don't know how that
+evening passed. It seemed as long as two or three ordinary days. Many
+times, thinking she heard a sound, Eyebright flew to the door, but
+only to come back disappointed. At last the rain slackened, and,
+unable to sit still any longer, she put on her water-proof and India
+rubbers, tied a hood over her head, and, taking a lantern, went down
+to the cliff again. It would have been of no use to carry an umbrella
+in that wind, and the night was so dark that, even with the help of
+the lantern, and well as she knew the path, she continually wandered
+from it, and struck and bruised herself against stumps and branches
+which there was not light to avoid.
+
+At last she gained the top of the bank over the beach. The sea was
+perfectly black; she could see nothing and hear nothing, except the
+roar of waves and the rattle of the shingle below. Suddenly came a
+flash of lightning. It lit the water for a minute, and revealed a dark
+spot which might be a boat borne on the waves a little way out from
+shore. Eyebright did not hesitate an instant, but tumbled and
+scrambled down the bank at once, waving the lantern, and crying, "Here
+I am, papa! this way, papa!" as loud as she could. She had scarcely
+reached the beach, when another flash showed the object much nearer.
+Next moment came a great tumbling wave, and out of the midst of it and
+of the darkness, something plunged on to the beach; and then came the
+lightning again. It was a boat--and a man in it.
+
+Eyebright seized and held with all her might.
+
+"Oh, hurry and get out, papa," she cried; for though she could not
+see, she felt another wave coming. "I can't keep hold but a minute."
+
+And then--she hardly knew how it happened--the man did get out--tumble
+out rather--upon the sand; and, as she let go the boat and caught hold
+of him, in sped the wave she had dreaded, with a loud roar, splashed
+her from head to foot, and rolled back, carrying the boat with it. The
+man lay on the beach as if unable to move, but by the sense of touch,
+as well as the dim light of the lantern, Eyebright already knew that
+it was not papa, but a stranger, whose arm she clutched.
+
+"Get up, oh, do get up!" she screamed. "You'll be drowned if you
+don't. Don't you see that you will? Oh, what shall I do?"
+
+The man seemed to hear, for he slowly struggled up to his feet, but he
+did not speak. It was terrible work getting him up the cliff. The wind
+in furious moments seemed to seize and pin them down, and at such
+times there was nothing to be done but to stand still, flatten
+themselves against the bank, and wait till its force abated. Eyebright
+was most thankful when at last they reached the top. She hurried the
+stranger with what speed she could across the field to the house,
+keeping the path better than when she came down, because the light in
+the kitchen window now served her as a guide. The man stumbled
+continually, and more than once almost fell down. As they entered the
+kitchen he quite fell, and lay so long on the floor as to frighten
+Eyebright extremely. She had never seen any one faint, and she feared
+the man was dead. Not knowing in the least what she ought to do, she
+ran for a pillow to lay under his head, covered him with a blanket,
+and put some water on his forehead. This last was rather unnecessary,
+considering his wet condition, but Bessie had always "brought to" the
+Lady Jane in that way, so Eyebright thought it might be the right
+thing. After a long time, she had the comfort of seeing him open his
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, you are better; I am so glad," she said, "Do try to get into the
+rocking-chair. The floor is so hard. Here, I will help you."
+
+And she took hold of his arm for the purpose. He winced and shrank.
+
+"Not that arm--don't touch that arm, please," he said. "I have hurt it
+in some way. It feels as if it were broken."
+
+Then very slowly and painfully he got up from the floor and into the
+rocking-chair which Eyebright had covered with a thick comfortable to
+make it softer. She made haste to wet the tea, and presently brought
+him a cup.
+
+"Thank you," he said, faintly. "You are very kind."
+
+She could see his face now. He was not a young man, at all. His hair
+and beard were gray, and he seemed as old as papa; but he was so wet
+and pale and wild-looking just then, that it was not easy to judge
+what he was like. His voice was pleasant, and she did not feel at all
+afraid of him. The tea seemed to revive him a little, for, after lying
+quiet a while with his eyes closed, he sat up, and, fumbling with his
+left hand in an inner pocket, produced a flat parcel tied in stout
+paper, with a direction written upon it; and, beckoning Eyebright to
+him, said:--
+
+"My dear, it is a bad night to ask such a favor in, and I don't know
+how far you may be from the village; but could you manage to send this
+over to the stage-office at once? It is of great consequence to me, or
+I would not ask it. Have you a hired man who could go? I will pay him
+handsomely for taking it. He must give it to the driver of the stage
+to put into the express-office at Gillsworth, and take a receipt for
+it. Please ask him to be particular about that, as the parcel has
+money in it."
+
+"We haven't any hired man," said Eyebright. "I'm so sorry, sir. But
+even if we had, he couldn't get across for ever so long."
+
+"Get across?"
+
+"Yes; this is an island. Didn't you know that? We can walk over to the
+other shore at low tide; but the tide won't be low till after five,
+even if we had a man. But there isn't anybody but just me."
+
+"After five,--and the mail goes out at six," muttered the stranger.
+"Then I must manage to go myself."
+
+He tried to get up, but his arm fell helplessly by his side, he
+groaned, and sank back again. Presently, to Eyebright's terror, he
+began to talk rapidly to himself, not to her at all, as it seemed.
+
+"It _must_ go," he said, in a quick, excited way. "I don't mind what I
+pay or what risk I run. Do you think I'm going to lose every
+thing?--lose every thing?--other people's money?--" A long pause;
+then, "What's a wetting?"--he went on, in a loud tone--"that's nothing.
+A wetting!--my good name is worth more than money to me."
+
+He was silent after that for a long time. Eyebright hoped he had gone
+to sleep, when suddenly he opened his eyes, and said, imploringly:
+"Oh, if you knew how important it was, you _would_ make haste. I am
+sure you would."
+
+He did not say much more, but seemed asleep, or unconscious; only now
+and then, roused for a moment, he muttered some word which showed him
+to be still thinking about the parcel, and the necessity for sending
+it to the office immediately.
+
+Eyebright put another blanket round him, and fetched a chair for his
+feet to rest upon. That seemed all she could do, except to sit and
+watch him, getting up occasionally to put wood on the fire, or going
+to the door to listen, in hopes of hearing papa's step in the path.
+The parcel lay on the table where the stranger had put it. She looked
+at it, and looked at it, and then at the clock. It was a quarter to
+five. Again the broken, dreamy voice muttered: "It must go,--it must
+go." A sudden, generous impulse seized her.
+
+"I'll take it myself!" she cried. "Then it will be sure to be in time.
+And I can come back when papa does."
+
+Poor child, so sure still that papa must come!
+
+It lacked less than three-quarters of an hour to low water. At that
+state of the tide the causeway was usually pretty bare; but, as she
+descended the hill, Eyebright, even in the darkness, could see that it
+was not nearly bare now. She could hear the swish of the water on the
+pebbles, and, by the light of her lantern, caught sight of more than
+one long wave sweeping almost up to the crest of the ridge. She would
+not wait, however, but set bravely forward. The water must be shallow,
+she knew, and fast growing more so, and she dared not delay; for the
+walk down the shore, in the wind, was sure to be a long one, "I
+mustn't miss the stage," she kept saying, to encourage herself, and
+struck in, feeling the way with the point of her umbrella, and holding
+the lantern low, so as to see where she stepped. The water was only
+two or three inches deep,--less than that in some places; but every
+few minutes a wave would rush across and bury her feet above the
+ankles. At such times, the sand would seem to give way and let her
+down, and a sense of sinking and being carried off would seize upon
+her and take away all her strength. She dared not move at these
+moments, but stood still, dug her umbrella into the sand, and waited
+till the water ran back.
+
+As she got farther from the island, a new danger assailed her. It was
+the wind, of which she now felt the full force. It bent and swayed her
+about till she felt like a plaything in its grasp. Once it caught her
+skirts and blew her over toward the deeper water. This was the most
+dangerous moment of all; but she struggled back, and the gust relaxed
+its grasp. More than once the fury of the blast was so great that she
+dared not stand upright, but crouched on the wet sand, and made
+herself as flat as possible, till it passed by. Oh, how she wished
+herself back at home again. But going back was as dangerous as going
+forward, and she kept on, firm in her purpose still, though drenched,
+terrified, and half crying, till, little by little, wet sand instead
+of water was under her feet, the waves sounded behind instead of
+immediately beside her, and at last, stumbling over a clump of
+blueberry bushes, she fell forward on her knees upon the other
+shore,--a soggy, soaked, disagreeable shore enough, but a most welcome
+sight just then.
+
+So tired and spent was she, that for some minutes she lay under the
+blueberry clump before she could gather strength to pull herself up
+and go on. It was a very hard and painful walk, and the wind and the
+darkness did all they could to keep her back; but the gallant little
+heart did not fail, and, at last, just as the first dim dawn was
+breaking, she gained the village and Mr. Downs's door.
+
+Mrs. Downs had been up nearly all night, so great was her anxiety for
+Captain Jim and Mr. Bright. She had just fallen asleep in her clothes,
+when she was roused by a knock.
+
+"That's them at last," she cried, jumping up, and hurrying to the
+door.
+
+Great was her surprise at the little soaked figure which met her eyes,
+and greater still when she recognized Eyebright.
+
+"Why, what in the name of--why!" was all she could say at first. Then,
+regaining her wits, "Eyebright, my dear child, what has fetched you
+out at this hour of day; and massy's sake, how did you come?"
+
+"I came on the causeway. Oh, Mrs. Downs, is papa here?"
+
+"Over the causeway!" cried Mrs. Downs. "Good land alive! What
+possessed you to do such a fool hardy thing? I only wonder you were
+not drowned outright."
+
+"So do I. I was almost. But, Mrs. Downs, is papa here? Oh, do tell
+me."
+
+"No, they haven't got in yet," said Mrs. Downs, affecting an ease and
+security which she did not feel. "The storm has delayed them, or,
+what's more likely, they never started at all, and will be over
+to-day. I guess that'll turn out to be the way of it. Jim's got too
+good sense to put out in the teeth of a heavy squall like this has
+been. An' he must ha' seen it was a-comin'. But, my dear, how wet you
+are! And what did make you do such a crazy thing as to set out over
+the causeway in such weather?"
+
+"I couldn't help it," with a sob. "There's a poor man up at our house,
+Mrs. Downs. He came in a boat, and was 'most drowned, and he's hurt
+his arm dreadfully, and I'm afraid he's very sick beside; and he
+wanted this parcel to go by the stage-driver. He said it must go, it
+was something very important. So I brought it. The stage hasn't gone
+yet, has it? I wanted so much to be in time."
+
+"Well, I declare!" cried Mrs. Downs, furiously. "He must be a pretty
+man to send you across the bar in the night and such a storm, to fetch
+his mail. I'd like to throw it right straight in the water, that I
+would, and serve him right. The idea!"
+
+"Oh, he didn't mean that I should go,--he didn't know any thing about
+it," protested Eyebright. "He asked me to send our hired man, and when
+I told him we hadn't any hired man, he said then he would come
+himself; but he was too sick. He said such queer things that I was
+frightened. And then he went to sleep, and I came. Please tell me what
+time it is; I must go to the office right away."
+
+"Indeed you won't," said Mrs. Downs. "You'll come straight upstairs
+and go to bed. I'll wake him up. He'll take it. There's plenty of
+time. 'T isn't six yet, and the stage'll be late this morning, I'll
+bet."
+
+"Oh, I can't go to bed; I must go back to the island," Eyebright
+pleaded. "The man who came is all alone there, and you can't think how
+sick he is."
+
+"Poor man or not, you'll go to bed," said Mrs. Downs, inexorably,
+helping the tired child upstairs. "Me and Mr. Downs'll see to the poor
+man. You ain't needed to carry the hull world on your back as long as
+there's any grown folks left, you poor little mite. Go to bed and
+sleep, and we'll look after your man."
+
+Eyebright was too tired to resist.
+
+"Oh, please ask Mr. Downs to take a receipt, the man was so particular
+about that," was her only protest.
+
+She fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and knew
+nothing more till after noon, when she opened her eyes, feeling for a
+moment entirely bewildered as to where she was. Then, as it all came
+back to her mind, she jumped up in a hurry. Her clothes, nicely dried,
+lay on a chair beside the bed. She hurried them on, and ran
+downstairs.
+
+Nobody was visible except little Benny, who told her that his mother
+had "gone along up to the island."
+
+"She said you was to eat some breakfast," he added. "It's in the oven
+a-keepin' warm. Shall I show you where it is?"
+
+"Oh, never mind," cried Eyebright. "Never mind about breakfast, Benny.
+I don't feel hungry."
+
+"Ma said you _must_," declared Benny, opening the oven door and
+disclosing a plate full of something very dry and black. "Oh, dear,
+it's all got burned up."
+
+"I'll drink some milk instead," said Eyebright. "Who's that coming up
+the road, Benny?"
+
+"It's Pa. I guess he's come back to get you," said Benny, running out
+to meet him.
+
+Mr. Downs had come to fetch Eyebright. He looked very grave, she
+thought.
+
+When she asked eagerly, had papa come yet, Mr. Downs shook his head.
+Perhaps they had stayed over in Malachi, to avoid the storm, he said,
+and would get in later. He helped Eyebright into the boat, and rowed
+to the island without saying another word. The wind had abated, but
+the sea was still very rough, and long lines of white surf were
+breaking on the rocks and beaches.
+
+The kitchen looked very queer and crowded, for Mr. Downs had brought
+down a mattress from upstairs, and made a bed on the floor, upon which
+Eyebright's "man" was now sleeping. His wet clothes had been changed
+for some dry ones belonging to Mr. Bright, and, altogether, he looked
+far less wild and forlorn than he had appeared to be the night before,
+though he evidently was seriously ill. Mrs. Downs didn't think his arm
+was broken; but she couldn't be sure, and "he" was sent up the shore
+to fetch Dr. Treat, the "natural bone-setter." There was no regular
+doctor at Scrapplehead.
+
+The natural bone-setter pronounced the arm not broken, but badly cut
+and bruised, and the shoulder dislocated. He tied it up with a
+liniment of his own invention, but both fever and rheumatism followed,
+and for some days the stranger tossed in pain and delirium. Mrs. Downs
+stayed on the island to nurse him, and both she and Eyebright had
+their hands full, which was well, for it helped them to endure the
+suspense of the next week as nothing else could have done.
+
+It was not for some time, even after that dreadful week, that they
+gave up the hope that Captain Jim had waited over in Malachi and would
+appear with the next fair wind. Then a sloop put in, bringing the
+certain news that he and Mr. Bright had sailed about two hours before
+the storm began. After that, the only chance--and that a vague
+one--was, that the boat might have landed on the coast farther below,
+or, blown out to sea, been picked up by some passing ship. Days passed
+in this hope. Whenever Eyebright could be spared for a moment, she
+always ran to the cliff on the sea-side, in the hope of seeing a ship
+sailing in with papa on board, or news of him. She never spoke as if
+there was any doubt that he would come in the end, and Mrs. Downs,
+dreading to cloud her hopefulness, replied always as confidently as
+she could, and tried to be hopeful, too.
+
+So a fortnight passed over the busy, anxious household, and poor
+Eyebright--though her words were still courageous--was losing heart,
+and had begun to feel that a cold, dreadful wave of sorrow was poising
+itself a little way off, and might presently break all over her, when,
+one day, as she stood by the bedside of their patient,--much better
+now and quite in his senses,--he looked at her with a sudden start of
+recognition, and said:--
+
+"Why, I know you. You are Mr. Bright's little girl,--are you not? You
+are Eyebright! Why did I not recognize you before? Don't you recollect
+me at all? Don't you know who I am?"
+
+And, somehow, the words and the pleasant tone of voice, and the look
+which accompanied them made him look different, all at once, to the
+child, and natural, and Eyebright did know him.
+
+It was Mr. Joyce!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+TRANSPLANTED.
+
+
+"It is strange that I did not recognize you before," said Mr. Joyce
+next day; "and yet not so strange either, for you have grown and
+altered very much since we met, two years and a half ago."
+
+He might well say so. Eyebright had altered very much. She was as tall
+as Mrs. Downs now, and the fatigue and anxiety of the last fortnight
+had robbed her of her childish look and made her seem older than she
+really was. Any one might have taken her for a girl of seventeen,
+instead of fourteen-and-a-half. She and Mr. Joyce had had several long
+talks, during which he learned all about their leaving Tunxet, about
+her anxiety for her father, and, for the first time, the full story of
+the eventful night which had brought him to Causey Island. He was
+greatly startled and shocked when he comprehended what danger
+Eyebright had run in doing his errand to the village. "My dear, dear
+child," he said; "you did me a service I shall never forget. I could
+never have forgiven myself had you lost your life in doing it. If I
+had had my senses about me I would not have let you go; pray believe
+that. That unlucky parcel came near to costing more than it's worth,
+for it was on its account that I set out to row over from Malachi that
+afternoon."
+
+"To take the stage?" suggested Eyebright.
+
+"Yes--to catch the stage. The parcel had money in it, and it was of
+great consequence that it should reach Atterbury--where I live--as
+soon as possible. You look curious, as if you wanted to hear more. You
+like stories still, I see. I remember how you begged me to tell you
+one that night in Tunxet."
+
+"Yes, I like them dearly. But I hardly ever hear any now. There is no
+one up here to tell them."
+
+"Well, this isn't much of a story, or rather it would be a long one
+enough if I gave the whole of it; but the part which I can tell isn't
+much. Once upon a time there was a thief, and he stole a quantity of
+money out of a bank. It was the Atterbury Bank, of which I am the
+president. The theft came at the worst possible time, and there was
+great danger, if the money could not be recovered, that the bank would
+have to stop payment. Fortunately, we got a clue to the thief's
+whereabouts, and I started in search of him, and caught him in a
+little village in Canada where he had hidden himself away, and was
+feeling quite safe--What makes you look so excited?"
+
+"It is _so_ interesting," said Eyebright. "Weren't you a bit afraid
+when you saw him? Did he have a pistol?"
+
+"Pistol? No. Ah, you are thinking of the thieves in story-books, I
+see,--terrible villains with masks and blunderbusses. The kind we have
+nowadays are quite different,--pretty young men, with nice mustaches
+and curly hair, who are very particular about the fit of their gloves
+and what kind of cigars they smoke. That's the sort who make off with
+bank money. This thief of ours was a young fellow, only a few years
+older than my Charley, whom I had known all my life, and his father
+before him. I would a great deal rather have had it one of the
+old-fashioned kind with a blunderbuss. Well, I found him, and I got
+back the money--the bulk of it. A part he had spent. Having secured
+it, my first thought was how to get home quickest, for every day's
+delay made a great difference to the bank. I had just time to drive
+over and catch the Portland steamer, but my wagon broke down six miles
+from Malachi, and when I got in she had been gone an hour and a half.
+I made inquiries, and found that the Scrapplehead stage started next
+morning, so I hired a boat and undertook to row across. It was not
+storming then. The man who let the boat did say that the weather
+looked 'kind of unsartin,' but I could see no change; it was thick and
+murky, but it had been that for days back, and I was in such haste to
+get in, that I should probably have tried it had it looked worse than
+it did. The distance is not great, and I am used to rowing. Only God's
+mercy saved me from capsizing when the first squall struck the boat.
+After that, I have only confused memories. All I could do was to keep
+the boat head on to the waves, and it was so intensely dark that I
+could see nothing. I must have been rowing for hours in the blackness,
+without the least idea where I was or which way I was going, when I
+saw a light moving toward me. That, from what you say, must have been
+your lantern. I had just strength left to pull toward it, and the
+waves carried me on to the beach. My arm was all right then. I must
+have hurt it when I fell over the side of the boat. It was a
+miraculous escape, and I believe that I owe my life to the fact of
+your coming down as you did. I shall never forget that, Eyebright."
+
+People often say such things in the warm-heartedness of a great
+deliverance from danger, or recovery from sickness, and when they get
+well again, or the danger fades from their minds, they cool off a
+little. But Mr. Joyce did not cool; he meant all he said. And very
+soon after came the opportunity of proving his sincerity, for the
+great wave of trouble, which Eyebright had dimly felt and dreaded,
+broke just then and fell upon her. The boat in which Captain Jim Downs
+and her father had sailed was picked up far down the coast, floating
+bottom upward, and no doubt remained that both had lost their lives in
+the storm of that dreadful night.
+
+How the poor child could have borne this terrible news without Mr.
+Joyce at hand to help her, I cannot imagine. She was almost
+broken-hearted, and grew so thin and pale that it was pitiful to see.
+Her sorrow was all for papa; she did not realize as yet the loss which
+had fallen on herself; but it would have been hard to find in the
+world a little girl left in a more desolate position. In losing papa
+she lost every thing that she had--home, protection, support. Nobody
+wanted her; she belonged to nobody. She could not stay on the island;
+she could not go back to Tunxet; there was no one in the world--unless
+it was Wealthy--to whom she had the right to go for help or advice;
+and Wealthy herself was a poor woman, with little in her power to give
+except advice. Eyebright instinctively dreaded the idea of meeting
+Wealthy, for she knew that Wealthy would _think_ if she did not say
+it, that it was all papa's fault; that he ought never to have taken
+her to Maine, and the thought of having papa blamed hurt her terribly.
+These anxieties as yet were all swallowed up in grief for papa, but
+whenever she happened to think about herself, her mind grew perfectly
+bewildered and she could not in the least see what she was to do.
+
+And now what a comfort Mr. Joyce was to her! He was nearly well now,
+and in a great hurry to get back to his business; but nothing would
+have induced him to leave the poor child in such trouble, and he
+stayed on and on, devoting himself to her all day long, soothing her,
+telling her sweet things about heaven and God's goodness and love,
+letting her talk as much as she liked of papa, and not trying even to
+check the crying which such talks always brought on. Eyebright
+responded to this kindness with all her warm little heart. She learned
+to love Mr. Joyce dearly, and turned to him and clung to him as if he
+had been a friend always instead of for a few days only. But all this
+time her future remained unsettled, and she was at the same time too
+inexperienced and too much oppressed with sorrow to be able to think
+about it or make any plans.
+
+Other people were thinking about it, however. Mrs. Downs talked the
+matter over with her husband, and told Mr. Joyce that "He" was willing
+she should take Eyebright, provided her folks, if she had any, would
+consent to have her "bound" to them till she was of age. They never
+had kept "help," and she didn't need any now; it wasn't for that she
+wanted the child, and as for the binding out, 'twasn't nothing but a
+formality, only Mr. Downs was made that way, and liked to have things
+done regular and legal. He set store by Eyebright, just as she did
+herself, and they'd see that she had a comfortable home and was well
+treated in every way. Mrs. Downs meant kindly, but Mr. Joyce had other
+schemes for Eyebright. As soon as the fact of her father's death
+became certain, he had written to his wife, and he only waited an
+answer to propose his plan. It came at last, and as soon as he had
+read it, he went in search of Eyebright, who was sitting, as she often
+did now, on the bank over the bathing-beach, looking sorrowfully off
+toward the sea.
+
+"I have a letter from home," he said, sitting down beside her, "and I
+find that I must go back at once,--day after to-morrow at latest."
+
+"Oh, must you?" said Eyebright, in a voice which sounded like a sob.
+She hid her face on his arm as she spoke, and he knew that she was
+crying.
+
+"Yes; but don't cry, my dear child. I don't mean to leave you here
+alone. That is not my plan at all. I want you to come with me. Long
+ago, I wrote to my wife to propose this plan, and I only waited to
+hear from her before telling you about it. Will you come and live with
+us, Eyebright? I can't take your father's place to you,--nobody could
+do that, and it wouldn't be right they should; but we'll all do our
+best to make you happy and at home, and you shall be just like our own
+girl if you'll come. What do you say, my dear? Will you?"
+
+"How kind--how kind you are!" replied Eyebright, in a dazed, wondering
+way. "I can't think what makes you so good to me, dear Mr. Joyce. But
+do you think I ought to come? I'm afraid I should be troublesome.
+Wealthy used to say 'that other folks's children always were
+troublesome,' and that it was mean to 'settle down' on people."
+
+"Never mind Wealthy or her maxims," said Mr. Joyce, with a smile.
+"We'll risk your being troublesome, Eyebright. Will you come?"
+
+"Do you think papa would have wished to have me?" asked Eyebright,
+wistfully. "There's nobody for me to ask now except you, you know.
+Papa always hated 'being under obligations' to people. If I stay with
+Mrs. Downs," she added, timidly, "I can work and help her, and then I
+shan't be a burden. I'm afraid there isn't any thing I can do to help
+if I go with you."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Downs has told you of her plan, has she," said Mr. Joyce,
+half vexed. "Now, listen, my child. I do really and seriously think
+that your father, were he here, would prefer that you should go with
+me. If you stay with Mrs. Downs, you must give up your education
+entirely. She is a kind woman and really fond of you, I think; but
+with her you can have no advantages of any sort, and no chance to fit
+yourself for any higher sort of work than house-work. With me you will
+have the opportunity of going to an excellent school, and, if you do
+your best, by the time you are twenty-one you will be able to teach,
+and support yourself in that way, if it becomes necessary. And, my
+dear, you are mistaken in thinking that there is nothing you can do to
+help us. We have never had a daughter, but we always have wished for
+one. My wife and I are getting on in life, and there are lots of ways
+in which a young girl will cheer and brighten us up, and help to make
+the house pleasant for Charley. It is dull for a boy with no sisters,
+and only an old father and mother. So, you see, we really are in need
+of a girl, and you are just the girl we need. So, will you come?"
+
+"Oh, I'll come gladly!" cried Eyebright, yielding to the pleasantness
+of the thought. "I'd rather live with you than anybody else in the
+world, Mr. Joyce, if only you are sure it is right."
+
+It was settled from that moment, though Eyebright still felt a little
+qualm of shyness and fear at the thought of the unknown Mrs. Joyce.
+"How horrible it would be if she didn't like me when I get there!" she
+said to herself.
+
+Only one more day at Causey Island, and that a very busy and confused
+one. The little house, which it had taken so many days to get in
+order, was all pulled to pieces and dismantled in a few hours. Some
+things, such as papa's desk, and Eyebright's own special chair, Mr.
+Joyce ordered packed, and sent after them to Atterbury; the rest were
+left to be sold, or perhaps let with the cottage, if any one should
+hire it. Several articles, at his suggestion, Eyebright gave to Mrs.
+Downs, and she gratified Mr. Downs extremely by making him a present
+of the boat.
+
+"You couldn't have done nothing to please me better," he said. "It'll
+come real handy to have another boat, and we shall think a heap of its
+being yours. And, I'll tell you what, we'll just change its name, and
+call it 'The Eyebright,' after you. The first spare day I get, I'll
+paint the name on the stern, so's we'll always be reminded of you
+whenever we see it."
+
+This was quite a flight of fancy for Mr. Downs.
+
+By sunset the house was cleared of all that was to be taken away, and
+Eyebright's trunk packed and locked. A very little trunk it was, and
+all it held very old and shabby. Even Mrs. Downs shook her head and
+said the things were hardly worth taking; but Eyebright didn't much
+mind. Her head was full of other thoughts, and, beside, she had
+learned to rely on Mr. Joyce as a helper out of all difficulties, and
+she was content to leave herself and her future wants to him.
+
+So, at early dawning of the third day, they left the island, rowing
+down to the village in the newly christened "Eyebright," now the
+property of Mr. Downs. The good-byes had been taken the evening
+before, and Eyebright did not turn her head, as they glided away, to
+look at the green tufted shore or the blue sea, bluer than ever in the
+calm hush of a cloudless sunrise. Very steadily and carefully she
+rowed, dipping her oars, and "feathering," as papa had taught her, as
+if only intent on doing her task as well as possible for this the last
+time. But later, after they reached the village, when the farewells
+had all been spoken, the Downs family kissed, and herself and Mr.
+Joyce were in the stage-wagon ready to start, she turned again for one
+moment, and her eyes sought out the blue-green outline which they knew
+so well. There it lay, with the calm waters all about it, the home
+which had been at the same time so hard and so pleasant, and was now
+so sad. Tears rushed to her eyes as she gazed, and she whispered to
+herself so softly that no one else could hear, "Good-by. Good-by,
+papa."
+
+How strange and yet how familiar, the road seemed!--the very road over
+which she and papa had passed less than two years before. It was the
+one journey of her life, and she recollected every thing perfectly.
+There was the nameless village, looking exactly the same, but no
+longer nameless; for a wooden board was suspended over the steamboat
+landing, with "Pocobasset" painted upon it in large letters. Pretty
+soon the steamboat came along, the same identical steamboat, and down
+the river they went, past all the tiny islands and wooded capes which
+she remembered so well; only the light was of sunset now instead of
+sun-rising, and the trees, which then were tinged with coming spring,
+now bore the red and yellow leaves of autumn. There was the
+good-natured stewardess and the captain,--nobody was changed,--nothing
+had happened, as it seemed, except to herself.
+
+They left the boat, very early in the morning, at a point some fifty
+miles short of that from which she and papa had embarked, and,
+travelling all day, reached Atterbury late on the second afternoon.
+Eyebright had plenty of time to recall her dread of Mrs. Joyce as they
+drove up from the station. The town was large and thriving, and looked
+like a pleasant one. There were many white-painted, green-blinded
+houses, with neat court-yards, of the kind always to be found in New
+England villages; but among these appeared, here and there, a quaint,
+old-fashioned mansion; and the elm-shaded streets gave glimpses of
+pretty country beyond, woodlands, cultivated valley-lands, and an
+encircling line of hills with softly rounded outlines. Eyebright
+thought it a delightful-looking place. They drew up before a wide,
+ample house, whose garden blazed with late flowers, and Mr. Joyce,
+lifting her out, hurried up the gravel walk, she following timidly,
+threw open the front door, and called loudly: "Mother! Mother! where
+are you, Mother?"
+
+At the call, a stout little lady, in a pink-ribboned cap, hurried out
+of a room at one side of the hall.
+
+"Oh, Benjamin, is it really you? My dear husband. Well, I _am_ glad;"
+and she gave him _such_ a kiss. Then, turning to Eyebright, she said
+in the kindest voice,--
+
+"And this is your little girl, is it? Why, Benjamin, she is taller
+than I am! My dear, I am very glad to see you; very glad, indeed.
+Father says you are _his_ girl; but you must be mine, too, and learn
+to love the old lady just as fast as you can."
+
+Was not this a delightful reception for a weary, journey-stained
+little traveller? Eyebright returned the kiss with one equally warm,
+and all her fears of Mrs. Joyce fled for ever.
+
+"You shall go right upstairs," said this new friend; "tea will be
+ready soon, and I know you are longing for some cold water to wash off
+the dust. It's the most refreshing thing always after a journey."
+
+She led the way, and left Eyebright to herself in a little bedroom.
+Such a pretty bedroom it was! Eyebright felt sure at once that it had
+been got ready expressly for herself. It was just such a room as a
+young girl fancies, with a dainty white bed, white curtains at the
+window, a white-frilled toilet-table, and on the toilet-table a smart
+blue pincushion, with "Welcome" stuck upon it in shining pins. Even
+the books on the table seemed to have been chosen to suit her taste,
+for there lay "The Dove in the Eagle's Nest;" "The Wide Wide World;"
+"The Daisy Chain," in two fat blue volumes; and Mrs. Whitney's
+charming tale of "We Girls." She peeped at one title after another
+with a little jump of satisfaction. How long, how very long it was
+since she had had a new story-book to read. A whole feast of enjoyment
+seemed shut up inside those fascinating covers. But she would not
+nibble the feast now; and closing "The Daisy Chain," begun to unpack
+her handbag.
+
+She opened the top bureau-drawer, and said, "Oh!" quite aloud, for
+there appeared a row of neat little linen collars and cuffs, some
+pretty black neck-ties, a nube of fleecy white wool, and a couple of
+cunning paper boxes with the jeweller's mark on their lids. Could they
+be meant for her? She ventured to peep. One box held a pair of jet
+sleeve-buttons; the other, a small locket of shining jet, with a
+ribbon drawn through its ring, all ready for wear. She was still
+wondering over these discoveries, when a little tap sounded on the
+door, followed immediately by the appearance of Mrs. Joyce.
+
+"I just came to see if you had all you wanted," she said. "Oh, you
+have found those little duds. I knew, from what Father wrote, that you
+couldn't get any thing in the place where you were, so I chose those
+few little things, and to-morrow we'll see what more you want." Then,
+cutting short Eyebright's thanks, she opened the closet door and
+called out: "Let me have your jacket to hang up, my dear. There's some
+shelves at this end for your hats. And now I'll help you unpack.
+You'll never begin to feel at home till you're all unpacked and put
+away. Nobody does."
+
+It was a real satisfaction to Mrs. Joyce to notice how few clothes
+Eyebright possessed, and how shabby they were. All the time that she
+folded, and arranged, she was saying to herself, gleefully "She wants
+this, she needs that: she must have all sorts of things at once.
+To-morrow I'll buy her a nice Henrietta cloth, and a cashmere for
+every day, and a pretty wrap of some kind and a hat."
+
+She betrayed the direction of her thoughts by turning suddenly with
+the question,--
+
+"What sized gloves do you wear, my dear?"
+
+"I don't know," was the reply. "I haven't had any gloves for two
+years, except a pair of worsted mittens last winter."
+
+"Gracious!" said Mrs. Joyce, but I think she was rather pleased than
+otherwise. The truth was, all her life long she had been "spoiling"
+for a daughter to pet and make much of, and now, at last, her chance
+had come. "Boys are all very well," she told Mr. Joyce that night.
+"But once they get into roundabouts, there is absolutely nothing more
+which their mothers can do for them in the way of clothes. Girls are
+different. I always knew that I should like a girl to look after, and
+this seems a dear child, Benjamin. I'm sure I shall be fond of her."
+
+The tea-bell rang in the midst of the unpacking; but, as Mrs. Joyce
+observed, they had the rest of the week before them, and it didn't
+matter a bit; so she hurried Eyebright downstairs, and into a cheerful
+dining-room. Cheerfulness seemed the main characteristic of the Joyce
+establishment. It was not at all an elegant house,--not even, I am
+sorry to say, a tasteful one. Nothing could possibly be uglier or more
+common-place than the furniture, the curtains, or the flaps of green
+reps above the curtains, known to village circles as "lamberkins," and
+the pride of Mrs. Joyce's heart. The carpets and wall paper had no
+affinity with each other, and both would have horrified an artist in
+home decoration. But everywhere, all through the house, were neatness,
+solid comfort, and that spirit of family affection which makes any
+house pleasant, no matter how pretty or how ugly it may be; and this
+atmosphere of loving-kindness was as reviving to Eyebright's drooping
+spirits as real sunshine is to a real plant, drenched and beaten down
+by heavy storms. She felt its warmth through and through, and from the
+first it did her good.
+
+Mr. Joyce had just asked a blessing, and was proceeding to cut the
+smoking beefsteak before him, when the door opened, and a tall boy,
+with curly hair and a bright manly face, hurried in.
+
+"Why, father, I didn't know you were here, or I should have been in
+long ago. How are you, sir?" ending the sentence, to Eyebright's
+amazement and amusement both, with a hug and a hearty kiss, which his
+father as heartily returned.
+
+"Yes; I'm at home again, and very glad and thankful to be here," said
+Mr. Joyce. "Here's the new sister, Charley; you didn't see her, did
+you? Eyebright, this is my son Charley."
+
+"My son Charley," like most boys of sixteen, was shy with girls whom
+he was not acquainted with. He shook hands cordially, but he said
+little; only he watched Eyebright when she was not observing, and his
+eyes were very friendly. He liked her face, and thought her pretty,
+which was certainly very good of him, for she was looking her
+worst--tired and pale, with none of her usual sparkle, and dressed in
+the water-proof suit which was not at all becoming.
+
+So here, in this secure and kindly haven, I think we may leave our
+little storm-tossed girl, with the safe assurance that she will be
+tenderly and wisely cared for. I know that a few among you will want
+to hear more. No story was ever written so long or so conclusive, that
+some child-reader did not pop up at the end with, "Oh, but just tell
+us this one thing." I cannot satisfy such; still, for their benefit, I
+will just hint at a remark made by Mrs. Joyce some months later. She
+and Mr. Joyce were sitting on the porch, and Eyebright, who had grown
+as dear as a daughter to the old lady's heart, was playing croquet
+with Charley.
+
+[Illustration: Eyebright, who had grown as dear as a daughter to the
+old lady, was playing croquet with Charley.--PAGE 246.]
+
+"It really does seem the luckiest thing that ever was, your being
+shipwrecked on that island," she said. "I was almost frightened to
+death when I heard about it, but if you hadn't we never should have
+got hold of that child as we did, and what a pity that _would_ be? She
+certainly is the nicest girl I ever saw--so sweet-tempered and loving
+and helpful, I don't believe any of us could get along without her
+now. How fond she and Charley seem of each other! I can't help
+thinking they'll make a match of it when they grow up. It would be an
+excellent idea, don't you agree with me, Benjamin? Charley could never
+find anybody whom he would like better, and then we should keep
+Eyebright with us always."
+
+Mr. Joyce roared with laughter.
+
+"She's only fifteen and Charley won't be seventeen till next
+Saturday," he said. "Don't you think you'd better put off your castles
+in the air till they are both a little older, Mother?"
+
+Such castles are absurd; still it is by no means impossible that this
+may come to pass, and if it should happen to do so, I fancy Mr. Joyce
+will be as much pleased as "Mother," every whit.
+
+
+                           THE END.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+       University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                       SUSAN COOLIDGE'S
+                     POPULAR STORY BOOKS.
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUSAN COOLIDGE has always possessed the affection of her young
+readers, for it seems as if she had the happy instinct of planning
+stories that each girl would like to act out in reality.--_The
+Critic_.
+
+Not even Miss Alcott apprehends child nature with finer sympathy, or
+pictures its nobler traits with more skill.--_Boston Daily
+Advertiser_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN. A Christmas Story for Children. With
+Illustrations by ADDIE LEDYARD. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+WHAT KATY DID. A Story. With Illustrations by ADDIE LEDYARD. 16mo.
+$1.25.
+
+WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL. Being more about "What Katy Did." With
+Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+MISCHIEF'S THANKSGIVING, and other Stories. With Illustrations by
+ADDIE LEDYARD. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+NINE LITTLE GOSLINGS. With Illustrations by J. A. MITCHELL. 16mo.
+$1.25.
+
+EYEBRIGHT. A Story. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+CROSS PATCH. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+A ROUND DOZEN. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+A LITTLE COUNTRY GIRL. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+WHAT KATY DID NEXT. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+CLOVER. A Sequel to the Katy Books. With Illustrations by JESSIE
+MCDERMOTT. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+JUST SIXTEEN. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+IN THE HIGH VALLEY. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+A GUERNSEY LILY; or, How the Feud was Healed. A Story of the Channel
+Islands. Profusely Illustrated. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+THE BARBERRY BUSH, and Seven Other Stories about Girls for Girls. With
+Illustrations by JESSIE MCDERMOTT. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+NOT QUITE EIGHTEEN. A volume of Stories. With illustrations by JESSIE
+MCDERMOTT. 16mo. $1.25.
+
+_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by
+the Publishers_.
+
+
+
+
+                     UNDER THE WATER-OAKS.
+
+A SOUTHERN STORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. BY MARIAN BREWSTER. Illustrated by
+J. F. Goodridge. Square 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the Publishers_.
+
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+                   ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON
+
+              *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eyebright, by Susan Coolidge
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