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diff --git a/28805.txt b/28805.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04c3b1f --- /dev/null +++ b/28805.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7121 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dorothy's House Party, by Evelyn Raymond, +Illustrated by S. Schneider + + +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: Dorothy's House Party + + +Author: Evelyn Raymond + + + +Release Date: May 15, 2009 [eBook #28805] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOROTHY'S HOUSE PARTY*** + + +E-text prepared by D Alexander and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 28805-h.htm or 28805-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28805/28805-h/28805-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28805/28805-h.zip) + + + + + +DOROTHY'S HOUSE PARTY + +by + +EVELYN RAYMOND + +Illustrations by S. Schneider + + + + + + + +Chatterton-Peck Company +New York, N. Y. + +Copyright 1908 +by +Chatterton-Peck Co. + + + + +[Illustration: THE MOONLIGHTED FIGURE BY THE LILY POND. +_Dorothy's House Party._] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I END OF AN INFAIR 9 + + II CHOOSING THE GUESTS 21 + + III THE FIRST AND UNINVITED GUEST 35 + + IV TROUBLES LIGHTEN IN THE TELLING 44 + + V RIDDLES 61 + + VI A MORNING CALL 79 + + VII A MEMORABLE CHURCH GOING 93 + + VIII CONCERNING VARIOUS MATTERS 106 + + IX HEADQUARTERS 118 + + X MUSIC AND APPARITIONS 133 + + XI MORNING TALKS 145 + + XII THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH 159 + + XIII IN THE GREAT KITCHEN 174 + + XIV AUNT BETTY TAKES A HAND 189 + + XV A MARVELOUS TALE AND ITS ENDING 203 + + XVI THE FINDING OF THE MONEY 215 + + XVII THE STORY OF THE WORM THAT TURNED 229 + + XVIII CONCLUSION 244 + + + + +DOROTHY'S HOUSE PARTY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE END OF AN INFAIR + + +Dorothy sat up in bed and looked about her. For a moment she did not +realize where she was nor how she came to be in such a strange and +charming room. Then from somewhere in the distance sounded a merry, +musical voice, singing: + + "Old Noah of old he built an ark-- + One more river to cross! + He built it out of hickory bark-- + One more riv----" + +The refrain was never finished. Dorothy was at the open window calling +lustily: + +"Alfy! Alfy Babcock! Come right up here this very, very minute!" + +"Heigho, Sleepy Head! You awake at last? Well, I should think it was +time. I'll be right up, just as soon as I can put these yeller +artemisias into Mis' Calvert's yeller bowl." + +A fleeting regret that she had not waked earlier, that it was not she +who had gathered the morning nosegay for Mrs. Betty's table, shadowed +the fair face of the late riser; but was promptly banished as the full +memory of all that happened on the night before came back to her. +Skipping from point to point of the pretty chamber she examined it in +detail, exclaiming in delight over this or that and, finally, darting +within the white-tiled bathroom where some thoughtful person had +already drawn water for her bath. + +"Oh! it's like a fairy-tale and I'm in a real fairy-land, seems if! +What a dainty tub! What heaps of great soft towels! and what a lovely +bath-robe! And oh! what a wonderful great-aunt Betty!" + +A moisture not wholly due to the luxurious bath filled Dorothy's eyes, +as she took her plunge, for her heart was touched by the evidences of +the loving forethought which had thus prepared for her home-coming +before she herself knew she possessed a birthright home. Of her past +life the reader if interested may learn quite fully, for the facts are +detailed in the two books known as "Dorothy's Schooling," and +"Dorothy's Travels." + +So though it was still a radiantly happy girl who welcomed Alfaretta +it was a thoughtful one; so that Alfy again paused in her caroling to +demand: + +"Well, Dolly Doodles, what's the matter? If I'd been as lucky as you +be I wouldn't draw no down-corners to my mouth, I wouldn't! I'd sing +louder'n ever and just hustle them 'animals' into that 'ark' 'two by +two,' for 'There's one more river to cross! One more river--One more +river to cro-o-o-oss!'" + +But without waiting for an answer the young farm girl caught her old +playmate in her strong arms and gave her a vigorous hug. + +"There, Miss Dorothy Calvert, that don't begin to show how tickled I +am 'bout your good fortune! I'm so full of it all 't I couldn't hardly +sleep. Fact. You needn't stare, though 'tis a queer thing, 'cause if +there's one thing more to my liking than another it's going to bed on +such a bed as Mis' Calvert has in every single one of her rooms. There +ain't no husk-mattresses nor straw shake-downs to Deerhurst. No, +siree! I know, for I went into every single chamber from roof to +cellar and pinched 'em all. The 'help' sleep just as soft as the old +lady does herself. Softer, Ma says, 'cause old-timers like her if they +didn't use feathers just laid on hard things 't even Ma'd despise to +have in her house. However, everybody to their taste! and say, Dolly, +which of all them pretty dresses are you goin' to put on? What? That +plain old white linen? Well, if you don't beat the Dutch and always +did! If I had all them silks and satins I'd pick out the handsomest +and wear that first, and next handsome next, and keep right on, one +after another, till I'd tried the lot, if I had to change a dozen +times a day. See! I found them cardinal flowers down by the brook and +fetched 'em to you." + +With one of her sudden changes of mood Alfaretta dropped down upon +the floor and pulled from the pocket of her old-fashioned skirt a +cheap paper pad. It was well scribbled with penciled notes which the +girl critically examined, as she explained: + +"You see, Dorothy, that your story is like reading a library book, +only more so; and lest I should forget some part of it I've wrote it +all down. Listen. I'll read while you finish fixin'. My! What a +finicky girl you are! You was born----" + +"But, Alfy, please! I protest against hearing my own history that +way!" cried the other, making a playful dash toward the notes, which +Alfaretta as promptly hid behind her. Then, knowing from experience +that contest was useless, Dorothy resigned herself to hearing the +following data droned forth: + +"You was born----" + +"Of course!" + +"'Twon't do you a mite of good to interrupt. I'm in real down earnest. +You'll--you'll be goin' away again, pretty soon, and having come into +your fortunes you'll be forgettin'----" Here Alfy sobbed and dabbed +her knuckles into her eyes--"'Cause Ma says 'tain't likely you'll ever +be the same girl again----" + +"I should like to know why not? Go on with your story-notes. I'd even +rather hear them than you talking foolishly!" + +"Well, I'll have to begin all over again. You was born. Your parents +were respectful--respective--hmm! all right folks though deluged with +poverty. Then they died and left you a little, squallin' baby----" + +"Alfy, dear, that's unkind! I don't admit that I ever could be a +squaller!" + +Alfaretta raised her big eyes and replied: + +"I ain't makin' that up. It's exactly what Mis' Calvert said her own +self. 'Twas why she wouldn't bother raisin' you herself after your Pa +and Ma died and sent you to her. So she turned you into a foundling +orphan and your Father John and Mother Martha brung you up. Then your +old Aunt Betty got acquainted with you an' liked you, and sort of +hankered to get you back again out of the folkses' hands what had took +all the trouble of your growing into a sizable girl. Some other folks +appear to have took a hand in the business of huntin' up your really +truly name; and Ma Babcock she says that Mis' Calvert'd have had to +own up to your bein' her kin after awhile, whether or no; so she just +up and told the whole business; and here you be--a nairess! and so +rich you won't never know old friends again--maybe--though I always +thought you--you--you--Oh! my!" + +Alfaretta bowed her head to her knees and began to cry with the same +vigor she brought to every act of her life. But she didn't cry for +long; because Dorothy was promptly down upon the floor, also, and +pulling the weeper's hands from her flushed face, commanded: + +"It's my turn. I've a story to tell. It's all about a girl named +Alfaretta Babcock, who was the first friend I ever had 'up-mounting,' +and is going to be my friend all my life unless she chooses otherwise. +This Alfy I'm talking about is one of the truest, bravest girls in the +world. The only trouble is that she gets silly notions into her auburn +head, once in a while, and it takes kisses just like these--and +these--and these--to drive them out. She's going to be a teacher when +she grows up----" + +Alfy's tears were dried, her face smiling, as she now interrupted: + +"No. I've changed my mind. I'm either going to be a trained nurse or a +singer in an opera. Premer donners, they call 'em." + +"Heigho! Why all that?" + +Alfaretta dropped her voice to a whisper and cautiously glanced over +her shoulder as she explained: + +"Greatorex!" + +"Miss Greatorex? What has that poor, learned dear to do with it?" +demanded Dorothy, astonished. + +"Everything. You see, she's the first woman teacher I ever +saw--the first _woman_ one. Rather than grow into such a stiff, +can't-bend-to-save-your-life kind of person I'd do 'most anything. +Hark! There's somebody to the door!" + +Both girls sprang to open it and found a maid with a summons to +breakfast; also with the request that "Miss Dorothy should attend Mrs. +Calvert in her own room before going below stairs." + +Dorothy sped away but Alfaretta lingered to put the cardinal flowers +into a vase and to admire afresh the beautiful apartment assigned to +her friend. + +There was honest pleasure in the good fortune which had come to +another and yet there was a little envy mingled with the pleasure. It +was with a rather vicious little shake that she picked up the soft +bath-robe Dorothy had discarded and folded it about her own shoulders; +but the reflection of her own face in the mirror opposite so surprised +her by its crossness that she stared, then laughed aloud. + +"Huh! Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Alfy Babcock? When you put on +that two-sticks, ten-penny-nails-look you're homely enough to eat hay! +'Tain't so long ago that Dolly hadn't no more in this world than +you've got this minute. Not half so much either, 'cause she hadn't +nobody belongin', nobody at all, whilst you had a Ma and Pa and a +whole slew of brothers and sisters. All she's found yet is a +terrible-old great-aunt and some money. Pa says 'money's no good,' +and--I guess I'll go get my breakfast, too." + +Her good temper quite restored, this young philosopher skipped away +and joined her mother and sisters in the great kitchen where they were +already seated at table. + +In Mrs. Calvert's room the happy old lady greeted Dorothy with such a +warmth of affection that the girl felt no lack of others +"belongin'"--for which lack Alfaretta had pitied her--and only yearned +to find a way to show her own love and gratitude. There followed a +happy half-hour of mutual confidences, a brief reading of the Word, a +simple prayer for blessing on their new lives together, and the pair +descended to the cheerful room where their guests were assembling: +each, it seemed, enjoying to the utmost their beautiful surroundings +and their hostess's hospitality. + +Jests flew, laughter rang, and the Judge could scarcely refrain from +song; when just as the meal was over James Barlow appeared at the +long, open window, his mail bag over his shoulder, and instant silence +succeeded as each person within waited eagerly for his share in the +contents of the pouch. + +There were letters in plenty, and some faces grew grave over their +reading, while for the Judge there was a telegram which Jim explained +had just come to the office where was, also, the post-office. + +"Hmm! that ends my vacation in earnest! I meant to stay a bit longer +out of business, but--Mrs. Calvert, when's the next train cityward, +please?" + +Mrs. Betty returned: + +"I've half a mind not to tell you! But, of course, if--Dorothy, you'll +find a parcel of time tables in that desk by the fireplace. Take them +to Judge Breckenridge, please." + +Nor was he the only one to make them useful; for it followed that the +Deerhurst "infair," begun on the night before and planned to extend +over several days must be abruptly ended. The hostess was herself +summoned elsewhere, to attend the sick bed of a lifelong friend, and +the summons was not one to be denied. Even while she was reading the +brief note she knew that she must forsake her post and with a thrill +of pride reflected that now she had one of her own kin to install in +her place. Young as Dorothy was she must act as the hostess of +Deerhurst, even to these gray-headed guests now gathered there. But, +presently it appeared, that there would be no guests to entertain. +President Ryall was needed to supervise some changes at his college; +merchant Ihrie must hasten to disentangle some badly mixed business +affairs; Dr. Mantler would miss the "most interesting case on record +if he did not come at once to his hospital;" and so, to the four old +"boys," who had camped together in the Markland forests, the end of +playtime had indeed come, and each after his kind must resume his +man's work for the world. + +Young Tom Hungerford's furlough from West Point expired that morning, +and his mother felt that when he returned to the Academy she must +establish herself for a time at the hotel near-by. At her invitation +Mrs. Cook and Melvin were to accompany her; that these Nova Scotians +might see something of lads' military training outside their own +beloved Province. + +Catching the general spirit of unrest, Miss Greatorex suddenly +announced that it was time she returned to the Rhinelander. Maybe she +dreaded being left the only adult in the house, for as yet no mention +had been made as to the disposal of her charges, Molly and Dolly. +Certainly, she felt that having been burdened with their cares during +the long summer she was entitled to a few days' rest before the +beginning of a new school year. The lady added: + +"Besides all that, I shall have no more than sufficient time to +arrange my specimens that I obtained in Markland." + +A short silence fell once more upon that company in the breakfast +room, and somehow the brilliant sunshine seemed to dim as if a storm +were rising; or was it but a mist of disappointment rising to +Dorothy's eyes as she glanced from one to another and realized how +well she loved them each and all, and how sad the parting was. + +But her last glance fell upon her Aunt Betty's face and she bravely +smiled back into the kindly eyes so tenderly smiling upon her. After +all, that was the Calvert way! To meet whatever came with "head erect +and colors flying," and she, too, was Calvert. She'd prove it! Cried +she, with that characteristic toss of her brown curls: + +"Well, if everybody _must_--what can I do to help? As for you two, +darling 'father' and 'mother,' I hope nothing's going to take you away +from Deerhurst all of a sudden, like the rest!" + +But there was, although there was no suddenness in this decision. As +they presently informed her, the crippled ex-postman had made himself +so useful at the sanitarium where he had spent the summer that he had +been offered a permanent position there, at a larger salary than he +had ever received as letter-carrier in Baltimore. He had also secured +for his wife Martha a position as matron of the institution; and the +independence thus achieved meant more to that ambitious woman than +even a care-free home with her beloved foster-child. The death of +their old aunt had released Martha from that separation from her +husband which had so sorely tried her and, though sorry to part again +from Dorothy, she was still a very happy woman. + +"We shall always love one another, Dolly dear, but we've come to 'the +parting of the ways.' Each as the Lord leads, little girl; but what is +the reason, now that Mrs. Calvert's grown-up party has ended, what is +the reason, I say, that you don't give a House Party of your very +own?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CHOOSING THE GUESTS + + +Those who must go went quickly. By trains and boats, the various +guests who had gathered at Deerhurst to welcome Dorothy's home-coming +had departed, and at nightfall the great house seemed strangely empty +and deserted. Even Ma Babcock had relinquished her post as temporary +housekeeper and had hurried across the river to nurse a seriously ill +neighbor. + +"I may be back tomorrer and I may not be back till the day after +never! I declare I'm all of a fluster, what with Mis' Calvert goin' +away sort of leavin' me in charge--though them old colored folks o' +her'n didn't like that none too well!--and me havin' to turn my back +on duty this way. But sickness don't wait for time nor tide and +typhoid's got to be tended mighty sharp; and I couldn't nohow refuse +to go to one Mis' Judge Satterlee's nieces, she that's been as +friendly with me as if I was a regular 'ristocratic like herself. No, +when a body's earned a repitation for fetchin' folks through typhoid +you got to live up to it. Sorry, Dolly C.; but I'll stow the girls, +Barry and Clarry and the rest, 'round amongst the neighbors +somewhere, 'fore I start. As for you, Alfy----" + +"Oh, Mrs. Babcock! Don't take Alfy away! Please, please don't!" cried +Dorothy, fairly clutching at the matron's flying skirts, already +disappearing through the doorway. + +Mrs. Babcock switched herself free and answered through the opening: + +"All right. Alfy can do as she likes. She can go down help tend store +to Liza Jane's, t'other village, where she's been asked to go more'n +once, or finish her visit to you. Ary one suits me so long as you +don't let nor hender me no more." + +Not all of this reply was distinct, for it was finished on the floor +above, whither the energetic farm-wife had sped to "pack her duds"; +but enough was heard to set Alfaretta skipping around the room in an +ecstasy of delight, exclaiming: + +"I'm to be to the House Party! Oh! I'm to be to the Party!" + +But this little episode had been by daylight, and now the dusk had +fallen. The great parlors were shut and dark. Prudent old Ephraim had +declared: + +"I ain't gwine see my Miss Betty's substance wasted, now she's outer +de way he'se'f. One lamp in de hall's ernuf fo' seein' an' doan' none +yo chillen's go foolin' to ast mo'." + +So the long halls were dim and full of shadows; the wind had risen and +howled about the windows, which were being carefully shuttered by the +servants against the coming storm which Dinah prophesied would prove +the "ekernoctial" and a "turr'ble one"; and to banish the loneliness +which now tormented her, Dorothy proposed: + +"Let's go into the library. There's a fine fire on the hearth and the +big lamp is stationary. Ephraim can't find fault with us for using +that. We'll make out a list of the folks to ask. You, Alfy, shall do +the writing, you do write such a fine, big hand. Come on, Molly girl! +I'm so glad you begged to stay behind your Auntie Lu. Aren't you?" + +"Ye-es, I reckon so!" answered the little Southerner, with +unflattering hesitation. "But it's mighty lonesome in this big house +without her and West Point's just--just heavenly!" + +"Any place would be 'heavenly' to you, Molly Breckenridge, that was +full of boys!" retorted Dolly. "But don't fancy you'd be allowed to +see any of those cadets even if you were there. Beg pardon, girlie, I +don't want to be cross, but how can I have a decent party if you don't +help? Besides, there's Monty and Jim left. They ought to count for +something." + +"Count for mighty little, seems if, the way they sneak off by +themselves and leave us alone. Gentlemen, _Southern_ gentlemen, +wouldn't act that way!" + +"Oh, sillies! What's the use of spoiling a splendid time? It's just +like a cow givin' a pailful of milk then turnin' round and kickin' it +over!" cried good-natured Alfy, throwing an arm around each girl's +shoulders and playfully forcing her into the cheery library and into a +great, soft chair. Of course, they all laughed and hugged one another +and acknowledged that they had been "sillies" indeed; and a moment +later three girlish heads were bending together above the roomy table, +whereon was set such wonderful writing materials as fairly dazzled +Alfaretta's eyes. So impressed was she that she exclaimed as if to +herself: + +"After all, I guess I won't be a trained nurse nor a opera singer. +I'll be a writin' woman and have just such pens and things as these." + +"Oh, Alfy, you funny dear! You change your mind just as often as I +used to!" + +"Don't you change it no more, then, Dorothy C.?" demanded the other, +quickly. + +"No. I don't think I shall ever change it again. I shall do everything +the best I can, my music and lessons and all that, but it'll be just +for one thing. I lay awake last night wondering how best I could prove +grateful for all that's come to me and I reckon I've found out, and +it's so--so simple, too." + +"Ha! Let's hear this fine and simple thing, darling Dolly Doodles, and +maybe we'll both follow your illustrious example!" cried Molly, +smiling. + +"To--to make everybody I know as--as happy as I can;" answered the +other slowly. + +"Huh! That's nothing! And you can begin right now, on ME!" declared +Miss Alfaretta Babcock, with emphasis. + +"How?" + +"Help me to tell who's to be invited." + +"All right. Head the list with Alfaretta Babcock." + +"Cor-rect! I've got her down already. Next?" + +"Molly Breckenridge." + +"Good enough. Down she goes. Wait till I get her wrote before you say +any more." + +They waited while Alfy laboriously inscribed the name and finished +with the exclamation: + +"That's the crookedest back-name I ever wrote." + +"You acted as if it hurt you, girlie! You wriggled your tongue like +they do in the funny pictures;" teased Molly, but the writer paid no +heed. + +"Next?" + +"Dorothy Calvert." + +"So far so good. But them three's all girls. To a party there ought to +be as many boys. That's the way we did to our last winter's school +treat," declared Alfaretta. + +"Well, there's Jim Barlow. He's a boy." + +"He's no _party_ kind of a boy," objected Molly, "and he's only--_us_. +She hasn't anybody down that isn't us, so far. We few can't make a +whole party." + +But Dolly and Alfy were wholly serious. + +"Montmorency Vavasour-Stark," suggested the former, and the writer +essayed that formidable name. Then she threw down the pen in dismay, +exclaiming: + +"You'll have to indite that yourself or spell it out to me letter by +letter. He'll take more'n a whole line if I write him to match the +others." + +"Oh! he doesn't take up much room, he's so little," reassured idle +Molly, with a mischievous glance toward the doorway which the other +girls did not observe; while by dint of considerable assistance Alfy +"got him down" and "all on one line!" as she triumphantly remarked. + +"That's two boys and three girls. Who's your next boy?" + +"Melvin Cook. He's easy to write," said Dolly. + +"But he's gone." + +"Yes, Alfy, but he can come back. They'll all have to 'come' except we +who don't have to." + +A giggle from behind the portieres commented upon this remark and +speeding to part them Dolly revealed the hiding figures of their two +boy house-mates. + +"That's not nice of young gentlemen, to peep and listen," remarked +Molly, severely; "but since you've done it, come and take your +punishment. You'll have to help. James Barlow, you are appointed the +committee of 'ways and means.' I haven't an idea what that 'means,' +but I know they always have such a committee." + +"What 'they,' Miss Molly?" + +"I don't know, Mister Barlow, but you're--it." + +"Monty, you'll furnish the entertainment," she continued. + +The recipient of this honor bowed profoundly, then lifted his head +with a sudden interest as Dorothy suggested the next name: + +"Molly Martin." + +Even Alfy looked up in surprise. "Do you mean it, Dorothy C.?" + +"Surely. After her put Jane Potter." + +James was listening now and inquired: + +"What you raking up old times for, Dorothy? Inviting them south-siders +that made such a lot of trouble when you lived 'up-mounting' afore +your folks leased their farm?" + +"Whose 'Party' is this?" asked the young hostess, calmly, yet with a +twinkle in her eye. + +"All of our'n," answered Alfaretta, complacently. + +"How many girls now, Alfy?" questioned Molly, who longed to suggest +some of her schoolmates but didn't like a similar reproof to that +which fell so harmlessly from Alfaretta's mind. + +"Five," said the secretary, counting upon her fingers. "Me, and you, +and her, and----five. Correct." + +"Mabel Bruce." + +"Who's she? I never heard of her," wondered Molly, while Jim answered: + +"She's a girl 'way down in Baltimore. Why, Dorothy C., you know she +can't come here!" + +"Why not? Listen, all of you. This is to be _my_ House Party. It's to +be the very nicest ever was. One that everyone who is in it will +never, never forget. My darling Aunt Betty gave me permission to ask +anybody I chose and to do anything I wanted. She said I had learned +some of the lessons of poverty and now I had to begin the harder ones +of having more money than most girls have. She said that I mustn't +feel badly if the money brought me enemies and some folks got +envious." + +Here, all unseen by the speaker, honest Alfaretta winced and put her +hand to her face; but she quickly dropped it, to listen more closely. + +"Mabel was a dear friend even when I was that 'squalling baby' Alfy +wrote about. I am to telegraph for her and to send her a telegraphic +order for her expenses, though Aunt Betty wasn't sure _that_ would be +acceptable to Mr. and Mrs. Bruce. To prevent any misunderstanding on +that point, you are to make the telegram real long and explicit. I +reckon that's what it means to be that committee Molly named. She'll +make six girls and that's enough. Six boys--how many yet Alfy?" + +"Three. Them two that are and the one that isn't." + +"Mike Martin." + +Both Jim and Alfy exclaimed in mutual protest: + +"Why Dorothy! That fellow? you must be crazy." + +"No, indeed! I'm the sanest one here. That boy is doing the noblest +work anybody ever did on this dear old mountain; he's making and +keeping the peace between south-side and north-side." + +"How do you know, Dorothy?" asked Jim, seriously. + +"No matter how I know but I do know. Why, I wouldn't leave him out of +my Party for anything. I'd almost rather be out of it myself!" + +Then both he and Alfaretta remembered that winter day on the mountain +when Dorothy had been the means of saving Mike Martin from an +accidental death and the quiet conference afterward of the two, in +that inner room of the old forge under the Great Balm Tree. Probably +something had happened then and there to make Dolly so sure of Mike's +worthiness. But she was already passing on to "next," nodding toward +Alfy, with the words: + +"The two Smith boys, Littlejohn and Danny." + +Jim Barlow laughed but did not object. The sons of farmer Smith were +jolly lads and deserved a good time, once in their hard-worked lives; +yet he did stare when Dorothy concluded her list of lads with the +name: + +"Frazer Moore." + +"You don't know him very well, Dolly girl. Beside that, he'll make an +odd number. He's the seventh----" + +"Son of the seventh son--fact!" interrupted Alfaretta; "and now we'll +have to find another girl to match him." + +"I've found the girl, Dolly, but she won't match. Helena Montaigne +came up on the train by which your Father John left for the north. You +could hardly leave her out from your House Party, or from givin' her +the bid to it, any way." + +"Helena home? Oh! I am so glad, I am so glad! Of course, she'll get +the 'bid'; I'll take it to her myself the first thing to-morrow +morning. But you didn't mention Herbert. Hasn't he come, too?" + +James Barlow nodded assent but grudgingly. He had never in his heart +quite forgiven Herbert Montaigne for their difference in life; as if +it were the fault of the one that he had been born the son of the +wealthy owner of The Towers and of the other that he was a penniless +almshouse child. Second thoughts, however, always brought nobler +feeling into the honest heart of Jim and a flush of shame rose to his +face as he forced himself to answer. + +"Yes, course. The hull fambly's here." + +Dorothy checked the teasing words which rose to her lips, for when +ambitious Jim relapsed so hopelessly into incorrect speech it was a +sign that he was deeply moved; and it was a relief to see Alfaretta +once more diligently count upon her fingers and to hear her declare: + +"We'll never'll get this here list straight and even, never in this +endurin' world. First there's a girl too many and now there's a girl +too short!" + +"Never mind; we'll make them come out even some way, and I'll find +another girl. I don't know who, yet, and we mustn't ask any more or +there'll be no places for them to sleep. Now we've settled the guests +let's settle the time. We'll have to put it off two or three days, to +let them get here. I wish your cousin Tom Hungerford could be asked to +join us but I don't suppose he could come," said Dolly to her friend +Molly. + +"No, he couldn't. It was the greatest favor his getting off just for +those few hours. A boy might as well be in prison as at West Point!" + +"What? At that 'heavenly' place? Let's see. This is Wednesday night. +Saturday would be a nice time to begin the Party, don't you all +think?" + +"Fine. Week-end ones always do begin on Saturday but the trouble is +they break up on Monday after;" answered Molly. + +"Then ours is to be a double week-ender. Aunt Betty said 'invite them +for a week.' That's seven days, and now Master Stark comes your task. +As a committee of entertainment you are to provide some new, some +different, fun for us every single one of those seven days; and it +must be something out of the common. I long, I just long to have my +home-finding House Party so perfectly beautiful that nobody in it will +ever, ever forget it!" + +Looking into her glowing face the few who were gathered about her +inwardly echoed her wish, and each, in his or her own way, resolved to +aid in making it as "perfect" as their young hostess desired. + +Monty heaved a prodigious sigh. + +"You've given me the biggest task, Dolly Doodles! When a fellow's +brain is no better than mine----" + +"Nonsense, Montmorency Vavasour-Stark! You know in your little insides +that you're ''nigh tickled to death' as Alfy would say. Aren't you the +one who always plans the entertainments--the social ones--at your +school, Brentnor Hall? You're as proud as Punch this minute, and you +know it, sir. Don't pretend otherwise!" reproved Molly, severely. + +"Yes, but--that was different. I had money then. I hadn't announced my +decision to be independent of my father and he--he hadn't taken me too +literally at my word;" and with a whimsical expression the lad emptied +his pockets of the small sums they contained and spread the amount on +the table. "There it is, all of it, Lady of the Manor, at your +service! Getting up entertainments is a costly thing, but--as far as +it goes, I'll try my level best!" + +They all laughed and Dorothy merrily heaped the coins again before +him. + +"You forget, and so I have to remind you, that this is to be _my_ +Party! I don't ask you to spend your money but just your brains in +this affair." + +"Huh! Dorothy! I'm afraid they won't go much further than the cash!" +he returned, but nobody paid attention to this remark, they were so +closely watching Dorothy. She had opened a little leather bag which +lay upon the table and now drew from it a roll of bills. Crisp bank +notes, ten of them, and each of value ten dollars. + +"Whew! Where did you get all that, Dorothy Calvert?" demanded Jim +Barlow, almost sternly. To him the money seemed a fortune, and that +his old companion of the truck-farm must still be as poor in purse as +he. + +She was nearly as grave as he, as she spread the notes out one by one +in the place where Monty had displayed his meager sum. + +"My Great-Aunt Betty gave them to me. It is her wish that I should use +this money for the pleasure of my friends. She says that it is a first +portion of my own personal inheritance, and that if I need more----" + +"More!" they fairly gasped; for ten times ten is a hundred, and a +hundred dollars--Ah! What might not be done with a whole one hundred +dollars? + +"'Twould be wicked," began James, in an awestruck tone, but was not +allowed to finish, for practical Alfaretta, her big eyes fairly +glittering, was rapidly counting upon her fingers and trying to do +that rather difficult "example" of "how many times will seven go into +one hundred and how much over?" "Seven into ten, once and three; seven +into thirty--Ouch!" + +Her computation came to a sudden end. The storm had broken, all +unnoticed till then, and a mighty crash as if the whole house were +falling sent them startled to their feet. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FIRST AND UNINVITED GUEST + + +For an instant the group was motionless from fear; then Jim made a +dash for the front entrance whence, apparently, the crash had come. +There had been no thunder accompanying the storm which now raged +wildly over the mountain top, and Alfy found sufficient voice to cry: + +"'Tain't no lightnin' stroke. _Somethin's_ fell!" + +The words were so inadequate to the description that Molly laughed +nervously, and in relieved tension all followed James forward; only to +find themselves rudely forced back by old Ephraim, gray with fear and +anxiety. + +"Stan' back dere, stan' back, you-alls! 'Tis Eph'am's place to gyard +Miss Betty's chillens!" + +He didn't look as if the task were an agreeable one and the lads +placed themselves beside him as he advanced and with trembling hands +tried to unbar the door. This time he did not repulse them, and it was +well, for as the bolts slid and the heavy door was set free it fell +inward with such force that he would have been crushed beneath it had +they not been there to draw him out of its reach. + +"Oh! oh! oh! The great horse chestnut!" cried Dorothy, springing aside +from contact with the branches which fell crowding through the +doorway. Hinges were torn from their places and the marvel was that +the beautifully carved door had not itself been broken in bits. + +Jim was the first to rally and to find some comfort in the situation, +exclaiming: + +"That's happened exactly as I feared it would, some day; and it's a +mercy there wasn't nobody sittin' on that piazza. They'd ha' been +killed dead, sure as pisen!" + +"Killing generally does mean death, Jim Barlow, but if you knew that +splendid tree was bound to fall some day why didn't you say so? We--" +with a fine assumption of proprietorship in Deerhurst--"we would have +had it prevented," demanded Dorothy. + +Already she felt that this was home; already she loved the fallen tree +almost as its mistress had done and her feeling was so sincere, if +new, that nobody smiled, and the lad answered soberly: + +"I have told, Dolly girl. I kept on tellin' Mrs. Calvert how that +lily-pond she would have dug out deeper an' deeper, and made bigger +all the time, would for certain undermine that tree and make it fall. +But--but she's an old lady 't knows her own mind and don't allow +nobody else to know it for her! Old Hans, the gardener, he talked a +heap, too; begged her to have the pond cemented an' that wouldn't +hender the lilies blowin' and'd stop trouble. But, no. She wouldn't +listen. Said she 'liked things perfectly natural' and--Well, she's got +'em now!" + +"Jim Barlow, you're--just horrid! and--ungrateful to my precious Aunt +Betty!" cried Dorothy, indignant tears springing to her eyes. To her +the fallen tree seemed like a stricken human being and the catastrophe +a terrible one. "It's taken that grand chestnut years and years and +years--longer'n you or I will ever live, like enough--to grow that +big, and to be thrown down all in a minute, and--you don't care a +mite, except to find your own silly opinion prove true!" + +"Hold on, Dolly girl. This ain't no time for you an' me to begin +quarrelin'. I do care. I care more'n I can say but that don't hender +the course o' nature. The pond was below; 'twas fed by a spring from +above; she had trenches dug so that spring-water flowed right spang +through the roots of that chestnut into the pond; and what could +follow except what did? I'm powerful sorry it's happened but I can't +help bein' common-sensible over it." + +"I hate common-sense!" cried Molly, coming to the support of her +friend. "Anyway, I don't see what good we girls do standing here in +this draughty hall. Let's go to bed." + +"And leave the house wide open this way?" + +Dorothy's sense of responsibility was serious enough to her though +amusing to the others, and it was Monty who brought her back to facts +by remarking: + +"The house always has been taken care of, Dolly Doodles, and I guess +it will be now. Jim and I will get some axes and lop off these +branches that forced the door in and prop it shut the best way we can. +Then I'll go down to the lodge with him to sleep for he says there's a +room I can have. See? You girls will be well protected!" and he nodded +toward the group of servants gathered at the rear of the great hall. +"So you'd better take Molly's advice and go up-stairs." + +Dolly wasn't pleased to be thus set coolly aside in "her own house" +but there seemed nothing better to do than follow this frank advice; +therefore, taking a hand of each of her girl friends, she led the way +toward her own pretty chamber and two small rooms adjoining. + +"Aunt Betty thought we three'd like to be close together, and anyway, +if we had all come that I wanted to invite we'd have to snug up some. +So she told Dinah to fix her dressing-room for one of you--that's this +side mine; and the little sewing-room for the other. She's put single +beds in them and Dinah is to sleep on her cot in this wide hall +outside our doors. It seemed sort of foolish to me, first off, when +darling Auntie planned it, as if anything could happen to make us need +Dinah so near; but now--My! I can't stop trembling, somehow. I was so +frightened and sorry." + +"I'm sorry, too, and I'm scared, too; but I'm sleepier'n I'm ary one," +yawned Alfaretta. + +"I'm sleepy, too;" assented Molly; and even the excited Dorothy felt a +strange drowsiness creeping over her. It would be the correct thing, +she had imagined, to lie awake and grieve over the loss of Mrs. +Calvert's beloved tree, which would now be cut into ignominious +firewood and burned upon a hearth; but--in five minutes after her head +had touched her pillow she was sound asleep as her mates already were. + +Outside, the storm abated and the moon arose, lighting the scenery +with its brilliance and setting the still dripping trees aglitter with +its glory. Moonlight often made Dorothy wakeful and did so on this +eventful night. Its rays streaming across her unshaded window roused +her to sit up, and with the action came remembrance. + +"My heart! That money! All those beautiful new bills that are to buy +pleasant things for my Party guests! I had it all spread out on the +library table when that crash came and I never thought of it again! +Nobody else, either, I fancy. I'll go right down and get it and I +mustn't wake the girls or Dinah. It was careless of me, it surely was; +but I know enough about money to understand it shouldn't be left +lying about in that way." + +Creeping softly from her bed she drew on her slippers and kimono as +Miss Rhinelander had taught her pupils always to do when leaving their +rooms at night, and the familiar school-habit proved her in good stead +this time. Once she would have stopped for neither; but now folding +the warm little garment about her she tiptoed past old Dinah, snoring, +and down the thickly carpeted stairs, whereon her slippered feet made +no sound. Quite noiselessly she came to the library door and pushed +the portiere aside. + +Into this room, also, the moonlight streamed, making every object +visible. She had glanced, as she came along the hall, toward the big +door, bolstered into place by the heavy settle and hat-rack; and the +latter object looked so like a gigantic man standing guard that she +cast no second look but darted within the lighter space. + +Hark! What was that sound? Somebody breathing? Snoring? A man's snore, +so like that of dear Father John who used, sometimes, to keep her +awake, though she hadn't minded that because she loved him so. The +sound, frightful at first, became less so as she remembered those long +past nights, and mustering her courage she tiptoed toward the figure +on the lounge. + +Old Ephraim! Well, she didn't believe Aunt Betty would have permitted +even that faithful servant to spend a night upon her cherished leather +couch; but the morning would be time enough to reprimand him for his +audacity, which, of course, she must do, since she stood now in Mrs. +Calvert's place, as temporary head of the family. She felt gravely +responsible and offended as she crossed the room to the table where +three chairs still grouped sociably together, exactly as the three +girls had left them. + +Ah! yes. The chairs were in their places, Alfaretta's list of guests +as well, and even the little leather bag out of which she had drawn +the wealth that so surprised her mates. But the ten crisp notes she +had so spread out in the sight of all--where were they? + +Certainly nowhere to be seen, although that revealing moonlight made +even Alfy's written words quite legible. What could have become of +them? Who had taken them? And why? Supposing somebody had stolen in +and stolen them? Supposing that was why he was sleeping in the +library? Yet, if there had been thievery there, wouldn't he have kept +awake, to watch? Supposing--here a horrible thought crept into her +mind--supposing _he_, himself, had been the thief! She was southern +born and had the southerner's racial distrust of a "nigger's" honesty; +yet--as soon as thought she was ashamed of the suspicion. Aunt Betty +trusted him with far more than she missed now. She would go over to +that window and think it out. Maybe the sleeper would awake in a +minute and she could ask him about it. + +The question was one destined to remain unasked. As she stood gazing +vacantly outward, her hands clasped in perplexity, something moving +arrested her attention. A small figure in white, or what seemed white +in that light. It was circling the pond where the water-lilies grew +and was swaying to and fro as if dancing to some strange measure. Its +skirts were caught up on either side by the hands resting upon its +hips and the apparition was enough to startle nerves that had not +already been tried by the events of that night. + +Dorothy stood rooted to the spot. Then a sudden movement of the dancer +which brought her perilously near the water's edge recalled her common +sense. + +"Why, it's one of the girls! It must be! Which? She doesn't look like +either--is she sleep-walking? Who, what can it mean?" + +Another instant and she had opened the long sash and sped out upon the +rain-soaked lawn; and she was none too soon. As if unseeing, or +unfearing, the strange figure swept nearer and nearer to the moonlit +water, its feet already splashing in it, when Dorothy's arms were +flung around it to draw it into safety. + +"Why--" began the rescuer and could say no more. The face that slowly +turned toward her was one that she had never seen before. It was the +face of a child under a mass of gray hair, and its expression +strangely vacant and inconsequent. Danger, fear, responsibility meant +nothing to this little creature whom Dorothy had saved from drowning, +and with a sudden pitiful memory of poor, half-witted Peter Piper who +had loved her so, she realized that here was another such as he. In +body and mind the child had never grown up, though her years were +many. + +"Come this way, little lady. Come with me. Let us go into the house;" +said the girl gently, and led the stranger to the window she had left +open. "You must be the odd guest I needed for my House Party, to make +the couples even, and so I bid you welcome. Strange, the window should +be shut!" + +But closed it was; nor could all the girl's puny pounding bring help +to open it. Against the front door the great tree still pressed and +she could not reach its bell; and confused by all she had passed +through Dorothy forgot that there were other entrances where help +could be summoned and sank down on the piazza floor beside her first, +her uninvited guest, to wait for morning. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TROUBLES LIGHTEN IN THE TELLING + + +But a few moments sufficed to show that this would not do. Despite her +own heavy kimono she was already chilled by the air of that late +September night, while the little creature beside her was shivering as +if in ague, although she seemed to be half-asleep. + +She reasoned that Ephraim must have waked and closed the library +window and departed to his own quarters. But there must be some way in +which a girl could get into her own house; and then she exclaimed: + +"Why, yes! The sun-parlor, right at the end of this very piazza. All +that south side is covered with glass and if I can get a sash up we +can climb through. The place is as nice as a bedroom. Anyway, I'll +try!" + +She left the stranger where she lay and ran to make the effort, and +though for a time the heavy sash resisted her strength, it did yield +slightly and her fresh fear that it had been locked vanished. Yet with +her utmost endeavor she could lift it but a few inches and she +wondered if she would be able to get her visitor through that scant +opening. + +"I shall have to make her go through flat-wise, like crawling through +fence bars, and I wonder if she will! Anyhow, I must try. I--I don't +like it out here in the night and we'll both be sick of cold, and that +would end our party." + +Dorothy never quite realized how that affair was managed. + +Though the wanderer appeared to hear well enough she did not speak and +had not from the first. Probably she could not, but she could be as +stubborn and difficult as possible and she was certainly exhausted +from exposure. It was a harder task than lifting the great window, +but, at last, by dint of pushing and coaxing, even shoving, the inert +small woman was forced through the opening and dropped upon the matted +floor, where she remained motionless. + +Dolly squeezed herself after and stooped above her guest, anxiously +asking: + +"Did that hurt you? I'm sorry, but there was no other way. Please try +to get up and lie down. See? There are two nice lounges here and lots +of 'comfy' chairs. Shawls and couch-covers in plenty--Why! it'll be +like a picnic!" + +The guest made no effort to rise but waved the other aside with a +sleepy, impatient gesture, then fell to shaking again as if she were +desperately cold. Dorothy was too frightened to heed these objections +and since it was easier to roll a lounge to the sufferer than to +argue, she did so and promptly had her charge upon it; but she first +stripped off the damp cotton gown from the shaking body and wrapped it +in all the rugs and covers she could find. She did not attempt to +penetrate further into the house then, because she knew that Ephraim +had bolted and barred the door leading thither. She had watched him do +so with some amusement, early in the evening, and had playfully asked +him if he expected any burglars. He had disdained to reply further +than by shaking his wise old head, but had omitted no precaution +because of her raillery. + +"Well, this may not be as nice as in my own room but it's a deal +better than out of doors. That poor little thing isn't shivering so +much and--she's asleep! She's tired out, whoever she is and wherever +she came from, and I'm tired, also. I can't do any better till +daylight comes and I'll curl up in this big chair and go to sleep, +too," said Dorothy to herself. + +She wakened to find the sunlight streaming through the glass and to +hear a chorus of voices demanding, each in a various key: + +"Why, Dorothy C!" "How could you?" "Yo' done gib we-all de wussenes' +sca', you' ca'less chile! What yo' s'posin' my Miss Betty gwine ter +say when she heahs ob dis yeah cuttin's up? Hey, honey? Tell me dat!" + +But Dinah's reproofs were cut short as her eye fell upon the +rug-heaped lounge and saw the pile of them begin to move. As yet no +person was visible and she stared at the suddenly agitated covers as +if they were bewitched. Presently, they were flung aside; and revealed +upon a crimson pillow lay a face almost as crimson. + +"Fo' de lan' ob lub! How come dat yeah--dis--What's hit mean, li'l gal +Do'thy?" + +Dolly had not long been missed nor, when she was, had anybody felt +serious alarm, though the girl guests had both been aggrieved that she +should not have wakened them in time to be prompt for breakfast. They +dressed hurriedly when Norah came a second time to summon them, +explaining: + +"Miss Dorothy's room is empty and her clothes on the chairs. I must go +seek her for she shouldn't do this way if she wants to keep cook good +natured for the Party. Delaying breakfast is a bad beginning." + +Then Norah departed and went about her business of dusting; and it was +she who had found the missing girl in the sun-parlor, and it had been +her cry of relief that brought the household to that place. + +Demanded old Ephraim sternly: + +"Why fo' yo'-all done leab yo' baid in de middle ob de night an' go +sky-la'kin' eround dis yere scan'lous way, Missy Dolly Calve't? Tole +me dat!" + +"Why do you leave yours, to sleep on the library couch, Ephraim?" she +returned, keenly observing him from the enclosure of her girl friends' +arms, who held her fast that she might not again elude them. + +Ephraim fairly jumped; though he looked not at her but in a timid way +toward Dinah, still bending in anxious curiosity over the stranger on +the couch; and she was not so engrossed but that her turbaned head +rose with a snap and she fixed her fellow servant with a fiercely +glaring eye. Between these two equally devoted members of "Miss +Betty's" family had always existed a bitter jealousy as to which was +the most loyal to their mistress's interests. Let either presume upon +that loyalty, to indulge in a forbidden privilege, and the wrath of +the other waxed furious. Both knew that for Ephraim to have lain where +Dorothy had discovered him, during that past night, was "intol'able" +presumption, and at Dinah's care would be duly reported upon and +reprimanded. + +Alas! The old man's start and down-dropped gaze was proof in Dorothy's +opinion of a graver guilt than Dinah imputed to him, and when he made +no answer save a hasty exit from the room her heart sank. + +"Oh! how could he do it, how could he!" and then honesty suggested. +"But I haven't asked him yet if he did take the bills!" and she +smiled again at her own thoughts. + +Attention was now diverted to Dinah's picking up the stranger from the +couch and also departing, muttering: + +"I 'low dis yeah's a mighty sick li'l creatur'! Whoebah she be she's +done fotched a high fevah wid her, an' I'se gwine put her to baid +right now!" + +Illness was always enough to enlist the old nurse's deepest interest +and she had no further reproof for the delayed breakfasts or Ephraim's +behavior. + +There followed a morning full of business for all. Jim Barlow and old +Hans, with some grumbling assistance from the "roomatical" Ephraim, +whose "misery" Dinah assured him had been aggravated by sleeping on a +cold leather lounge instead of in his own feather-bed--these three +spent the morning in clearing away the fallen tree, while a carpenter +from the town repaired the injured doorway. + +When Dorothy approached Jim, intending to speak freely of her +suspicions about the lost money, he cut her short by remarking: + +"What silliness! Course, it isn't really lost. You've just mislaid it, +that's all, an' forgot. I do that, time an' again. Put something away +so careful 't I can't find it for ever so long. You'll remember after +a spell, and say, Dolly! I won't be able to write that telegram to +Mabel Bruce. I've got no time to bother with a parcel o' girls. If I +don't keep a nudgin' them two old men they won't do a decent axe's +stroke. They spend all their time complainin' of their j'ints!" + +"Well, why don't you get a regular woodman to chop it up, then?" + +"An' waste Mrs. Calvert's good money, whilst there's a lot of idlers +on her premises, eatin' her out of house and home? I guess not. I'd +save for her quicker'n I would for myself, an' that's saying +considerable. I'm no eye-servant, I'm not." + +"Huh! You're one mighty stubborn boy! And I don't think my darling +Aunt Betty would hesitate to pay one extra day's help. I've heard her +say that she disliked amateur labor. She likes professional skill," +returned the girl, with decision. + +James Barlow laughed. + +"I reckon, Dolly C., that you've forgot the days when you and I were +on Miranda Stott's truck-farm; when I cut firewood by the cord and you +sat on the logs an' taught me how to spell. 'Twouldn't do for me to +claim I can't split up one tree; and this one'll be as neat a job as +you ever see, time I've done with it. Trot along and write your own +telegrams; or get that Starky to do it for you. Ha, ha! He thought he +could saw wood, himself. Said he learned it campin' out; but the first +blow he struck he hit his own toes and blamed it on the axe being too +heavy. Trot along with him, girlie, and don't hender me talkin'." + +The "Little Lady of the Manor," as President Ryall had called her, +walked away with her nose in the air. Preferred to chop wood, did he? +And it wasn't nice of him--it certainly wasn't nice--to set her +thinking of that miserable old truck-farm and the days of her direst +poverty. She was Dorothy Calvert now; a girl with a name and heiress +of Deerhurst. She'd show him, horrid boy that he was! + +But just then his cheerful whistling reached her, and her indignation +vanished. By no effort could she stay long angry with Jim. He was +annoyingly "common-sensible," as he claimed, but he was also so +straight and dependable that she admired him almost as much as she +loved him. Yes, she had other friends now, and would doubtless gain +many more, but none could ever be a truer one than this homely, +plain-spoken lad. + +She spied the girls and Monty in the arbor and joined them; promptly +announcing: + +"If our House Party is to be a success you three must help. Jim won't. +He's going to chop wood. Monty, will you ride to the village and send +that telegram to Mabel Bruce?" + +The lad looked up from the foot he had been contemplating and over +which Molly and Alfy had been bending in sympathy, to answer by +another question: + +"See that shoe, Dolly Calvert? Close shave that. Might have been my +very flesh itself, and I'd have blood poisoning and an amputation, and +then there'd have been telegrams sent--galore! Imagine my mother--if +they had been!" + +"It wasn't your flesh, was it?" + +"That's as Yankee as I am. Always answer your own questions when you +ask them and save a lot of trouble to the other fellow. No, I _wasn't_ +hurt but I _might_ have been! Since I'm not, I'm at your service, Lady +D. Providing you word your own message and give me a decent horse to +ride." + +"There are none but 'decent' horses in our stable, Master Stark. I +shall need Portia myself, or we girls will. You can go ask a groom to +saddle one--that he thinks best. I see through you. You've just been +getting these girls to waste sympathy on you and you shall be punished +by our leaving you alone till lunch time. I'll write the message, of +course. I'd be afraid you wouldn't put enough in. Only--let me think. +How much do telegrams cost?" + +"Twenty-five cents for ten words," came the prompt reply. + +"But ten would hardly begin to talk! Is telephoning cheaper? You ought +to know, being a boy." + +"Long distance telephoning is about as expensive a luxury as one can +buy, young lady. But, why hesitate? It won't take all of that hundred +dollars," he answered, swaggering a trifle over his superior +knowledge. + +Out it came without pause or pretense, the dark suspicion that had +risen in Dorothy's innocent mind: + +"But I haven't that hundred dollars! It's gone. It's--_stolen_!" + +"Dorothy Calvert! How dare you say such a thing?" + +It was Molly's horrified question that broke the long silence which +had fallen on the group; and hearing her ask it gave to poor Dorothy +the first realization of what an evil thing it was she had voiced. + +"I don't know! Oh! I don't know! I wish I hadn't. I didn't mean to +tell, not yet; and I wish, I wish I had kept it to myself!" she cried +in keen regret. + +For instantly she read in the young faces before her a reflection of +her own hard suspicion and loss of faith in others; and something that +her beloved Seth Winters had once said came to her mind: + +"Evil thoughts are more catching than the measles." + +Seth, that grand old "Learned Blacksmith!" To him she would go, at +once, and he would help her in every way. Turning again to her mates +she begged: + +"Forget that I fancied anybody might have taken it to keep. Of course, +nobody would. Let's hurry in and get Mabel's invitation off. I think +I've enough money to pay for a message long enough to explain what I +want; and her fare here--well she'll have to pay that herself or her +father will. I've asked to have Portia put to the pony cart and we +girls will drive around and ask all the others. So glad they live on +the mountain where we can get to them quick." + +"Dolly, shall you go to The Towers, to see that Montaigne girl?" asked +Alfaretta, rather anxiously. + +"Yes, but you needn't go in if you don't want to, Alfy dear. I shall +stay only just long enough to bid her welcome home and invite her for +Saturday." + +"Oh! I shouldn't mind. I'd just as lief. Fact, I'd _admire_, only if I +put on my best dress to go callin' in the morning what'll I have left +to wear to the Party? And Ma Babcock says them Montaignes won't have +folks around that ain't dressed up;" said the girl, so frankly that +Molly laughed and Dorothy hastened to assure her: + +"That's a mistake, Alfy, dear, I think. They don't care about a +person's clothes. It's what's inside the clothes that counts with +sensible people, such as I believe they are. But, I'll tell you. It's +not far from The Towers' gate to the old smithy and I must see Mr. +Seth. I must. I'm so thankful that he didn't leave the mountain, too, +with all the other grown-ups. So you can drop me at Helena's; and then +you and Molly can drive around to all the other people we've decided +to ask and invite them in my stead. You know where all of them live +and Molly will go with you." + +"Can Alfy drive--safe?" asked Molly, rather anxiously. + +Dolly laughed. "Anybody can drive gentle Portia and Alfy is a mountain +girl. But what a funny question for such a fearless rider as you, +Molly Breckenridge!" + +"Not so funny as you think. It's one thing to be on the back of a +horse you know and quite another to be behind the heels of another +that its driver doesn't know! Never mind, Alfy. I'll trust you." + +"You can," Alfaretta complacently assured her; and the morning's drive +proved her right. A happier girl had never lived than she as she thus +acted deputy for the new little mistress of Deerhurst; whose story had +lost none of its interest for the mountain folk because of its latest +development. + +But it was not at all as a proud young heiress that Dorothy came at +last to the shop under the Great Balm Tree and threw herself +impetuously upon the breast of the farrier quietly reading beside his +silent forge. + +"O, Mr. Seth! My darling Mr. Seth! I'm in terrible trouble and only +you can help me!" + +His book went one way, his spectacles another, dashed from his hands +by her heedless onrush; but he let them lie where they had fallen and +putting his arm around her, assured her: + +"So am I. Therefore, let us condole with one another. You first." + +"I've lost Aunt Betty's hundred dollars!" + +Her friend fairly gasped, and held her from him to search her troubled +face. + +"Whe-ew! That is serious. Yet lost articles are sometimes found. Out +with the whole story, 'body and bones'--as my man Owen would say." + +Already relieved by the chance of telling her worries, Dorothy related +the incidents of the night, and she met the sympathy she expected. But +it was like the nature-loving Mr. Winters that he was more disturbed +by the loss of the great chestnut tree than by that of the money. +Also, the story of the stranger she had found wandering by the +lily-pond moved him deeply. All suffering or afflicted creatures were +precious in the sight of this noble old man and he commented now with +pity on the distress of the friends from whom the unknown one had +strayed. + +"How grieved they'll be! For it must have been from some private +household she came, or escaped. There is no public asylum or retreat +within many miles of our mountain, so far as I know. I wonder if we +ought to advertise her in the local newspaper? Or, do you think it +would be kinder to wait and let her people hunt her up? Tell me, +Dolly, dear. The opinion of a child often goes straight to the point." + +"Oh! Don't advertise, please, Mr. Seth! Think. If she belonged to you +or me we wouldn't want it put in the paper that--about--you know, the +lost one being not quite right, someway. If anybody's loved her well +enough to keep her out of an asylum they've loved her well enough to +come and find her, quiet like, without anybody but kind hearted people +having to know. If they don't love her--well, she's all right for now. +Dinah's put her to bed and told me, just before I came away, that it +was only the exposure which had made her ill. She had roused all +right, after a nap, and had taken a real hearty breakfast. She's about +as big as I am and Dinah's going to put some of my clothes on her +while her own are done up. Everybody in the house was so interested +and kind about her, I was surprised." + +"You needn't have been. People who have lived with such a mistress as +Madam Betty Calvert must have learned kindness, even if they learned +nothing else." + +Dorothy laughed. "Dear Mr. Seth, you love my darling Aunt Betty, too, +don't you, like everybody does?" + +"Of course, and loyally. That doesn't prevent my thinking that she +does unwise things." + +"O--oh!!" + +"Like giving a little girl one hundred dollars at a time to spend in +foolishness." + +Dorothy protested: "It wasn't to be foolishness. It was to make people +happy. You yourself say that to 'spread happiness' is the only thing +worth while!" + +"Surely, but it doesn't take Uncle Sam's greenbacks to do that. Not +many of them. When you've lived as long as I have you'll have learned +that the things which dollars do _not_ buy are the things that count. +Hello! 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way +comes.'" + +The blacksmith rose as he finished his quotation and went to the wide +doorway, across which a shadow had fallen, and from whence the sound +of an irritable: "Whoa-oa, there!" had come. + +It was a rare patron of that old smithy and Seth concealed his +surprise by addressing not the driver but the horse: + +"Well, George Fox! Good-morning to you!" + +George Fox was the property of miller Oliver Sands, and the Quaker and +his steed were well known in all that locality. He was a fair-spoken +man whom few loved and many feared, and between him and the "Learned +Blacksmith" there was "no love lost." Why he had come to the smithy +now Seth couldn't guess; nor why, as he stepped down from his buggy +and observed, "I'd like to have thee look at George's off hind foot, +farrier. He uses it----" he should do what he did. + +How it was "used" was not explained; for, leaving the animal where it +stood, the miller sauntered into the building, hands in pockets, and +over it in every part, even to its owner's private bedroom, as if he +had a curiosity to see how his neighbor lived. Seth would have +resented this, had it been worth while and if the miller's odd +curiosity had not aroused the same feeling in himself. It was odd, he +thought; but Seth Winters had nothing to hide and he didn't care. It +was equally odd that George Fox's off hind foot was in perfect +condition and had been newly shod at the other smithy, over the +mountain, where all the miller's work was done. + +"It seems to be all right, Friend Oliver." + +"Forget that I troubled thee," answered the gray-clad Friend, as he +climbed back to his seat and shook the reins over his horse's back, to +instantly disappear down the road, but to leave a thoughtful neighbor, +staring after him. + +"Hmm. That man's in trouble. I wonder what!" murmured Seth, more to +himself than to Dorothy, who had drawn near to slip her hand in his. + +"Dear me! Everybody seems to be, this morning, Mr. Seth; and you +haven't told me yours yet!" + +"Haven't I? Well, here it is!" + +He stooped his gray head to her brown one and whispered it in her ear; +with the result that he had completely banished all her own anxieties +and sent her laughing down the road toward home. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +RIDDLES + + +"There's a most remarkable thing about this House Party of ours! Every +person invited has come and not one tried to get out of so doing! +Three cheers for the Giver of the Party! and three times three +for--all of us!" cried happy Seth Winters, from his seat of honor at +the end of the great table in the dining-room, on the Saturday evening +following. + +Lamps and candles shone, silver glittered, flower-bedecked and +spotlessly clean, the wide apartment was a fit setting for the crowd +of joyous young folk which had gathered in it for supper; and the +cheers rang out as heartily as the master of the feast desired. + +Then said Alfaretta, triumphantly: + +"The Party has begun and I'm to it, I'm in it!" + +"So am I, so am I! Though I did have to invite myself!" returned Mr. +Winters. "Strange that this little girl of mine should have left me +out, that morning when she was inviting everybody, wholesale." + +For to remind her that he "hadn't been invited" was the "trouble" +which he had stooped to whisper in Dorothy's ear, as she left him at +the smithy door. So she had run home and with the aid of her friends +already there had concocted a big-worded document, in which they +begged his presence at Deerhurst for "A Week of Days," as they named +the coming festivities; and also that he would be "Entertainer in +Chief." + +"You see," confided Dolly, "now that the thing is settled and I've +asked so many I begin to get a little scared. I've never been hostess +before--not this way;--and sixteen people--I'm afraid I don't know +enough to keep sixteen girls and boys real happy for a whole week. But +dear Mr. Winters knows. Why, I believe that darling man could keep a +world full happy, if he'd a mind." + +"Are you sorry you started the affair, Dolly Doodles? 'Cause if you +are, you might write notes all round and have it given up. You'd +better do that than be unhappy. Society folks would, I reckon," said +Molly, in an effort to comfort her friend's anxiety. "I'm as bad as +you are. It begins to seem as if we'd get dreadful tired before the +week is out." + +"I'd be ashamed of myself if I did that, Molly, I'll go through with +it even if none of you will help; though I must say I think it's--it's +sort of mean for you boys, Jim and Monty, to beg off being +'committees.'" + +"The trouble with me, Dolly, is that my ideas have entirely given +out. If you hadn't lost that hundred dollars I could get up a lot of +jolly things. But without a cent in either of our pockets--Hmm," +answered Monty, shrugging his shoulders. + +Jim said nothing. He was still a shy lad and while he meant to forget +his awkwardness and help all he could he shrank from taking a +prominent part in the coming affair. + +Alfaretta was the only one who wasn't dismayed, and her fear that the +glorious event might be abandoned was ludicrous. + +"Pooh, Dorothy Calvert! I wouldn't be a 'fraid-cat, I wouldn't! Not if +I was a rich girl like you've got to be and had this big house to do +it in and folks to do the cookin' and sweepin', and--and rooms to +sleep 'em in and everything!" she argued, breathlessly. + +"You funny, dear Alfaretta! It's not to be given up and I count on you +more than anybody else to keep things going! With you and Mr. Seth--if +he will--the Party cannot fail!" and Alfy's honest face was alight +again. + +It had proved that the "Learned Blacksmith" "would" most gladly. At +heart he was as young as any of them all and he had his own reasons +for wishing to be at Deerhurst for a time. He had been more concerned +than Dorothy perceived over the missing one hundred dollars, and he +was anxious about the strange guest who had appeared in the night and +who was so utterly unable to give an account of herself. + +So he had come, as had they all and now assembled for their first meal +together, and Dorothy's hospitable anxiety had wholly vanished. Of +course, all would go well. Of course, they would have a jolly time. +The only trouble now, she thought, would be to choose among the many +pleasures offering. + +There had been a new barn built at Deerhurst that summer, and a large +one. This Mr. Winters had decreed should be the scene of their gayest +hours with the big rooms of the old mansion for quieter ones; and to +the barn they went on that first evening together, as soon as supper +was over and the dusk fell. + +"Oh! how pretty!" cried Helena Montaigne, as she entered the place +with her arm about Molly's waist, for they two had made instant +friends. "I saw nothing so charming while I was abroad!" + +"Didn't you?" asked the other, wondering. "But it _is_ pretty!" In +secret she feared that Helena would be a trifle "airish," and she felt +that would be a pity. + +"Oh! oh! O-H!" almost screamed Dorothy, who had not been permitted to +enter the barn for the last two days while, under the farrier's +direction, the boys had had it in charge. Palms had been brought from +the greenhouse and arranged "with their best foot forward" as Jim +declared. Evergreens deftly placed made charming little nooks of +greenery, where camp-chairs and rustic benches made comfortable +resting places. Rafters were hung with strings of corn and gay-hued +vegetables, while grape-vines with the fruit upon them covered the +stalls and stanchions. Wire strung with Chinese lanterns gave all the +light was needed and these were all aglow as the wide doors were +thrown open and the merry company filed in. + +"My land of love!" cried Alfaretta. "It's just like a livin'-in-house, +ain't it! There's even a stove and a chimney! Who ever heard tell of a +stove in a barn?" + +"You have! And I, too, for the first time," said Littlejohn Smith at +her elbow. "But I 'low it'll be real handy for the men in the winter +time, to warm messes for the cattle and keep themselves from freezin'. +Guess I know what it means to do your chores with your hands like +chunks of ice! Wish to goodness Pa Smith could see this barn; 'twould +make him open his eyes a little!" + +"A body could cook on that stove, it's so nice and flat. Or even pop +corn," returned Alfaretta, practically. + +"Bet that's a notion! Say, Alfy, don't let on, but I'll slip home +first chance I get and fetch some of that! I've got a lot left over +from last year, 't I raised myself. I'll fetch my popper and if you +can get a little butter out the house, some night, we'll give these +folks the treat of their lives. What say?" + +Whatever might be the case with others of that famous Party these two +old schoolmates were certainly "happy as blackbirds"--the only +comparison that the girl found to fully suit their mood. + +When the premises had been fully explored and admired, cried Mr. Seth: + +"Blind man's buff! Who betters me?" + +"Nobody could--'Blind man's' it is!" seconded Monty, and gallantly +offered: "I'll blind!" + +"Oh! no choosing! Do it the regular way," said Dolly. "Get in +a row, please, all of you, and I'll begin with Herbert. +'Intry-mintry-cutry-corn; Apple-seed-and-apple-thorn; +Wire-brier-limber-lock; Six-geese-in-a-flock; +Sit-and-sing-by-the-spring; O-U-T--OUT!' Frazer Moore, you're--IT!" + +The bashful lad who was more astonished to find himself where he was +than he could well express, and who had really been bullied into +accepting Dorothy's invitation by his chum, Mike Martin, now awkwardly +stepped forward from the circle. His face was as red as his hair and +he felt as if he were all feet and hands, while it seemed to him that +all the eyes in the room were boring into him, so pitilessly they +watched him. In reality, if he had looked up, he would have seen that +most of the company were only eagerly interested to begin the game, +and that the supercilious glances cast his way came from Herbert +Montaigne and Mabel Bruce alone. + +Another half-moment and awkwardness was forgotten. Dorothy had +bandaged the blinder's eyes with Mr. Seth's big handkerchief, and in +the welcome darkness thus afforded he realized nothing except that +invisible hands were touching him, from this side and that, plucking +at his jacket, tapping him upon the shoulder, and that he could catch +none of them. Finally, a waft of perfume came his way, and the flutter +of starched skirts, and with a lunge forward he clasped his arms about +the figure of: + +"That girl from Baltimore! her turn!" he declared and was for pulling +off the handkerchief, but was not allowed. + +"Which one? there are two Baltimore girls here, my lad. Which one have +you caught?" + +Mabel squirmed, and Frazer's face grew a deeper red. He had been +formally introduced, early upon Mabel's arrival, but had been too +confused and self-conscious to understand her name. He was as anxious +now to release her as she was to be set free, but his tormentors +insisted: + +"Her name? her name? Not till you tell her name!" + +"I don't know--I mean--I--'tain't our Dolly, it's t'other one that's +just come and smells like a--a drug store!" he answered, desperately, +and loosened his arms. + +Mabel was glad enough to escape, blushing furiously at the way he had +identified her, yet good-naturedly joining in the laugh of the others. +Though she secretly resolved to be more careful in the use of scents +of which she was extravagantly fond; and she allowed herself to be +blindfolded at once, yet explaining: + +"Maybe I shall have to tell who you are by just such ways as he did +me. I never was to a House Party before and you're all strangers, +'cept Dolly C., and anybody'd know her!" + +But it wasn't Dolly she captured. Susceptible Monty beheld in the +little Baltimorean a wonderfully attractive vision. She was as short +and as plump as he was. Her taste ran riot in colors, as did his own. +He was bewildered by the mass of ruffles and frills that one short +frock could display and he considered her manner of "doing" her hair +as quite "too stylish for words." It was natural, therefore, that he +should deliberately put himself in her way and try his best to be +caught, while his observant mates heartlessly laughed at his +unsuccessful maneuvers. + +But it was handsome Herbert upon whose capture Mabel's mind was set, +and it was a disappointment that, instead of his arm she should clutch +that of James Barlow. However, there was no help for it and she was +obliged to blindfold in his turn the tall fellow who had to stoop to +her shortness, while casting admiring glances upon the other lad. + +So the game went on till they were tired, and it was simple Molly +Martin who suggested the next amusement. + +"My sake! I'm all beat out! I can't scarcely breathe, I've run and +laughed so much. I never had so much fun in my life! Let's all sit +down in a row and tell riddles. We'll get rested that way." + +To some there this seemed a very childish suggestion, but not to wise +Seth Winters. The very fact that shy Molly Martin had so far forgotten +her own self-consciousness as to offer her bit of entertainment argued +well for the success of Dorothy's House Party with its oddly assorted +members. But he surprised Helena's lifted eyebrows and the glance she +exchanged with the other Molly, so hastened to endorse the +proposition: + +"A happy thought, my lass; and as I'm the oldest 'child' here I'll +open the game myself with one of the oldest riddles on record. Did +anybody ever happen to hear of the Sphinx?" + +"Why, of course! Egypt----" began Monty eagerly, hoping to shine in +the coming contest of wits. + +Seth Winters shook his head. + +"In one sense a correct answer; but, Jamie lad, out with it! I believe +_you_ know which Sphinx I mean. All your delving into books--out with +it, man!" + +"The monster of the ancients, I guess. That had the head of a woman, +the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the +paws of a lion, and a human voice;" answered Jim blushing a little +thus to be airing his knowledge before so many. + +"The very creature! What connection had this beauty with riddles, if +you please?" + +They were all listening now, and smiling a little over the old +farrier's whimsical manner, as the boy student went on to explain: + +"The Sphinx was sent into Thebes by Juno for her private revenge. The +fable is that he laid all that country waste by proposing riddles and +killing all who could not guess them. The calamity was so great that +Creon promised his crown to anyone who could guess one, and the +guessing would mean the death of the Sphinx." + +"Why do you stop just there, Jim, in the most interesting part? Please +go on and finish--if you can!" cried Dorothy. + +Mr. Winters also nodded and the boy added: + +"This was the riddle: What animal in the morning walks on four feet, +at noon on two, and at evening on three?" + +"At it, youngsters, at it! Cudgel your brains for the answer. We don't +want any mixed-anatomy Sphinxes rampaging around here," urged the +farrier. + +Many and various were the guesses hazarded but each fell wide of the +mark. Helena alone preserved a smiling silence and waited to hear what +the others had to say. + +"Time's up! Five minutes to a riddle is more than ample. Helena has +it, I see by the twinkle of her eyes. Well, my dear?" + +"I can't call it a real guess, Mr. Winters, for I read it, as James +did the story. The answer is--_Man_. In his babyhood, the morning of +life, he crawls or walks on 'all fours'; in youth and middle age he +goes upright on two feet; and at evening, old age, he supplements them +by a staff or crutch--his three feet." + +"Oh! how simple! Why couldn't I guess that!" exclaimed Molly, +impatiently. "But who did solve the silly thing, first off?" + +"Oedipus; and this so angered the Sphinx that he dashed his head +against a rock and so died." + +"Umm. I never dreamed there could be riddles like that," said Molly +Martin; "all I thought of was 'Round as an apple, busy as a bee, The +prettiest little thing you ever did see,' and such. I'd like to learn +some others worth while, to tell of winter evenings before we go to +bed." + +"I know a good one, please, Mr. Seth. Shall I tell it?" asked Frazer +Moore. "Pa found it in a 'Farmers' Almanac,' so maybe the rest have +seen it, too." + +"Begin, Frazer. Five minutes per riddle! If anybody knows it 'twon't +take so long," advised Mr. Seth, whom Dolly had called "the Master of +the Feast." + + "What is it men and women all despise, + Yet one and all so highly prize? + Which kings possess not? though full sure am I + That for the luxury they often sigh. + That never was for sale, yet, any day, + The poorest beggar may the best display. + The farmer needs it for his growing corn; + Nor its dear comfort will the rich man scorn; + Fittest for use within a sick friend's room, + Its coming silent as spring's early bloom. + A great, soft, yielding thing that no one fears-- + A little thing oft wet with mother's tears. + A thing so hol(e)y that when it we wear + We screen it safely from the world's rude stare." + +"Hmm. Seems if there were handles enough to that long riddle, but I +can't catch on to any of them. They contradict themselves so," cried +Dorothy, after a long silence had followed Frazer's recitation. + +Handles enough, to be sure; but like Dorothy, nobody could grasp one, +and as the five minutes ended the mountain lad had the proud +knowledge that he had puzzled them all, and gayly announced: + +"That was an easy one! Every word I said fits--AN OLD SHOE!" + +"Oh!" "A-ah!" "How stupid I was not to see!" "'The farmer needs it for +his growing corn!'" cried the Master, drawing up his foot and +facetiously rubbing his toes. "Even a farmer may raise two kinds of +corn," suggested he and thus solved one line over which Jane Potter +was still puzzling. + +Thereupon, Monty sprang up and snapped his fingers, schoolroom +fashion: + +"Master, Master! Me next! Me! I know one good as his and not near so +long! My turn, please!" + +They all laughed. Laughter came easily now, provoked even by +silliness, and again a thankful, happy feeling rose in the young +hostess's heart that her House Party was to be so delightful to +everybody. Helena Montaigne now sat resting shoulder to shoulder with +proud Alfaretta upon a little divan of straw whose back was a row of +grain sheaves; Mabel was radiant amid a trio of admiring lads--Monty, +Mike Martin, and Danny Smith; Herbert was eagerly discussing camp-life +with shy Melvin, who had warmed to enthusiasm over his Nova Scotian +forests; and all the different elements of that young assembly were +proving most harmonious, as even smaller parties, arranged by old +hostesses, do not always prove. + +"All right, Master Montmorency. Make it easy, please. A diversion not +a brain tax," answered Seth. + +"'If Rider Haggard had been Lew Wallace, what would 'She' have been?'" + +"'Ben Hur'!" promptly shouted Frazer, before another had a chance to +speak, and Monty sank back with a well-feigned groan. "I read that in +the Almanac, too. I've read 'Ben Hur,' it's in our school lib'ry, but +not 'She,' though Pa told me that was another book, wrote by the other +feller." + +"I'll never try again; I never do try to distinguish myself but I make +a failure of it!" wailed Monty, jestingly. + +"But Herbert hasn't failed, nor Melvin. Let's have at least one more +wit-sharpener," coaxed Dorothy. + +But Herbert declined, though courteously enough. + +"Indeed, Dorothy, I don't know a single riddle and I never could guess +one. Try Melvin, instead, please." + +The English boy flushed, as he always did at finding himself observed, +but he remembered that he had heard strangers comment upon the +obligingness of the Canadians and he must maintain the honor of his +beloved Province. So, after a trifling hesitation, he answered: + +"I can think of only one, Dorothy, and it's rather long, I fancy. My +mother made me learn it as a punishment, once, when I was a little +tacker, don't you know, and I never forgot it. The one by Lord Byron. +I'll render that, if you wish." + +"We do wish, we do!" cried Molly, while the Master nodded approvingly. + +So without further prelude Melvin recited: + + "'Twas whispered in Heaven, 'twas muttered in Hell, + And Echo caught softly the sound as it fell; + On the confines of Earth 'twas permitted to rest, + And the Depths of the ocean its presence confessed. + 'Twill be found in the Sphere when 'tis riven asunder, + Be seen in the Lightning and heard in the Thunder. + 'Twas allotted to man with his earliest Breath, + Attends at his Birth and awaits him in Death; + It presides o'er his Happiness, Honor, and Health, + Is the prop of his House and the end of his Wealth. + Without it the soldier and seaman may roam, + But woe to the Wretch who expels it from Home. + In the Whispers of conscience its voice will be found, + Nor e'en in the Whirlwind of passion be drowned. + 'Twill not soften the Heart; and tho' deaf to the ear + 'Twill make it acutely and instantly Hear. + But in Shade, let it rest like a delicate flower-- + Oh! Breathe on it softly--it dies in an Hour." + +Several had heard the riddle before and knew its significance; but +those who had not found it as difficult to guess as Frazer's "Old +Shoe" had been. So Melvin had to explain that it was a play of words +each containing the letter H; and this explanation was no sooner given +than a diversion was made by Mabel Bruce's irrelevant remark: + +"I never picked grapes off a vine in my life, never!" + +"Hi! Does that mean you want to do so now?" demanded Monty, alert. He, +too, had grown tired of a game in which he did not excel, and eagerly +followed the direction of her pointing, chubby finger. A finger on +which sparkled a diamond ring, more fitting for a matron than a +schoolgirl young as she. + +Along that side of the barn, rising from the hay strewn floor to the +loft above, ran a row of upright posts set a few inches apart and +designed to guard a great space beyond. This space was to be filled +with the winter's stock of hay and its cemented bottom was several +feet lower than the floor whereon the merry-makers sat. As yet but +little hay had been stored there, and the posts which would give +needful ventilation as well as keep the hay from falling inward, had +been utilized now for decoration. + +The boyish decorators had not scrupled to rifle the Deerhurst +vineyards of their most attractive vines, and the cluster of fruit on +which Mabel had fixed a covetous eye was certainly a tempting one. +The rays from two Chinese lanterns, hung near it, brought out its +juicy lusciousness with even more than daylight clearness, and Mabel's +mouth fairly watered for these translucent grapes. + +"That bunch? Of course you shall have it!" cried Monty, springing up +and standing on tiptoe to reach what either Jim or Herbert could have +plucked with ease. + +Alas! His efforts but hindered himself. The vine was only loosely +twined around the upright and, as he grasped it, swung lightly about +and the cluster he sought was forced to the inner side of the post, +even higher than it had hung before. + +"Huh! That's what my father would call 'the aggravation of inanimate +things'! Those grapes knew that you wanted them, that I wanted to get +them for you, and see how they act? But I'll have them yet. Don't +fear. That old fellow I camped-out with this last summer told me it +was a coward who ever gave up 'discouraged.' I'll have that bunch of +grapes--or I'll know the reason why! I almost reached them that time!" +cried the struggler, proudly, and leaped again. + +By this time all the company was watching his efforts, the lads +offering jeering suggestions about "sheets of paper to stand on," and +Danny Smith even inquiring if the other was "practising for a climb on +a greased pole, come next Fourth." + +Even the girls laughed over Monty's ludicrous attempts, though Mabel +entreated him to give up and let somebody else try. + +"I--I rather guess not! When I set out to serve a lady I do it or die +in the attempt!" returned the perspiring lad, vigorously waving aside +the proffered help of his taller mates. "I--I--My heart! Oh! Jiminy! +I--I'm stuck!" + +He was. One of the newly set uprights had slipped a little and again +wedged itself fast; and between this and its neighbor, unfortunate +Montmorency hung suspended, the upper half of his body forced inward +over the empty "bay" and his fat legs left to wave wildly about in +their effort to find a resting place. To add to his predicament, a +scream of uncontrollable laughter rose from all the observers, even +Mabel, in whose sake he so gallantly suffered, adding her shrill +cackle to the others. + +All but the Master. Only the fleetest smile crossed his face, then it +grew instantly grave as he said: + +"We've tried our hand at riddles but here's another, harder than any +of the others. Monty is in a fix--how shall we get him out?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A MORNING CALL + + +So ended the first "Day" of Dorothy's famous "Week." + +At sight of the gravity that had fallen upon Seth Winter's face her +own sobered, though she had to turn her eyes away from the absurd +appearance of poor Monty's waving legs. Then the legs ceased to wave +and hung limp and inert. + +The Master silently pointed toward the door and gathering her girl +guests about her the young hostess led them houseward, remarking: + +"That looks funnier than it is and dear Mr. Seth wants us out of the +way. I reckon they'll have to cut that post down for I saw that even +he and Jim together couldn't move it. It's so new and sticky, maybe--I +don't know. Poor Monty!" + +"When he kept still, just now, I believe he fainted. I'm terribly +frightened," said Helena Montaigne, laying a trembling hand on Dolly's +shoulder. "It would be so perfectly awful to have your House Party +broken up by a tragedy!" + +Mabel began to cry, and the two mountain girls, Molly Martin and Jane, +slipped their arms about her to comfort her, Jane practically +observing: + +"It takes a good deal to kill a boy. Ma says they've as many lives as +a cat, and Ma knows. She brought up seven." + +"She didn't bring 'em far, then, Jane. They didn't grow to be more +than a dozen years old, ary one of 'em. You're the last one left and +you know it yourself," corrected the too-exact Alfaretta. + +"Pooh, Alfy! Don't talk solemn talk now. That Monty boy isn't dead yet +and Janie's a girl. They'll get him out his fix, course, such a lot of +folks around to help. And, Mabel, it wasn't your fault, anyway. He +needn't have let himself get so fat, then he wouldn't have had no +trouble. I could slip in and out them uprights, easy as fallin' off a +log. He must be an awful eater. Fat folks gen'ally are," said Molly +Martin. + +Mabel winced and shook off the comforter's embrace. She was "fat" +herself and also "an awful eater," as Dolly could well remember and +had been from the days of their earliest childhood. But the regretful +girl could not stop crying and bitterly blamed herself for wanting +"those horrible grapes. I'll never eat another grape as long as I +live. I shall feel like--like a----" + +"Like a dear sensible girl, Mabel Bruce! And don't forget you haven't +eaten any grapes _yet_, here. Of course, it will be all right. +Molly Martin is sensible. Let's just go in and sit awhile in the +library, where cook, Aunt Malinda, was going to put some cake and +lemonade. There'll be a basket of fruit there, too; and we can have +a little music, waiting for the boys to come in," said Dorothy, with +more confidence in her voice than in her heart. Then when Mabel's +tears had promptly ceased--could it have been at the mention of +refreshments?--she added, considerately: "and let's all resolve not to +say a single word about poor Monty's mishap. He's more sensitive than +he seems and will be mortified enough, remembering how silly he +looked, without our reminding him of it." + +"That's right, Dorothy. I'm glad you spoke of it. I'm sure nobody +would wish to hurt his feelings and it was--ridiculous, one way;" +added Helena, heartily, and Dorothy smiled gratefully upon her. She +well knew that the rich girl's opinion carried weight with these +poorer ones and of Alfaretta's teasing tongue she had been especially +afraid. + +Nor was it long before they heard the boys come in, and from the merry +voices and even whistling of the irrepressible Danny, they knew that +the untoward incident had ended well. Yet when the lads had joined +them, as eager for refreshments as Mabel now proved, neither Jim, Mr. +Seth, nor Monty was with them; and, to the credit of all it was, that +the subject of the misadventure did not come up at all, although +inquisitive Alfy had fairly to bite her tongue to keep the questions +back. + +They ended the evening by an hour in the music room, where gay college +songs and a few old-fashioned "rounds" sent them all to bed a +care-free, merry company; though Dorothy lingered long enough to write +a brief note to Mrs. Calvert and to drop it into the letter-box whence +it would find the earliest mail to town. + +A satisfactory little epistle to its recipient, though it said only +this: + +"Our House Party is a success! Dear Mr. Seth is the nicest boy of the +lot, and I know you're as glad as I am that he invited himself. I +thank you and I love you, love you, love you! Dolly." + +Next morning, as beautiful a Sunday as ever dawned, came old Dinah to +Dorothy with a long face, and the lament: + +"I cayn't fo' de life make dat li'l creatur' eat wid a fo'k an' +howcome I erlows he' to eat to de table alongside you-alls, lak yo' +tole me, Miss Do'thy? I'se done putten it into he' han', time an' time +ergin, an' she jes natchally flings hit undah foot an' grabs a spoon. +An' she stuffs an' stuffs, wussen you' fixin' er big tu'key. I'se +gwine gib up teachin' he' mannehs. I sutney is. She ain' no quality, +she ain'." + +"But that's all right, Dinah. She's only a child, a little child it +seems to me. And whether she's 'quality' or not makes no difference. +I've talked it all over with Mr. Seth and he says I may do as I like. +Whoever she is, she's somebody! She came uninvited and sometimes it +seems as if God sent her. She can't understand our good times but I +want her to share them. So, now that you say she is perfectly well, +just let her take the place at table near the door where we settled +she should sit. Let Norah wait upon her and I do believe the sight of +all of us, so happy, will give some happiness to her. 'Touched of +God,' some people call these 'naturals.' She's a human being, she was +once a girl like me, and she's simply--_not finished_! She isn't a bit +repulsive and I'm sure it's right to have her with us all we can." + +"She's a ole woman, Miss Do'thy, she ain' no gal-chile. He' haid's +whitah nor my Miss Betty's. I erlow she wouldn'----" + +"There, there, good Dinah! You and I have threshed this subject +threadbare. You are so kind to me, have done and will do so much to +make my Party go off all right, that I do hate to go against anything +you say. But I can't give up in this. That poor little wanderer who +strayed into Deerhurst grounds, whom nobody comes to claim, shall not +be the first to find it inhospitable. I've written Aunt Betty all +about this 'Luna' and I know she'll approve, just as Mr. Winters does. +So don't try to keep her shut up out of sight, any longer, Dinah dear. +It goes to my heart to see her pace, pace around any room you put her +in by herself. Like a poor wild animal caged! It fairly made me +shiver to see her, yesterday, when you led her into the great +storeroom and left her. She followed you to the door and peered, and +peered, out after you but didn't offer to follow. As if she were +fastened by invisible chains and couldn't. Then around and around she +went again, playing with those bits of bright rags you found in the +pocket of her own dress. I'm so glad she likes that red one of mine +and that it fits her so well. So don't worry, Dinah, over the +proprieties of your Miss Betty's home. There's something better than +propriety--that's loving kindness!" + +Nobody had ever accused old Dinah of want of kindness and Dorothy did +not mean to do so now. The faithful woman had been devoted to the +unknown visitor, from the moment of discovering her asleep upon the +sun-parlor lounge; but she could not make it seem right that such an +afflicted creature, and one who was evidently so far along in life, +should mix at all familiarly with all those gay young people now +staying in the house. But she had never heard her new "li'l Missy" +talk at such length before and she was impressed by the multitude of +words if not by their meaning. Besides, her quick ear had caught that +"Luna," and she now impatiently demanded: + +"Howcome you' knows he' name, Miss Do'thy, an' nebah tole ole Dinah?" + +"Oh! I don't know it, honey. Not her real one. That's a fancy one I +made up. She came to us in the moonlight and Luna stands for moon. So +that's why, and that's all! So go, good Dinah, and send your charge in +with Norah. All the others are down and waiting and, I hope, as hungry +for their breakfast as I am!" + +Dinah departed, grumbling. In few things would she oppose her "Miss +Do'thy" but in the matter of this "unfinished" stranger she felt +strongly. However, she objected no more. If Mr. Seth Winters, her Miss +Betty's trusted friend, endorsed such triflin', ornery gwines-on, she +had no more to say. The blame was on his shoulders and not hers! + +Since nobody knew a better name for the stranger than "Luna" it was +promptly accepted by all as a fitting one. She answered to it just as +she answered to anything else--and that was not at all. She allowed +herself to be led, fed, and otherwise attended, without resistance, +and if she was especially comfortable she wore a happy smile on her +small wrinkled face. But she never spoke and to the superstitious +servants her silence seemed uncanny: + +"I just believe she could talk, if she wanted to, for she certainly +hears quick enough. She's real impish, witch-like, and she fair gives +me the creeps," complained Norah to a stable lad early on that Sunday +morning. "And I don't half like for Miss Dolly to 'point me special +nurse to the creatur'. I'd rather by far be left to me bedmakin' an' +dustin'. She may be one of them 'little people' lives at home in old +Ireland--that's the power to work ill charms on a body, if they wish +it." + +"True ye say, Norah girl. 'Twas an' ill charm, she worked on me not an +hour agone. I was in the back porch, slippin' off me stable jacket +'fore eatin' my food, an' Dinah had the creature by the hand scrubbin' +a bit dirt off it. I was takin' my money out one pocket into another +and quick as chain-lightnin' grabs this queer old woman and hides the +money behind her. She may be a fool, indeed, but she knows money when +she sees it! and the look on her was like a miser!" + +"Did you get it back, lad?" + +"'Deed, that did I! If there's one more'n another this Luny dwarf +fears--and likes, too, which is odd!--it's old black Dinah; and even +she had to squeeze the poor little hand tight to make its fingers open +and the silver drop out. Then the creature forgot all about it same's +she'd never seen it at all, at all. But Tim's learned his lesson, and +'tis that there's nobody in this world so silly 't he don't know money +when he sees it! 'Twas a she this time, though just as greedy." + +But if Norah dreaded the charge of poor Luna the latter made very +little trouble for her attendant. She did not understand the use of +knife and fork and all her food had to be cut up, as for a helpless +infant; but she fed herself with a spoon neatly enough, though in +great haste. Afterwards she leaned back in her chair and stared +vacantly at one or another of the young folks gathered around that big +table. Finally, her eyes rested upon the gaily bedecked person of +Mabel Bruce and a smile settled upon her features; while so +unobtrusive was she that her presence was almost forgotten by the +other, happy chatterers in the room. + +"Who's for church?" asked Mr. Winters, with a little tap on the table +to secure attention. "Hands up, so I can count noses!" + +Every hand went up, even Luna following the example of the rest, quite +unknowing why. Seeing this, Dorothy must needs leave her seat and run +around to the poor thing's chair and pat her shoulder approvingly. + +"The landau will hold four, and it's four miles to our church. Who is +for that?" again demanded the Master. + +There was a swift exchange of glances between him and the young +hostess as she returned: + +"Shall I say?" + +"Aye, aye!" shouted Monty, with his ordinary fervor. The considerate +silence of his house-mates concerning his mishap in the barn had +restored his self-possession, and though he had felt silly and +awkward when he had joined them he did not now. + +"Very well. Then I nominate Jane, Molly Martin, Alfaretta, and Mabel +Bruce, for the state carriage," said Dorothy. + +"Sho! I thought if that was used at all 'twould be Helena and the +other 'ristocratics would ride in that," whispered the delighted Alfy +to Jane. + +But the young hostess had quickly reflected that landaus and other +luxurious equipages were familiar and commonplace to her richer guests +but that, probably, none of these others had ever ridden in such +state; therefore the greater pleasure to them. + +The Master produced a slip of paper and checked off the names: + +"Landau, with the bays; and Ephraim and Boots in livery--settled. +Next?" + +"There's the pony cart and Portia," suggested Dolly. + +"Helena and Melvin? Jolly Molly, and Jim to drive? Satisfactory all +round?" again asked the note-taker; and if this second apportionment +was not so at least nobody objected, although poor Jim looked forward +to an eight-mile drive beside mischievous Molly Breckenridge with some +misgiving. + +"Very well. I'll admit I never tackled such an amiable young crowd. +Commonly, in parties as big as this there are just as many different +wishes as there are people. I congratulate you, my dears, and may +this beatific state of things continue till the end of the chapter!" +cried Mr. Seth, really delighted. + +"Why, of course, Mr. Winters. How could we do otherwise? In society +one never puts one's own desires in opposition to those of others. +That's what society is for, is what it means, isn't it? Good breeding +means unselfishness;" said Helena, then added, with a little flush of +modesty: "Not that I am an oracle, but that's what I've read and--and +seen--abroad." + +"Right, Miss Helena, and thank you for the explanation. And apropos of +that subject: What's the oldest, most unalterable book of etiquette we +have?" + +Nobody answered, apparently nobody knew; till Melvin timidly ventured: + +"I fancy it's the Bible, sir. My mother, don't you know, often remarks +that anybody who makes the Bible a rule of conduct can't help being a +gentleman or gentlewoman. Can't help it, don't you know?" + +Old Seth beamed upon the lad who had so bravely fought his own +shyness, to answer when he could, and so prove himself by that same +ancient Book a "gentleman." + +"Thank you, my boy. You've a mother to be proud of and she--has a +pretty decent sort of son! However, we've arranged places for but half +our number. As I said the distance is four miles going and it will +seem about eight returning--we shall all be so desperately hungry. We +might go to some church nearer except that at this distant one there +will be to-day a famous preacher whom I would like you all to hear. He +is a guest in the neighborhood and that is why we have this one +chance. Come, Dolly Doodles. You're the hostess and must provide for +your guests. How shall eight people be conveyed to that far-away +church?" + +"I've been thinking, Master. There's the big open wagon, used for +hauling stuff. It has a lot of seats belonging though only one is +often used. So Ephy told me once. We could have the seats put in and +the rest of us ride in that." + +"Good enough. The rest of us are wholly willing to be 'hauled' to +please our southern hostess. The rest of us are--let's see." + +"You, Mr. Seth; Littlejohn and Danny; Mike and Frazer; Luna and me. +Coming home, if we wish, some of us could change places. Well, Mabel? +What is it? Don't you like the arrangement?" + +"Ye-es, I suppose so. Only--you've put four girls in our carriage and +four boys in your own. That isn't dividing even; and if it's such an +awful long way hadn't we--shouldn't--shan't we be terrible late to +dinner?" + +Poor Mabel! Nature would out. That mountain air was famous for +sharpening every newcomer's appetite and it had made hers perfectly +ravenous. It seemed to her that she had never tasted such delicious +food as Aunt Malinda prepared and that she should never be able to get +enough. A shout of laughter greeted her question but did not dismay +her, for the matter was too serious; and she was greatly relieved when +the Master returned, kindly and with entire gravity: + +"Little Mabel is right. We shall all be glad of a 'snack' when service +is over and before we start back. Dolly, please see that a basket of +sandwiches is put up and carried along. Also a basket of grapes. Some +of us are fond of grapes!" he finished, significantly, and that was +the only reference made to the episode of the night before. + +But there was one more objector and that outspoken Alfy, who begged of +Dorothy, in a sibilant whisper: + +"Do you mean it? Are you really goin' to take that loony Luna to +meeting?" + +"I certainly am. She is not to be hidden, nor deprived of any pleasure +my other guests enjoy. Besides, somebody who knows her may see and +claim her. Poor thing! It's terrible that she can't tell us who she is +nor where she belongs!" + +"Hmm. I'm glad she ain't goin' to ride alongside of me, then. Folks +will stare so, on the road, at that old woman rigged out like a girl." + +"Never mind, Alfy dear. Let them stare. She's delighted with the red +frock and hat, and it's something to have made her happy even that +much. Remember how she clung to those bits of gay rags Dinah found on +her? She certainly knows enough to love color, and I shall keep her +close to me. I'd be afraid if I didn't her feelings might be hurt +by--by somebody's thoughtlessness." + +"Mine, I s'pose you mean, Dorothy C. But--my stars and garters! Look +a-there! Look round, I tell you, quick!" + +Dolly looked and her own eyes opened in amazement. Framed in the long +window that reached to the piazza floor stood a curiously garbed old +man holding firmly before him two tiny children. He wore an old black +skull cap and a ragged cassock, and he announced in a croaking voice: + +"I pass these children on to you. I go to deliver the message upon +which I am sent;" and having said this, before anyone could protest or +interfere, he was disappearing down the driveway at an astonishing +pace, as if his "message" abided not the slightest delay. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A MEMORABLE CHURCH GOING + + +"Of all things! If that don't beat the Dutch!" cried Alfaretta, and at +sound of her voice the others rallied from their amazement, while Mr. +Winters begged: + +"Run, lads, some of you and stop that man. Owen Bryan spoke of a +half-crazy fanatic, a self-ordained exhorter, who had lately come to +the mountain and lived somewhere about, in hiding as it were. An +escaped convict, he'd heard. Run. He mustn't leave those children +here." + +Jim and Frazer were already on the way, obedient to the Master's first +words, without tarrying to hear the conclusion of his speech. But they +were not quick enough. They caught one glimpse of a ragged, flying +cassock and no more. The man had vanished from sight, and though they +lingered to search the low-growing evergreens, and every hidden nook +bordering the drive, they could not find him. So they returned to +report and were just in time to hear Dorothy and Molly questioning the +babies, for they were little more than that. + +They were clad exactly alike, in little denim overalls, faded by many +washings and stiff with starch. Their feet were bare as were their +heads, and clinging to one another they stared with round-eyed +curiosity into the great room. + +"Oh! aren't they cute! They're too funny for words. What's your name, +little boy? If you are a boy!" demanded Molly. + +The little one shook her too familiar hand from his small shoulder and +answered with a solemnity and distinctness that was amazing, when one +anticipated an infantile lisp: + +"A-n an, a ana, n-i ni, anani, a-s as, Ananias." + +Monty Stark rolled over backward on the floor and fairly yelled in +laughter, while the laughter of the others echoed his, but nothing +perturbed by this reception of his, to him, commonplace statement, +master Ananias looked about in cherubic satisfaction. + +Then again demanded Molly of the other midget. + +"What's yours, twinsy? For twins you must be!" + +Evidently tutored as to what would be expected of her the other child +replied in exact imitation of her mate and with equal clearness: + +"S-a-p sap, p-h-i phi, sapphi, r-a ra, Sapphira." + +Utter silence greeted this absurd reply, then another noisy burst of +laughter in which even the really disturbed Master joined. + +"Surely a man must be out of his mind to fasten such names on two such +innocents! But they must be taken elsewhere. Deerhurst must not +become a receptacle for all the cast-off burdens of humanity. I must +go ask Bryan all he knows about the case," said Mr. Seth, as soon as +he had recovered his gravity. + +But Dorothy nodded toward the great clock and with a frown he observed +the hour. If they were to make ready for their long drive to church, +yet be in time for the beginning of the service, they must be making +ready, so he consented: + +"I don't suppose any great mischief can be done by their remaining +here till we get back; but----" + +"Why not take them with us, Teacher?" asked Alfaretta. "We could take +one in the lander with us." Her tone was as complacent as if the +vehicle in question were her own and her head was tossed as she waited +for his reply. + +But it was Dorothy who forestalled him and her decision was so +sensible he did not oppose it: + +"Beg pardon, Mr. Seth, but I think we would better take them. If we +leave them they may get into mischief and the servants have enough to +do without worrying with them. They're so little we can tuck them into +the big wagon with us and it won't hurt even babies to go to church. +But I wonder which is which! Now they've moved around and changed +places I can't tell which is Ananias and which Sapphira! Poor little +kiddies, to be named after liars!" + +"I know. This one has a kink in its hair the other one hasn't. I think +it was Sapphira. Or--was it Ananias? Baby, which are you?" + +Neither child replied. They clung each to the other and stared at this +too inquisitive Molly Breckenridge with the disconcerting stare of +childhood, till she turned away and gathering a handful of biscuits +from the table bade them sit down and eat. She forbade them to drop a +single crumb and they were obedient even to absurdity. + +A half-hour later the three vehicles were at the door and the happy +guests made haste to take the places allotted them; the big wagon +following last, with Luna smilingly, yet in a half-frightened clutch +of Dorothy, sitting on the comfortable back seat. Mr. Seth had lifted +her bodily into the wagon and she had submitted without realizing what +was happening to her till the wagon began to move. Then she screamed, +as if in terror, and hid her face on Dolly's shoulder. + +"Doan' take he'. 'Peah's lak she's done afeered o' ridin'. Nebah min', +Miss Do'thy. Some yo' lads jes' han' he' down to Dinah and she'll be +tooken' ca' ob, scusin' dey is a big dinnah in de way an' half de +he'ps' Sunday out. Han' 'er down!" + +However, without physical force this was not to be done. When Jim +strove to lift her, as he might easily have done in his strong arms, +she clung the closer to her little hostess and screamed afresh. So he +gave up the attempt and turned his attention to the twins, the last +arriving members of this famous House Party. + +There was no reluctance about them--not the slightest. They were +fairly dancing with impatience and Ananias--or was it Sapphira?--was +already attempting to enter the "wagging" by way of climbing up the +"nigh" horse's leg, while her--or his--mate clung to the spokes of the +forward wheel, wholly ready to be whirled around and around with its +forward progress. + +"Evidently, these babies aren't afraid to ride!" cried Dorothy, +laughing yet half-frightened over the little creatures' boldness. +"Please set them right on the bottom, between your knees and +Littlejohn's, Mr. Seth! Then they'll be safe. And there, Luna dear, +poor Luna, you see we're off at last and--isn't it just lovely?" + +Luna made no more response than usual but her hidden face sank lower +and more heavily upon Dorothy's shoulder, till, presently, she was +sound asleep. Then Mike Martin climbed back over the seats to the spot +and deftly placed his own cushion behind the sleeper's head. Dolly +thanked him with a smile but wondered to see him stare at the +sleeper's face with that puzzled expression on his own. Then he +scratched his head and asked in a whisper: + +"Can you tell who she looks like? Terrible familiar, somehow, but +can't guess. Can you?" + +Dorothy shook her head. + +"No, I've never seen another like her. I hope I never will." + +"If we could think, we might find her folks and you could get rid of +her," continued the lad. + +"I don't know as I'm so anxious to be rid of her. I do believe she's +happy--happier than when she came--and--Look out! If the wagon goes +over another thank-ye-ma-am and you're still standing up you'll likely +be pitched over into the road. My! But the horses are in fine fettle +this morning!" + +A fresh jolt made Mike cling fast to escape the accident she suggested +and he returned to his place, riding on the uncushioned seat as +cheerfully as any knight errant of old. Dorothy was his ideal of a +girl. She had taught him the difference between bravery and bullying +and she had been his inspiration in the task to which he had pledged +himself--to be a peacemaker on the mountain. Once, her coolness and +courage had saved his life, and on that day he had promised to fulfil +her desire, to bridge the enmity between south-side and north-side. +His methods had not always been such as Dorothy would have approved +but the result was satisfactory. In school and out of it, peace +prevailed on the "Heights," and Mike Martin was a nobler boy himself +because of his efforts to make others noble. + +There was a little stir of excitement in the small country church when +Seth Winters and his following of young folks entered it, and by mere +force of numbers so impressing the ushers that the very front pews +were vacated in their behalf, although the farrier protested against +this. However, he wasn't sorry to have his company all together, and +motioned Dorothy into the same pew with himself, and to a place +directly under the pulpit. Into this, also, they led the still drowsy +Luna, Dorothy gently settling her in the corner with her head resting +upon the pew's back, and here she slept on during most of the service. +Here, also, they settled the twins, but could not avoid seeing the +curious and amused glances cast upon this odd pair as they trotted up +the aisle in Dorothy's wake. + +"Two peas in a pod," whispered one farmer's wife to her seat neighbor. + +"Where'd they pick up two such little owls? They're all eyes and +solemn as the parson himself, but them ridiculous clothes! My heart! +What won't fashionable folks do next, to make their youngsters look +different from ours!" returned the other. Nobody guessed that the +funny little creatures were an accidental addition to the House +Party; and after the strangers were settled nobody was further +concerned with them. + +The service began and duly proceeded. The singing was congregational +and in it all the young people joined, making the familiar hymns seem +uncommonly beautiful to the hearers; and it was not till the sermon +was well under way that anything unusual happened to divert attention. +Then there came a soft yet heavy patter on the uncarpeted aisle and +two black animals stalked majestically forward and seated themselves +upon their haunches directly beneath the pulpit. With an air of +profound interest they fixed their eyes upon the speaker therein and, +for an instant, disconcerted even that self-possessed orator. + +"Ponce and Peter! Aunt Betty's Great Danes! However has this +happened!" thought poor Dorothy, unable quite to control a smile yet +wofully anxious lest the dogs should create a disturbance. However, +nothing happened. The Danes might have been regular worshipers in the +place for all notice was accorded them by the well trained +congregation; and after they were tired of watching the minister the +animals quietly stretched themselves to sleep. + +Their movement and the prodigious yawn of one had bad results. The +twins had been having their own peaceful naps upon the kneeling bench +at Mr. Seth's feet, but, now, with the suddenness native to them, +awoke, discovered the dogs, and leaped out of the pew into the aisle. +There they flung themselves upon the dogs with shrieks of delight. It +was as if they had found old friends and playmates--as later +developments proved to be true. + +Poor Mr. Winters stared in consternation. He detested a scene but saw +one imminent; and how to get both dogs and babies out of that sacred +place without great trouble he could not guess. But Dorothy put her +hand on his arm and gently patted it. She, too, was frightened but she +trusted the animals' instincts; she was right. After a moment's +sniffing of the twins, they quietly lay down again and the twins did +likewise! and though they did not go to sleep again they behaved well +enough, until growing impassioned with his own eloquence the speaker +lifted his voice loudly and imploringly. + +That was a sound they knew. Up sprang one and shouted: "Amen!" and up +sprang the other and echoed him! + +The minister flushed, stammered, and valiantly went on; but he never +reached the climax of that sermon. Those continually interrupting +groans and "Amens!" uttered in that childish treble, were too much for +him. A suppressed titter ran over the whole congregation, in which all +the Deerhurst party joined though they strove not to do so; and amid +that subdued mirth the clergyman brought his discourse to a sudden +end. + +The benediction spoken there was a rush for the door, in which the +Great Danes and the twins led; riotously tumbling over one another, +barking and squealing, while the outpouring congregation stepped aside +to give them way. + +Happy-hearted Seth Winters had rarely felt so annoyed or mortified, +while Dorothy's face was scarlet even though her lips twitched with +laughter. These two lingered in their places till the clergyman +descended from his pulpit and prepared to leave the church. Then they +advanced and offered what apologies they could; the farrier relating +in few words the story of the morning and disclaiming any knowledge as +to the identity of the twins or how the dogs had been set loose. + +"Don't mention it. Of course, I could see that it was accidental, and +it isn't of the slightest consequence. Doubtless I had preached as +long as was good for my hearers and--I wish you good morning," said +the minister, smiling but rather hastily moving away. + +Mr. Winters also bowed and followed his party out of doors. But he +wasn't smiling, not in the least; and it was a timid touch Dorothy +laid upon his arm as she came to the big wagon to take her place for +the drive home. He looked down at her, and at sight of tears in her +eyes, his anger melted. + +"There, there, child, don't fret! It was one of those unavoidable +annoyances that really amount to nothing yet are so hard to bear. +Here, let me swing you up. But we must get rid of those youngsters! +Sabbath day or not I shall make it my business so to do at the +earliest possible moment. By the way, where are they now?" + +For a moment nobody could say, though the Deerhurst wagons waited +while the lads searched and all the regular congregation departed to +their homes. Then called Mabel from her seat of honor in the landau: + +"Dolly Doodles, whilst we're waiting we might as well eat our lunch." + +For once Mabel's greediness served her neighbors a good purpose. Mr. +Seth promptly replied, with something like a wink in Dorothy's +direction: + +"Couldn't do better. There's the church well, too, a famous one, from +which to quench our thirst. There's an old saying that 'Meal time +brings all rogues home' and likely the presence of food may attract +our little runaways. Indeed, I've half a mind to leave them behind, +any way. 'Pass them on' to the world at large as that old man 'passed +them on' to us." + +To this there was protest from every side, even Alfaretta declaring +she had never heard of such a heartless thing! But she need not have +feared, and Dorothy certainly did not. She knew the big heart of her +old friend too well; and producing the basket of sandwiches she went +about offering them to all. + +Nobody declined although Monty triumphantly exclaimed: + +"We haven't any right to be so hungry for an hour yet, 'cause if the +dogs hadn't come to church we'd have been kept in that much longer." +Then still munching a sandwich he set about to bring water for all, in +the one tin dipper that hung by the well, the other lads relieving him +from time to time. + +They were all so merry, so innocently happy under the great trees +which bordered the church grounds, that the Master grew happy, too, +watching and listening to them and forgot the untoward incident of the +service; even forgot, for a moment, that either twins or dogs existed. +Then, after both fruit and sandwich baskets had been wholly emptied +and all had declared they wanted no more water, the cavalcade prepared +to move; Dorothy begging: + +"Can Luna and I sit on the front seat, with Littlejohn driving, going +back? See, she's no longer afraid and I always do love to ride close +to the horses." + +"Very well. Here goes then," answered Mr. Seth gently lifting +Luna--wholly unresisting now and placidly smiling--to the place +desired while Dolly swiftly sprang after. Then the others seated +themselves and Ephraim cracked his whip, the landau leading as +befitted its grandeur. + +Then there were shrieks for delay. From Molly Breckenridge at first, +echoed by piping little tongues as the lost "twinses" came into sight. +Over the stone wall bordering the road leaped Ponce and Peter, +dripping wet and shaking their great bodies vigorously, the while they +yelped and barked in sheer delight. Behind them Ananias and Sapphira, +equally wet, equally noisy, equally rapturous, and beginning at once +to climb into the richly cushioned landau as fast as their funny +little legs would permit. + +Then came another shriek as, rather than let her beautiful clothes be +smirched by contact with the drenched children, Mabel Bruce drew her +skirts about her, gave one headlong leap to the ground, and fell +prone. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CONCERNING VARIOUS MATTERS + + +The laughter which rose to the lips of some of the observers was +promptly checked as they saw that the girl lay perfectly still in the +dust where she had fallen, making no effort to rise, and unconscious +of her injured finery. + +"She'd better have kep' still an' let 'em wet her," said Alfy, nudging +Jane Potter. + +"She ain't gettin' up because she can't," answered Jane and sprang out +of the landau, to kneel beside the prostrate girl; then to look up and +cry out: "She's hurt! She's dreadful hurt!" + +Unhappy Mr. Winters set his teeth and his lips were grim. "If ever I'm +so misguided as to engineer another young folks' House Party, I +hope----" + +He didn't express this "hope" but stooped and with utmost tenderness +lifted Mabel to her feet. She had begun to rally from the shock of her +fall and opened her eyes again, while the pallor that had banished her +usual rosiness began to yield to the returning circulation. Already +many hands were outstretched to help, some with the dipper from the +well, others with dripping wooden plates whereon their luncheon had +been packed. Mabel pushed the plates aside, fretfully, explaining as +soon as she could speak: + +"If that gets on my clothes--they're so dusty--Oh! what made me--Oh! +oh! A-ah!" + +Then she began to laugh and cry alternately, as the misfortune and its +absurdity fully appeared, and Helena saw that the girl was fast +becoming hysterical. Evidently, in their wearer's eyes, the beautiful +frock now so badly smirched and the white gloves which had split +asunder in her fall were treasures beyond compute, and Helena herself +loved pretty clothes. She felt a keen sympathy in that and another +respect--she had suffered from hysteria and always went prepared for +an emergency. Stepping quietly to Mabel's side, she waved aside the +other eager helpers, saying: + +"I'm going to ride back in the landau, Alfy, please take my place in +the cart. Here, Mabel, swallow a drop of this medicine. 'Twill set you +right at once." + +Her movements and words were as decided as they were quiet and Mabel +unconsciously obeyed. She submitted to be helped back into the +carriage and as Helena took the empty seat beside her, Ephraim drove +swiftly away. + +Thus ignored the dripping twins stared ruefully after the vanishing +vehicle and Mr. Seth looked as ruefully at them. But Molly begged: + +"Let them go in the cart with us. Alfy's frock and mine will wash, +even if they soil us. One can ride between Jim and me and Melvin and +Alfy must look after the other. Let's choose. I take Ananias. I just +love boys!" + +"Be sure you've chosen one then," laughed Jim as he rather gingerly +picked up one infant and placed it behind the dashboard. He had on his +own Sunday attire and realized the cost of it, so objected almost as +strongly as Mabel had done to contact with this well-soused youngster. +"Say, sonny, what made you tumble in the brook? Don't you know this is +Sunday?" + +"Yep. Didn't tumble, just _went_. I'm no 'sonny'; I'm sissy. S-a-p +sap, p-h-i----" began the little one, glibly and distinctly. + +"You can't be! You surely are Ananias! Your hair is cut exactly like a +boy's and you wear boy's panties! You're spelling the wrong name. Look +out! What next?" cried Molly anxiously, as the active baby suddenly +climbed over the back of that seat to join her mate behind. There +master Ananias--or was it really Sapphira?--cuddled down on the rug in +the bottom of the cart and settled himself--herself--for sleep. + +Neither Alfy nor Melvin interfered with these too-close small +neighbors; but withdrawing to the extreme edges of the seat left them +to sleep and get dry at their leisure. After that the homeward drive +proceeded in peace; only Herbert calling out now and then from his +place in the big wagon to make Melvin admire some particular beauty of +the scene, challenging the Provincial to beat it if he could in that +far away Markland of his own. + +"But you haven't the sea!" retorted Melvin, proudly. + +"We don't need it. We have the HUDSON RIVER!" came as swiftly back; +and as they had come just then to a turn in the road where an ancient +building stood beneath a canopy of trees, he asked: "Hold up the +horses a minute, will you, Littlejohn? I'd like our English friend to +say if he ever saw anything more picturesque than this." + +"This" was a more than century-old Friends' meeting-house. Unpainted +and shingled all over its outward surface. "Old shingle-sides" was its +local name, and a lovelier location could not have been chosen even by +a less austere body of worshipers. + +Meeting had been prolonged that First Day. The hand clasp of neighbor +with neighbor which signaled its close had just been given. From the +doorways on either side, the men's and the women's, these silent +worshipers were now issuing; the men to seek the vehicles waiting +beneath the long shed and the women to gossip a moment of neighborhood +affairs. + +Mr. Winters was willing to rest and "breathe the horses" for a +little, the day being warm and the drive long, and to observe with +interest the decorous home-going of these Plain People; and it so +chanced that the big wagon, where Dorothy sat on the front seat with +Luna resting against her, halted just beside the entrance to the +meeting-house grounds. From her place she watched the departing +congregation with the keen interest she brought to everything; and +among them she recognized the familiar outlines of George Fox, the +miller's fine horse; and, holding the reins over its back, Oliver +Sands, the miller himself. So close he drove to the big wagon that +George Fox's nose touched Littlejohn's leader, and the boy pulled back +a little. + +"Huh! That's old Oliver in his First Day grays! But he's in the +grumps. Guess the Spirit hasn't moved him to anything pleasant, by the +look," he remarked to Dorothy beside him. + +"He does look as if he were in trouble. I don't like him. I never did. +He wasn't--well, nice to Father John once. But I'm sorry he's unhappy. +Nobody ought to be on such a heavenly day." + +If Oliver saw those watching beside the gate he made no sign. His fat +shoulders, commonly so erect, were bowed as if he had suddenly grown +old. His face had lost its unctuous smile and was haggard with care; +and for once he paid no heed to George Fox's un-Quakerlike gambols, +fraught with danger to the open buggy he drew. A pale-faced woman in +the orthodox attire of the birthright Friends sat beside the miller +and clung to him in evident terror at the horse's behavior. It was she +who saw how close the contact between their own and the Deerhurst +team, and her eye fell anxiously upon the two girlish figures upon the +front seat of the wagon. For a girl the unknown Luna seemed, clad in +the scarlet frock and hat that Dorothy had given; while Dolly, +herself, clasping the little creature close lest she should be +frightened looked even younger than she was. + +"Sisters," thought Dorcas Sands, "yet not alike." Then casting a +second, critical glance upon Luna she uttered a strange cry and +clutched her husband's arm. + +"Dorcas, thee is too old for foolishness," was all the heed he paid to +her gesture, and drove stolidly on, unseeing aught but his own inward +perturbation which had found no solace in that morning's Meeting. + +Dorcas looked back once over her shoulder and Dorothy returned a +friendly smile to the sweet old face in the white-lined gray bonnet. +Then the bonnet faced about again and George Fox whisked its wearer +out of sight. + +"I declare I'd love to be a Quakeress and wear such clothes as these +women do. They look so sweet and peaceful and happy. As if nothing +ever troubled them. Don't you think they're lovely, Littlejohn?" + +"Huh! I don't know. That there Mrs. Sands--Dorcas Sands is the way +she's called 'cause the Friends don't give nobody titles--I guess +there ain't a more unhappy woman on our mountain than her." + +"Why, Littlejohn! Fancy! With such a--a good man; isn't he?" + +"Good accordin' as you call goodness. He ain't bad, not so bad; only +you want to look sharp when you have dealings with him. They say he +measures the milk his folks use in the cookin' and if more butter goes +one week than he thinks ought to he skimps 'em the next. I ain't stuck +on that kind of a man, myself, even if he is all-fired rich. Gid-dap, +boys!" + +With which expression of his sentiments the young mountaineer touched +up the team that had rather lagged behind the others and the +conversation dropped. But during all that homeward ride there lingered +in Dorothy's memory that strange, startled, half-cognizant gaze which +gentle Dorcas Sands had cast upon poor Luna. But by this time, the +afflicted guest had become as one of the family; and the fleeting +interest of any passer-by was accepted as mere curiosity and soon +forgotten. + +After dinner Mr. Winters disappeared; and the younger members of the +House Party disposed themselves after their desires; some for a +stroll in the woods, some in select, cosy spots for quiet reading; and +a few--as Mabel, Helena, and Monty--for a nap. But all gathered again +at supper-time and a happy evening followed; with music and talk and a +brief bedtime service at which the Master officiated. + +But Dorothy noticed that he still looked anxious and that he was +preoccupied, a manner wholly new to her beloved Mr. Seth. So, as she +bade him good-night she asked: + +"Is it anything I can help, dear Master?" + +"Why do you fancy anything's amiss, lassie?" + +"Oh! you show it in your eyes. Can I help?" + +"Yes. You may break the news to Dinah that those twins are on our +hands for--to-night at least. I'm sorry, but together you two must +find them a place to sleep. We can't be unchristian you know--not on +the Lord's own day!" + +He smiled his familiar, whimsical smile as he said this and it +reassured the girl at once. Pointing to a distant corner of the room, +where some considerate person had tossed down a sofa cushion, she +showed him the ill-named babies asleep with their arms about each +other's neck and their red lips parted in happy slumber. + +"They've found their own place you see; will it do?" + +"Admirable! They're like kittens or puppies--one spot's as good as +another. Throw a rug over them and let them be. I think they'll need +nothing more to-night, but if they do they're of the sort will make it +known. Good-night, little Dorothy. Sleep well." + +After a custom which Father John had taught her, though he could not +himself explain it, Dorothy "set her mind" like an alarm clock to wake +her at six the next morning and it did so. She bathed and dressed with +utmost carefulness and succeeded in doing this without waking anybody. +Those whose business it was to be awake, as the house servants, gave +her a silent nod for good-morning and smiled to think of her energy. +The reason appeared when she drew a chair to a desk by the library +window and wrote the following letter: + + "MY DARLING AUNT BETTY: + + "Good-morning, please, and I hope you'll have a happy day. + I've written you a post card or a letter every day since you + went away but I haven't had one back. I wonder and am sorry + but I suppose you are too busy with your sick friend. I hope + you aren't angry with me for anything. I was terrible sorry + about somebody--losing--stealing that money! There, it's + out! and I feel better. Sorrier, too, about it's being + _him_. Well, that's gone, and as you have so much more I + guess you won't care much. Besides, we don't need much. + Dear Mr. Seth is just too splendid for words. He thinks of + something nice to do all the time. + + "Yesterday we went to church and so did the dogs and the + twins. I haven't told you about them for this is the first + letter since they came and that was just after breakfast + Sunday. A crazy man brought them and said he'd 'passed them + on.' They're the cutest little mites with such horrible + names--Ananias and Sapphira! Imagine anybody cruel enough to + give babies those names. They aren't much bigger than + buttons but they talk as plain as you do. They said 'A-ah!' + and 'A-A-men!' in the middle of the sermon and stopped the + minister preaching. I wasn't sorry they did for I didn't + know what they'd do next nor Luna either. They three and Mr. + Seth are the uninvited, or self-invited, ones and they're + more fun than all the rest. Mabel fell out the carriage, or + jumped out, and spoiled her dress and fainted away. + + "My House Party is just fine! Monty got stuck in the barn + and had to be sawed apart. I mean the barn had to be, not + Monty; and not one of us said a word about it. + + "I'm writing this before the rest are up because afterward I + shan't have a minute's chance. It's a great care to have a + House Party, though the Master--we call Mr. Winters that, + all of us--takes the care. I don't know what we would do + without him, and what we can without that stolen money. + Monty says if he had that or had some of his own, he'd be + able to manage without any old Master, he would. That was + when he wanted to go sailing Sunday afternoon and Mr. Seth + said 'no.' + + "Monty's real smooth outside but he has prickly tempers + sometimes; and I guess he--he sort of 'sassed' the Master, + 'cause he refused to give us any money to hire a sail boat + and Monty hadn't any left himself. But it all blew over. Mr. + Seth doesn't seem to mind Monty any more'n he does his + tortoise-shell cat; and he's a very nice boy, a very nice + boy, indeed. So are they all. I'm proud of them all. So is + Mabel. So is Molly B. Those two are so proud they squabble + quite consid'able over which is the nicest, and the boys + just laugh. + + "Oh! I must stop. It's getting real near breakfast time; and + dear Aunt Betty, will you please send me another one hundred + dollars by the return of the mail? I mean as quick as you + can. You see to-day, we're going around visiting + 'Headquarters' of all the revolution people. There's a lot + of them and they won't cost anything to see; but to-morrow + there's 'The Greatest Show on Earth' coming to Newburgh and + I _must_ take my guests to it. I really must. + + "Good-by, darling Aunt Betty. + "DOROTHY. + + "P. S.--I've heard that people can telegraph money and that + it goes quicker that way. Please do it. + + "D. + + "P. P. S.--Mr Seth says that this Headquartering will be as + good as the circus, but it isn't easy to believe; and Melvin + isn't particularly pleased over the trip. I suppose that's + because our folks whipped his; and please be sure to + telegraph the money at once. The tickets are fifty cents + a-piece and ten cents extra for every side-show; and Molly + and I have ciphered it out that it will take a lot, more'n + I'd like to have the Master pay, generous as he is. Isn't it + lovely to be a rich girl and just ask for as much money as + you want and get it? Oh! I love you, Aunt Betty! + + "DOROTHY; for sure the last time." + +One of the men was going to early market and by him the writer +dispatched this epistle. Promptly posted, it reached Mrs. Calvert that +morning, who replied as promptly and by telegram as her young relative +had requested. The yellow envelope was awaiting Dorothy that evening, +when she came home from "Headquartering" with her guests, and she +opened it eagerly. + +But there seemed something wrong with the message. Having read it in +silence once--twice--three times, she crumpled it in her hand and +dashed out of the room scarlet with shame and anger. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HEADQUARTERS + + +"Well, lads and lassies--or lassies and lads, it's due you to hear all +I've found out concerning Ananias and Sapphira. I don't believe that +those are their real names but I've heard no other. The curious old +man who left them here is, presumably, insane on the subject of +religion. He appeared on the mountain early in the summer, with these +little ones, and preempted that tumble-down cottage over the bluff +beyond our gates. Most of you know it by sight; eh?" + +"Yes, indeed! It looks as if it had been thrown over the edge of the +road, just there where it's so steep. Old Griselda, the lodge-keeper's +wife I live with claims it's haunted, and always has been. Hans says +not, except by tramps and such," answered James Barlow. + +"Tramps? Are tramps on this mountain? Oh! I don't like that. I'd have +been afraid to come if I'd known that!" protested Molly Breckenridge +with a little shiver. + +Of course they all laughed at her and Monty valiantly assured her: + +"Don't you worry. I'm here." Then added as an after-thought, "and so +are the other boys." + +Laughter came easily that Monday morning and it was Monty's turn to +get his share of it, and he accepted it with great good nature. They +were such a happy company with almost a whole week of unknown +enjoyment before them, and the gravity of Mr. Seth's face did not +affect their own hilarity. Dorothy had confided to Alfaretta that she +had written to Mrs. Calvert for "another hundred dollars" and the +matter was a "secret" between these two. + +"You, Alfy dear, because you never had, and likely never will have, a +hundred dollars of your own, may have the privilege of planning what +we will do with mine. That's to prove I love you; and if you plan nice +things--real nice ones, Alfy--I'll spend it just as you want." + +Sensible, but not too-sensitive, Alfaretta shook her head, and asked: + +"Do you know how to make a hare pie?" + +"Why, of course not. How should I? I'm not a cook!" + +"First catch your hare! You haven't got your money yet and I shan't +wear my brains out, plannin' no plans--yet. You couldn't get up nicer +times'n the Master does, and he hasn't spent a cent on this House +Party, so far forth as I know, savin' what he put in the collection +plate to church, yesterday. Come on; he promised to tell all he'd +found out about the twinses and all the rest of us is listenin' to him +now." + +So Dorothy had followed to the wide piazza where the young people had +grouped themselves affectionately about their beloved Master; who now +repeated for the newcomers' information: + +"The old man is the children's grandfather, on their father's side. +The twins are orphans, whom the mother's family repudiate, and he has +cared for them, off and on, ever since their father died, as their +mother did when they were born." + +"Oh! the poor little creatures!" cried Helena Montaigne, and snuggled +a twin to her side; while there were tears in Molly Breckenridge's +eyes as she caressed the other. + +"I said 'off and on.' The off times are when the old man is seized by +the desire to preach to anyone who will listen. Then he wanders away, +sleeps where the night finds him, and eats what charity bestows. +Ordinarily, he does not so much as place the babies anywhere; just +leaves them to chance. When they are with him he is very stern with +them, punishing them severely if they disobey his least command; and +they are greatly afraid of him. Well, here they are! I've tried to +place them elsewhere, in a legitimate home; but I hesitate about an +Orphanage until--Time sometimes softens hard hearts!" with this +curious ending Mr. Winters relapsed into a profound reverie and +nobody presumed to disturb him. + +Until Mabel Bruce suddenly demanded: + +"Where's their other clothes?" + +The farrier laughed. Mabel was an interesting study to him. He had +never seen a little girl just like her; and he answered promptly: + +"That's what neither Norah nor I can find out. Only from the +appearance of some ashes in the fireplace of the hut I fear they have +been burned. I took Norah down there early this morning, for a woman +sees more than a man, but even she was disappointed. However, that's +easily remedied. One of the Headquarters we shall visit is in +Newburgh, where are also many shops. Some of you girls must take the +little tackers to one of these places and outfit them with what is +actually needed. Nothing more; and I will pay the bill." + +"Beg pardon, Mr. Seth, but you will not! I will pay myself," cried +Dorothy, eagerly. + +"With what, Dolly dear? I thought you were the most impecunious young +person of the lot." + +"I am--just now; but I shan't be long," answered the young hostess, +with a confident wink in Alfaretta's direction. To which that +matter-of-fact maid replied by a contemptuous toss of her head and the +enigmatical words: + +"Hare pie!" + +"Wagons all ready, Mr. Winters!" announced a stable boy, appearing +around the house corner. + +"Passengers all ready!" shouted Danny Smith, perhaps the very happiest +member of that happy Party. Never in his short, hard-worked life had +he recreated for a whole week, with no chores to do, no reprimands to +hear, and no solitude in distant corn-fields where the only sound he +heard was the whack-whack of his own hoe. A week of idleness, jolly +companionship, feasting and luxury--Danny had to rub his eyes, +sometimes, to see if he were really awake. + +"All ready, all?" + +"All ready!" + +Much in the order of their Sunday's division they settled themselves +for the drive to Newburgh, where the first stop was to be made, except +that Molly Breckenridge declared she must ride beside Dorothy, having +something most important to discuss with her friend. Also, she +insisted that the twins ride with them, on the wagon-bottom between +their feet. + +"They can't fall out that way, and it's about them--I'll tell +everybody later." + +It was an hour when nobody wished to dash the pleasure of anybody +else, so Mr. Seth nodded compliance; saying: + +"Then I'll take this other little lady alongside myself!" and lifted +Luna to the place. + +This time she showed neither fear nor hesitation. She accepted the +situation with that blankly smiling countenance she wore when she was +physically comfortable, and the horses had not traveled far before her +head drooped against the Master's shoulder, as it had against +Dorothy's, and she fell asleep. + +"Poor thing! She has so little strength. She looks well but the least +exertion exhausts her. Like one who has been imprisoned till he has +lost the use of his limbs. I wonder who she is! I wonder, are we doing +right not to advertise her!" thought the farrier; then contented +himself with his former arguments against the advertising and the fact +that Mrs. Calvert would soon be coming home and would decide the +matter at once. + +"Cousin Betty can solve many a riddle, and will this one. Meanwhile, +the waif is well cared for and as happy as she can ever be, I fancy. +Best not to disturb her yet." + +When the wagon stopped at the door of the old stone Headquarters on +the outskirts of Newburgh city, Helena said: + +"It will save time, Mr. Winters, if some of us drive on to the +business streets and do the shopping for these twins. I'm familiar +with this old house--have often brought our guests to see it; so I +could help in the errands." + +"And I!" "And I!" cried Molly and Dolly, together. "Our school used +to come here to study history, sometimes, right from the very things +themselves. Besides--" Here Molly gave her chum such a pinch on the +arm that Dolly ended her explanation with a squeal. + +So it was quickly settled. Mr. Winters handed Helena his purse, which +she at first politely declined to take--having designs herself in that +line. But when he as courteously and firmly insisted, she took it and +said no more. Helena Montaigne would never carry her own wishes to the +point of rudeness; yet in her heart she was longing to clothe the +really pretty children after a fancy of her own. However, she put this +wish aside, and the three girls with the orphans were swiftly driven +to the best department stores the city afforded. + +Here trouble awaited. At the statement that one was a girl and one a +boy--which her own perception would not have taught her--the +saleswoman produced garments suitable for the two sexes. + +"Now which shall I fit first?" she asked smiling at the close +resemblance of the pair. + +"Why, ladies first, I suppose!" laughed Helena and moved one child +forward. The other immediately placed itself alongside, and Molly +exclaimed: + +"Now, I don't know which is which! Anybody got a ribbon? or anything +will answer to tie upon one and so distinguish them. Baby, which are +_you_?" + +The twin she had clasped smiled at her seraphically but made no reply; +merely cocked its flaxen head aside and thrust its finger in mouth. At +once its mate did likewise, and Helena tossed her hands in comical +dismay. + +"Oh! Get the ribbon, please! Then we'll make them _spell_ themselves +and tie the mark on before we forget." + +So they did; and the attendant listened in amusement to the +performance; till finding themselves of so much interest to others the +midgets began again glibly to spell and--both together. Prancing and +giggling, fully realizing their own mischievousness, the babies made +that hour of shopping one which all concerned--save themselves--long +remembered. Also, if there were the slightest difference between the +garments selected for them they set up such a violent protest that +peace could only be restored by clothing them alike. + +So they emerged from the establishment clad in snowy little suits that +seemed as fitting for a girl as for a boy, with pretty hats which they +elected to wear upon their backs, and sandals on their stubby +feet--the nearest approach to shoes to which they would submit. A big +box of suitable underwear was put into the wagon and they were lifted +in after it, while Molly begged to walk a block or two till she found +a confectioner's. + +Here she expended all her pocket-money, and climbing back beside +Dorothy politely opened her big box and offered it to her friends. +Incidentally, to the twins; who stared, tasted, and stared again! + +"My heart! I don't believe they have ever tasted candy! They don't +know what it means!" cried Molly, laughing. + +They soon found out. In a flash they had seized the pasteboard box and +snuggled it between them. Then with it securely wedged beneath their +knees they proceeded to empty it at lightning speed. + +"Why! I never saw anything eat like that, not even a dog! You can't +see them swallow!" said Helena, amazed. "They're getting themselves +all daubed with that chocolate, too--The pity!" + +"Give it back to me, at once!" commanded Molly sternly, but she spoke +to unhearing ears. Then she tried to snatch it away, but they were too +strong for her, as anybody who has ever thus contested with sturdy +five-year-olds can guess. + +"They'll make themselves ill! and they'll ruin their new clothes. What +will Mr. Winters say? Molly, how could you!" wailed Dorothy. "I wish +we'd never brought them. I mean, I wish you hadn't thought of candy. I +wish----" + +"You'd hold your tongue!" snapped Molly, so viciously that her friends +both stared and Dolly said no more. "I don't mean to be so horrid, +girls, but it is so vexatious! I'd spent all I had and meant it to be +such an addition to our picnic dinner in the woods. I'm +ashamed--course--and I apologize. Though I remember Miss Penelope says +that apologies and explanations are almost worse than useless. +Besides----" + +Here Molly paused and looked at Dorothy most meaningly; but whatever +she meant to say further Dolly stopped by a shake of her head, adding: + +"Now it's my turn to apologize, Helena dear, but there's something we +two have in mind that we want to spring on the whole lot of you at +once. Will you forgive and wait?" + +"Surely. But--those children! I hope we'll get back to the others soon +and that Mr. Winters will have more influence with them than we've +had." + +It proved that he had. One glance and word from him and the twins +cowered as if they expected cruel blows, and without the slightest +resistance permitted him to take away the nearly empty box. + +"Doesn't look very tempting now, I think. Best throw it away, +especially as I had already provided sweeties for the crowd. Now, +lads, westward ho! It's nearly dinner time again, and I believe it's +being with so many other hungry youngsters makes me one too!" cried +the Master, stepping to his place and saying with an air of authority +which nobody disputed: "Hand over the twins. I'll take them under my +care for the rest of this day!" + +The Headquarters which they were next to visit, and on whose grounds +they were to picnic, was bordered by a stream that just there widened +into a little lake. As they approached the place, cramped by their +long ride, most of the lads left the wagons to finish the distance on +foot. + +"Ever hear the story of General Lafayette and this creek, Melvin?" +asked Herbert. "Good enough to tell and not against your side either." + +"Go on," said Melvin, resignedly. "I fancy I can match any yarn of +yours with one of my own, don't you know." + +"Can't beat this. In those days there was no bridge here, not even a +footbridge. One had to ford the stream. The General was going to a +party at that very house yonder and was in his best togs. Course, he +didn't want to get his pumps wet so he hired an Irishman--more likely +a Britisher--to carry him over. Half way over--a little slip--not +intentional, of course!--and down goes my General, ker-splash! Just +this way it was! Only it's turn and turn about, now. Young America +totes old England and----" + +"Lads, lads! That footbridge is unsafe! See! The plank's gone in the +middle--Oh! the careless fellows!" + +Having been a boy himself the farrier was prepared for pranks; and the +good-natured badinage between Herbert and the young Canadian had +aroused no anxiety till now. He had been near enough to hear Herbert's +recital of the Lafayette incident but had merely been amused. +Now--Oh! why didn't they keep to the wide, safe bridge, that wagons +used! + +Already it was too late even for his warning. Herbert had only meant +to catch up the slighter Melvin, scare him by pretending to drop him, +but in reality carry him pick-a-pack safely to the further shore. He +considered himself an athlete and wished to show "young England how +they do things in Yankeeland," and with a shout he darted forward. +Headlong he came to the spot above the water where no foothold was--a +space too wide for even his long legs to cover, and all the watchers +shivered in fear. + +But from his elevation on Herbert's back, Melvin had already seen the +chasm and as if he had been shot from a catapult--he cleared it! + +"Hip, hip, hooray! England forever!" yelled Frazer Moore and every +other lad in the company added his cheers. + +Then Melvin, from his side the chasm, doffed his cap and bowed his +graceful acknowledgments for his country's sake. And at sight of that +the girls cheered, too, for Herbert had already regained his feet in +that shallow stream and they could see that he had taken no hurt +beyond a slight wetting. + +"Never mind that. He'll dry off, same as the twins did," laughed Molly +Breckenridge. Which he did, for the sun was warm and his plunge had +been a brief one; and in fact this "little international episode," as +Monty called it, but served to increase the jollity of that day. + +Such a day it proved; without cloud or untoward incident to mar its +happiness; and as they wandered here and there, inspecting for the +last time the historical spot which had given them hospitable shelter, +none dreamed of any mishap to come. Even the twins were tired enough +to behave with uncommon docility, beyond continually removing from one +another the ribbon which should have designated Ananias from Sapphira. + +"They've changed it so often I've really forgotten which is which, but +I'm sure--that is I think--I'm really positive--that the hair with a +kink belongs to Sapphira! After all, that isn't such a dreadful name +when you say it softly," said Molly. + +"I think this is the loveliest old house I ever saw. I'd just like to +stay here forever, seems if. The funny roof, so high up in front and +away down, low almost as the ground behind. The great chimney--think +of standing in a chimney so big you can look straight up, clear +through to the sky!" murmured studious Jane Potter. + +"'Tisn't as big as the Newburgh one, and they haven't any such Hessian +boots, though it does have a secret staircase and chamber," answered +Jim who, also, was greatly interested in the ancient building. "But +come on, Janie; they're getting ready to leave." + +"In just a minute. Just one single minute, 'cause I shan't ever likely +come here again, even if I do live so near it as our mountain." + +Home through the twilight they drove, for kindly Seth couldn't abridge +for his beloved young folks that long, delightful day; and they were +ready to declare, most of them, that even the circus to come could +hardly be more enjoyable than this day's "Headquartering" had been. + +It was then, on that happy return, that Dorothy had found the telegram +awaiting, and had caught it up with a loving thought of her indulgent +Aunt Betty. Then her happiness dashed as by cold water she had flown +out of the room and shut herself in her pretty chamber to cry and feel +herself the most unhappy girl in all the world. + +Twice had Norah come to her door to summon her to supper before she +felt composed enough to go below among her guests. + +Over and over she assured herself that none of them should ever know +how badly she had been treated. Nobody, of course, except Alfaretta, +and the first thing that girl would be sure to ask would be: + +"Have you caught your hare?" In other words: "Did she send the money?" + +But in this she did poor Alfy great injustice. It had needed but one +glance to tell her--being in the secret--what sort of an answer had +come to Dorothy by way of that unexplained yellow envelope. Well, it +was too bad! After all, Mrs. Betty Calvert must be a terribly stingy +old woman not to give all the money she wanted to her new-found, or +new-acknowledged great niece! Huh! She was awful sorry for Dolly +Doodles, to have to belong to just--great aunts! She'd rather have Ma +Babcock, a thousand times over, than a rich old creature like Dolly +had to live with. She would so! + +Therefore it was not at all of news from town that warm-hearted +Alfaretta inquired, as Dorothy at last appeared in the supper room, +but with an indifferent glance around: + +"Why, where's Jane Potter?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MUSIC AND APPARITIONS + + +Where, indeed, was good Jane Potter! The least troublesome, the most +self-effacing, staidest girl of them all. + +"Didn't she ride home with _you_?" + +"Why no. I supposed she did with _you_. That is--I never thought." + +"But--somebody should have thought!" cried Dorothy, diverted from her +own unhappiness by this strange happening. + +"Yes, and that 'somebody' should have been myself," admitted Mr. Seth, +after question had followed question and paling faces had turned +toward one another. + +"Are you sure she isn't in her room?" asked Helena. + +"Sure as sure. I thought it funny she didn't come to clean herself, I +mean put on her afternoon things; but I guessed she was too tired, +and, anyway, Jane never gets mussed up as I do," answered Molly +Martin, tears rising in her eyes. + +The Master rose from his unfinished meal. + +"Then we've left her behind and the poor child will be terrified. I'll +have one of the work horses put to the pony cart at once, and go back +for her. I'd like one of you lads to go with me. I might need +somebody." + +Jim rose and Herbert, and, oddly enough, Mr. Winters nodded to +Herbert; adding to Dorothy: + +"Have a bottle of milk and some food, besides a heavy wrap sent out to +the cart. She will have missed her supper." + +"But you and Herbert are missing yours, too. I shall send something +extra for you two and mind you eat it. I--I'm sure you'll find Jane +all right only maybe frightened," said Dorothy, doing her utmost to +banish anxiety from her friends, though she felt troubled enough in +her own mind. If it had been any other girl but Jane, the steady! + +However, there was the long evening to get through, even though the +rescuing party made their best speed. Many miles stretched between the +old mansion and this with the distance to cover twice; and all the +time there lay on the hostess's heart the burden of her own personal +grief. But she mustn't think of that. She must not. She was a Calvert, +no matter what Aunt Betty said. A gentlewoman. + +Only yesterday Helena had explained that a gentlewoman, "in society," +had no thought save for the comfort of others. Well, she was in +"society" now, and--She almost wished she wasn't! She'd rather have +been a poor little girl, unknowing her own name, who'd never dreamed +of being an heiress and who'd have been free to run away and hide and +cry her eyes out--if she wished! + +So she put her best efforts to her task of entertaining and a jolly +evening followed; though now and then one or another would pause in +the midst of a game and ask: + +"Ought we to be carrying on like this, while we don't know what's +happened to Janie?" Then the spirit of fun would sway them all again; +for, as Alfaretta practically put it: "Whether we laugh or cry don't +make any difference to her. Time enough to solemn down when we find +out she's hurt." + +They were rather noisily singing the old round of "Three Blind Mice," +with each particular "mouse" putting itself into its neighbors' way, +so that the refrain never would come out in the proper order, when it +was caught up by lusty voices in the outer hall and Mr. Seth's deep +tones leading. + +"They've come! They've come--and it must be all right, else they +wouldn't sing like that!" cried Molly Martin, infinitely relieved on +her friend's and room-mate's account; she and the sedate Jane being as +close chums as Dolly and the other Molly were. + +"The Campbells Are Coming," whistled Herbert merrily, and with the air +of a courtier led the embarrassed Jane into the midst of the circle. +She jerked her hand away with the reproof: + +"Don't be silly! I've made trouble enough without acting foolish over +it." + +She seemed so completely ashamed of herself that Dorothy pitied her +and hastened to put her arm about her and say: + +"Why should you think of trouble to anybody else since you're--alive?" + +"Alive! Did you think I might be dead, then? That makes it worse, +still. I was never in the slightest danger. I was only just a--dunce." + +"You couldn't ever be that, Jane Potter!" cried Molly Martin, +enthusiastically embracing the restored one from her other side. + +But Jane shook herself free from the caresses of both and calmly +explained: + +"Since you'll all want to know I may as well tell just how thoughtless +I was. I wanted to find that secret staircase Jim had told about, and +the hidden chamber above it, under the roof. I couldn't at first. It +led out of the paneled chamber, he said, where all the side walls +looked like doors and only one of them would move. Finally, after I'd +tried 'em all, and that took some time, I slid one open. It was the +secret stair; nothing but a close sealed cupboard, so little that even +I could hardly squeeze up it. It wasn't a regular stair, only tiny +three-cornered pieces of board nailed in the back angles, first one +side and then another. They are far apart and some are gone. I thought +I'd never get up the thing, but I hadn't stayed behind to be worsted +by a sort of old grain-chute like that." + +"Weren't you scared? Didn't you feel as if some enemy were after you?" +Molly Breckenridge interrupted to ask. + +Jane coolly sat down and glanced contemptuously at the questioner. All +the company felt a trifle disappointed by Jane's manner. They had +expected a more exciting revelation. + +"What should I be afraid of? I haven't any enemies, as I know." + +"But it must have been very dark in such a place, a shut-in box like +that," protested Helena, who as well as the others thought Jane might +have made more out of her adventure. + +"No, it wasn't, not there. The panel-door let the light through from +the big room where there are no blinds or curtains. All the light +there was--only dusk, you know--came through. It was at the top, after +I'd climbed off the top step into the hidden chamber that it got +dark--black as night. Because, you see, I accidentally hit my foot +against the trap-door and it fell shut. That's all. I ain't dead, you +see, and there's nothing to be sorry for except the trouble I gave Mr. +Winters and this boy. I've told them I was sorry, so that's all there +can be done about it now. Anyway I've learned something, and that is +how a prisoner must feel, shut up in a box like that." + +A sort of groan came from the further side of the room where the +Master had sunk into a great chair as if he were utterly weary. Then +he said: + +"I'm glad Jane is so philosophical. I think she doesn't know just how +dangerous her situation was. The 'hidden chamber' under the roof was +nothing but a closely sealed box, without any possible ventilation. +Nobody could have lived long shut up in that space, breathing the +vitiated air. It was well we found her, and you must all thank God for +a tragedy averted. Nor would I have thought of looking there for her +if Jim hadn't remembered talking with her about the place and told +Herbert just as we started. He'd inspected it himself, had read of it, +yet even I who had visited that old mansion many times didn't know of +its existence." + +"Oh! I wish you'd told us all, Jim Barlow, when we were there! I think +it was selfish mean of you not to, when we were sight-seeing on +purpose," pouted Jolly Molly. + +"Wish't I had, now, since you all seem to care. I didn't think then +anybody--I mean--I didn't think at all, except for myself," frankly +answered the lad, which made them laugh again and so restored their +ordinary mood. + +"Well, it's about breaking up time. I move that Dorothy C. give us a +bit of music from her violin," said the Master, smiling upon his +beloved child. + +She smiled in return but it was such a wan little attempt that it +pained more than pleased him. Something was sorely troubling sunshiny +Dolly and he wondered what, not knowing the purport of her begging +letter to Mrs. Calvert nor what the telegram had said. He feared she +was still grieving about the lost one hundred dollars and could +sympathize in that, for he also grieved and puzzled. He made up his +mind to ask her about it at the first opportunity; meanwhile, there +was the obliging girl already tuning her violin and asking from her +place beside the mantel piece: + +"What shall it be--when I've done squeaking this way?" + +"Yankee Doodle!" "God Save the King!" cried Herbert and Melvin, +together; and immediately she began, first a strain of one, then the +other, till even the mischievous petitioners cried that they had had +enough of that medley and would be glad of a change. + +One after another she played the selections asked, watching with +curiosity which all the others shared, the strange effect her music +had on Luna. The waif now seemed to consider herself entirely one of +the Party--the "Silent Partner," Danny called her; for though she +never spoke she had learned to keep close to some one or other of the +young folks, and so to avoid that big room where Dinah had placed her +earlier on her visit. She took no part in any of their games but +watched them with that vacant smile upon her wrinkled face, keeping +out of the way of being jostled by cuddling down in some corner just +as the twins did. Indeed, there was a close intimacy between the three +"uninvited"; the little ones promptly realizing that no matter how +mischievous they had been and how much they deserved punishment, they +would be unmolested in Luna's neighborhood. She paid scant attention +to them, no more than she did to anything, except gay colors and +music. She slept much of the time, and just as the twins did; cuddled +upon the floor or lounge or wherever drowsiness had overcome her. Yet +let even the faintest strain of music be heard and she would instantly +arouse, her eyes wide open and her head bent forward as one intently +listening; and the strangest part of this attraction was that she +dumbly realized the sort of melody she heard. + +At the jumble of the two national airs she had smiled, then frowned, +and finally looked distressed. It was this expression upon the dull +face she watched that had made Dorothy give over that nonsense, even +more than the protests of her mates; and now as Molly begged: + +"Something of your own making-up, Dolly Doodles!" she let her bow +wander idly over the strings, until a sort of rhythmic measure came to +her; fragments she knew of many compositions but bound into a sheaf, +as it were, by a theme of her own. + +It was a minor, moving melody and slowly but effectually touched the +heart of every listener. Melvin leaned back in his chair and closed +his eyes, picturing to his sometime homesick soul a far-away Yarmouth +garden, with roses such as bloomed no other where and a sweet-faced, +widowed mother gently tending them. + +Helena pondered if she did right to be in this house, a guest, with +her own home so near and her parents thus deserted of both their +children, and unconsciously she sighed. + +James Barlow and Jane Potter, after the habit of each, drifted into +thought of the wide field of learning and the apparent hopelessness of +ever crossing far beyond its boundaries. "The worst of studying is +that it makes you see how little bit you can ever know;" considered +the ambitious lad, while Jane regretted that she had not been left in +peace in that old house from which she had been rescued and so have +had the chance of her life to learn history on the spot. + +More or less, all within the sound of that violin grew thoughtful; but +it was upon poor, "unfinished" Luna that the greatest stress was +wrought. She did not rise to her feet but began to creep toward the +player, inch by inch, almost imperceptibly advancing as if drawn +forward by some invisible force. + +Presently they all became aware of her movement and of nothing else, +save that low undercurrent of melody that wailed and sobbed from the +delicate instrument, as the player's own emotions ruled her fingers. + +Even the Master sat erect, he who made a study of all mankind, touched +and influenced beyond himself with speculations concerning this aged +woman who was still a child. + +"Music! Who knows but that was the key to unlock her closed +intelligence? Oh! what a pity that it came so late! But how sad is +Dorothy's mood to evoke such almost unearthly strains! It's getting +too much for her and for that helpless creature. I must stop it;" +thought the farrier, but didn't put his thought into action. Just then +he could not. + +"Makes me think of a snake charmer I saw once," whispered Monty Stark +to Littlejohn. + +"Ssh! Luna's cryin'! Did you ever see the beat? Alfy Babcock, stop +snivellin' as if you was at a first class funeral!" returned master +Smith, himself swallowing rather hard as he happened to think of his +mother bringing in her own firewood. + +Luna had reached the spot directly before Dorothy and was on her knees +looking up with a timid, fascinated stare. Her small hands were so +tightly clasped that their large veins seemed bursting, and great +tears chased one another down her pink, wrinkled cheeks. Her close +cropped head was thrown back and her back was toward the windows over +which no curtains had been drawn. In her gay frock, which firelight +and lamplight touched to a brilliant flame color, she must have +appeared to one beyond the panes like a suppliant child begging pardon +for some grave misdoing. + +Suddenly Alfaretta screamed, and Molly Breckenridge promptly echoed +her; then bounded to Dorothy's side and snatched the violin from her +hands. + +"Stop it, Dolly, stop it! I couldn't help doing that, for in another +minute you'd have had me and--and everybody crazy! What made you----" + +"Why, Alfaretta! Whatever is the matter? Why do you stand like that, +pointing out into the night as if you'd seen a ghost?" demanded Jane +Potter, going to her schoolmate and shaking her vigorously. "Don't +yell again. It's--it's more frightful to hear you than it was to be +locked up in that hidden chamber, with a spring-locked trap shut +between you and liberty." Which was the only admission this +self-contained young person ever gave that she had once known fear. + +Alfy gulped, shivered, and slowly answered: + +"So I did. It--was a ghost. Or--or--just the same as one! +A--lookin'--a lookin' right through the window--with his face--big +and white--He--he wore a hat----" + +"Wise ghost! Not to cavort around bare-headed on a damp September +night!" cried Monty, as much to reassure his own shaken nerves as +those of the mountain girl. + +"Dorothy's music was so strange--weird you might say--that she's made +us all feel spooky; but we have no apparitions at Deerhurst, let me +tell you," said Herbert, consolingly. + +"Huh! You may say what you like, but that one apparited all right. I +seen it with my very own eyes and nobody else's!" retorted Alfaretta, +with such decision and twisting of good English that those who heard +her laughed loudly. + +The laughter effectually banished "spookiness" and as now poor Luna +sank down upon the floor in her accustomed drowsiness, her enwrapt +mood already forgotten, the Master lifted her in his strong arms and +carried her away to Dinah and to bed. But as he went he cast one keen +glance toward the windows, where nothing could now be seen--if ever +had been--save the dimly outlined trees beyond. Yet even he almost +jumped when Jim, having followed him from the room, touched his arm +and asked: + +"What do you s'pose sent old Oliver Sands to peekin' in our windows?" + + + + + [Illustration: THE GHOST AT THE WINDOW. + _Dorothy's House Party._] + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MORNING TALKS + + +"Did anybody ever know such a succession of beautiful days?" asked +Helena, next morning, stepping out into a world full of bird-song and +sunshine. "And without doing anything extraordinary, nothing that +anybody in the world couldn't have done, what a happy time we're +having. Why, Dolly darling, you--what's wrong, honey? Are you in +trouble? Can I help you?" + +Dorothy had been sitting on the broad piazza, waiting for her guests +and breakfast, a very sober, worried girl. But she now sprang up to +greet her friend and tossing back her dark curls seemed to toss away +anxiety also. A smile rose the more readily, too, for at that moment +there came around the corner Monty Stark and Danny Smith, kindred +spirits, each singing at the top of his voice: + + "The elephant now goes round and round, + The band begins to play, + The little boys under the monkeys' cage + Had better get out of the way-- + Better get out of the wa-a-a-ay!" + +"Mornin' ladies! And let me assure you there'll be peanuts and pink +lemonade enough to go around; for Daniel, my friend here, has just +unearthed a quarter from one of his multitudinous pockets and I'll +agree--to-lay-it-out-for-him-to-the-best-possible-advantage--Right +this way, ladies and gentlemen, only ten cents to see the Double +Headed Woman and to witness the astonishing feat of an Anaconda +Swallowing his own Skin! Right this way, only ten----" + +"Monty Stark, behave yourself! The place for you, young sir, is in the +monkeys' cage, not _under_ it! What have you horrid boys been doing +out there in the barn so early, waking tired little girls out of their +beauty-sleep?" demanded Molly B., appearing on the scene and +interrupting the boy's harangue. + +"Oh! Just doing a few stunts. Practising, you know, against they call +on us to take part in the 'ceremonies.' But it's a pity about that +beauty-sleep. You needed it and I apologize! I mean I never saw you so +charming! Hooray for the circus!" + +"Hooray!" answered Herbert, coming through the doorway, a twin on +either arm. "Say it, 'Nias! Say it, 'Phira!" + +The youngsters squirmed to get away, to slide down out of the boy's +grasp, but he held them securely till, at last grown desperate, one of +them began gravely and distinctly to recite the doggerel which Monty +and Daniel had just sung. + +The performance received great applause and amid the jests and +laughter all turned to follow the summons to breakfast; Herbert +restraining the little ones long enough to adjure them to: "Mind, +you've promised! And you know what happened to some folks you're named +for! No, I shouldn't have said that, poor innocents! I mean you must +do what I told you or you'll lose what I promised." + +"Yep. We's do it, we's do it! I wants my brekkus!" answered one, while +the other echoed: "Brekkus, brekkus!" + +Herbert placed them at a small low table in the corner where Dinah had +decided they must eat, or "take deir meals; fo' as fo' eatins, dey's +cwyin' fo' dem all de whole endu'in time! 'Peahs lak dem li'l ones +nebah would get filled up an' nebah had ernough yet in dis yere +world." + +Yet once at table nobody could find fault with their behavior, except +for the extreme rapidity with which they stowed away their rations. +They seemed afraid to drop a crumb or mess themselves in any way and +the furtive looks they shot out from beneath their long lashes were +pitiful, as if they feared their food would be snatched from them and +themselves punished with blows. That many blows had been administered, +Dinah had early found out, since when bathing them she saw the scars +upon their poor little bodies. + +This had been sufficient to reconcile her to the extra care and labor +their presence imposed upon her; for labor, indeed, they caused. For +instance: stealing into the kitchen where Aunt Malinda had set upon +the hearth a big pan of bread "sponge," to rise, they industriously +dotted its top with lumps of coal from the hod, in imitation of a +huckleberry pudding which had appeared at table. They even essayed to +eat the mixture; but finding this impracticable set to work to force +one another down into the pan of dough--with sufficient success to +ruin the new suits they wore as well as Aunt Malinda's "risin'." +Having discovered that sugar was sweet they emptied a jar of what +looked like it into a fine "floating island" and turned the custard to +brine. They hid Ephraim's glasses, and Dinah's bandana; they unloosed +the dogs, let the chains be fastened ever so securely; they opened the +gate to the "new meadow" and let the young cattle wander therein; and +with the most innocent, even angelic expressions, they plotted +mischief the livelong day. But they redeemed all their wickedness by +their entire truthfulness. Despite their handicap of names, they +acknowledged every misdemeanor and took every punishment without a +whimper. + +"They're regular little imps! But, alanna, what'd this big house be +widout 'em and their pranks?" cried poor Norah, laughing and frowning +together, when called upon for the third time that morning to change +the youngsters' clothes; the last necessity arising from the fact that +they had filled the bathtub and taken a glorious dip without the +formality of removing their garments. "You're the plague of my life, +so you are; but poor motherless darlin's, I can't but love you! And +sorra the day, when him 't you belongs to comes for you again!" + +When that morning's meal was over, the Master planned their day as had +become his habit. Said he: + +"A circus day and the first day of the county fair, as this is, will +crowd the streets of the city with all sorts of teams and people. I've +decided not to risk Mrs. Calvert's horses in Newburgh to-day. We can +all go up by train and have no anxiety about anything. It's but a +down-hill walk, if a rather long one, from here to our own station, +and in town there'll be plenty of stages to carry us to the grounds. +Jim has consented to ride over on horseback early and secure our +places on the front row of seats, if this is possible. I've seen no +reserved seats advertised, but I don't like those insecure upper +benches--or boards--of the tiers of scaffolding, where a fellow has to +swing his feet in space or jab his toes into the back of the spectator +below. Besides, I always did like to be close to the 'ring' when I go +to the circus." + +"O, Teacher! As if you ever went!" cried Alfaretta, giggling. + +"Go? Of course I go every chance I get--to a real country +circus--which isn't often. There's nothing so convinces me that I am +still a little boy as the smell of tanbark and sawdust, and the sound +of the clown's squeaking voice!" + +They laughed. It was so easy and so natural to laugh that morning. +Even Helena, who had enjoyed many superior entertainments, felt her +pulses thrill in anticipation of that day's amusement; and she meant +to let herself "go" for all the fun there might be, with as full--if +not as noisy an abandon--as any "mountain girl" among them. + +Continued Mr. Seth, closely observing Dorothy who, alone of all the +company, was not smiling: "Now, for the morning. I suggest that you +pass it quietly at home; tennis, reading, lounging in hammocks--any +way to leave yourselves free from fatigue for the afternoon. Dinah +says 'Y'arly dinnah'; because all the 'help' want to go to the circus +and I want to have them. So we must get the dishes washed betimes, for +the 'Greatest Show On Earth' opens its afternoon performance at two +o'clock sharp precisely to the minute! and I, for one, cannot, +positively cannot, miss the Grand Entrance! Umm. I see them now, in +fancy's eye, the cream colored horses, the glittering spangles, the +acrobats in tights, the monkeys, the--the----" + +"Oh! Don't say any more, dear Master, or I shall have to ride over +with Jim this morning and see the street parade!" cried Molly +Breckenridge clasping her plump hands in absurd entreaty, while every +lad present looked enviously upon the thus honored James. + +"_I_ could buy circus tickets if I put my whole mind to it. How about +you, Littlejohn Smith?" observed Monty. + +"Give me the cash and let me try!" + +Danny said nothing but his eyes were wistfully fixed upon vacancy, +while Frazer Moore sadly stated: + +"All I ever did see about a circus--so far--was the parade. I run away +to that--once." + +"And got a lickin' for it afterwards, I remember," commented Mike +Martin. + +This was too much for the discipline of that dear old "boy," Seth +Winters, and he cried: + +"See here, lads! I can't stand for that. Nor need I be afraid of +fatigue for _you_. Nothing will tire a single boy of the lot, to-day, +except missing some part of this delectable Show! Scamper! Scatter! +Trot! Vamoose! In short, run to the stables and see if there are +horses enough to go around, counting in the workers. There'll none of +them be needed at Deerhurst to-day. Then you can all ride to town with +our treasurer and put your horses up at the big livery on the High +Street back of the town. See to it that they are made perfectly safe +and comfortable for the day, and tell the proprietor that they are to +be looked after for me. Here, Jamie lad, is an extra ten dollar bill. +Use it judiciously, for anything needed, especially for luncheon for +eight hungry boys. Better get that at some reputable restaurant and +not on the grounds. Also, one of you meet the rest of us at the +station at one o'clock with the tickets. Our whole big Party will make +our own Grand Entrance!" + +"Oh! thank you, thank you!" + +With a simultaneous cry of rapture the lads sped stablewards, leaving +some rather downcast girlish faces behind them. + +"I--I can ride horseback," said Molly B., with a sigh. + +"So can I; and 'tain't far to our house. I guess Pa Martin'd have let +me have old Bess to ride on," responded the other Molly. + +"Shucks! Molly M. How'd you look, rockin' along on that old mare? +Besides, you couldn't keep in sight, even, of the way them boys'll +tear along. Another besides; you know, well's I do, that Mr. Martin +wouldn't hold with no such nonsense as your trapesin' after a circus +parade. Who wants to, anyway? We're born girls and we can't be boys, +no matter how much we try. Since I ain't let to go I'd rather--I guess +I'd rather stay to home and crochet some lace," said practical +Alfaretta and pushed back from table. + +"Wait a minute, Alfy. There's something else I've got to say. It has +been a secret between Dolly and me, but of course we can't keep it +always and I can't a minute longer. It's this: We two girls have +adopted for all their lives the two twins! We've adopted them with our +pocket-money," proudly stated Molly B. + +"Molly! Molly!" cried Dorothy, her face aflame and her eyes swiftly +filling. + +"Yes I shall tell, too. Secrets are the killingest things to bear. I +expect Papa will scold and Auntie Lu make fun but I'm doing it for +charity. I shall put away every bit of my allowance to educate my--my +son--and I shall call him Augustus Algernon Breckenridge. I thought +you might as well know," and with this startling statement the Judge's +daughter threw back her head and eyed the company defiantly. + +The girls stared, all save Dorothy, and the Master laughed, while from +their corners the twins echoed a shrill cackle; then immediately began +to practice the somersaults which Herbert had been at such pains to +teach them. Then Molly rose, with what she considered great dignity, +and, forcing Ananias to stand upon his feet, said in a sweet maternal +tone: + +"Come, my little boy. I want you to keep nice and rested till I take +you to the circus." Then she led him away, Sapphira tugging at her +skirts and Alfaretta remarking: + +"Guess you'll have to adopt the pair, Molly Breckenridge. Them two +stick closer'n glue!" + +In another moment all but the Master and Dorothy had left the room, +and seizing this opportunity he called her to him. + +"Dolly Doodles, I want to talk with you a little. Let's go out to the +old barn--I mean the new one--and have a visit. We haven't had any +cosy confidence talks, remember, since this House Party began." + +It was the very thing she craved. Frank and outspoken by nature, long +used to telling everything to this wise old friend, they had no sooner +settled themselves upon the straw divan, than out it came, with a +burst of sobs: + +"Oh! dear Mr. Seth, I'm so unhappy!" + +"Yes, child. I've seen it. Such a pity, too, on a circus day!" + +"Please, please don't tease me now. Aunt Betty thinks--thinks--I +hardly know--only--read that!" + +From the tiny pocket of her blouse she pulled the fateful telegram and +thrust it into his hand. He had some ado to smooth it out and decipher +the blurred writing, for it had been wet with many tears and +frequently handled. + +"You have made me dangerously angry. You must find that money. +Heretofore there has been no thievery in my house." Signed, "Mrs. +Elisabeth Cecil Somerset-Calvert." + +The farrier whistled softly, and slowly refolded the document; then +drew Dorothy's wet face to his shoulder and said: + +"Yes, little girl, we must find that money. We must. There is no other +way." + +"But how can we? And why should she--she be so angry after having told +me I was all the world to her and that all she had was mine, or would +be." + +"Well, dearie, 'would be' and 'is' are two widely differing +conditions. Besides, she is Betty Calvert and you are you." + +"That's no answer, as I can see." + +"It is all the answer there is. She is an old, old lady though she +doesn't realize it herself. All her life long she has been accustomed +to doing exactly what she wished and when she wished. She has +idealized you and you have idealized her. Neither of you is at all +perfect--though mighty nice, the pair of you!--and you've got to fit +yourselves to one another. Naturally, most of the fitting must be on +your part, since you're the younger. You will love each other dearly, +you do now, despite this temporary cloud, but you, my child, will have +to cultivate the grace of patience; cultivate it as if it were a +cherished rose in your own old garden. It will all come right, don't +fear." + +"How can it come right? How ever in this world? I've promised to adopt +one of the twins and Molly trusts me in that and I haven't a cent. I'm +poorer than I used to be before I was an heiress. Molly will never +believe me again. Then there's all this expense you're paying--the +circus tickets and railway fares and all. It was to be _my_ House +Party, my very own, to celebrate my coming into my rightful name and +home and it isn't at all. It's yours and--Oh! dear! Oh! dear! Nothing +is right. I wish I could run away and hide somewhere before Aunt Betty +comes home. I shall never dare to look at her again after I've made +her 'dangerously angry.' What can that mean? I used to vex Mother +Martha, often, but never like that. Oh! I wish I was _her_ little girl +again and not this----" + +Seth laid his finger on her lip and the wish she might have uttered +and bitterly regretted was never spoken. But the old man's face was +grave as he said: + +"You did not know, but my Cousin Betty means that you have excited her +beyond physical safety. She has a weak heart and has always been +cautioned against undue agitation. It has been a sad business +altogether and I wish you had had more confidence in me and come to me +with that letter before you sent it. As for the 'expenses' of your +Party--it is yours, dear, entirely--they are slight and my +contribution to the general happiness. The only real thing that does +matter, that will be most difficult to set straight is--your suspicion +of old Ephraim. It was that I believe which angered Mrs. Calvert, far +more than the money loss, although she is exact enough to keep a cent +per cent account of all her own expenses--giving lavishly the +meanwhile to any purpose she elects. Poor Ephraim! His heart is +wellnigh broken, and old hearts are hard to mend!" + +Dorothy was aghast. + +"Does he know? Oh! has anybody told him that I suspected him?" + +"Not in words; and at first he didn't dream it possible that his +honesty could be doubted. But--that's the horrible part of +suspicion--once started it's incurable. Side glances, inuendoes, +shrugged shoulders--Oh! by many a little channel the fact has come +home to him that he is connected in all our minds with the loss of +your one hundred dollars. Haven't you seen? How he goes about with +bowed head, with none of his quaint jests and 'darkyisms,' a sober, +astonished old man whose world is suddenly turned upside down. That's +why he refused my money this morning which I offered him for his +circus expenses. 'No, Massa Seth, I'se gwine bide ter home.' Yet of +all the family of Deerhurst, before this happened, he would have been +the most eager for the 'Show.' However, he refuses; and in a certain +way maybe it is as well. Otherwise the place would be left unguarded. +I should keep watch myself, if I didn't think my Dorothy and her mates +were better worth protecting than all Deerhurst. + +"So now, shorten up that doleful countenance. The mischief that has +been done must be undone. Aunt Betty must come home to a loving, +forgiving child; old Ephraim must be reinstated in his own and +everybody's respect; and to do this--that money must be found! Now, +for our friends--and brighter thoughts!" + +"That money _shall_ be found! I don't know how, I cannot guess--but it +shall!" answered Dorothy with great confidence, born of some sudden +inspiration. The talk with the Master had lightened her heart and it +was with a fine resolution to be everything that was dutiful and +tender toward Aunt Betty that she left the barn and rejoined her +mates. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH + + +Deerhurst was deserted. + +With a down-sinking heart old Ephraim had watched the last of the +merry-makers vanish through the gateway, even gray haired Hans and +Griselda joining their fellow employees on this trip to the circus. +The watcher's disappointment was almost more than he could bear. His +love of junketing was like a child's and for many days, as he drove +his bays about the countryside, he had gloated over the brilliant +posters which heralded the coming of "The Greatest Show on Earth." He +had even invited Aunt Malinda to accompany him at his expense, and now +she had gone but he was left. + +"Hmm. It do seem pow'ful ha'd on me, hit sutney do. But--if all dem +folkses is suspicionin' 't ole Eph'aim is a t'ief--My lan', a T'IEF! +Not a step Ah steps to no ca'yins' on, scusin dey fin's Ah isn't. If +my Miss Betty was to home! Oh! fo' my Miss Betty! She's gwine tole +dese yeah Pa'ty folks somepin' when she comes ma'chin' in de doah. Dey +ain' no suspicions ertwixt my Miss Betty an' me." + +His thoughts having taken this course Ephraim found some comfort. Then +the responsibility of his position forced itself to mind. No, he +couldn't go stretch himself on the back porch in the September +sunshine and sleep just yet. Though it was against all custom and +tradition in that honest locality, he would lock up the whole house. +He would begin at the front door and fasten every window and entrance +even to the scullery. There should nothing more be missing, and no +more suspicion fixed on a poor old man. He didn't yet know who had set +the miserable idea afloat in the beginning, and he didn't dream of its +being Dorothy. He had found himself strangely questioned by the other +servants and had met curious glances from the visitors in the house. +Finally, a stable lad had suddenly propounded the inquiry: + +"What did you do with that money, anyway, Ephy? If you don't hand it +back pretty soon there'll be trouble for you, old man." + +He had returned indignant inquiries himself, at last worming the whole +matter out; and then, with almost bursting heart, had gone to Seth +Winters with his trouble. The farrier had comforted as best he could, +had assured the old negro of his own utmost faith in him, but--he +could not explain the absence of the money and his assurances had been +of small avail. + +Whenever he was alone poor Ephraim brooded over the matter. He now +avoided his fellow workers as much as he could. His appetite failed, +his nights were sleepless, and Dinah impressively declared that: "He's +yeitheh been hoodooed or he stole dat money." She was inclined to +accept the first possibility, but with the superstition of her race +felt that one was about as derogatory as the other. So nobody, except +Mr. Winters, had been very sorry to have him stay behind on this +occasion when jollity and not low spirits was desirable. + +At last when all was secure, the care-taker retired to his bench and +his nap, and had been enjoying himself thus for an hour or so, when +the sound of wheels and somebody's "Whooa-a!" aroused him. + +"Ah, friend! Can thee afford to waste time like this?" demanded a +blandly reproving voice; and Ephraim opened his eyes to behold George +Fox and his owner reined up before him. He knew that equipage and +wondered to see it at Deerhurst, whose mistress, he knew, had scant +liking for the miller. + +"Yes, sah. I'se reckon Ah c'n afford hit; bein' mo' inclined to take +mah rest 'an to go rampagin' eroun' to circuses an' such. On yo' way +dar, sah?" + +"I? _I!_ On my way to a circus? Thee must know little of a Friend's +habits to accuse me of such frivolity. Where is that Seth Winters?" +asked Oliver Sands, well knowing what the answer would be and having +timed his visit with that knowledge. + +"He's done gone to de Show, sah. He natchally injoys a good time. Yes, +sah, he's one mighty happy ole man, Massa Seth Winters is, sah." + +"One mighty----" began the miller then checked himself. "I came--but +thee will answer just as well. I'd like to inspect that new barn +Elisabeth Calvert has put up; and, if thee will, show me through her +house as well. I've heard of its appointments and Dorcas, my wife, is +anxious to learn of the range in the kitchen. Thee knows that +women----" + +Again the visitor paused, suggestively, and Ephraim reflected for a +moment. He knew that his Miss Betty was the soul of hospitality and +might upbraid him if he refused to show a neighbor through the +premises. Even strangers sometimes drove into the park and were +permitted to inspect the greenhouses and even some of the mansion's +lower rooms. He had heard such visitors rave over the "old Colonial" +appointments and knew that Deerhurst's mistress had been secretly +flattered by this admiration. + +Ah! but that was before this dreadful thing had happened! When--before +somebody had stolen, some unknown thief had been within those walls! + +"Well, sah, Ah is sutney sorry but, sah, when I'se lef' to care-take, +sah, I care-takes. Some uddah time, when Miss Betty done be yeah, +sah, sutney, sah----" + +The negro's exaggerated courtesy affronted Oliver Sands. It was not +his policy to contest the point, and if he had fancied he could +persuade this loyal care-taker to admit him that he might search the +house as he had searched many other houses of late, he silently +admitted his own mistake and drove away with no further word than: +"Gid-dap, George Fox!" + +But he drove home with head on breast and a keen disappointment in his +heart; which expressed itself in a stern rebuke to his wife as he +entered her kitchen and met her timid, inquiring glance: + +"Thee has maggots in thy head, Dorcas Sands. I advise thee to get rid +of them." + +She might have retorted with equal truth: "So is thee maggotty, +Oliver, else would thee do openly that which should bring thee peace." + +But being a dutiful wife she kept silence, though she brooded many +things in her tender heart; and the incident passed without further +comment than Seth Winters's ambiguous remark, when Ephraim told of the +miller's call: "So the leaven is working, after all." + +But while this trivial affair was happening at Deerhurst, the train +had swiftly carried the household to the hill-city a few miles up the +river; and almost before they were comfortably settled in the crowded +car, the conductor was announcing: "Newburgh next! All out for +Newburgh!" + +"Here we are! And here's our stage! We've chartered a whole one to +carry us up the hill. A hard climb and no time to lose!" called out a +boyish voice and Herbert's tall shoulder shoved a path through the +throng. "There's another empty over yonder, if the 'help' speak quick +enough!" + +But Aunt Malinda standing bewildered and Dinah indignantly correcting +somebody for jostling her, rather delayed this operation; so, at a nod +from the Master, Jim Barlow made a bee line for the vehicle and +stoutly held it as "engaged!" against all comers. + +"It's a case of every man for himself!" laughed Monty, squeezing his +fat body toward the group of girls which was standing apart, amazed +and somewhat dismayed by the press of people. "Oh! Don't get worried, +Molly, by a little jam like this. Wait till you see the grounds. I +declare it seems as if everybody between New York and Albany had come +to the 'Show.' It is a big one, I guess, and the Parade was fine. +Sorry we didn't bring all of you, pillion, old-style, so you could +have seen it, too." + +"Monty, stop! It's cruelty to girls to harrow up their feelings that +way! As if we didn't all _think_ 'pillion' and long to suggest it, +only our diffidence prevailed. But come! Mr. Seth has piloted the +servants to their stage and is waiting for us!" answered Molly +Breckenridge and was the first to spring up the narrow steps at the +rear of the rickety omnibus and run to its innermost corner, where she +extended her arms to receive her "son" whom she had kept in charge +during the ride in the car. The other Molly had passed him on to her, +he submitting in wide-eyed astonishment at all the novelty of this +trip. Helena held Sapphira as closely, and Dorothy's arm was tightly +clasped about Luna's waist, who, oddly enough, was the least +affrighted of them all. + +"Won't the horses be afraid? Supposin' they should run away!" cried +Molly Martin, who had seldom been in the town and never on such an +occasion as this. + +"Pooh! Them horses won't run 'less they're prodded into it. They look +as if they'd been draggin' stages up and down these hills all their +lives and never expected to do anything else," answered Alfaretta, +quickly. "Don't you get scared, Molly, I ain't." + +Indeed, of all that happy party Alfaretta was, maybe, the happiest. +Her face was one continual smile and her chatter touched upon +everything they passed with such original remarks that she kept them +all laughing. Seth beamed upon her from his place beside Luna, and was +himself delighted to see that Dorothy was now as gay as any of the +others. For the time being any worries she had had were forgotten; and +it was she who exclaimed in astonishment, as they came to the grounds +and climbed out of the stage: + +"'Do I wake or am I dreaming'! If there isn't Miss Penelope +Rhinelander! and Miss Greatorex is with her! True, true! Who'd ever +believe _they'd_ come to a circus!" + +"Reckon they'd say they did it to study natural history--elephants and +things!" laughed Molly, waving her hand vigorously to attract the +attention of her old teachers. + +But they did not see her, so occupied were they in endeavoring to be +of a crowd and yet not in it. + +"Shucks! There's Dr. Sterling! That I worked for last year and went +trampin' with last summer! Who'd ha' believed a _minister_ would go to +a circus!" now almost shouted Jim Barlow. + +"Why, I would, laddie. I'll warrant you that every grown-up in the +town who has a child friend he can make an excuse of to bring here has +done it! Funny they should offer excuses, when there isn't a man or +woman but, at sound of a circus band, remembers their childhood and +longs to attend one once more. For myself, I prefer a good, +old-fashioned 'show' to the finest opera going. The one touches my +heart, the other my head. But here we are, and Miss Helena, I see +you're beginning to perk up, now you find yourself in such good +company." + +For he had overheard that young lady, despite her morning's resolution +to "do just as the rest did and forget it was silly," remark to Mabel +Bruce in confidence that: + +"If I'd known, even dreamed, that we should have to mix with such a +rabble, I should have stayed at Deerhurst!" + +This was when they had had to scramble for their stage; and Mabel had +affectedly replied: + +"Me too. My folks never do like to have me make myself common; and +this organdie dress will be torn to ribbons." + +Seth had smiled then, overhearing, and bided his time. Well he +understood how one emotion can sway an entire crowd, and he but waited +till they should have arrived to see even these contemptuous lassies +catch the "circus spirit." So he couldn't resist this little jest at +Helena's expense, which she took now in great good nature; by then +they had come to the entrance to the big tent where the chief +performance would be given. + +This entrance was guarded by a wooden stile, from which a narrow +canvas-covered passage led to the inner door. At the stile tickets +were sold, and these were in turn taken up by the collector at the end +of the passage which opened directly into the tent. + +"Speaking of crowds! Was ever such another one as this!" gasped Melvin +Cook, as he found himself in the swirl of persons seeming to move in +two directions, as, indeed, they were. Then he looked around for his +friends and to his consternation saw Molly Breckenridge tossed to and +fro in a hopeless effort to extricate herself, and that she held one +of the twins by hand, till suddenly the child fell beneath the very +feet of the crowding adults. + +"My baby! Oh! O-oh!" screamed Molly, and an instant's halt followed, +but the jam was to be immediately resumed. + +Fortunately, however, that instant had been sufficient for tall Jim +Barlow to stoop and lift the child on high. + +"Hang on to me, Molly! I'll kick and jam a way through. 'Twill be over +in a minute, soon's we get to the inside and have--you--got--your +ticket?" + +"Ye-e-es! But--but--I'll never come to a +circus--again--never--never----" + +"You haven't got to this one yet," returned Jim, breathlessly. Then he +discovered Mr. Winters standing inside the tent, and extending his +arms to receive the uplifted little one which Jim at once tossed +forward like a ball. + +At last they were all inside. The Master had been more fortunate in +piloting his especial charges, Luna and Sapphira, through that +struggling mob; but it was in a tone of deep disgust that he now +exclaimed: + +"Oh! the selfishness of human nature! A moment's delay, a touch of +courtesy, and such scenes would be avoided. The struggle for 'first +place,' to better one's self at the expense of one's neighbor, is an +ugly thing to witness." + +"But, Teacher, when you get in such a place you have to just do like +the rest and act piggish, too," said Alfaretta. "I guess I know now +how 't one them panics that you read about, sometimes, could happen. +If one them jammers went crazy, or scared, all the rest would too, +likely." + +"Exactly, Alfaretta. But, let's think of pleasanter things. Let's +follow James." + +After all, though Mr. Winters had doubted there would be, the lad had +secured reserved seats and on "the front row near the entrance," just +as that gentleman had desired; so presently, they had arranged +themselves upon the low-down bench where, at least, their feet could +touch bottom; and where with a comical air the farrier immediately +began to sniff the familiar odor of fresh turned sod covered with +sawdust, and turning to his next neighbor remarked: + +"I think I'm nine years old, to-day, nine 'goin' on' ten." + +But his facetiousness was wasted upon sedate Jane Potter; who did not +even smile but reflected: + +"If that old man's going to talk silly I'll change places with +Alfaretta. And if the performance isn't to begin right away I'll just +walk around and look at the animals' cages." + +She did this, laying her handkerchief and jacket on her vacated seat, +though her host called after her: + +"You may not be able to get your place again, in such a crowd." + +However, if she heard she did not turn back and was presently out of +sight in the line of promenaders continually passing. Also, his own +face grew sober at the sound of thunder, and he clasped his arm more +protectingly around Luna's waist, who sat on his other side, and +counselled Dorothy, just beyond: + +"Do you and Molly keep close care of the twins. There's a storm +brewing and timid people may stampede past us toward the door." + +"Why, would anybody be afraid in a big tent like this?" asked Dolly, +surprised. + +"Some might. But--Hark! Hooray! Here we come!" + +The band which had been playing all the time now broke into a more +blatant march, a gaily accoutred "herald" galloped forth from a wide +opening at the rear of the tent, then turned his steed about to face +that opening, waving his staff and curveting about in the most +fantastic manner. Then the silence of expectation fell upon that mass +of humanity, the promenaders settling into any seats available, warned +by men in authority not to obstruct the view of those on the lower +benches. + +As a cavalcade of horses appeared Mr. Winters looked anxiously down +into Luna's face. To his surprise it showed no interest in the scene +before her but was fast settling into its habitual drowsiness. + +"Well, after all, that's best. We could not leave her behind and I +feared she would be frightened;" he observed to Dorothy. + +"Yes, I'm glad, too. Keep still, 'Phira! You must keep still, else you +may be hurt. Wait. I'll take you on my lap, as Molly has 'Nias. +Now--see the pretty horses?" answered Dorothy, and involuntarily +shivered as a fresh thunderclap fell on her ears. + +Alfaretta leaned forward to remark: + +"It's begun to rain! But isn't it cute to be under a tent and just let +it rain! Ah! My soul! Ain't they beautiful? Look, girls, look, them +first ones is almost here! A-ah! them clowns! And monkeys--to the far +end there's real monkeys ridin' on Shetland ponies! Oh! my heart and +soul and body! I'm so glad I come!" + +She finished her comments, standing up and swaying wildly from side +to side, till somebody from the rear jabbed her shoulders with an +umbrella point, loudly commanding: "Down front! Down front!" + +She dropped into her seat with a shriek, which somebody somewhere +promptly caught up and echoed, while at that same instant a flash of +lightning illuminated even that interior which had grown so strangely +dark, and on the instant came a terrific crash. + +Another woman screamed, and Seth Winters's face paled. He knew how +very little it would now take to start a panic. But the band played +the louder, the performers went round and round the great ring, the +clowns frolicked and the monkeys pranked, and he inwardly blessed the +discipline which kept every player to his post, as if such electric +storms were every day incidents. + +"What are those men doing to the roof?" suddenly demanded Molly Martin +of her neighbor, James, calling his attention to the sagging canvas +and the employees hurrying hither and thither to lift it on the points +of great poles. Then would follow a splash of water down the slope +from the central supporting pole of that flimsy roof, dashing off at +the scalloped edges upon the surrounding ground. + +"Water's heavy. I guess they're afraid it'll break and douse the +people. Hi! But that was a teaser! It don't stop a minute and it's +getting blacker'n ink. Never heard such a roar and it don't let up a +second. They'll have to stop the performance till it slacks up, +and--What fools these folks are that's hurrying out into that +downpour!" + +"Maybe--maybe--they're safer outside. Rain won't hurt--much--but +circus tents are sometimes blown down--I've read----" + +"Now come, Alfy Babcock, just hold your tongue! Rough way to speak but +I mean it. Hear what the Master said? How it was mighty easy to start +a panic but impossible to stop one, or nigh so? Everyone that keeps +still and behaves helps to make somebody else do it. Here, boy, fetch +them peanuts this way? Dip in, Alfy, I'll treat, and I see the +lemonade feller's headed this way, too. Whilst we're waitin' we might +as well----" + +Even Jim's philosophy was put to the test just then, for with a peanut +half-way to his lips his hand was arrested by another terrific crash +and the swishing tear of wet canvas. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +IN THE GREAT KITCHEN + + +Still the band played on. The cavalcade paced round and round the +ring, while a hundred workmen--it seemed--swarmed to the repair of the +torn tent. Fortunately, the injured portion was that occupied as +dressing rooms and stables for the performers, so that few of the +audience suffered more than fright. Indeed, most of the spectators +realized as Mr. Winters had done, the danger of panic and the wisdom +of composure, so remained in their places. + +Also, with the same suddenness that had marked its rising the storm +ended and the sun shone out. One mighty sigh of relief swept over +those crowded tiers of humanity, and the indefatigable band struck up +a new and livelier note. The tight-rope dancer sprang lightly into the +ring and went through her hazardous feats with smiling face and airy +self-confidence; the elephants ascended absurdly small stools, and +stood upon them, "lookin' terribly silly, as if they knew they were +makin' guys of themselves," so Mike Martin exclaimed, though he still +kept his fascinated eyes upon their every movement. There was the +usual bareback riding and jumping through rings: the trapeze, and the +pony quadrille; in short, all that could be expected of any well +conducted "Show," while above all and below all sounded the clown's +voice in a ceaseless clatter and cackle of nonsense. + +Laughter and badinage, peanuts and pink lemonade; men and women turned +back to childhood, smiling at the foolishness enacted before them but +more at their own in thus enjoying it; and the "Learned Blacksmith" +who had pondered many books finding this company around him the most +interesting study of them all. + +It was this that he loved about a circus; and, to-day, at their first +one, the faces of Ananias and Sapphira held his gaze enthralled. + +"Dolly, Dolly Doodles! Do watch them!" he cried for sympathy in his +delight. "Did ever you see eyes so bright? Mouths so wide agape? and +happiness so intense! Ah! if those to whom they belong could see them +now, all hardness would vanish in a flash!" + +Dorothy looked as he desired, but her glance was less of admiration +than of anxiety. She had seen what he did not see and was hearing what +he did not; a face and figure somberly different from the tri-colored +one of the clown, and a voice more raucously insistent than his. + +All at once the twins also saw and heard. Their attention was +clutched, as it were, from those adorable monkeys a-horseback, which +had come once more to the very spot before where they stood, and whom +in their baby-souls they envied frantically. + +"HIM!" shrieked Ananias. + +"H-I-M!" echoed Sapphira, all her pretty pink-and-whiteness turned the +pallor of fear. + +There was a flash of bare feet and blue-denimed legs and the terrified +twins had leaped the velvet-topped barrier bordering the ring and were +scurrying heedlessly away, how and where they cared not except to be +safe from that "Him" whose memory was a pain. + +"My soul! They'll be killed--the little rascals!" cried Jim, and +leaped the barrier, in pursuit. + +"He can't catch 'em! I'll help!" and fat Monty rolled himself over the +fence. + +"What's up, boys?" demanded Frazer Moore; and, perceiving, added +himself to the rescuing party. Ditto, Mike; then Littlejohn and Danny. +This was the chance of a lifetime! to be themselves "performers." Only +Melvin and Herbert rose, hesitating, amazed--and, seeing the little +ones, whom everybody tried to catch and who eluded every grasp, in +such imminent peril of trampling horse-hoofs, they also followed the +leader. + +Even Mr. Winters rose to his feet and watched in deep anxiety the +outcome of this escapade, and the darting nimbleness of two small +figures which everybody, from the ring-master down, was chasing like +mad. Only the trained horsemen and their following troupe of monkeys +kept on unmindful; while from the seats on every side ran shouts of +laughter. To most of those onlookers this seemed a part, a +delightfully arranged part, of the entertainment. Only those nearest, +and the farrier was one of them, realized that the strange old man +with the croaking voice was an alien to that scene. A half-crazed old +man who felt called upon to deliver his "message" of warning to a +sinful world, at all times, seasons, and places. He had stumbled upon +this as a fine field and, unbalanced though his mind was, it had yet +been clear enough for him to purchase a ticket and enter in the +customary way. + +"Oh! will he take the twins away?" asked Dorothy, clasping her hands +in dismay. "And will they--be--killed!" + +"I think not, to both questions. Evidently he has not perceived the +children though they were quick enough to discover him. The pity! that +one should inspire such fear in his own household! But, see! See!" + +Mr. Winters forgot the old exhorter for the moment and laughed aloud. + +In the ring the clown had, at first, pretended to join in the pursuit +of the nimble runaways, but only pretended. Then he suddenly perceived +that they were growing breathless and had almost fallen beneath the +feet of a mighty Norman horse. The man beneath his motley uniform rose +to the emergency. Catching the bridle of a near-by pony, he flung the +monkey from its back, scooped the babies up from the ground, set them +in the monkey's place and, mounting behind them, triumphantly fell +into line. + +It was all so quickly done that its bravery was but half appreciated; +and the absurdly grinning mask which he now waggled from side to side, +as if bowing to an outburst of applause, roused a roar of laughter. As +for Ananias and Sapphira--their felicity was complete. The stern +grandparent was forgotten and the only fact they knew was this +marvelous ride on a marvelous steed, and most marvelous of all, in the +friendly grasp of the tri-colored person behind them. + +Mr. Winters turned from them for a moment, at the sound of a scuffle +near by. An instant's glance showed him that the poor fanatic was +being roughly handled by some employees of the circus, and he stepped +forward protesting: + +"Don't do that! He'll go quietly enough if you just ask him. He's a +feeble old man--be gentle!" + +"But we want no 'cranks' in here creating a disturbance! Enough has +happened this performance, already!" + + [Illustration: THE TWINS AND CLOWN ON THE SHETLAND PONY. + _Dorothy's House Party._] + +"Jim! James Barlow! Herbert Montaigne!" These two were the only ones +left still in the ring of the lot who had pursued the runaway twins, +the others having shamefacedly retreated as soon as they saw the +children were safe. They looked toward the Master yet lingered to +receive the twins whom their captor was now willing to resign; they +struggling to remain and a mixed array of flying legs and arms +resulting. + +However, neither screams nor obstreperous kicks availed to prolong +that delectable ride, and presently the little ones found themselves +back in the grasp of a bevy of girls who made a human fence about +them, and so hedged them in to safety. + +"Lads, I must leave you to see our girls safe home. Do so immediately +the performance is over and it must be nearly now. This poor old chap +is ill and bemused by his rough handling. I'm going to take him to a +hospital I know and have him cared for. I'll go down to Deerhurst as +soon as I can but don't wait for me. Come, friend. Let us go;" and +linking his strong arm within the weak one of the man, scarce older +yet so much frailer than he, he walked quietly away, the fanatic +unresisting and obedient. + +With the Master's departure the glamour faded from the "Show"; and at +Helena's suggestion the whole party promptly made their exit. + +"It's a wise move, too, Helena. We can catch the five o'clock train +down and it won't be crowded, as the later one will be. I fancy we've +all had about all the circus we want--this time. Anybody got a rope?" +said Herbert. + +"What in the world do you want of a rope?" asked his sister. + +"I think if we could tie these irrepressibles together we could better +keep track of them." + +There were some regretful looks backward to that fascinating tent, +when the older lads had marshalled their party outwards, with no +difficulty now in passing the obstructing stile; but there were no +objections raised, and the homeward trip began. But they had scarcely +cleared the grounds when Molly Martin paused to ask: + +"Where's Jane Potter?" + +"Oh! hang Jane Potter! Is she lost again?" asked Danny Smith. Then +with a happy thought, adding: "I'll go back and look for her!" In this +way hoping for a second glimpse of the fairy-land he had been forced +to leave. + +Whereupon, his brother reminded him that he had no ticket, and no +fellow gets in twice on one. Besides, that girl isn't--Hmm. + +"She's probably lingered to study biology or--or something about +animals," observed Monty. "Any way, we can afford to risk Jane Potter. +Like enough we shall find her sitting on the piazza writing her +impressions of a circus when we get home." + +They did. She had early tired of the entertainment and had been one of +the first to leave the tent after the accident to it. Once outside, +she had met a mountain neighbor and had begged a ride home in his +wagon. Jane was one to be careful of Jane and rather thoughtless of +others, yet in the main a very good and proper maiden. + +But if they did not delay on account of Jane they were compelled to do +so by the twins. + +"These children are as slippery as eels," said Molly, who had never +touched an eel. "I'll lend my 'son' to anybody wants him, for awhile. +I'd--I'd as lief as not!" she finished, quoting an expression familiar +to Alfy. + +"And I'll lend 'Phira!" added Dorothy. + +She had tried to lead the little one and still keep her arm about +Luna, who by general consent was always left to her charge. + +"All right. Give her here!" said Frazer; while Herbert whistled for a +waiting stage to approach. But as it drew near and the girls began to +clamber in, preparatory to their ride stationwards, Ananias jerked +himself free and springing to one side the road began a series of +would-be somersaults. It was an effort on his part to follow Herbert's +instructions--with doubtful success. Of course, what brother did +sister must do, and Sapphira promptly emulated her twin. + +"Oh! the mud! Just look at them! How can we ever take them in that +stage with us?" asked Mabel Bruce, in disgust. + +But the happy youngsters paid no attention to her. Having completed +what Herbert had taught them to call their "stunt" they now approached +their instructor and demanded: + +"Candy, what you promised!" + +"All right. Driver, we'll stop at the first confectioner's we pass and +I'll fill them up." + +"But, Herbert, you should not. Don't you remember how ill they were +from Molly's supply? And I do say, if you led them into this scrape, +getting themselves in such a mess, you'll have to ride in front and +keep them with you." + +Herbert made a wry face. He was always extremely careful in his dress +and his sister's just suggestion wasn't pleasant. However, he made the +best of it and no further untoward incident marked that day's outing. + +Arrived at home they found Jane calmly reading, as has been told, and +no other one about except old Ephraim, who had not unfastened the +doors for "jes one l'il gal," but now threw them wide for the "House +Party." Then he retreated to the kitchen, where Dorothy found him +stirring about in a vain attempt to get supper--a function out of his +line. + +"Now, Ephy, dear, you can't do that, you know! You're a blessed old +blunderer, but one doesn't boil water for tea in a leaky coffee-pot! +Wait! I'll tell you! I'll call the girls and we'll make a 'bee' of it +and get the supper ourselves, before Aunt Malinda and Dinah and the +rest get back. They'll be sure to stay till the last----" + +"Till the 'last man is hung'!" finished Alfaretta, with prompt +inelegance. + +"Oh! I'm just starving!" wailed a boyish voice, and Monty rushed in. + +"So are we all, so are we all!" cried others and the kitchen rang with +the youthful, merry voices. + +Ephraim scratched his gray wool and tried to look stern, but Dorothy's +"Ephy, dear!" had gone straight to his simple heart, so lately wounded +and sorrowful. After all, the world wasn't such a dark place, even if +he had missed the circus, now that all these chatterers were treating +him just as of old. They were so happy, themselves, that their +happiness overflowed upon him. + +Cried Jim Barlow, laying a friendly hand on the black man's shoulder: + +"Come on, Ephy, boy! If the girls are going to make a 'bee,' and get +supper for all hands--including the cook--let's match them by doing +the chores for the men. The 'help' have done a lot for us, these days, +and it's fair we do a hand's-turn for them now! Come on, all! Monty, +you shall throw down fodder for the cattle--it's all you're equal to. +Some of us will milk, some take care of the horses, everybody must do +something, and I appoint Danny Smith to be story-teller-in-chief, and +describe that circus so plain that Ephraim can see it without the +worry of going!" + +"Hip, hip, hooray! Let's make a lark of it!" echoed Herbert, now +forgetful of his good clothes and eager only to bear his part with the +rest. + +"Well, before we begin, let's get the twins each a bowl of bread and +milk and tie them in their chairs, just as Dinah does when they +bother. They mustn't touch that candy till afterward, though I don't +know how Herbert ever kept it from them so long," said Molly +Breckenridge, adjusting a kitchen apron to her short figure by tucking +it into her belt. + +"I know! I sat on it!" called back the lad and disappeared barnwards. + +Luna was placed in her corner and given a bowl like the twins, and the +girls set to work, even Jane Potter asking to help. + +"What all shall we cook? I can make fudges," said Molly. + +"Fudges are all right--you may make some, but I want something better +than sweets. Helena, you're the oldest, you begin. Suggest--then +follow your suggestions. Fortunately we've a pretty big range to work +on and Ephraim can make a fire if he can't make tea. It's burning +fine. Hurry up, Helena, and speak, else Alfaretta will explode. She's +impatient enough," urged Dorothy. + +"Once--I made angel food," said Helena, rather timidly. "It didn't +turn out a real success, but I think that was because I didn't use +eggs enough." + +"How many did you use?" + +"A dozen." + +"Try a dozen and a half. There's a basket of them yonder in the +storeroom and everybody must wait on everybody's self. Else we'll +never get through. I'll light up, it's getting dark already," answered +Dorothy who, as hostess, was naturally considered director of affairs. + +"Well, Alfy! What will you do?" + +"I can fry chicken to beat the Dutch!" + +"Hope you can," laughed Helena. "I'm not fond of Dutch cookery, I've +tried it abroad. They put vinegar in everything." + +"But where will you get chicken to fry?" + +"There's a whole slew of them in the ice-box, all ready fixed to cook. +I suppose Aunt Malinda won't like it, to have me take them, if she's +planned them for some other time, but there's plenty more chickens in +the world. Come along, Jane Potter, and get a pan of potatoes to peel. +That's the sitting-downest job there is. Molly Martin, you can make +nice raised--I mean bakin'-powder biscuit--there's the flour barrel. +Don't waste any time. Everybody fly around sharp and do her level +best!" + +After all it was Alfaretta who took charge, and under her capable +direction every girl was presently busy at work. + +"I'm going to make pies. Two lemons, two punkins, two apples. That +ought to be enough to go around; only they'll all want the lemon ones. +'Christ Church,' Teacher told me when I made him one once. Said 'twas +the pastry cook at Christ Church College, in England, 't first thought +them out. I can make 'em good, too. What you goin' to make, yourself, +Dorothy Calvert?" + +"I reckon--pop-overs. Mother Martha used to make them lovely. They're +nothing but eggs and flour and--and--I'll have to think. Oh! I know. +There's an old recipe book in the cupboard, though I don't believe +Malinda can read a word in it. She just spreads it out on the table, +important like, and pretends she follows its rules, but often I've +seen it was upside down. Do you know how she makes jelly?" + +"No, nor don't want to. We ain't makin' jelly to-night, and do for +goodness' sake get to work!" cried Alfaretta, imparting energy to all +by her own activity. "Ma says I'm a born cook and I'm going to prove +it, to-night, though I don't expect to cook for a living. Jane Potter, +you ought to know better than peel them 'tatoes so thick. 'Many +littles make a mickle,' I mean a lot of potato skins make a +potato--Oh! bother, do right, that's all. Just because Mrs. Calvert +she's a rich 'ristocratic, 'tain't no reason we should waste her +substance on the pigs." + +Jane did not retort, but it was noticeable that thereafter she kept +her eyes more closely on her work and not dreamily upon the floor. +Presently, from out that roomy kitchen rose a medley of odors that +floated even to the workers out of doors; each odor most appetizing +and distinct to the particular taste of one or another of the lads. + +"That's fried chicken! Glad they had sense enough to give us something +hearty," said Monty, smacking his lips. + +Herbert sniffed, then advised: "I'll warrant you that Helena will try +angel cake. If she does, don't any of you touch it; or if you think +that isn't polite and will hurt her feelings, why take a piece and +leave it lie beside your plate. Wonder if they'll ever get the supper +ready, anyhow." + +"Afraid it'll be just 'anyhow,'" wailed Monty. "Those girls can't cook +worth a cent." + +"Don't you think that, sir. Our up-mountain girls are no fools. I hope +Alfaretta Babcock will make pies, I've et 'em to picnics and they're +prime," said Mike Martin, loyally. + +"Well, I only hope they don't keep us too long. I begin to feel as if +I could eat hay with the cattle." + +After all, the young cooks were fairly successful, and the delay not +very great. Most of them were well trained helpers at home, even +Dorothy had been such; but this time she had failed. + +"Three times I've made those things just exactly like the rule--only +four times as much--and those miserable pop-overs just will not pop! +We might as well call the boys and give them what there is. And----" + +At this moment Dorothy withdrew her head from a careful scrutiny of +the oven, and--screamed! The next instant she had darted forward to +the imposing figure framed in the doorway and thrown her arms about +it, crying: + +"O, Aunt Betty, Aunt Betty! I'm a bad, careless girl, but I love you +and I'm so glad, so glad you've come!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AUNT BETTY TAKES A HAND + + +That picnic-supper! The fun of it must be imagined, not described. +Sufficient to say that it was the merriest meal yet served in that +great mansion; that all, including Mrs. Calvert, brought to it +appetites which did not hesitate at "failures," and found even +Helena's angel cake palatable, though Herbert did remark to his next +neighbor: + +"If they'd had that kind of leathery stuff instead of canvas to cover +that circus tent it would never have broken through, never in the +world!" + +Not the least delighted of that company were the servants, who +returned late from their outing, and had had to walk up the mountain +from the Landing; they having lingered in the hill-city till the last +possible train, which there were no local stages to meet. + +"And to think that our Miss Dorothy had the kindness to get supper for +us, too! Sure, she's the bonniest, dearest lass ever lived out of old +Ireland. Hungry, say you? Sure I could have et the two shoes off my +feet, I was that starved! And to think of her and them others just +waitin' on us same's if we was the family! Bless her! And now I'm +that filled I feel at peace with all the world and patience enough to +chase them naughty spalpeens to their bed! See at 'em! As wide awake +now as the morn and it past nine of the night!" cried Norah, coming +into the room where the twins were having a delightful battle with the +best sofa cushions; Mrs. Calvert looking on with much amusement and as +yet not informed who they were and why so at home at Deerhurst. + +The chatter of tongues halted a little when, as the clock struck the +half-hour, Mr. Seth came in. He looked very weary, but infinitely +relieved at the unexpected return of the mistress of the house, and +his greeting was most cordial. Indeed, there was something about it +which suggested to the young guests that their elders might wish to be +alone; so, one after another, they bade Mrs. Betty good-night and +disappeared. + +Dorothy, also, was for slipping quietly away, but Aunt Betty bade her +remain; saying gently: + +"We won't sleep, my child, till we have cleared away all the clouds +between us. As for you, Cousin Seth, what has so wearied you? +Something more than chaperoning a lot of young folks to a circus, I +fancy." + +"You're right. The afternoon performance was a pleasure; the ride home +a trial." + +"With whom did you ride?" + +"Oliver Sands." + +"Indeed? How came----" + +"It's a long story, Cousin Betty. Wouldn't we better wait till +morning?" + +"Don't you know how much curiosity I have? Do you want to keep me +awake all night?" demanded the lady. But she believed that her old +friend had some deep perplexity on his mind and that it would be a +comfort to him to share it with her. "Is it something Dorothy may +hear?" + +"Certainly, if you wish. Already she knows part. Has she told you how +the twins came here?" + +"Somebody told, I forget who. All of the young folks talked at once, +but I learned that they had been dropped on our premises, like a +couple of kittens somebody wished to lose." + +"Exactly; and though he did not personally 'drop' them, the man who +most heartily wishes to lose them is miller Oliver Sands. They are his +most unwelcome grandchildren." + +"Why, Cousin Seth!" "Why, Master!" cried the hearers, amazed. + +"True. Their mother was Rose Sands, whom her father always +believed--or said--was ruined by the foolish name her mother gave her. +His sons were like himself and are, I believe, good men enough, though +tainted with their father's hardness." + +"Hardness. That suave old Quaker! But you're right, and I never liked +him." + +"Nor I, I'm sorry to say, but I don't wish to let that fact stand in +the way of fair judgment. The man is in trouble, deep trouble. I'm not +the only one who has noticed it. His behavior for awhile back has been +most peculiar. He neglects his business, leaves the fruit in his +vineyards and orchards to go to waste, and to his workmen's question: +'What shall we do next,' returns no answer. He has taken to roaming +about the country, calling at every house and inspecting each one and +its surroundings as if he were looking for something he can't find. +His face has lost its perpetual smile--or smirk--and betrays the fact +that he is an old man and a most unhappy one." + +"Huh! I've no great sympathy for Oliver Sands. He has wronged too many +people," said Mrs. Calvert, coldly. "But if those children are his +grandchildren, what are they doing here?" + +"I'm coming to that. His daughter, Rose, 'married out of meeting,' and +against her father's will. He turned her out of doors, forbade her +mother ever to see or speak to her again, and though--being a +Friend--he took no oath, his resolution to cast her off was equivalent +to one. That part of my tale is common neighborhood gossip." + +"I never heard it," said Mrs. Betty. + +"No; such would scarcely be retailed to you. Well, Rose took refuge +with her husband's people, and all misfortune followed her flight from +her father's house. Her mother-in-law, her consumptive husband, and +herself are dead; she passing away as the twins came into the world. +The father-in-law, who was only a country-cobbler, but a profoundly +religious man, became half-crazed by his troubles, and though I +believe he honestly did his best by the babies left on his hands, they +must have suffered much. They have never been so happy as now and I +hope----" + +"Please, Mr. Seth, let me tell! Aunt Betty, if you'll let me, I want +to adopt Sapphira!" + +"Adopt--Sapphira! You? A child yourself?" + +"Yes, please. I'll go without everything myself and I'd work, if I +could, to earn money to do it. Molly is going to adopt Ananias. It +will be lovely to have some object in life, and some the Seniors at +the Rhinelander adopted some Chinese babies. True. They pay money each +month, part of their allowance, to do it; so we thought----" + +But Aunt Betty was leaning back in her chair and laughing in a most +disconcerting manner. It's not easy to be enthusiastic on a subject +that is ridiculed and Dorothy said no more. But if she were hurt by +having her unselfish project thus lightly treated, she was made +instantly glad by the tender way her guardian drew her close, and the +gentle pat of the soft old hand on her own cheek. + +"Oh! you child, you children! And I made the mistake of thinking you +were as wise as a grown-up! We'll attend to the 'adoption' case, by +and by. Let Cousin Seth say his say now." + +"Well, finally, the old man, Hiram Bowen, forsook his old home, sold +his few belongings and came here to our mountain. He must have had +some sense left, and realized that he was not long for this world, +because though until lately he has been unforgiving to Oliver Sands +for the treatment of Rose, he now sought to interest her father on the +little ones' behalf. I've learned he made frequent visits to +Heartsease, the Sands' farm, but only once saw its owner. But he often +saw Dorcas, the wife, and found her powerless to help him; besides, he +did not mend matters, even with her, by explaining that he had named +the twins as he had--'_after her husband, and herself!_' He told her +that she and Oliver were living liars, because the Scripture commanded +Christians to look after their own households and they did not do so." + +"But how could her heart, the heart of any woman, remain hard against +the sight of her orphan grandchildren?" demanded Mrs. Calvert, +impatiently. "I've met that Dorcas Sands on the road, going to meeting +with the miller, and she looked the very soul of meekness and +gentleness." + +"So, I believe she is; but she never saw the children. I told you he +was crazed, partially; and despite the fact that he felt their +mother's family should care for the orphans he did not want to give +them up, permanently. He felt that in doing so he would be consigning +them to a life of deceit and unscrupulousness." + +"How strange! And, Seth, how strange that you should know all this. +It's not many days since that old man 'passed them on' to us. You must +have been busy gathering news," commented Mrs. Betty. + +"I have; but the most of it I learned this afternoon, when I was +taking the fanatic to the Hospital. Dolly, you tell her about his +harangue in the tent and what the twins did there. It will give a +diversion to my thoughts, for it _was_ funny!" + +So Dolly told and they all laughed over the recital, and in the +laughter both Mrs. Calvert and Dorothy lost the last bit of constraint +that had remained in their manner whenever either chanced to remember +the missing one hundred dollars and the sharpness of the telegram. + +Mrs. Calvert resumed: + +"You say, taking him to the Hospital. Have you done that, then? And +how came you with Oliver Sands? The last man in the world to be drawn +to Newburgh to see a circus." + +"Not the circus, of course, but the county fair. He got up enough +interest in ordinary affairs to drive to the fair grounds to see his +cattle safely housed. He will have, I presume, the finest exhibit of +Holstein-Friesians on the grounds. He always has had, and has carried +off many first premiums. He's on the board of managers, too, and they +had a business meeting at the Chairman's, which is next door to St. +Michael's--the semi-private establishment where I took Bowen. He was +just unhitching George Fox, to come home, as I stepped out of the +Hospital grounds and met him." + +"So you asked him for a lift down?" asked Aunt Betty, smiling. + +"No, I didn't ask. He was so preoccupied, and I so full of what poor +old Hiram had told me, that I just 'natchally' stepped into the rear +seat without the formality of a request. Truly, I don't think he even +noticed me till we were well out of the city limits and on to the +quiet back road. Then I asked: 'How much will you pay, Friend Oliver, +toward the support of Hiram Bowen at St. Michael's Hospital?' + +"Then he heard and noticed. Also, he tried to get rid of his +passenger; but I wouldn't be set down. He gave me a rather strong bit +of his opinion on meddlers in general and myself in particular, and +finding he had me on his hands for all the distance here he said not +another word. It was 'Quaker Meeting' in good earnest; but I felt as +if I were riding with a man of iron and--it tired me!" + +"Oh, you dear Master! Did you have any supper?" suddenly demanded +Dorothy, with compunction that she hadn't thought of this earlier. + +"Oh! yes. Some little girls were holding a sidewalk 'fair' for the +benefit of the children's ward and, while the authorities inside were +arranging for Hiram's bestowal, I bought out their stock in trade and +we ate it all together. I do love children!" + +Aunt Betty rose and turning to Dorothy, remarked: + +"That should be a much better use for your money when you find it than +adopting the grandchildren of a rich old Hardheart! Come, child, we +must to bed; and to-morrow, we'll take home the twins. 'Pass them on' +to Heartsease." + +"Oh! must we? But, maybe, they won't keep them there. Then, course, +you wouldn't leave them just anywhere, out of doors, would you? +Besides, I don't know what Molly will say. She's perfectly devoted to +her 'son,' 'Nias." + +"Do you not? Then I know very well what her Aunt Lucretia and his +honor, the Judge, will say; I fancy that their remarks will have some +weight! But I'm not hard-hearted, as you suggest, and we shall see +what we shall see!" answered Aunt Betty, in her bright, whimsical way; +adding as she bade Mr. Winters good-night and kissed Dorothy just as +if no "cloud" had ever been between them: + +"I am glad to be at home. I am so glad to come, even thus late to the +House Party." + +And though she had said the misunderstanding that had made both +herself and Dolly so unhappy "should be set right that very night," +maybe this was her way of "setting" it so. + +Thus ended another Day of that Wonderful Week, but the morning proved +rainy and dark. + +"No day for going to the County Fair," remarked Mrs. Calvert as she +appeared among the young folks, just as they came trooping in to +breakfast. "We must think of something else. What shall it be? Since +I've invited myself to your Party I want to get some fun out of it!" + +Helena thought she had never seen anything lovelier than this charming +old lady, who moved as briskly as a girl and entered into their +amusements like one; and when nobody answered her question she +volunteered the suggestion: + +"Charades? Or a little play in the big barn?" + +"Just the thing; the charades, I mean. There would hardly be time for +getting ready for a play, with parts to study and so on. We might plan +that for Friday evening, our last one together. But do you, my dear, +gather part of your friends about you and arrange the charades. Enough +of us must be left for audience, you know. Well, Dorothy, what is it? +You seem so anxious to speak?" + +"Why not 'character' studies and make everybody guess. There's that +attic full of trunks I discovered one day. Surely they must be full of +lovely things; and oh! it's so jolly to 'dress up'! Afterward, we +might have a little dance in the barn--May we, may we?" + +"Surely, we may! Dinah has the keys to the trunks, only I warn you--no +carelessness. It's one of my notions to preserve the costumes of the +passing years and I wouldn't like them injured. You may use anything +you find, on the condition of being careful." + +That rainy day promised to be the merriest of all; and Dorothy had +quite forgotten some unpleasant things, till, breakfast being over and +most of the company disappearing in pursuit of Dinah and her keys to +the treasure-trunks, Aunt Betty laid a detaining touch upon her arm +and said: + +"But you and I, my dear, will have a little talk in my room." + +Down went her happiness in a flash. The "misunderstanding" had not +been passed by, then; and as yet there had been no "setting right." +Mrs. Calvert's face was not stern, saying this, but the girl so +thought. Indeed, had she known it, Aunt Betty shrank more from the +interview and the reproof she must give than did the culprit herself. +However, shrinking did no good, and immediately the Mistress had +seated herself she began: + +"What grieved me most was your suspicion of Ephraim. Dorothy, that +man's skin may be black but his soul is as white as a soul can be. He +has served me ever since he was able to toddle and I have yet to find +the first serious fault in him. The loss of the money was bad enough, +and your scant value of it bad. Why, child, do you know whose money +that was?" + +"I--I thought it was--mine." + +"It was--God's." + +"Aunt--Betty!" almost screamed Dorothy in the shock of this statement. + +"Yes, my dear, I mean it. He has given me a great deal of wealth but +it was His gift, only. Or, His loan, I might better call it. I have to +give an account of my stewardship, and as you will inherit after me, +so have you." + +For a moment the girl could not reply, she was so amazed by what she +heard. Then she ventured to urge: + +"You said you gave it to me for my House Party. How could it be like +that, then?" + +"So I did. I 'passed it on,' as poor Hiram Bowen did the twins. Then +it became your responsibility. It was a trust fund for the happiness +of others, and for their benefit. Why, just think, if you hadn't been +so careless of it, how much good it would have done even yesterday, +for that very old man! Then dear Seth wouldn't have had to tax his +small income to pay for a stranger's keep. Ah! believe me, my Cousin +Seth spends money lavishly, but never unwisely, and always for others. +When I said 'dangerously angry' I meant it. I am, in some respects, +always in danger, physically. I shall pass out of your life quite +suddenly, some day, my darling, but I do not wish to do so by your +fault. + +"Now, enough of lectures. Kiss me and tell me that hereafter you will +hold your inheritance as a 'trust,' and I shall trust you again to the +uttermost. Next I want you to go over every incident of that night +when you mislaid the money and maybe I can hit upon some clue to its +recovery." + +It was a very sober Dorothy who complied. It didn't seem a very +pleasant thing to be an heiress. She had found that out before, but +this grave interview confirmed the knowledge; and though they +discussed the subject long and critically, they were no nearer any +solution of the mystery than when they began. + +"Well, it is a strange and most uncomfortable thing. However, we can +do no more at present, and I'd like you to take a little drive with +me." + +"This morning, Aunt Betty, in all this rain? Ought you? Won't you get +that bronchitis again? Dinah----" + +"Dinah is an old fuss! She never has believed that I'm not soluble in +water, like salt or sugar. Besides, I'm not going 'in the rain,' I'm +going in the close carriage, along with you and the babies with the +dreadful names. I'm going to have them renamed, if I can. Run along +and put on your jacket. I think I've solved the riddle of my neighbor +Oliver's unhappiness and I'll let no rain hinder me from making him +glad again." + +"Dear Aunt Betty, will you do this for a man you do not like?" + +"Of course. I'd do it for my worst enemy, if I knew--and maybe this +poor miller is that. What ails that man is--remorse. He hasn't done +right but I'm going to give him the chance now, and see his round face +fall into its old curves again." + +But good and unselfish as her mission was, for once the lady of +Deerhurst's judgment was mistaken. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A MARVELOUS TALE AND ITS ENDING + + +Oliver Sands was shut up in his private office. It opened from another +larger room that had once been tenanted but was now empty. The +emptiness of the great chamber, with its small bed and simple +furnishings, both attracted and repelled him, as was witnessed by the +fact that he frequently rose and closed the door, only to rise again +directly and open it again. Each time he did this he peered all about +the big room, whose windows were screened by wire netting as well as +by a row of spruce trees. These trees were trimmed in a peculiar +manner and were often commented upon by passers along the road beyond. +All the lower branches, to the height of the window-tops, were left to +grow, luxuriantly, as nature had designed. But above that the tall +trees were shaven almost bare, only sufficient branches being left to +keep them alive. Also, beyond the trees and bordering the road was a +high brick wall, presumably for the training of peach and other fruit +trees, for such were carefully trained to it. + +But the same wondering eyes which had noticed the trees had observed +the wall, where indeed the fruit grew lusciously after a custom +common enough in England but almost unknown in this region. + +"Looks like both trees and wall were planned to let light into that +side the house and keep eyes out. But, has been so ever since +Heartsease was, and nothing different now." + +No, everything was outwardly unchanged, but his home was not like his +home, that morning, when Mrs. Betty Calvert came to call. The rain +that had kept him within had sent him to pass the hours of his +imprisonment in his "den," or office, and to the congenial occupation +of looking over the cash in his strong box. He was too wise to keep +much there, but there had been a time when the occupation had served +to amuse the inmate of the big room, and he was thinking of her now. + +Indeed, when there came a knock on the outer door he started, and +quickly demanded: "Well?" + +"Oliver, Betty Calvert, from Deerhurst, has called to see thee," said +the trembling voice of Dorcas. + +"Why? What does she want?" + +"To bring thee news. To bring thee a blessing, she says." + +"I will come." + +He rose and locked the strong box, inwardly resolving that its +contents must be placed in the bank when next he drove to town, and he +again carefully closed the door of the further room. But if there had +been any to observe they would have seen his face grow eager with hope +while his strong frame visibly trembled. He was not a superstitious +man but he had dreamed of Deerhurst more than once of late and news +from Deerhurst? A blessing, Dorcas said? + +He entered the living-room, cast one eager glance around, and sat +down. He had offered no salutation whatever to Mrs. Calvert and the +gloom had returned to his face even more deeply. Dorcas was standing +wringing her hands, smiling and weeping by turns, and gazing in a +perfect ecstasy of eagerness upon Ananias and Sapphira, huddled +against Dorothy's knees. She held them close, as if fearing that cross +old man would do them harm, but they were not at all abashed, either +by him or by the novelty of the place. + +"Well, Oliver Sands, you like plain speech and use it. So do I--on +occasion. I have brought home your grandchildren, Rose's children. +Their grandfather on the other side has been committed to an +institution and will give you no trouble. He 'passed them on' to my +household and I, in turn, 'pass them on,' to yours, their rightful +home. You will feel happier now. Good-morning." + +"What makes thee think he is unhappy?" ventured Dorcas, at last +turning her eager gaze away from the twins. + +"All the world sees that. He's a changed man since last we met, and I +suppose his conscience is troubling him on account of the way he +treated Rose and her children. Their demented grandfather, on the +other side, gave them horrible names. I'd change them if I were you. +Good-morning." + +But if the miller had not sought to detain her nor responded to her +farewell, Dorcas caught at her cloak and begged: + +"Wait, wait! Oliver, does thee hear? Elisabeth Calvert is going. She +is leaving Rose's babies! What--what--shall I do? May I keep them +here? Say it--Oliver speak, speak, quick! If thee does right in this +thing mayhap the Lord will bless thee in the other! Oliver, Oliver!" + +He shook her frail hand from his sleeve but he spoke the word she +longed to hear, though the shadow on his face seemed rather to deepen +than to lighten and astute Betty Calvert was non-plussed. She had so +fully counted upon the fact that it was remorse concerning his +treatment of his daughter which burdened him that she could not +understand his increased somberness. + +But he did speak, as he left the room, and the words his wife desired: + +"Thee may do as thee likes." + +Then Mrs. Calvert, too, went out and Dorothy with her; strangely +enough the twins making no effort to follow; in fact no effort toward +anything except a pan of fresh cookies which stood upon the table! +and with their fists full of these they submitted indifferently not +only to the desertion of their friends but to the yearning embraces of +their grandmother. + +"Oh! what perfectly disgusting little creatures! Didn't mind our +leaving them with a stranger nor anything! Weren't they horrid? And it +didn't make him look any happier, either, their coming." + +"No, they were not disgusting, simply natural. They've been +half-starved most of their lives and food seems to them, just now, the +highest good;" said Aunt Betty, as the carriage door was shut upon +them and they set out for home. "I cannot call it a wasted morning, +since that timid little woman was made glad and two homeless ones have +come into their own. But--my guess was wide of the mark. It isn't +remorse ails my miller neighbor but some mystery still unsolved. Ah! +me! And I thought I was beautifully helping Providence!" + +"So you have, Aunt Betty. Course. Only how we shall miss those twins! +Seems if I couldn't bear to quite give 'Phira up. Deerhurst will be so +lonesome!" + +"Lonesome, child! with all you young folks in it? Then just imagine +for an instant what Heartsease must have been to that poor wife. Shut +up alone with such a glum, indifferent husband, in that big house. I +saw no other person anywhere about, did you?" + +"No, and, since you put it that way, of course I'm glad they're to be +hers not Molly's and mine." + +"The queer thing is that he was so indifferent. I thought, I was +prepared to have him rage and act--ugly, at my interference in his +affairs; but he paid no more attention than if I had dropped a couple +of puppies at his fireside. Hmm. Queer, queer! But if I'm not mistaken +his young relatives will wake him up a bit before he's done with +them." + +After all, though Dorothy had hated to leave the other young folks on +such an errand, through such weather, and in some fear of further +"lectures," the ride to Heartsease had proved delightful. She wouldn't +have missed the rapture on lonely Dorcas Sands's pale face for the +wildest frolic going and, after all, it was a relief to know the +"twinses" could do no more mischief for which she might be blamed; and +it remained now only to appease the wrath of Molly Breckenridge when +she was told that her adopted "son" had been removed from her +authority without so much as "By your leave." + +Naturally, Molly said nothing in Mrs. Calvert's presence, but vented +her displeasure on Dorothy in private; until the latter exclaimed: + +"You would have been glad, just glad, Molly dear, to hear the way the +poor old lady said over and over again: 'Rose's children! Rose's +children!' Just that way she said it and she was a picture. I wish I +was a Quaker and wore gray gowns and little, teeny-tiny white caps and +white something folded around my shoulders. Oh! she was just too sweet +for words! Besides--to come right to the bottom of things--neither of +us _could_ adopt a child, yet. We haven't any money." + +"Pshaw! We could get it!" + +"I couldn't. Maybe you could; but--I'm glad they're gone. It's better +for them and we shouldn't have been let anyway, and--where's Helena?" + +"Up garret, yet. They're all up there. Let's hurry. They'll have all +the nicest things picked out, if we don't." + +They "hurried" and before they knew it the summons came for luncheon. +After that was over Danny Smith and Alfaretta Babcock mysteriously +disappeared for a time; returning to their mates with an +I-know-something-you-don't sort of an air, which was tantalizing yet +somehow suggested delighted possibilities. The afternoon passed with +equal swiftness, and then came the costume parade in the barn; the +charades; and, at last, that merry Roger de Coverly, with Mrs. Betty, +herself, and Cousin Seth leading off, and doing their utmost to teach +the mountain lads and lassies the figures. + +All the servants came out to sit around and enjoy the merry spectacle +while old Ephraim, perched upon a hay-cutter plied his violin--his +fiddle he called it--and another workman plunked away on his banjo +till the rafters rang. + +"Oh, such a tangle! And it seems so easy!" cried Jane Potter, for once +aroused to enthusiasm for something beside study. "Come on, Martin! +Come half-way down and go round behind me--Oh! Pshaw! You stupid!" + +Yet uttered in that tone the reproof meant no offense and Jane was as +awkward as her partner, but the dance proved a jolly ending for a very +jolly day. Only, the day was not ended yet; for with a crisp command: + +"Every one of you get your places an' set round in a circle. It's +Danny's and my turn now, and--Come on, Daniel!" Alfaretta vanished in +the harness room. + +Danny followed, rather sheepishly, for despite his love of fun he +didn't enjoy being forced into prominence; and from this odd retreat +the pair presently emerged with great pans of snowy popped-corn, +balanced on their heads by the aid of one hand, while in the other +they carried each a basket of the biggest apples even Melvin had ever +seen; yet the wonder of the Nova Scotian apples had been one of his +proudest boasts. + +"Jump up, Jim, in your 'Uncle Sam' clothes and fetch the jugs out. +Fresh sweet cider, made to farmer Smith's this very day! There's nuts +in there all cracked, for some of you other fellows to bring and +tumblers and plates 't Aunt Malinda let us take. We've had ice-cream +and plum-puddin' and every kind of a thing under the sun and now we're +going to have just plain up-mounting stuff, and you'll say it's prime! +Danny and me done this. We planned it that night Monty got stuck--Oh! +my soul, I forgot!" + +"Never mind. I don't care," said Monty; and, maybe to prevent another +doing so, promptly related for Mrs. Calvert's benefit the tale of his +misadventure. Indeed, he told it in such a funny way that it was plain +he was no longer sensitive about it; and he finished with the remark +that: + +"If Deerhurst folks don't stop feeding me so much I may even get stuck +in that big door!" + +The quiet sitting and talking after so much hilarity was pleasant to +all and tended to a more thoughtful mood; and finally clapping her +hands to insure attention Molly Breckenridge demanded: + +"A story, a story! A composite story! Please begin, Mrs. Calvert: +'Once upon a time----' Then let Helena, my Lady of the Crinoline take +it up and add a little, then the next one to her, and the next--and so +on all around the ring. The most fun is to each say something that +will fit--yet won't make sense--with what went just before. Please!" + +"Very well: 'Once upon a time and very good times they was, there was +a Mouse and a Grouse and a Little Red Hen and they all lived in the +one house together. So wan day, as she was swapin' the floor, they met +a grain o' cor-run.' 'Now, who'll take that to the mill?' 'I won't,' +says the Mouse. 'Nayther will I!' say the Grouse. 'Then I'll aven have +to do it mesel,' says the Little Red--Next!" + +Irish Norah was in ecstasies of laughter over her mistress's imitation +of her own brogue, and all the company was smiling, as Helena's +serious voice took up the tale: + +"'Twas in the dead of darksome, dreadful, dreary night, when the +Little Red Hen set forth on her long, lonely, unfrequented road to the +Mill. The Banshees howled, the weird Sisters of the Night made +desperate attempts to seize the Grain of Corn--Next!" + +"Which, for safe keeping the fearless Little Red Hen had already +clapped into her own bill--just like this! So let the Banshees howl, +the Weird Sisters Dree their Weird--for Only Three Grains of Corn, +Alfy! Only Three Grains of Corn!" cried Monty, passing his empty +plate; "and I'll grind them in a mill that'll beat the Hen's all +hollow! while Jane Potter--next!" + +"For the prisoner was terrified by the sounds upon the roof and after +brief deliberation and close investigation he came to the conclusion, +'twas a snare and a delusion to toy with imagination and fear +assassination till the hallucination became habituation and his mental +aberration get the better of his determination toward analyzation +of the sound upon the roof. Of the pat, pat, patter and the clat, +clat, clatter of small claws upon the roof! Then with loud +cachinnation--Next!" + +"To drive the Little Red Hen off from the roof he sprang up and bumped +his head against it; and the act was so unexpected by said Hen that +she flew off, choked on her grain of corn and--Next!" cried Jim, while +everybody shouted and Mrs. Calvert declared that she had never heard +such a string of long words tied together and asked: + +"How could you think of them all, Jane?" + +"Oh! easily enough. I'd rather read the dictionary than any other +book. I've only a school one yet but I've most enough saved to buy an +Unabridged. Then----" + +"Oh! then deliver us from the learned Jane Potter! Problem: If a small +school dictionary can work such havoc with a young maid's brain will +the Unabridged drive her to a lunatic asylum? or to the mill where the +Little Red Hen--Next!" put in Herbert, as his contribution. + +"The little Red Hen being now corn-fed, and the Mill a thing she never +would reach, the Mouse and the Grouse thought best to put an end to +her checkered career and boil her in a pot over a slow fire; because +that's the way to make a fowl who had traveled and endured so much +grow tender and soft-hearted and fit to eat, corn and all, popped or +unpopped--Pass the pan, Alfaretta! while the pot boils and the Little +Red Hen--Next!" continued Littlejohn Smith, with a readiness which was +unexpected; while Molly B. took up the nonsense with the remark that: + +"The Little Red Hen has as many lives as a cat. All our +great-great-great-grandmothers have heard about her. She was living +ages and--and eons ago! She was in the Ark with Noah--in my toy Ark, +anyway; and being made of wood she didn't boil tender as had been +hoped; also, all the lovely red she wore came off in the boil +and--what's happening? 'Tother side the ring where Dolly Doodles is +holding Luna with both hands and staring--staring--staring--Oh! My! +What's happening to our own Little Red Hen!" + +What, indeed! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE FINDING OF THE MONEY + + +In this instance the Little Red Hen was Luna. As always when possible +she had seated herself by Dorothy, who shared none of that repugnance +which some of the others, especially Helena, felt toward the +unfortunate. She had been cleanly if plainly clothed when she arrived +at Deerhurst, but the changes which had been made in her attire +pleased her by their bright colors and finer quality. + +The waif always rebelled when Dinah or Norah sought to dress her in +the gray gown she had originally worn or to put her hair into a snug +knot. She clung to the cardinal-hued frock that Dorothy had given her +and pulled out the pins with which her attendants tried to confine her +white curls. In this respect she was like a spoiled child and she +always carried her point--as spoiled children usually do. + +Thus to-night: To the old nurse it had seemed wise that the witless +one should go to her bed, instead of into that gay scene at the barn. +Luna had decided otherwise. Commonly so drowsy and willing to sleep +anywhere and anyhow, she was this night wide awake. Nothing could +persuade her to stay indoors, nothing that is, short of actual force +and, of course, such would never be tried. For there was infinite +pity in the hearts of most at Deerhurst, and a general feeling that +nothing they could do could possibly make up to her for the +intelligence she had never possessed. Also, they were all sorry for +her homelessness, as well as full of wonder concerning it. The +indifferent manner in which she had been left uncalled for seemed to +prove that she had been gotten rid of for a purpose. Those who had +lost her evidently did not wish to find her again. Yet, there was +still a mystery in the matter; and one which Mrs. Calvert, coming +fresh upon it, was naturally resolved to discover. The poor thing was +perfectly at home at Deerhurst now, and judging by her habitual smile, +as happy as such an one could be. But though the mistress of the +mansion felt that her household had done right in sheltering the +wanderer and in allowing her to partake of all their festivities, she +did not at all intend to give a permanent home to this stranger. She +could not. Her own plans were for far different things; and since she +had, at last, been so fortunate as to bestow the twins in their +legitimate home, she meant to find the same for Luna. + +So the guest who was both child and woman had carried her point and +was one in the ring of story-tellers. She paid no heed to what was +going on but amused herself with folding and unfolding her red skirt; +or in smoothing the fanciful silk in which Dorothy appeared as a belle +of long ago. + +The pair were sitting on a pile of hay, leaning against a higher one, +and Dorothy had been absorbed in listening to the composite story and +wondering what she should add to it. Her head was bent toward Luna and +she dreamily watched the movements of her neighbor's tiny wrinkled +hands. Suddenly she became aware that there was a method in their +action; that they were half-pulling out, half-thrusting back, +something from the fastening of the scarlet blouse. + +This something was green; it was paper; it was prized by its +possessor, for each time Dorothy moved, Luna thrust her treasures back +out of sight and smiled her meaningless smile into the face above her. +But Dorothy ceased to move at all, and the dreaminess left her gaze, +which had now become breathlessly alert and strained. + +She watched her opportunity and when again Luna drew her plaything +from her blouse, Dorothy snatched it from her and sprang to her feet, +crying: + +"The money is found! The money is found! My lost one hundred dollars!" + +Strangely enough Luna neither protested nor noticed her loss. The +drowsiness that often came upon her, like a flash, did so now and she +sank back against her hay-support, sound asleep. + +All crowded about Dorothy, excited, incredulous, delighted, sorely +puzzled. + +"Could Luna have stolen it, that foolish one?" + +"But she wasn't in the house the night it was lost. Don't you +remember? It was then that Dolly found her out by the pond. It +couldn't have been she!" + +"Do you suppose it blew out of the window and she picked it up?" + +"It couldn't. The window wasn't opened. It stormed, you know." + +Such were the questions and answering speculations that followed +Dorothy's exclamation, as the lads and lassies found this real drama +far more absorbing than the composite tale had been. + +Mrs. Calvert and Mr. Seth alone said nothing, but they watched with +tender anxiety to see Dorothy's next action. That it satisfied them +was evident, from the smiles of approval gathering on their faces and +the joyous nodding of the gray heads. Their girl hadn't disappointed +them--she was their precious Dorothy still. + +She had gone straight to where old Ephraim and his cronies now sat in +a distant part of the barn, enjoying their share of the good things +Alfy and Danny had provided, and kneeling down beside him had laid the +roll of money on his knee. Then audibly enough for all to hear, she +said: + +"Dear Ephraim, forgive me, if you can. This is the money I lost, the +ten crisp ten-dollar bills. Count them and see." + +"No, no, li'l Missy! No, no. An' fo' de lan', doan you-all kneel to a +pore ole niggah lak me! Fo' de lan', Missy, whe'-all's yo' pride an' +mannehs?" + +Her posture so distressed him that she rose and said, turning to her +friends that all might hear: + +"It was I, and I alone, who put that money out of sight. I remember +now as clearly as if it were this minute. That red frock was the one I +wore that night when Luna came. There is a rip in it, between the +lining and the outside of the waist. It was an oversight of the +maker's, I suppose, that left it so, but I never mended it, because it +made such a handy pocket, and there was no other. I remember plain. +When the crash came I gathered up the money and thrust it into that +place. Instinct told me it was something to be cared for, I guess, +because I'm sure I didn't stop to think. Then when I went to bed I +must have been too excited to remember about it and left it there. The +next day I gave that frock to Luna and she has worn it ever since. How +long before she found the 'pocket' and what was in it, she can't tell +us. We've heard the 'help' say how quickly she noticed when money was +around and I suppose she's been afraid we'd take it from her; although +she didn't resent it just now when I did. Oh! I am so ashamed of +myself, so ashamed!" + +Nobody spoke for a moment, till Ephraim rose and taking his fiddle +solemnly played the Doxology. That wasn't speaking, either, in a +sense; but it told plainer than words the gratitude of the simple old +man that the shadow on his character was banished forever. + +Seth Winters nodded his own gray head in understanding of the negro's +sentiment, while Dorothy sped with the bills to lay them in her Aunt +Betty's lap, and to hide her mortified countenance upon the lady's +shoulder. Thence it was presently lifted, when Mrs. Calvert said: + +"Now the lost is found, I'd like to inquire what shall be done with +it? It'll never seem just like other money to me or to my forgetful +darling here. Let's put it to vote. Here's my notebook, Dolly; tear +out a few leaves and give a scrap of the paper to each. Pass the +pencil along with them and let each write what she or he thinks the +most beneficent use for this restored one hundred dollars." + +So it was done; even those among the servants grouped inside the great +doors, having their share of the evening's sport, even among these +those who could write put down their wish. + +Then Jim Barlow collected the ballots and sorted them; and Seth +Winters's face shone with delight when it proved the majority had +voted: + +"For the old man at St. Michael's." + +So at once they made him take the money in charge; and it made all +glad to hear him say: + +"That will keep the poor old chap in comfort for many a day," for he +would not damp their joy by his own knowledge that Hiram Bowen's days +could not be "many," though he meant that they should be the most +comfortable of all that pain-tormented life. + +"Well, our rainy day has proved a blessed one! Also, the storm is over +and to-morrow should bring us fair weather for--the County Fair! All +in favor of going say Aye!" cried the Master. + +The rafters rang again and again, and they moved doorwards, regretful +for the fun just past yet eager for that to come; while there was not +a young heart there but inwardly resolved never again to harbor +suspicion of evil in others, but to keep faith in the goodness of +humanity. + +Meanwhile, what had this rainy day seen at Heartsease Farm? Where the +twins of evil names had been left to their new life, and their +maternal grandfather had so coolly turned his back upon them, while +they satisfied their material little souls with such cookies as they +had never tasted before. + +Dorcas let them alone till they had devoured more than she felt was +good for them, and until Ananias turning from the table demanded: + +"Gimme a drink." + +"Gimme a drink!" echoed his mate; and the old lady thought it was +wonderful to hear them speak so plainly, or even that they could speak +at all. But she also felt that discipline should begin at once; and +though not given to embellishment of language she realized that their +"plain speech" was not exactly that of the Friends. + +"Thee tell me thy name, first. Then thee shall drink." + +"A-n an, a, ana, n-i ni, a-s as, Ananias." + +"S-a-p sap, p-h-i phi, r-a ra," glibly repeated the girl, almost +tripping over her brother in her eagerness to outdo him. + +Dorcas Sands paled with horror. Such names as these! Forced upon the +innocent babes of her Rose! It was incredible! + +Then, in an instant, the meekness, the downtroddenness of the woman +vanished. Her mission in life was not finished! Her sons had gone out +from her home and her daughter was dead, but here were those who were +dearer than all because they were "brands" to be saved from the +burning. + +"Hear me, Rose's Babies! Thee is Benjamin, and a truth-teller; and +thee is Ruth. Let me never hear either say otherwise than as I said. +Now come. There is the bench and there the basin. The first child that +is clean shall have the first drink--but no quarreling. Birthright +Friends are gentle and well mannered. Forget it not." + +The sternness of mild people is usually impressive. The twins found it +so. For the rest of that day, either because of the novelty of their +surroundings or their difficulty in mastering--without blows--the +spelling of their new names, they behaved with exceptionable +demureness; and when, in some fear their grandmother dispatched +Benjamin to Oliver's office to announce dinner, the miller fairly +stared to hear the midget say: + +"Thee is to come to dinner, Oliver. Dorcas says so. Thee is to make +haste because there is lamb and it soon cools. Dorcas says the lamb +had wool once and that thee has the wool. Give it to me; Oliver. B-e-n +ben, j-a ja, m-i-n min, Benjamin. That's who I am now and I'm to have +anything I want on this Heartsease Farm because I'm Rose's baby. The +Dorcas woman says so. Oliver, _did thee know Rose?_" + +This was the "plain speech" with a vengeance! The miller could +scarcely credit his own ears and doubting them used his eyes to the +greater advantage. What he saw was a bonny little face, from which +looked out a pair of fearless eyes; and a crown of yellow hair that +made a touch of sunlight in that dark room. "Did he know Rose?" + +For the first time in many a day he remembered that he _had_ known +Rose; not as a rebellious daughter gone astray from the safe fold of +Quakerdom, but as a dutiful innocent little one whom he had loved. +Rising at last after a prolonged inspection of his grandson, an +inspection returned in kind with the unwinking stare of childhood, he +took the boy's hand and said: + +"Very well, Benjamin, I will go with thee to dinner." + +"But the wool? Can I have that? If I had that I could wrap it around +Sap--I mean R-u ru, t-h thuh, Ruth, when it's cold at night and Him's +off messagin'." + +"Yes, yes. Thee can have anything if thee'll keep still while we ask +blessing." + +The face of Dorcas glowed with a holy light. Never had that silent +grace been more earnestly felt than on that dark day when the coming +of "Rose's babies" had wrought such a happy effect on her husband's +sorrowful mood. True she also was sorrowful, though in less degree +than he; but now she believed with all her heart that this one +righteous thing he had done--this allowing of the orphans to come +home--would in some way heal that sorrow, or end it in happiness for +all. + +All afternoon she busied herself in making ready for the permanent +comfort of her new-found "blessings." She hunted up in the attic the +long disused trundle-bed of her children; foraged in long-locked +cupboards for the tiny sheets and quilts; dragged out of hiding a +small chest of drawers and bestowed the twins' belongings therein, +bemoaning meanwhile the worldliness that had selected such fanciful +garments as a trio of young girls had done. However, there was plenty +of good material somewhere about the house. A cast-off coat of +Oliver's would make more than one suit for Benjamin; while for little +Ruth, already the darling of her grandmother's soul, there were ample +pieces of her own gowns to clothe her modestly and well. + +"To-morrow will be the Fifth day, and of course, though he seems so +indifferent we shall all go to meeting. And when the neighbors ask: +'Whose children has thee found?' I shall just say 'Rosie's babies.' +Then let them gaze and gossip as they will. I, Dorcas, will not heed. +There will be peace at Heartsease now Rosie has come home--in the dear +forms of her children." + +Thus thought the tender Friend, sitting and sewing diligently upon +such little garments as her fingers had not touched for so long a +time; but the "peace" upon which she counted seemed at that moment a +doubtful thing. + +The day had worn itself out, and the miller had tired of indoors and +his own thoughts. From the distant living-room he had been conscious +of a strange sound--the prattle of childish voices and the gentle +responses of his wife. His heart had been softened, all unknown to +himself even, by a sorrow so recent it absorbed all his thought and +kept him wakeful with anxiety; yet it was rather pleasant to reflect, +in that gloomy afternoon, that he had given poor Dorcas her wish. +Those twins would be a great trouble and little satisfaction. They +were as much Bowen as Sands; still Dorcas had been good and patient, +and he was glad he had let her have her wish. + +Ah! hum! The clouds were lifting. He wondered where those children +were. He began to wonder with more interest than he had felt during +all that endless week, what his workmen were doing. Maybe he would +feel better, more like himself, if he went out to the barn and looked +about. By this time the cows should be in the night-pasture, waiting +to be milked, those which were not now in the stalls of the County +Fair. + +That Fair! He would have hated it had he not been a Friend and known +the sinfulness of hatred. But there were cattle lowing--it sounded as +if something were wrong. Habit resumed its sway, and with anxiety over +his cherished stock now re-awakened, he passed swiftly out. + +"Oliver, thee has forgotten thy goloshes!" called his thoughtful +spouse, but he paid her no heed, though commonly most careful to guard +against his rheumatism. + +"Who left that gate open? Who drove that cow--her calf--Child! is thee +possessed?" + +Mrs. Betty Calvert was a true prophet--the twins had certainly waked +their grandsire up a bit! The explanation was simple, the disaster +great. They had tired of the quiet living-room and had also stolen out +of doors. Animals never frightened them and they were immediately +captivated by the goodly herd of cattle in the pasture. To open the +gate was easy; easy, too, to let free from its small shed a crying +calf. Between one cow and the calf there seemed a close interest. + +"We oughtn't ha' did that! That big cow'll eat that little cow up. See +Sapphi--Ruth, see them stairs? Let's drive the little cow up the stair +past the big wagons and keep it all safe and nice," suggested +Benjamin. + +So they did; much to the surprise of the calf who bounded up the +stairs readily enough, kicking its heels and cavorting in a most +entrancing fashion; but when they tried to bar the big cow from +following, she rushed past them and also ascended the stairs in a +swift, lumbering manner. The relationship between the big and little +cow now dawned even upon their limited intelligence, though there +still remained the fear that the one would devour the other. + +Then the twins turned and gazed upon one another, anxiety upon their +faces; till spying the master of the premises most rapidly approaching +they rushed to meet him, exclaiming: + +"The little cow's all safe but how will we get the big cow down?" + +How, indeed! Oliver Sands was too angry to speak. For well he knew +that it would require the efforts of all his force of helpers to drive +that valuable Jersey down the stairs she had not hesitated to go up +when driven by maternal love. + +With one majestic wave of his hand the miller dismissed his +grandchildren to the house and Dorcas; but so long and so hard he +labored to lure that imprisoned quadruped from his carriage-loft, +that, weary, he went early to bed and slept as he had not for nights. +So, in that it seemed his "waking up" had proved a blessing. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE STORY OF THE WORM THAT TURNED + + +The morning proved fair and cool, ideal weather for their visit to the +County Fair; but Mrs. Calvert decided that a whole day there would be +both inconvenient and too fatiguing. Now that she was at home the +management of the House Party had been turned over to her by tacit +consent, and she had laughingly accepted the trust. + +"This was to be Dorothy's affair, but it's been more Mr. Winters's +than hers and now more mine than his. Well, I like it. I like it so +exceedingly that I propose to repeat the experiment some time. I love +young people; and am I not quite a young person myself?" + +"Of course, you are, dear Aunt Betty! The youngest of us all in some +things, Mr. Seth says!" + +"So the farrier has been talking, eh? Well, I want to talk a bit, too. +In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom--as we have the highest +authority to believe; and the case in question is: Shall we, or shall +we not, take Luna to the Fair?" + +They were all grouped on the big piazza, after their early lunch, +waiting for the wagons to come from the stables and carry them to the +city beyond; and as Mrs. Betty asked this question a hush of surprise +fell on them all. Finally, said Helena: + +"We have taken her, she has gone with us, on all our jaunts. Doesn't +it seem too bad to leave her out of this?" + +One after another as the lady nodded to each to speak the answer was +frankly given, and Dorothy remarked: + +"It's about half-and-half, I guess. Yes, I know she does go to sleep +in all sorts of queer places and at the strangest times, but I hate to +leave her." + +"Then if she goes she must wear her own clothes." + +"Why, Aunt Betty, please? Of course, I don't want to see her in that +red frock again--I'd like to burn that up so nobody would ever see it +and be reminded how careless and unjust I was. But there's a pretty +blue one she could have." + +"That's not my reason, dearie. I think it has been a mistake, kindly +meant, to dress her as you have; that is for longer than was necessary +to freshen her own soiled things." She paused and Alfy remarked: + +"She's the proudest thing for them bright colors. Red, and green, and +blue--ary one just sets her smilin'. Besides, once Dinah tried to put +back her old brown dress and Luna wouldn't let her. Just folded her +arms up tight and didn't--didn't look a mite pleasant." + +Those who had seen Luna on the rare occasions when she showed anger +smiled at this mild description of her appearance then. + +"I don't know as Dinah would be bothered with her, Aunt Betty, and +Norah has a sick headache. But--I'll stay and take care of her if you +don't want her to go," said Dorothy. + +It was an effort to say this and dreading that her offer might be +accepted the girl turned her face away to hide her disappointment; but +whatever Mrs. Calvert's answer might have been she was not to hear it +then. + +Because there was Jim Barlow beckoning to her in a mysterious manner +from behind a great hydrangea bush and looking vastly excited over +something. So it was a relief to murmur: "Excuse me a minute, Aunt +Betty," and to respond to that summons. + +"Dolly, there's a man here wants to see you." + +"A man? To see me? and not Aunt Betty? Who is he?" + +Jim answered rather impatiently to this string of questions. + +"I said a man, didn't I. He said he'd rather see you because he knows +you, that is you gave him a lift on the road once in your pony cart +and talked real sensible----" + +"Couldn't have meant me, then, could he, Jim?" + +"Don't fool, Dorothy. He looks as if he was in some trouble. He's the +head man from Oliver Sands's grist-mill. Some relation to the miller, +I've heard, and lives with him. Hurry up and don't hender the raft of +us any longer'n you can help. Tell him, whatever his business is, +'twill have to wait, 't we're going to the Fair and all the teams are +ready----" + +"Yes, I'll hurry. Where is he?" + +"In that little summer-house beyond the lily pond. That's where he +said he'd go. Get rid of him quick, for the horses don't like to stand +after they're harnessed." + +"All right, I'll try!" Gayly waving her hand in the direction of the +piazza, she sped across the lawn to a group of silver birches, and the +spot in question. Solidly roofed, with vine covered sides, and good +board floor, the out-of-door building was a pleasant place, and had +been greatly enjoyed by all the House Party. It was well furnished +with wicker tables, chairs, and lounges, and heavy matting covered the +floor. It was empty now except for the old man awaiting Dorothy, and +his first remark showed that he appreciated this bit of outdoor +comfort. + +"It's real purty in here, ain't it? Anybody could spend a night here +and take no hurt, couldn't she?" + +"Why, ye-es, I suppose so; if anybody wished. James told me you asked +for me. What is it, please, for we're just on the point of starting +for the County Fair, and I don't like to delay the others." + +"Hmm. Yes. I suppose so. Hmm. Yes. Thee is the little girl that's had +such a story-paper kind of life, isn't thee? Don't remember me, but I +do thee. Gave me a ride once after that little piebald nag thee +swopped Oliver's calf for. Thee sees I know thee, if thee has forgot +me and how my floury clothes hit the black jacket thee wore, that day, +and dusted it well, 'Dusty miller' thee laughed and called me, sayin' +that was some sort of plant grows in gardens. But I knew that. Dorcas +has a whole bed of it under her kitchen window. Hmm. Yes." + +Dorothy tapped her foot impatiently, but did not sit down. Would the +man never tell his errand? Finally, as he lapsed into a reverie she +roused him, saying: + +"What is your errand, please?" + +"It's to help an old man in trouble. It--the--I don't find it so easy +to begin. But--is there a little old woman here, no bigger than a +child? Is she here? Is she safe?" + +This was a question so unexpected that Dorothy sat down the better to +consider it; then greatly wondering, answered: + +"Yes, there is an afflicted little creature here. Why? What do you +know about her?" + +"All there is to know, child! All there is to know. Thee sees a most +unhappy man before thee, lass." + +"Who is Luna? How came she here? Tell me, quick, quick; and if you +know her home?" + +"Verily, I know it, since it's my own, too. It's a long story, a long +lane, but the worm turned. Ah! yes. It turned." + +Dolly began to think her visitor was crazy and springing up ran toward +the house, saying: + +"I'm going for Aunt Betty. I'd rather you told your errand to her." + +The man did not object, and, greatly surprised by the imperative +summons though smiling at her darling's excitement, Mrs. Calvert left +her guests and followed the girl through the shrubbery to the arbor +where the vines hid her from the curious glances of those she had +left. + +"Something's up! I wonder what?" exclaimed Monty Stark. + +"Whatever it is, if it concerns us we shall be told in due time; and +if it doesn't--Hmm," answered Helena. + +"Stand corrected, Miss Montaigne; but bet a cookie you're as curious +as all the rest of us." + +"Well, yes, I am; though I never bet--even cookies. Now let's talk of +something else till they come back. I know they'll not be long." + +Nor were they; for down in the summer-house, with Elisabeth Calvert's +compelling gaze upon him, the visitor told his tale. + +"Thee can look upon me, lady, as the worm that turned. I am a poor +relation of Oliver Sands and he felt he owned me." + +"That man? Are we never to hear the end of Oliver Sands? He's the 'Old +Man of the Mountain', in truth, for his name is on everyone's lips," +cried Mistress Betty, crisply, yet resigning herself to the chair +Dorothy pushed her way. + +"Thee never said truer. He is the biggest man up-mounting in more +ways'n one. I've not wasted more love on him than many another but I +hadn't no call to break his heart. Hark, thee. I'll be as short as I +can. + +"When Oliver's mother died he was a boy and I was. She----" + +"Beg pardon, please; but this afternoon I really have no time to learn +the family history of my neighbor." + +"But I have to tell thee part, to make thee understand. When his +mother died, a widow, she left them two children, Oliver and Leah. He +was a big boy, smart and trustable, and Leah was almost a baby. Her +mother knew then that the child wasn't like others, she'd talked it +with me, I bein' older'n him; but he didn't know it and from the time +she was born he'd just about worshiped that baby. When she was dying +Mehitabel made him promise, and a Friend's promise is as good as +another man's oath, 't he'd always take care of little Leah and love +her better'n anybody in the world. That nobody, even if he should grow +up and marry and have children of his own, should ever come betwixt +her and him. Well, 'twas a good spell before he found out 't he was +brother to a fool. That's plain speech but I'm a Quaker. When he did +find out, 'twas a'most more'n he could bear. He give out to anybody +that asked, how 't she was sickly and had to be kept private. + +"Elisabeth Calvert, she _has_ been kept private, all her life long, +till I let out the secret. He and Dorcas and me, and the children +while they lived at the farm, we was the only ones ever had to do with +care of her or saw her even. I worked on for him, he makin' the money, +I gettin' shorter wages each year, besides him investin' 'em for me as +he pleased. + +"But I'm old. I want a home of my own; and lately I've been pestering +him to let me go. He'd always make excuse and talk plausible how 't he +couldn't spare me nohow. I knew he told the truth, since if I left +he'd have to get in strange help and it might get out 't his sister's +sickness was plain want of brains. That'd have nigh killed him, he's +so proud; to be pointed at as 'Oliver Sands, that's brother to a +fool'." + +"Well, well. This is exceedingly painful to hear, but to what does it +tend?" asked Mrs. Calvert. + +"Just this, Elisabeth. One day I got nursin' my wrongs and forgettin' +my blessings, and the devil was on hand to give me the chance. Dorcas +was off nursing a sick neighbor, Oliver was to Newburgh on some Fair +business, and there wasn't nobody in the house but me and Leah. I took +an old horse and wagon, 't he'd been meaning to sell, to the +sales-stable at the Landing; and I coaxed Leah to come take a ride. +She come ready enough. She didn't have much fun, anyway, except +sitting with him in the office such times as he was lookin' over his +accounts and reckonin' his money. She liked that. She always liked to +handle money. That proved her a Sands, even if she was imbecile! + +"Thinks I, I'll break his pride. I'll make him know 't he ain't no +better than other folks, even if he does speak in meeting. I meant to +carry her clear to the Landing and let things take their chance while +I cleared out for good. But when I'd got as far as here I begun to get +scared on her account. I'd set out to humble Oliver but I liked Leah, +poor creatur'! and I'd forgot I might be hurtin' her the worst. She'd +never been 'mongst folks and they might treat her rough. So then I +remembered this little girl, and how there was talk 'round about her +having a passel of young folks to visit her. So I thought Leah would +have a chance amongst 'em and I fetched her in and laid her right in +this summer-house, on that bench yonder and covered her with a shawl I +saw. She was asleep as she is a lot of the time, and didn't notice. + +"Then I went on to the Landing, left the rig to the stable, and took +the cars for York. I've been there ever since. I never meant to come +back; but there's something about this mountain 't pulls wanderers' +feet back to it, whether or no. And--is Leah here?" + +"Rather it was your own guilty conscience that brought you back. Yes, +I suppose it is 'Leah'--the witless waif my Dorothy found. And now I +understand my poor neighbor's trouble. I am proud myself. Ah! yes I +can understand! After the silence of a lifetime, how he shrank from +publishing what he seems to have considered a disgrace to a gossiping +world. But he was wrong. Such pride is always wrong; and he has spent +a most unhappy time, searching with his own eyes everywhere but never +asking for his lost Leah! but he was cruel in that, as cruel as +misguided; and as for you, sir, the sooner you get upon your wicked +feet and travel to Heartsease and tell its master where the poor thing +may be found--the better for yourself. I think such an act as you +committed is punishable by the strictest rigor of the law; but whether +it is or not your own conscience will punish you forever. Now----" + +Mrs. Calvert stopped speaking and rose. She had never been so stately +nor so severe and Dorothy pitied the poor old man who cowered before +her, even while she was herself fiercely indignant against him. By a +clasp of Mrs. Betty's arm she stayed her leaving: + +"Wait a moment, Aunt Betty, please. It's just as bad as you say, he's +just as bad; but--he's terrible tired and old. He looks sick, almost, +and I've been thinking while he talked: You let me stay at home, take +Portia and the pony cart and carry Luna--Leah--and him back to +Heartsease right away. May I, please?" + +"But to miss the Fair? He should have the unpleasant task of +confessing himself, and nobody else to shield him." + +"Please, Aunt Betty, please! I found her. Oh! let me be the one to +give her back!" + +Mrs. Calvert looked keenly into her darling's eyes, and after a +moment, answered: + +"I might be willing; but should you desert your guests? And if you do, +what shall I say to them for you?" + +"Just this: that a messenger has come who knows where Luna belongs and +that I'm going with him to take her home. That'll make it all right. +You might tell Dinah to keep Luna--Leah--I came pretty near her name, +didn't I?--to keep her contented somewhere till I come for her and to +put on her own old clothes. I have a feeling that that proud old +miller would like it better that way." + +There was a mist in Aunt Betty's eyes as she stooped and kissed the +eager face of her unselfish child; but she went quietly away and did +as she was asked. Left in the summer-house alone with Dorothy Eli +Wroth relapsed into silence. He had had hard work to make himself +unburden his guilt and having done so he felt exhausted; remarking +once only: + +"Thee may be sure that the worm hurts itself too when it turns. Thee +must never turn but kiss the cheek which smites thee." + +After which rather mixed advice he said no more; not even when all the +other carriages having rolled out of the great gateway, Dorothy +disappeared in search of Portia and the cart; nor did he cast more +than one inquiring glance upon Leah, sitting on the front seat beside +the girlish driver. As for the other, she paid him no more heed than +she did to anything else. She might have been seeing him every day, +for all surprise she evinced; and as for resentment against him she +was too innocent to feel that. + +The ride was not a long one, but it seemed such to Dorothy. At times +her thoughts would stray after her departed friends and a wish that +she were with them, enjoying the novelties of the County Fair, disturb +her. But she had only to glance at the little creature beside her to +forget regret and be glad. + +Also, if her tongue was perforce silent, her brain was busy, and with +something of her Aunt Betty's decision, she intended to have her say +before that coming interview was finished. + +All was very quiet at Heartsease when she reached it. Even the twins +were abnormally serious, sitting on the wide, flat doorstep of the +kitchen entrance, and looking so comical that Dolly laughed. For the +Fifth Day meeting Dorcas had clothed them properly. Her ransacking of +old closets had resulted in her finding a small lad's suit, after the +fashion of a generation before. A tight little waist with large +sleeves, which hung over the child's hands, and a full skirt completed +the main part of his costume; while his nimble feet were imprisoned in +stout "copper-toes," and a high-crowned, narrow-brimmed hat covered +his already shorn head. Such was Benjamin, in the attire of his uncle +at his own age. + +As for Sapphira-Ruth,--a more bewitching small maiden could not be +imagined. She wore her mother's own frock, when that mother was five. +Its cut was that of Dorcas's own, even to the small cap and kerchief, +while a stiff little bonnet of gray lay on the step beside her. Ruth's +toes also shone coppery from under her long skirt; and the restraint +of such foot gear upon usually bare feet may have been the reason why +the little ones sat sedately where they had been placed without +offering to run and meet their old friend. + +Eli Wroth started to get out of the cart, but Dorothy had a word to +say about that. + +"No, sir, please! You sit still with Leah and hold the horse. I'm +going in first to speak to Mr. Sands, but I'll come back." + +Tapping at the kitchen door, she stooped to kiss the twins, receiving +no further response than to see Benjamin wipe her kiss away; Ruth, as +a matter of course, immediately doing the same. + +Nor was there any answer to her knock, and since the door was ajar she +pushed it wide and entered. Dorcas sat there asleep; her work-worn +hands folded on her lap, her tired body enjoying its Fifth Day rest. + +Oliver was invisible but Dorothy softly crossed to a passage she saw +and down that, stepping quietly, she came upon him alone in his +office. The door to that inner, secluded room--Leah's room, she +understood at a glance--this door was open, and the miller sat as if +staring straight into it. So gently Dolly moved that he did not hear +her, and she had gone around him to stand before his face ere he +looked up and said: + +"Thee? thee?" + +"Yes, I. Mr. Sands, I know the whole story, and I'm sorry for you. I'm +more sorry though for the little old woman who belongs in that room. +It's pleasant enough but it has been her prison. It has deprived her +of lots of fun. If I should bring her back to it, would you let her go +out of it sometimes, into the world where she belongs? Would you let +her come to visit me? Would you take her to meeting with you as is her +birthright? Would you put your pride aside and--do right? If I would +bring her back?" + +For a moment he stared at her as if he did not understand; then all +that gloom which had so changed him vanished from his face and he +answered with that promise which to a Quaker is better than an oath: + +"I would. I will! If thee can bring her!" + +A moment later Leah's hand was in her brother's and Dorothy had left +them alone, and thus the House Party neared its end, to become but a +happy memory to its soon to be homeward speeding guests. The thoughts +of the young hostess were even now turning wholly to the future, her +brain teeming with marvelous plans. What these were and how fulfilled +in "Dorothy in California," to those interested, the story will be +told. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CONCLUSION + + +"Friday! And to-morrow we part!" said Molly Breckenridge, with more of +sadness on her sunny face than was often seen there. "It's been such a +perfectly enchanting Week of Days, and this is the last one left! Oh! +dear! Oh! I do hate good-bys. Saying that and packing one's trunk are +two just unbearable things and make one wish, almost, that the nice +times had never begun." + +"Yes, beginnings are grand; but endings--Hmm. I agree with you, Miss +Molly," echoed a boyish voice so close to her elbow that the girl +wheeled briskly about to see who spoke. + +"Why, Melvin Cook! Are you down in the dumps, too? I didn't know boys +had--had feelings, don't you know." + +He ignored her mockery and answered gravely: + +"They do feel a deal more than they get credit for. A boy daren't cry +and be silly like a girl----" + +"Thanks, awfully!" + +"He just has to keep everything bottled up. That's why he acts rude +sometimes. I fancy that's what's amiss with the two Smiths yonder. +They've been literally punching each other's heads because Danny +happened to remark that Littlejohn would have to work the harder when +he got home, to make up for this week's idleness. And----" + +"Here comes the Master and he doesn't look at all like crying! Why +he's holding his hands above his head and--yes, he's clapping them! +Call all the others with that new bugle of yours, and let's go meet +him! Toot-te-toot-te-toot!" + +Melvin obediently raised the handsome instrument which Dorothy had +given him the night before, and which Mrs. Calvert had bought for him +in the hill-city. It had not come from the County Fair but from the +best establishment for such ware and Melvin was delighted with it. +There had been a "keepsake" for each and all. For Jane Potter her +"unabridged"; for Alfaretta, who had never minded rain nor snow, a +long desired umbrella; for Jim a Greek lexicon; for Mabel Bruce an +exquisite fan; and after the tastes of all something they would always +prize. In fact, Mrs. Calvert had early left the Fair and spent her +time in shopping; and Seth knew, if the younger ones did not, that far +more than the equivalent of the famous one hundred dollars had been +expended to give these young folks pleasure. + +"Oh! what is it, Master! What is it? Have you settled on the play? +Will you assign the characters and let us get to studying, so we can +make a success of it to-night?" cried Helena, rather anxiously. + +"I have settled on the play. Rather it has been settled for me. As for +characters they will need no study, since each and all are to appear +in this most marvelous drama in their own original selves." + +"Why, Mr. Seth, what do you mean? You look so happy and yet as if +something had made you feel bad, too;" said Dorothy, slipping her hand +into his as he dropped it to his side. + +"Oh! I tell you I am happy! So will many another be, 'up-mounting' on +this auspicious day. Talk about partings--there are going to be +meetings, meetings galore. In short, I won't mystify you any longer +though I am half-mystified myself. Attention! Leah Sands will give a +House Party this afternoon at Heartsease Farm and we and all who'll +accept are bidden to attend at three o'clock sharp." + +"Leah--that's Luna? How can she do a thing like that?" + +"Well, it can be done in her name, I reckon. Just as this was +Dorothy's and somebody else managed it; eh, lassie? The Friends speak +when the Spirit moves. At last, by the power of grief and remorse, by +the power of Love, the Spirit of unselfishness and humility has moved +upon the heart of Oliver Sands. One is never too old to learn; and, +thank God, some are never too old to acknowledge their ignorance! He +isn't, and to prove it he is doing this thing. His messengers are +speeding everywhere. Caterers from Newburgh have had hurry-up orders +to provide a bountiful feast and old Heartsease Farm is to be the +scene of an 'Infair' that will beat Dorothy's to--smithereens! I mean, +begging her ladyship's pardon, in point of size. Leah is to be the +guest of honor, since she cannot preside; but be sure she'll not +disgrace her proud brother since at Dorothy's Party she has learned +how harmless are even strangers. Yes, I can safely say that Leah made +her debut with us. Now, who'll accept? Don't all speak at once!" + +But they did. So joyfully, so earnestly, that the Master clapped hands +over ears and, laughing, hurried away, while Mrs. Calvert beamed upon +them all, the dearest hostess who had ever lived--so one and all +declared. + +The scene at Heartsease? It is useless even to try to depict that. +Sufficient to say it was a marvelous Party; and he who marveled most +was the giver of the Party himself. Because where he might easily have +expected absences and "regrets" came hastening guests to shake him by +the hand, to forgive hard dealings, to rejoice with him that she who +had been lost, in every sense, had been found. + +And when, at last, the young folks from Deerhurst tore themselves +away and walked homeward over the moonlit road, it was with the +feeling that this last outing of their Week of Days had been the +dearest and the best. + +Partings? They had to come; but when on the Saturday morning the last +guest had disappeared and Dorothy stood alone beside Aunt Betty on the +broad piazza, there might be tears in her brown eyes, but there was no +real heaviness in her heart. + +God had given her a home. He had given her this dear old lady to love +and serve, and the girl had already learned that there is joy only in +Loving Service. + +THE END + + + + + [Illustration: DOROTHY AND AUNT BETTY, ALONE AT HOME. + _Dorothy's House Party._] + + + + +IDEAL BOOKS FOR GIRLS + +The latest and best works of Mrs. L. T. Meade. Very few authors have +achieved a popularity equal to that of Mrs. Meade as a writer of +stories for girls. Her characters are living beings of flesh and +blood. Into the trials and crosses of these the reader enters at once +with zest and hearty sympathy. + + Turquoise and Ruby. + Ten full-page illustrations. + + The Girls of Mrs. Pritchard's School. + Ten full-page illustrations by Lewis Baumer. + + A Madcap. + Eight full-page illustrations by Harold Copping. + + The Manor School. + Ten full-page illustrations. + + A Bevy of Girls. + Ten full-page illustrations. + +Cloth, 12mo. Special decorated cover. Price, $1.00. + + CHATTERTON-PECK CO. + NEW YORK + + + + +THE COMRADES SERIES + +By Ralph Victor. This writer of boys' books has shown by his magazine +work and experience that this series will be without question the +greatest seller of any books for boys yet published; full of action +from start to finish. Cloth, 12mo. Finely illustrated; special cover +design. Price, 60c. per volume. + + Comrades on the Farm, or the Mystery of Deep Gulch. + Comrades in New York, or Snaring the Smugglers. + Comrades on the Ranch, or Secret of the Lost River. + Comrades in New Mexico, or the Round-up. + Comrades on the Great Divide (in preparation). + + _Ralph Victor is probably the best equipped writer of + up-to-date boy's stories of the present day. He has traveled + or lived in every land, has shot big game with Sears in + India, has voyaged with Jack London, and was a war + correspondent in Natal and Japan. The lure of life in the + open has always been his, and his experiences have been + thrilling and many._ + + --_"Progress."_ + + CHATTERTON-PECK CO. + NEW YORK + + + + +_Specimen Chapter from_ + +COMRADES IN NEW MEXICO + +BY RALPH VICTOR. + +_Published by Chatterton Peck Co._ + +"We will ride part of the way with you," suggested Fleet, "and see you +safe on the road." + +"If you are going," advised the major, "the sooner you get away the +better." + +"Then I am going to get off at once," announced Chot. + +It was but a few moments before the horses were saddled and the little +cavalcade started. After accompanying him for some half dozen miles +the others bade Chot "adios" and returned to the ranch. + +It was still early evening for the days were now very long, when Chot +arrived at El Perro Negro, but unlike the other to be remembered +evening there were but few persons about and these few paid no +attention to him. He attended to his horse and as the supper hour was +already over he asked the landlord to get him something to eat. The +inner man satisfied he was off early to bed. + +The night passed without any disturbance although he slept as Fleet +would express it "with one eye awake" and with the coming of daylight +he was astir. He fed his horse and gave him a rub down preparatory to +an early start. + +On his way to the shed that morning, he noticed several men whom he +had not before seen. Among them he observed the outlaws Jose and +Miguel. He paid no attention to them however until they came up beside +him. He was engaged in currying his horse. + +"That is a good beast you have there," said Miguel. "Cuanto? How much +for him?" + +"Good morning," responded Chot, and continued, "He isn't for sale." + +"Your horse?" went on the man. + +"No," said Chot, shortly. "He isn't mine." + +"Where do you come from?" asked Miguel. + +"I came from Captain Benson's," said Chot, guardedly, thinking it wise +not to speak of Rosado. + +"Isn't that Mr. Shelton's horse?" asked Jose. + +"Yes," said Chot. "Do you know the owner?" + +The man muttered something which Chot could not understand. + +"Then you come from Rosado?" questioned Jose. This after a pause +during which he eyed Chot narrowly. + +"I have been stopping there," answered Chot. + +"Are you going back there?" asked Miguel. + +"I am going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Shelton," replied Chot, getting +somewhat uneasy under the insistent questioning. + +"That is what I told you," remarked Jose to Miguel, as the men started +back to the Inn. + +"I wonder what it was he told him?" mused Chot. "The best thing I can +do is to get away from here as quickly as possible." + +As soon as Chot could get his breakfast he was off on his way, having +seen nothing more of the bandits. + +From Estrada a good part of the journey was along the course of a +stream that came down from the mountains and as the road was good Chot +urged his horse on, but in spite of all his efforts the animal lagged; +so that when at noon he stopped to rest in a small grove, he was much +less than half way to Rosado. The presence of the bandits at the Inn +had disquieted him and as soon as the worst of the heat was over he +re-saddled his horse to resume his journey. + +As he was starting off, as a matter of precaution he glanced back over +the road and was disturbed to see two horsemen rapidly approaching. + +"The quicker I can get away from here the better," he thought, and he +urged his horse on as fast as he could. + +"They may be all right," he reflected, "but I don't like the looks of +it and it will be just as well to keep out of their way." + +"I wonder what is the matter with Brownie," he cogitated after a bit, +for in spite of all his efforts the horse's pace became more labored +and slower. His pursuers, if such they were, were rapidly gaining on +him. + +"They may be after me and they may be only traveling in this +direction," he reasoned, "but I am going to find out. I will ride over +to the woods, it is out of my way and off the trail, if they follow +I'll know they are after me." + +Turning his horse's head in the direction of the forest he proceeded +as fast as he could. Looking back after a few moments he saw that the +men had changed their course and were plainly headed toward and +rapidly gaining on him. His position was decidedly unpleasant. The +outlaws he was sure, had recognized him as one of the comrades who +were visiting at the hacienda, and of whom they had heard enough, +through Took, to regard as dangerous enemies and to be gotten out of +the way. Whether they knew that the comrades had discovered the secret +of the lost river or not, they were evidently anxious to be rid of +them. + +"I can't successfully resist them if they attack me," reasoned Chot, +"I wish I had brought a gun of some kind. As it is the only thing I +can do is to try and elude them." Chot thought quickly. "If I can jump +from the saddle into one of the trees I won't leave any trail and they +won't know where I have gone. I'll try it anyhow," he said to himself, +"even if I fail I won't be any worse off, for my mount is laboring +painfully." + +The wood which he was now approaching was of very heavy timber and +little underbrush had grown up between the trees. The trees themselves +were well scattered yet were so large, their wide spreading branches +interlaced. Even the lower branches were so high that Chot could not +reach them with his extended hand. Climbing now on to the saddle he +got first on his knees, as he and his chums had practiced in their +efforts to imitate the tricks of the cowboys at the hacienda, then on +to his feet; here he balanced himself for an instant. While the horse +was loping along under his persistent urging he came to a slightly +sagging branch, grasping it he sprang into the tree. Quickly he drew +himself up out of sight of any one below. + +He had scarcely succeeded in doing this when the bandits, who were +only a short distance behind him when he entered the woods, were heard +galloping below him. + +"We have got him now," he overheard Jose saying to his companion. + +"Don't be too sure of that," objected Miguel. "They are devils those +Americans." + +"A fig for your devils," returned Jose. "If I can get my hands on him +I will take care of him all right." + +"You want to pray the saints they don't get their claws on you," +retorted Miguel. + +Further words he could not catch as they rode along. + +"I wonder what will be the next move," thought Chot as he made his way +to better security farther up in the tree. "I think I will study up +flying machines when I get out of this. A pair of wings would come in +handy just now." + +Chot was not long left in doubt for in ten minutes the men came back +through the woods, evidently in search of him. + +"What did I tell you," expostulated Miguel. "I knew he would get away +somehow." + +"He hasn't got away yet," growled the other, stopping beneath the tree +in which Chot had taken refuge. "He disappeared in the woods somewhere +and I am going to find him. He is somewhere between this locality and +the edge of the wood where we found his horse. Say but you did not +give him a big enough dose. The animal ought to have played out hours +ago." + +"So they tried to poison my horse," was Chot's thought. + +"I am going to find him," repeated Jose. + +"Quiza!" said Miguel, looking about him, "Maybe you will and maybe you +won't. If he were human where could he go? There is no place here +where he could hide." + +"He is here somewhere," retorted Jose, "and I am going to search him +out. He knows too much and I am going to get rid of him. He must be up +a tree and so he must come down." + +"Carambo! no," said Miguel. "Nothing but a cat could go up a tree so +quick. We were just behind him. See there are the marks of his +horse's hoofs, the animal never stopped in his stride. The boy went +off just like that," and Miguel blew across his hand with an +expressive little puff. "Same as they did in the cave. Better leave +him alone. No good will come of it." + +Chot, who had climbed up into the tree as high as he dared, now drew +himself close to the trunk and waited for the next move on the part of +his pursuers which was not long in coming. He could not see the +speakers below, but of a sudden his attention was attracted to an +adjoining tree. Chot had noted that the branch upon which he was +resting his hands for partial support, was of a remarkable length and +stretched out till it met and overlapped a branch of the next nearest +tree. Some motion upon the branch of the farther tree caught his eye. +To his horror he made out some sort of a wild beast stealthily +approaching. Its yellow eyes were on a level with his own. He gazed in +fascinated terror. Truly his predicament was hopeless. There seemed no +way for him to cope with one enemy or the other. To remain where he +was, would be to become the sure prey of the wild beast. To make any +move for defense would call to the attention of the outlaws his hiding +place. + + + * * * * * * + + +WORLD-WIDE ADVENTURE SERIES + +_By Edward S. Ellis_ + +Cloth, 12mo., stamped in colors and gold. Handsomely illustrated. +Price per volume, postpaid, 60 cents. + +The books written by Mr. Ellis are too well known to need a special +introduction here. All are bright, breezy, and full of life, +character, and adventure. They cover a wide field, and consequently +appeal to all classes of young folks. + + The Telegraph Messenger Boy; + Or, The Straight Road to Success + +In this tale life in a country town is well described. There is a +mysterious bank robbery, which fills the community with excitement. +There is likewise a flood on the river; and through all this whirl of +events the young telegraph messenger exhibits a pluck and sagacity +sure to win the admiration and approval of all wide-awake boys. + +Other Volumes in this Series: + + From the Throttle to the President's Chair + Tad; or "Getting Even" with Him + Through Jungle and Wilderness + A Waif of the Mountains + Down the Mississippi + Life of Kit Carson + Land of Wonders + Lost in the Wilds + Up the Tapajos + Lost in Samoa + Red Plume + + CHATTERTON-PECK COMPANY + New York + + + + +THE FRONTIER BOYS + +BY CAPT. WYN. ROOSEVELT. + +This noted scout and author, known to every plainsman, has lived a +life of stirring adventure. In boyhood, in the early days, he traveled +with comrades the overland route to the West,--a trip of thrilling +experiences, unceasing hardships and trials that would have daunted a +heart less brave. His life has been spent in the companionship of the +typically brave adventurers, gold seekers, cowboys and ranchmen of our +great West. He has lived with more than one Indian tribe, took part in +a revolution at Hawaii and was captured in turn by pirates and +cannibals. He writes in a way sure to win the heart of every boy. + + Frontier boys on the overland trail. + Frontier boys in Colorado, or captured by Indians. + Frontier boys in the Grand Canyon, or a search for treasure. + Frontier boys in Mexico, or Mystery Mountain. + +Finely illustrated. Cloth, 12mo. Attractive cover design. Price 60c. +per volume. + + CHATTERTON-PECK. CO. + NEW YORK + + + + + * * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; +otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the +author's words and intent. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOROTHY'S HOUSE PARTY*** + + +******* This file should be named 28805.txt or 28805.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/8/0/28805 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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