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diff --git a/40300-0.txt b/40300-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e546e82 --- /dev/null +++ b/40300-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5945 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40300 *** + + DOROTHY + + BY + EVELYN RAYMOND + + + NEW YORK + HURST & CO., INC. + PUBLISHERS + + + + +THE DOROTHY BOOKS + +By EVELYN RAYMOND + + +These stories of an American girl by an American author have made +"Dorothy" a household synonym for all that is fascinating. Truth and +realism are stamped on every page. The interest never flags, and is +ofttimes intense. No more happy choice can be made for gift books, so +sure are they to win approval and please not only the young in years, +but also "grown-ups" who are young in heart and spirit. + + =Dorothy= + =Dorothy at Skyrie= + =Dorothy's Schooling= + =Dorothy's Travels= + =Dorothy's House Party= + =Dorothy in California= + =Dorothy on a Ranch= + =Dorothy's House Boat= + =Dorothy at Oak Knowe= + =Dorothy's Triumph= + =Dorothy's Tour= + + +COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY +THE PLATT & PECK CO. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. HOW DOROTHY CAME 1 + + II. A POSTAL SUBSTITUTE 15 + + III. AT JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL 33 + + IV. DOROTHY GAINS IN WISDOM 50 + + V. DOROTHY ENTERTAINS 68 + + VI. DOROTHY GOES UPON AN ERRAND 88 + + VII. AN OFFICE SEEKER AND A CLIENT 103 + + VIII. TENANTS FOR NO. 77 123 + + IX. STRANGE EXPERIENCES 141 + + X. THE FLITTING 157 + + XI. JIM BARLOW 171 + + XII. DOROTHY'S ILLNESS 188 + + XIII. THE PLUMBER AND HIS GOSSIP 202 + + XIV. THE BITER BIT 219 + + XV. THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT 238 + + XVI. A GOOD SAMARITAN 257 + + XVII. A SUNDAY DRIVE 278 + +XVIII. CONCLUSION 291 + + + + +DOROTHY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HOW DOROTHY CAME + + +One spring morning Mrs. John Chester opened the front door of her little +brick house and screamed. There, upon the marble step, stood a wicker +baby-wagon with a baby in it; and, having received this peculiar +greeting, the baby screamed, too. Then it laughed, Mrs. Chester laughed, +and, hearing both the screams and the laughter, postman John Chester +hurriedly set down his cup of coffee and ran to the doorway. In another +instant he, also, was laughing. What childless, child-loving man could +help doing so, beholding the pretty sight before him? + +For Martha, his wife, had caught the little creature out of the wagon +and was ecstatically hugging it, cooing to it, mothering it, as +naturally as if this little one she was tossing up and down were not +almost the first child she had ever so fondled. + +"John! John! O John! _It's meant!_ It's for us! See, see? The little +card on its coat says: 'My name is Dorothy C. I have come to be your +daughter.' Our daughter, John Chester! Oh! what a blessed gift! +Who--who--can have sent her?" + +Then John Chester stopped laughing and, laying his hand on his wife's +shoulder with a protesting pressure, said: + +"There, little woman, don't go building hopes on such a thing as this. +Doubtless, some of the neighbors have left the little one here for a +joke. If the good Lord has sent us no babies of our own it's not likely +He'd put it into the hearts of others to give us theirs. It'll be called +for before I get in from my rounds. Well, good-bye. Wish I could stay +and play with the kid, but I'm late already. Good-bye." + +As he stooped to kiss her, after his accustomed fashion, his cap touched +the baby's cheek, pressed so close to Martha's, and with a frown and a +twist Miss Dorothy C. put up her tiny hand and knocked it from his head. +Then she wrinkled her funny little nose, laughed again, and from that +instant the letter-carrier became her abject slave. + +As he sped down the street, to take a car for the post-office and the +morning mail he must deliver, he saw old Mrs. Cecil's carriage drive +slowly around the corner. She was not "Mrs. Cecil" exactly, for there +was more of her name upon her visiting cards: "Mrs. Cecil Somerset +Calvert," and she was one of the proudest of old Maryland dames. But she +was called by the shorter title by all sorts and conditions of people. +She was on John Chester's route and quite often addressed him as +"Johnnie," though Mrs. Martha resented this as being too familiar. In +her own eyes John was the wisest and best man in the world, far too good +to be called "Johnnie" like any schoolboy. The postman himself did not +resent it. He resented very little that befell and simply trotted +through life as he did over his mail-route, with a cheery word and smile +for everybody. Therefore, it was quite characteristic that he should +good-naturedly obey Mrs. Cecil's summons to come to her carriage, that +she had ordered stopped, even though he was just boarding a car and had +no time to waste. + +"Johnnie, what was that I saw in your wife's arms, as I drove by?" she +demanded as he came up. + +"A baby. The cutest ever was. Somebody's playing a joke on us, leaving +it on our steps." + +"I shouldn't like that kind of a joke. Whose is it?" + +"I don't know. I'll tell you more when I get round with the mail. Beg +pardon, please, there comes another car," he replied, still smiling, +although he was edging away as fast as he dared, without giving offense +to this quick-tempered old lady. + +"Shall you be fool enough to take the youngster in, if nobody calls for +it? What salary do you get?" she continued, ignoring his evident +reluctance to be further delayed. + +He answered hastily, raised his cap, and managed to catch the next car, +springing up on the rear platform while it was already in motion and +reckoning that he would have to run, instead of trot, if he made up time +and got his morning letters to those who expected them along with their +breakfast. + +As he disappeared Mrs. Cecil nodded her handsome white head a number of +times, in satisfaction over something, and remarked to her poodle: + +"Made no mistake. He's a straight man. Well, well, well! The idea of +anybody being simpleton enough to be glad of the care of a squalling +baby!" + +Then she drove home to her own fine house, which stood at the junction +of the broad avenue and the narrow street. As old Ephraim turned his +horses into the spacious grounds a thrill of pride ran through his +mistress's heart, while she shouted to her half-deaf coachman: + +"Bellevieu never looked finer that it does this spring, boy." + +To which the gray-headed "boy" echoed: + +"Fine this spring, Miss Betty." + +"Had another offer for the place yesterday, Ephraim." + +"Dat so, Miss Betty? Grandes' place in Baltimo'," responded the other, +who had heard but little of what she had said, but guessed sufficiently +near to answer sympathetically. Indeed, he was fully as proud of the +ancient estate as its present owner, and of the fact that, while he +dwelt in the very heart of the southern city, his stables and +appointments were quite as roomy as if an open country lay all about +them. His "Miss Betty" and he were the last of the "family"; he +considered Bellevieu as much his as hers; and, from his throne upon the +antiquated Calvert carriage, looked with charitable contempt upon the +drivers of less aristocratic vehicles. + +The march of progress had left the mansion and its beautiful grounds +untouched. Entrenched behind her pride and her comfortable bank account, +Mrs. Betty Cecil Somerset-Calvert had withstood every assault upon the +old place, whether made by private individual or, as yesterday, by the +city authorities, who wished to turn Bellevieu into a park. She had +replied to the committee that waited upon her: + +"No, gentlemen, thank you. This house was one of the first built in the +town, though it was then what you call nowadays a 'suburban residence.' +Each generation has received it intact from the preceding one, and +intact it will descend to my heirs. What they will do with it remains to +be seen. I have the honor to wish you good-bye," she concluded, with her +grandest manner, yet the familiar local salutation of parting. + +The committee felt itself dismissed and bowed itself out; and the old +lady summoned her house-girl to open all the windows and ventilate the +rooms contaminated by commercial presence. Then she consoled herself and +the poodle with the reflection: + +"We shall be free from any more 'offers' for at least two weeks. Let us +enjoy our freedom." + +Yet Mrs. Cecil's pride did not prevent her taking the liveliest interest +in her neighbors and their gossip. Having been born and passed all her +life at Bellevieu she knew everything which went on anywhere near it. +Ensconced upon her broad piazzas, behind the venerable oaks and +evergreens which shaded them, her bright old eyes watched the outer +world with the zest as of youth and utter loneliness. For alone she +dwelt in the many-roomed house, that had once been filled by her now +vanished "family," and sometimes found her solitude unbearable. Even +postman "Johnnie's" thrice-daily visits were a most welcome diversion to +her, and lest there should be no mail sufficient to bring him so often +to her door, she subscribed for all sorts of publications that she +seldom opened, in order to have something due at every delivery. + +This morning she was so anxious to see him again that she had her +breakfast served on the piazza, sitting down to wait for it as Ephraim +drove away toward the stable. It was brought to her by Dinah, grumbling +as usual: + +"Laws, Miss Betty, you-all shuah do try a body's tempah. It am puffickly +ridic'lous de way yo' ca'y on. Off drivin' from pillah to post 'fore +breakfast done served, an' you-all not so young an' spry like yo' used +to was. Yeah am dem scrambled aigs done gone hard an' tough, like a +nigger's skin, an' fust off Ah knows Ah'll have yo' laid up wid dat same +old misery in yo' chist. Why-all cayn't yo' eat yo' breakfast in de +house, propah, like a Christian, Miss Betty?" + +"Because I don't wish to, Dinah," retorted Mrs. Cecil, exactly as a +spoiled child might have done. + +"You-all know how old yo' be, Miss Betty?" demanded the ancient negress, +who had been body-servant to her mistress from the earliest youth of +both and who was still indulged beyond limit in her freedom of speech +and action. + +"Yes, Dinah. I am just one year and a day younger than you are. Go tell +cook to scramble me some more eggs; and if I prefer driving before to +after breakfast, that doesn't concern you, girl." + +"Beg pahdon, Miss Betty, but it do concern. Didn't Ah done go promise +yo' dyin' ma how't Ah't take ca' of you-all what'd nevah no sense to +take ca' yo'self? Huh! Yo' put dat shawl closeter 'roun' dem purty +shouldahs o' yo's, whilst I go shame dat cook for sendin' up such +no-'count aigs to my young miss!" And away limped Dinah, the "misery" +in her own limbs from her "roomaticals" being very severe. + +Meanwhile, in the little house around the corner, Mrs. John Chester was +superintending another breakfast which had the delightful zest of +novelty about it. No sooner had Dorothy C. been taken within doors than +she espied the table which John-postman had so hastily quitted upon +sound of her own laughter and, at once, began to kick and squirm in the +house mistress's arms with such vigor that the good lady came near to +dropping her, and exclaimed, in mingled fear and pride: + +"Why, you strong little thing! You're as hard to hold as--as a human +eel! There, there, don't! You've slipped down so far all your clothes +are over your head. Are you hungry? Well, well! You shall have all you +want to eat, for once!" + +Then she placed the child on the floor while she filled a tumbler with +milk and offered it; but this was met by disdain and such another swift +toss of the baby arm that the glass flew out of the holder's hand, and +its contents deluged the floor. + +Whereupon, Miss Dorothy C. threw herself backward with shrieks which +might mean anger or delight, but were equally confusing to the +order-loving Mrs. Chester, who cried, in reproof: + +"Oh! you naughty baby! Whoever you belong to should teach you better +than that! Now, just see. All my nice clean matting splashed with milk, +and milk-grease is hard to get out. Now you lie there till I get a pail +and cloth--if you hurt yourself I can't help it. John said you were a +joke, but you're no joke to me!" + +Having just finished her spring cleaning and having had, for economy's +sake, to do it all herself, the housewife's tidy soul was doubly tried, +and she had a momentary desire to put the baby and her wagon out upon +the street again, to take its chances with somebody else. However, when +she re-entered with her pail and cloths, she was instantly diverted by +the sight that met her. + +Dorothy C. had managed to pull her coat over her head and in some +unknown fashion twist the strings of her bonnet around her throat, in an +effort to remove the objectionable headgear. The result was disaster. +The more she pulled the tighter grew that band around her neck and her +face was already blue from choking when Mrs. Chester uncovered it and +rescued the child from strangling. + +As the lady afterward described the affair to her husband it appeared +that: + +"Seeing that, and her so nigh death, as it were, gave me the terriblest +turn! So that, all unknown, down sits I in that puddle of milk as +careless as the little one herself. And I cuddled her up that close, as +if I'd comforted lots of babies before, and me a green hand at the +business. To see her sweet little lip go quiver-quiver, and her big +brown eyes fill with tears--Bless you, John! I was crying myself in the +jerk of a lamb's tail! Then I got up, slipped off my wet skirt and got +her out of her outside things, and there pinned to her dress was this +note. Read it out again, please, it so sort of puzzles me." + +So the postman read all that they were to learn, for many and many a +day, concerning the baby which had come to their home; and this is a +copy of that ill-spelled, rudely scrawled document: + + "thee child Is wun Yere an too Munths old hur burthDay is aPrill + Furst. til firthur notis Thar will Bee a letur in The posOfis the + furst of Everi mounth with Ten doLurs. to Pay." Signed: + + "dorothy's Gardeen + hur X mark." + +Now John Chester had been a postman for several years and he had learned +to decipher all sorts of handwriting. Instantly, he recognized that this +scrawl was in a disguised hand, wholly different from that upon the card +pinned to the child's coat, and that the spelling was also incorrect +from a set purpose. Laying the two bits of writing together he carefully +studied them, and after a few moments' scrutiny declared: + +"The same person wrote both these papers. The first one in a natural, +cultivated hand, and a woman's. The second in a would-be-ignorant one, +to divert suspicion. But--the writer didn't think it out far enough; +else she never would have given the same odd shape to her r's and that +twist to the tails of her y's. It's somebody that knows us, too, +likely, though I can't for the life of me guess who. What shall we do +about her? Send her to an Orphanage, ourselves? Or turn her over to the +police to care for, Martha dear?" + +His face was so grave that, for a moment, she believed him to be in +earnest; then that sunny smile which was never long absent from his +features broke over them and in that she read the answer to her own +desire. To whomsoever Dorothy C. belonged, that heartless person had +passed the innocent baby on to them and they might safely keep her for +their own. + +Only, knowing the extreme tidiness of his energetic wife, John finally +cautioned: + +"Don't settle it too hastily, Martha. By the snap of her brown eyes and +the toss of her yellow head, I foresee there'll be a deal more spilled +milk before we've done with her!" + +"I don't care!" recklessly answered the housewife, "_she's mine_!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A POSTAL SUBSTITUTE + + +So long a time had passed that Dorothy C. had grown to be what father +John called "a baker's dozen of years old"; and upon another spring +morning, as fair as that when she first came to them, the girl was out +upon the marble steps, scrubbing away most vigorously. The task was +known locally as "doing her front," and if one wishes to be considerable +respectable, in Baltimore, one's "front" must be done every day. On +Saturdays the entire marble facing of the basement must also be +polished; but "pernickity" Mrs. Chester was known to her neighbors as +such a forehanded housekeeper that she had her Saturday's work done on +Friday, if this were possible. + +Now this was Friday and chanced to be a school holiday; so Dorothy had +been set to the week-end task, which she hated; and therefore she put +all the more energy into it, the sooner to have done with it, meanwhile +singing at the top of her voice. Then, when the postman came round the +corner of the block, she paused in her singing to stare at him for one +brief instant. The next she had pitched her voice a few notes higher +still, and it was her song that greeted her father's ears and set him +smiling in his old familiar fashion. Unfortunately, he had not been +smiling when she first perceived him and there had been a little catch +in her tones as she resumed her song. Each was trying to deceive the +other and each pretending that nothing of the sort was happening. + +"Heigho, my child! At it again, giving the steps a more tombstone +effect? Well, since it's the fashion--go ahead!" + +"I wish the man, or men, who first thought of putting scrubby-steps +before people's houses had them all to clean himself! Hateful old +thing!" + +With a comical gesture of despair she tossed the bit of sponge-stone, +with which she had been polishing, into the gutter and calmly seated +herself on the bottom step, "to get her breath." "To get yours, too, +father dear," she added, reaching to the postman's hand and gently +drawing him down beside her. Then, because her stock of patience was +always small and she could not wait for his news, she demanded: "Well! +Did you go? What did he say?" + +"Yes, darling, I went," he answered, in a low tone and casting an +anxious glance backward over his shoulder toward the house where Martha +might be near enough to hear. But having replied to one question he +ignored the rest. + +However, the girl was not to be put off by silence and her whole heart +was in her eyes as she leaned forward and peered into his. He still +tried to evade her, but she was so closely bound up with his life, she +understood him so quickly and naturally, that this was difficult; so +when she commanded in her tender, peremptory way: "Out with it, father +mine, body and bones!" he half-cried, half-groaned: + +"Worse than all the others! _I--am--doomed!_" + +Then he dropped his head on his hands and, regardless of the fact that +they were on the street, conspicuous to every passer-by, he gave way to +a mute despair. Now when a naturally light-hearted person breaks down +the collapse is complete, but Dorothy did not know this nor that +recovery is commonly very prompt. She was still staring in grieved +amazement at her father's bowed head when he again lifted it and flashed +a smile into her freshly astonished eyes. Then she laughed aloud, so +great was her relief, and cried: + +"There, father John! You've been fooling me again! I should have known +you were teasing and not believed you!" + +But he answered, though still smiling: + +"It's pretty hard to believe the fact, myself. Yet it's true, all the +same. Five different doctors have agreed upon it--which is wonderful, in +itself; and though I'd much rather not face this kind of a truth I +reckon I'll have to; as well as the next question: What is to become of +us?" + +Dorothy still retained her baby habit of wrinkling her nose when she was +perplexed, and she did so now in an absurd earnestness that amused her +father, even in the midst of his heartache. During her twelve years of +life in the little brick house in Brown Street, she had made a deal of +trouble for the generous couple which had given her a home there, but +she had brought them so much more of happiness that they now believed +they actually could not live without her. As the postman expressed it: + +"Her first act in this house was to spill her milk on its tidy floor. +She's been spilling milk all along the route from then till now, and +long may she spill! Martha'd be 'lost' if she didn't have all that care +of the troublesome child." + +This sunshiny morning, for the first time since that far-back day when +she arrived upon his doorstep, the good postman began to contemplate the +possibility of their parting; and many schemes for her future welfare +chased themselves through his troubled brain. If he could only spare +Martha and Dorothy the unhappiness that had fallen upon himself he would +ask no more of fortune. For a long time they sat there, pondering, till +Martha's voice recalled them to the present: + +"For goodness sake, Dorothy C.! What are you idling like that for? +Don't you know I've to go to market and you have the lunch to get? Then +there's that class picnic of yours, and what on earth will Miss Georgia +say if you don't go this time? Come, come! Get to work. I'm ashamed to +have the neighbors see my marble the way it is, so late in the day. You +there, too, John? Finished your beat already? Well, you come, too. I've +a mind to take up that dining-room carpet and put down the matting this +very day. I never was so late in my spring cleaning before, but every +time I say 'carpet' to you, you have an excuse to put me off. I confess +I don't understand you, who've always been so handy and kind with my +heavy jobs. But come, Dorothy, you needn't laze any longer. It beats +all, the lots of talk you and your father always must have whenever you +happen to get alongside. Come." + +There was a hasty exchange of glances between father and child; then she +sprang up, laughing, and as if it were part of her fun held out her hand +to the postman and pulled him to his feet. But it was not fun; it was +most painful, serious earnest. He could hardly have risen without her +aid, and she had noticed, what his wife had not, that, for a long time +now, he had never taken a seat without it was near a table, or some +other firm object by which he could support himself in rising. Now, as +he loosed her hand and climbed the steps, he kept his gaze fixed upon +those same troublesome feet and caught hold of the brass hand-rail, +which it was the housewife's pride and Dorothy's despair to keep +polished to brilliancy. + +Once within the house, Martha returned to the subject of the carpet +lifting and again he put her off; but this time her suspicion that all +was not right had been aroused and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, +she demanded in a tone sharpened by sudden anxiety: + +"John Chester, what is the matter with you?" + +He started, staggered by her touch, light as it was, and sank into a +chair; then knowing that the truth must out sometime, almost hurled it +at her--though smiling to think how little she would, at first, +comprehend: + +"Oh! nothing but '_ataxy locomotor_.'" + +"But--_what_? Don't tease. I'm in earnest, and a hurry." + +"So am I. In deadly earnest. I'm afflicted with '_ataxy locomotor_,' or +_locomotor ataxia_. It's come to stay. To change our whole lives." + +She hadn't the slightest idea what he meant, as he had surmised would be +the case, but something in his tone frightened her, though she answered +with a mirthful affectation: + +"Humph! I'm glad it's something so respectable!" + +Then she turned away, made ready to go to market, and soon left with her +basket on her arm. But she carried a now heavy heart within her. She had +seen that underneath her husband's jesting manner lay some tragic truth; +and in her preoccupied state, she bought recklessly of things she should +not and went home without those which were needful. So that once back +there, she had to dispatch Dorothy marketward again, while she herself +prepared the simple lunch that served till their evening dinner which +all enjoyed the more in the leisure of the day's work done. And now, in +the absence of the child they both so loved, husband and wife at length +discussed the trouble that had befallen. + +"Do you mean, John, that you are losing the use of your feet? What in +the world will a postman do without his sound feet and as sound a pair +of legs above them?" demanded the anxious housemistress, still unable to +accept the dreadful fact. + +"Nothing. I can't be a postman any longer. I must resign my position at +once. I've kept it longer than I should. I haven't done justice to +myself or the office in hanging on as I have. But----" + +"How long have you known about it?" + +"For several months I've noticed that my feet felt queer, but it's only +been a few weeks since they became so uncontrollable. I've not been able +to walk without keeping my eyes fixed on my toes. My legs have a wild +desire to fly out at right angles to my body and--Face it, little woman, +face it! You have a cripple on your hands for as long as he may live." + +"I haven't! You shan't be a--a cripple!" protested the impulsive +housewife, whose greatest griefs, heretofore, had been simple domestic +ones which shrank to nothingness before this real calamity. Then she +bowed her head on her arms and let the tears fall fast. This served to +relieve the tension of her nerves, and when she again lifted her head +her face was calm as sad, while she made him tell her all the details of +his trouble. He had been to the best specialists in the city. That very +day he had consulted the last, whom he had hoped might possibly help him +and whose fee had staggered him by its size. + +"How long has Dorothy known this?" asked Martha, with a tinge of +jealousy. + +"Almost from the beginning. It was quite natural that she should, for +she has so often run alongside me on my routes--going to and from +school. Besides, you know, she has the very sharpest eyes in the world. +Little escapes them. _Nothing_ escapes which concerns us whom she loves +so dearly. It was her notion that you shouldn't be told till it was +necessary, but it fell in with my own ideas. I--I think, though I never +heard of anybody else doing such a thing, that I'll have her go along +with me this afternoon, when I make my--my last rounds. I confess that +since that doctor's word, to-day, I've lost all my courage and my power +to walk half-decently. Decently? It hasn't been that for a long time, so +if you can spare her I'll have her go." + +"Of course I can spare her. She was to go to a class picnic, anyway, but +she'd rather go with you. Now, I'll to work; and, maybe, I can think a +way out of our trouble. I--I can't bear it, John! You, a cripple for +life! It can't be true--it shall not be true. But--if it has to +be,--well, you've worked for me all these years and it's a pretty +how-de-do if I can't work for you in turn. Now, lie down on the lounge +till it's time to go to the office again, and I'll tackle my kitchen +floor." + +For the first time he allowed her to help him across the room and to +place him comfortably on the lounge, and she suddenly remembered how +often, during the past few weeks, she had seen Dorothy do this very same +thing. She had laughed at it as a foolish fondness in the girl, but now +she offered the assistance with a bitter heartache. + +Dorothy came back and was overjoyed at the changed program for her +holiday afternoon. All along she had longed to go with the postman, to +help him, but had not been permitted. Now it was not only a relief that +her mother knew their secret and that they could talk it over together, +but she had formed a scheme by which she believed everything could go on +very much as before. + +So with a cane in one hand and his other resting on her shoulder, John +Chester made his last "delivery." Fortunately, the late mail of the day +was always small and the stops, therefore, infrequent. Most of these, +too, were at houses fronting directly on the street, so that the postman +could support himself against the end of the steps while Dorothy ran up +them and handed in the letters. + +It was different at Bellevieu, which chanced to be the end of that trip, +and the long path from the gateway to the mansion looked so formidable +to father John that he bade Dorothy go in alone with the pouch, emptied +now of all matter save that addressed to Mrs. Cecil. + +She sped away, leaving him leaning against the stone pillar of the +eagle-gate--so called because each column guarding the entrance was +topped by a massive bronze eagle--and waved a smiling farewell to him as +she disappeared beneath the trees bordering the driveway. + +As usual, Mrs. Cecil was on her piazza, wrapped in shawls and protected +by her hooded beach-chair from any possible wind that might blow. Old +though she was, her eyes were almost as brown and bright as Dorothy's +own, and they opened in surprise at the appearance of this novel +mail-carrier. + +"How-d'ye-do, Mrs. Cecil? Here's such a lot of letters and papers all +for you!" cried Dorothy, bowing, as she swept her hand through the pouch +which she had slung over her shoulder in the most official manner. +"Where shall I put them? I reckon there are too many for your lap." + +"What--who--Where's Johnnie?" demanded the lady, leaning forward and +first smiling, then frowning upon the girl. + +"Oh! he--he's at the gate," she answered, and was about to explain why +he had not come himself. Then a sudden remembrance of how closely he had +guarded his secret, even from her mother, closed her lips, leaving the +other to infer what she chose; and who promptly exclaimed: + +"Well, of all things! Do you know, does he know, that between you the +law is broken? Nobody, except a regularly sworn employee has a right to +touch the United States mail. How dare he send you? Huh! If I do my duty +as a good citizen I shall report him at once. This single breach of +faith may cost him his place, even though he has been in the service so +long." + +Mrs. Cecil's manner was harsher than her thought. For some time she had +observed that "Johnnie" looked ill and was far less active than of old +and she had intended that very afternoon to offer him a kindness. She +would send him and his wife away on a long vacation, wherever they chose +to go, till he could recover his health. She would pay all his expenses, +including a substitute's salary. Even more generous than all, she would +invite that girl, Dorothy C., whom they had so foolishly adopted, to +pass the interval of their absence at Bellevieu. She dreaded the +infliction of such a visit. She always had insisted that she hated +children--but--Well, it was to be hoped the postman would have sense +enough to speedily recuperate and take Dorothy off her hands. In any +case, she must be gotten rid of before it was time for Mrs. Cecil +herself to seek recreation at her summer home in the Hudson highlands. + +Now her mood suddenly changed. She had desired to befriend the postman +but, if he had taken it into his hands to befriend himself, it was quite +another matter. Let him! Why should she bother with anybody in such a +different state of life? Disappointment, at having her prospective +kindness returned upon her thus, made her sharply say: + +"It takes all kinds of fools to fill a world, and I'm sorry to find +Johnnie one of them. Don't stare! It's rude, with such big eyes as +yours. Drop the mail. Carriers shouldn't loiter--that's another crime. +Your father must come himself next time, else----" + +She seemed to leave some dire threat unspoken and again Dorothy was just +ready to tell this strange old lady, whom the postman had often called +"wise," the truth of the trouble that had come to him; when around the +corner of the house dashed Peter and Ponce, the two Great Dane dogs +which Mrs. Cecil kept as a menace to intruders. They had just been +loosed for their evening exercise and, wild with delight, were hurrying +to their mistress on her broad porch. + +At the sight of their onrush Dorothy caught up the pouch she had dropped +and started to retreat--too late! The animals were upon her, had knocked +her downward and backward, striking her head against the boards and, for +the moment, stunning her. But they had been more playful than vicious +and were promptly restrained by Mrs. Cecil's own hand upon their +collars; while the brief confusion of the girl's startled thoughts as +quickly cleared and she leaped to her feet, furiously angry and +indignant. + +"Oh! the horrid beasts! How dare you--anybody--keep such dangerous +creatures? I'll tell my father! He'll--he'll--" tears choked her further +speech and, still suspiciously eyeing the Danes, she was edging +cautiously down the steps when she felt herself stopped. + +Mrs. Cecil had loosed her hold of Peter to lay her hand upon the girl's +shoulder and she was saying, kindly but sternly: + +"They are not dangerous but playful. They attack nobody upon whom they +are not 'set.' It was an accident; and if any further apology is +necessary it is from a little girl to the old gentlewoman--for an +insolent suspicion. Now go. The dogs will not follow you." + +Dorothy did not see how she had done wrong, yet she felt like a culprit +dismissed as she lifted the pouch she had again dropped and started +gateward, still keeping a wary eye upon the beautiful dogs, now lying +beside their mistress in her beach-chair. + +As she neared the entrance she cried: + +"Here I am at last, father! I didn't mean to stay so long but that +dreadful old woman--Why, father, father! Where are you, dearest father?" + +He was nowhere to be seen. Nor anybody, either on the broad avenue or +the narrow street around the corner; and when she came breathlessly to +the dear home in which she hoped to find him it was empty. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AT JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL + + +The door of No. 77 Brown Street stood wide open. Any of the burglars for +whom its mistress was always on the watch might have raided the tiny +parlor or made off with father John's Sunday overcoat, hanging upon the +hat-rack. Now also, while Dorothy hurried from room to room of the six +which were all the house contained, the wind of a rising thunderstorm +whistled through them and their open windows. Nor was there any reply to +her anxious calls: + +"Mother! Father! Anybody--somebody! Oh! where are you? What has +happened? Mother--dearest mother Martha! Won't you answer?" + +Certainly, this was a strange, a terrifying state of things. It was +amazing that so careful a housewife as Martha Chester should leave her +home in this unprotected condition, but it was quite natural for the +well-trained girl, even in the midst of her alarm, to close the sashes +against the rain that now came dashing in. + +Then she hurried below and out into the little yard, or garden, that was +her own special delight. Nobody there; but the pail and brush which Mrs. +Chester had been using to clean her back kitchen were still upon its +floor, the pail overturned and the water puddling its bricks, and the +sight made Dorothy's heart sink lower yet. + +Hurrying back to the street, a neighbor shielded her own head from the +downpour and called from a next-door window: + +"Something has happened to your father. A boy saw him picked up on the +street and a policeman called a Johns Hopkins ambulance, that took him +to the hospital. The boy knew him, told your mother, and she's hurried +there. Don't worry. Probably it's nothing serious." + +"Not serious! Oh! you don't know what you're saying! And to think I left +him only such a little while! If that hateful old woman--I must go to +him, too, I must, I must!" + +With that Dorothy was retreating indoors, but again the neighbor's voice +detained her: + +"'Tisn't likely you'd be admitted, even if you did go. You'd better stay +here and be ready for your poor mother when she comes. It's worse +trouble for her than for you." + +This might be so and the advice excellent, but the excited girl was in +no mood to profit by it. Once, in her early childhood, she had answered +to an inquiry: "I love my mother a _little_ the best, but I love my +father the _biggest_ the best!" and it was so still. Her father, her +cheery, indulgent, ever-tender father, would always be "the biggest the +best" of her earthly friends, and to be absent from him now, not knowing +what had befallen, was impossible. + +Glancing upward she observed that the neighbor had already withdrawn her +head from the dashing rain and was glad of it. It left her free to bang +the front door shut, to rush backward through the house and out at the +alley gate, which she also shut, snapping its lock behind her. But she +had caught up the key that opened it and, hanging this in a crevice of +the fence known for a safe hiding place to each of the family, she +started eastward for the great hospital. + +Though she had never entered the famous place, she had seen it once from +a street-car, and love guided her flying feet. But it was a long, long +way from Brown Street, and the present storm was one of those deluging +"gusts" familiar to the locality. Within the first five minutes the +gutters were filled, the muddy streams pushing outward toward the very +middle of the narrower alleys and quite covering her shoe-tops as she +splashed through. At one or two of the older thoroughfares she came to +the old-time "stepping stones," provided for just such emergencies, and +still left standing because of the city's pride in their antiquity. Over +these she leaped and was glad of them, but alas! the storm was having +its will of her. Her gingham frock was soaked and clung about her with a +hindering obstinacy that vexed her, and her wet shoes grew intolerable. +She did not remember that she had ever gone barefoot, as some of her +mates had done, but at last she sat down on a doorstep and took off her +shoes and stockings. After a moment's contemplation of their ruined +state, she threw them far aside and stepped upon the brick pavement, +just as a policeman in oilskins came up and laid his hand on her +shoulder, asking: + +"Little girl, what are you doing?" + +Dorothy sprang aside, frightened, and wriggled herself free. She forgot +that she had never been afraid of such officers; that, indeed, the one +upon her own home beat was the friend of all the youngsters on the +block, and that this one could give her the shortest direction to the +place she sought. She had long ago been taught that, if she were ever +lost or in any perplexity upon the street, she should call upon the +nearest policeman for aid and that it was his sworn duty to assist her. +She remembered only that it was a policeman who had summoned the +ambulance that had carried her father to that horrible place--a +hospital! Well, she, too, was bound for it, but only to snatch him +thence; and stretching out her small, drenched arms, she wondered if +they and mother Martha's together would have strength to lift and seize +him. + +Then on and on and on! Could one city be so big as this? Did ever brick +pavements hurt anybody else as they were hurting her? How many more +blocks must she traverse before she came in sight of that wide Broadway +with its pretty parks, on which the hospital stood? + +Everybody had retreated indoors. Nobody who could escape the fury of the +storm endured it, and she had left the officer who could have guided her +far behind. But, at last, a slackening of the downpour; and as if by +magic, people reappeared upon the street; though of the first few whom +she addressed none paused to listen. Yet, finally, a colored boy came +hurrying by, his basket of groceries upon his arm, and another empty +basket inverted over his head, by way of an umbrella. Him she clutched, +demanding with what little of breath she had left: + +"The--way--to--Johns Hopkins'--hospital, please!" + +"Hey? Horspittle? Wha' for?" + +"To find my father, who's been taken there. Oh! tell me the shortest +way, please--please--please! I am so tired! and I must be--I must be +quick--quick!" + +A look of pity and consternation stole into the negro's face, and he +drew in his breath with a sort of gasp as he answered: + +"Laws, honey, I reckon yo' _mus'_ be 'quick'! But de quickes' yo' is +ain' half quick enough. Know wha' dem horspittles is for? Jus' to cut up +folkses in. Fac'. Dey goes in alibe, dey comes out deaders. Yo' jus' +done cal'late yo' ain' got no paw no mo'. He's had his haid, or his +laig, or both his arms sawed off 'fore you-all more'n got started +a-chasin' of him. Po' li'l gal! Pity yo' got so wet in de rain jus' fo' +nottin'! Wheah yo' live at? Yo' bettah go right home an' tell yo' folks +take dem cloes off, 'fore you-all done get de pneumony." + +Dorothy was shivering, partly from nervousness, partly from the chill of +wet garments in the strong breeze. Though she had often heard the +postman comment upon the superstitions of the negroes, who formed so +large a part of the city's population, and knew that such ideas as this +lad expressed were but superstition only, she could not help being +impressed by his words. It was his honest belief that to enter a +hospital meant giving himself up to death; and in this ignorance he +reasoned that this forlorn child should be prevented from such +self-destruction by any means whatever. So when she still pleaded to be +directed, despite the fear he had raised in her, he whirled abruptly +about and pointed his hand in a direction wholly different from that she +had followed. Then he added with a most dramatic air: + +"Well, honey, if you-all done daid-set to go get yo' laigs sawed off, +travel jus' dat-a-way till yo' come to de place. Mebbe, if dey gibs yo' +dat stuff what makes yo' go asleep, you-all won't know nottin' erbout de +job." + +With this cheerful assurance the grocer's boy went his way, musically +whistling a popular tune, and Dorothy gazed after him in deep +perplexity. Fortunately, the rain had almost ceased and the brief halt +had restored her breath. Then came the reflection: + +"He wasn't telling the truth! I know that isn't the way at all, for +Johns Hopkins is on the east of the city, and that's toward the north. +I'll ask somebody else. There are plenty of people and wagons coming out +now; and--Oh! my!" + +As if in answer to her thought, there came the clang of an electric +bell, the hurrying delivery wagons drew out of the way, and past her, +over the clear space thus given, dashed another ambulance, hastening to +the relief of some poor sufferer within. On its side she saw the name of +the hospital she sought and with frantic speed dashed after this +trustworthy guide. + +Though she could by no means keep up with its speed she did keep it well +in sight, to the very entrance of the wide grounds themselves, and there +she lost it. But it didn't matter now. Her journey was almost done, and +the building loomed before her, behind whose walls was hidden her +beloved father John. + +From the gateway up the incline to the broad hospital steps she now +dragged her strangely reluctant feet. How, after all, could she enter +and learn some dreadful truth? But she must, she must! and with a final +burst of courage she rushed into the great entrance hall, which was so +silent, so beautiful after the storm outside; and there appeared before +her half-blinded eyes a figure as of one coming to meet her. + +All alone the figure stood, with nothing near to detract from its +majestic tenderness; so large and powerful looking; as if able to bear +all the burdens of a troubled world and still smile peace upon it. +Slowly, Dorothy crept now to the very feet of the statue and read that +this was: "Christ the Healer." + +Ah! then! No hospital could be a wicked, murderous place in which He +dwelt! and with a sigh of infinite relief, the exhausted child sank down +and laid her head upon Him. And then all seemed to fade from view. + +The next Dorothy knew she was lying on a white cot; a blue-gowned, +white-capped nurse was bending over her, and a pleasant voice was +saying: + +"Well, now that's good! You've had a splendid rest and must be quite +ready for your supper. Here's a fine bowl of broth, and some nice toast. +Shall I help you to sit up?" + +"Why--why--what's the matter with me? Where am I? Have----" began the +astonished child; then, suddenly remembering the colored boy's +assertions concerning this dreadful place, she instinctively thrust her +hands below the light bed covering and felt of her legs. They were still +both there! So were her arms; and, for a matter of fact, she was +delightfully rested and comfortable. Again lying back upon her pillow, +she smiled into the nurse's face and asked: + +"What am I doing here, in a bed? Is this the hospital?" + +"Yes, dear, it is; and you are in bed because you fainted in the +entrance hall, exhausted by exposure to the terrible storm. That is +all--we trust. Now, drink your broth and take another nap if you can." + +There was authority, as well as gentleness, in the tone and the patient +tried to obey; but this time there was a sharp pain at the back of her +head and her neck seemed strangely stiff. With a little exclamation of +distress, she put her hand on the painful spot, and the attendant +quickly asked: + +"Does that hurt you? Can you remember to have had a blow, or a fall, +lately?" + +"Why, yes. The big dogs knocked me down over at Bellevieu. It made me +blind for a few minutes, but I was too mad to stay blind! If it hadn't +been for that--Oh! please, where _is_ my father?" answered Dorothy. + +"Your father? I don't know. Have you lost, or missed, him, dear?" +returned the other, understanding now why such a healthy child should +have collapsed as she had, there at the feet of the beautiful statue. +Excitement, exposure, and the blow; these accounted for the condition in +which a house doctor had found her. Also, there was nothing to hinder +prompt recovery if the excitement could be allayed; and to this end the +nurse went on: + +"Tell me about him, little girl. Maybe I can help you, and don't worry +about being here. It is the very loveliest place in the world for ailing +people and nothing shall hurt you." + +So Dorothy told all she knew; of the long weeks past when the postman's +active feet had become more and more troublesome; of his sudden +disappearance; and of her now terrible fear that, since the poor feet +were of so little use, these hospital surgeons would promptly "saw" them +off and so be rid of them. + +Ripples of amusement chased themselves across the nurse's fair face as +she listened, yet beneath them lay a sympathetic seriousness which kept +down Dorothy's anger, half-roused by the fleeting smiles. + +"Well, my dear, neither he nor you could have come to a better place to +get help. The very wisest doctors in the country are here, I believe. +It's a disease with a long name, I fancy----" + +"Yes, yes! I know it! He told me. It's 'locomort'--'loco' something, +'at'--'at' something else. It's perfectly horrible just to hear it, and +what must it be to suffer it? But he never complains. My father John is +the bravest, dearest, best man in the world!" + +"Indeed? Then you should be the 'bravest, dearest, best' little daughter +as well. And we'll hope some help, some cure, can be found for him. Now, +will you go to sleep?" + +"No. If you please I will go home. But I don't see my clothes anywhere. +Funny they should take away a little girl's clothes just 'cause she +forgot and went to sleep in the wrong place!" + +"In the very right-est place in all the world, dear child! At the +Saviour's feet. Be sure nothing but goodness and kindness rule over the +hospital whose entrance He guards. Your clothes are drying in the +laundry. You will, doubtless, have them in the morning, and, so far as I +can judge now, there'll be nothing to prevent your going home then," +comforted the nurse, gently stroking Dorothy's brow and by her touch +soothing the pain in it. Oddly enough, though her head had ached +intensely, ever since that tumble on Mrs. Cecil's piazza, she had not +paid any attention to it while her anxious search continued. She was +fast drowsing off again, but roused for an instant to ask: + +"Have you seen my father? Did he hurt himself when he fell? Did he fall? +What did happen to him, anyway? Mayn't I see him just a minute, just one +little minute, 'fore this--this queer sleepiness gets me?" + +"My dear, you can ask as many questions as a Yankee! I'll tell you what +I think: Your father was probably taken to the emergency ward. I have +nothing to do with that. My place is here, in the children's ward; and +the first thing nurses--or children--learn in this pleasant room +is--obedience. I have my orders to obey and one of them is to prevent +talking after certain hours." + +"You--you a big, grown-up woman, have to 'obey'? How funny!" cried +Dorothy, thinking that the face beneath the little white cap was almost +the very sweetest she had ever seen. But to this the other merely +nodded, then went softly away. + +Dorothy lay in a little room off from the general ward, into which the +nurse had disappeared, and where there was the sound of low-toned +conversation, with an occasional fretful cry from some unseen baby. The +doctor, or interne as he was called, making his night rounds, seeing +that all his little charges were comfortable for their long rest, and +discussing with the blue-gowned assistant their needs and conditions. It +was he who had found Dorothy, unconscious on the tiles, and had ordered +her to bed; and it was of herself, had she known it, that he and the +nurse had just been talking. As a result of this he merely looked in at +the door of the little room, blinked a good-night from behind his +spectacles, which, like two balls of fire, reflected the electric light +above the door, and passed on. + +Dorothy intended to keep awake. For a long time her head had been full +of various schemes by which she should rise to the support of her +family, whenever that day foreseen by the postman should arrive when his +own support should fail. The day had come! Very suddenly, after all, as +even the best-prepared-for catastrophes have a way of doing; and now, +despite her earnest desires--Dorothy was going to sleep! She was +ashamed of herself. She must stay awake and think--think--think! She +simply _must_--she---- + +"Well, Dorothy C., good morning! A nice, dutiful daughter, you, to run +away and leave mother Martha alone all night!" + +That was the next she knew! That was Mrs. Chester's voice, speaking in +that familiar tone a reproof which was no reproof at all, but only a +loving satisfaction. And there she sat, the tidy little woman, in her +second-best hat and gown, smiling, smiling, as if there were no such +thing as trouble in the world! as if both husband and child were not, at +that very moment, lying in hospital beds! + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +DOROTHY GAINS IN WISDOM + + +"Why, mother! Why--why--_mother_!" cried the astonished Dorothy, sitting +up in her cot and smiling back into the happy face before her, yet +wondering at its happiness and her own heartlessness, in being glad +while her father was so ill. Then she realized that her neck was very +stiff and that when she tried to turn her head it moved with a painful +wrench, so sank back again, but still gazed at Mrs. Chester with a +grieved amazement. + +Seeing which, the lady bent over the cot and kissed the little girl, +then promptly explained: + +"You needn't be troubled, dearie, this is the very best thing that could +have happened to us. Your father tired of waiting for you, his head was +dizzy, and when he tried to walk home he fell. They hurried him +here--his uniform showed he was somebody important--and into that +emergency place. There the doctors examined him and they say, O Dorothy +C.! they say that there is a chance, a chance of his sometime _getting +well_! Think of that! John may get well! All those other outside +doctors, that he paid so much to, told him he never could. He'd just +grow worse and worse till--till he died. These don't. They say he has a +chance. He's to stay here and be built up on extra nourishments, for +awhile, and then he's to go into the country and live. Oh! I'm the +happiest woman in Baltimore, this day! And how is my little girl? Though +the nurse tells me there's nothing much the matter with you, and that +you'll be able to go home with me as soon as you have had your +breakfast. Such a late breakfast, Dorothy C., for a schoolgirl! Lucky +it's a Saturday!" + +Dorothy had never seen her mother like this. At home, when trifles went +wrong, she was apt to be a bit sharp-tongued and to make life +uncomfortable for father John and their daughter, but now, that this +real trouble had befallen, she was so gay! For, even if there was hope +that the postman might sometime recover, was he not still helpless in a +hospital? And had she forgotten that they had no money except his +salary? which would stop, of course, since he could no longer earn it. +It was certainly strange; and seeing the gravity steal into the childish +face which was so dear to her, mother Martha stooped above it and, now +herself wholly grave, explained: + +"My dear, don't think I'm not realizing everything. But, since I've been +once face to face with the possibility that death--_death_--was coming +to our loved one and now learn that he will still live, as long as I do, +maybe, I don't care about anything else. God never shuts one door but He +opens another; and we'll manage. Some way we'll manage, sweetheart, to +care for father John who has so long cared for us. Now, enough of talk. +Here comes a maid with your breakfast; and see. There are your clothes, +as fresh and clean as if I had laundered them myself. Maybe you should +dress yourself before you eat. Then you are to see your father for a few +minutes; and then we'll go home to pack up." + +It was long since Mrs. Chester had helped Dorothy to dress, except on +some rare holiday occasion, but she did so now, as if the girl were +still the baby she had found upon her doorstep. She, also, made such +play of the business that the other became even more gay than herself, +and chattered away of all that had befallen her, from her discovery of +the deserted home till now. + +Then came the nice breakfast, so heartily enjoyed that the nurse smiled, +knowing there could be nothing seriously amiss with so hungry a patient. +Afterward, a quiet walk through long corridors and spacious halls, from +which they caught glimpses of cots with patients in them, and passed by +wheeled chairs in which convalescents were enjoying a change. + +"It's so still! Does nobody ever speak out loud?" whispered Dorothy to +her mother, half-afraid of her own footfalls, though she now wore a pair +of felt slippers in place of the shoes she had yesterday discarded. +"It's the biggest, cleanest, quietest place I could even dream of!" + +But Mrs. Chester did not answer, save by a nod and a finger upon lip; +and so following the guide assigned them, they came to one of the open +bridges connecting two of the hospital buildings, and there was father +John, in a rolling chair, wearing a spotless dressing-gown, and holding +out both hands toward them, while his eyes fairly shone with delight. An +orderly, in a white uniform, was pushing the chair along the bridge, +which was so wide and looked down upon such beautiful grounds that it +reminded Dorothy of Bellevieu, and he stopped short at their approach. +He even stepped back a few paces, the better to leave them free for +their interview. + +But if there was any emotion to be displayed at that meeting, it was not +of a gloomy sort; and it was almost in his wife's very words that the +postman exclaimed: + +"To think I should get impatient, lose my head, tumble down, and--up +into this fine place! Where I've heard the best of news and live like a +lord! Who wouldn't give his legs a rest, for a spell, if he could have +such a chair as this to loll in while another man does his walking for +him! Well, how's the girl? Why, since when have you taken to wearing +slippers so much too big for you? I should think they'd bother you in +walking as much as my limpsy feet did me." + +Nothing escaped this cheery hospital patient even now, and before Mrs. +Chester could interpose, Dorothy had told her own tale and how she had +been a hospital patient herself. How now she had been "discharged" and +was ready to go home with all her legs and arms intact, a thing she had +feared might not be the case when she had ventured thither. + +"To think I should have been so silly as to believe that poor boy! Or +that, if I had followed his wrong directions, I shouldn't have gotten +here at all. Oh! isn't it beautiful! What makes some of the women dress +all in white and some in blue? When I grow up I believe I'll be a +hospital nurse myself." + +"Good idea. Excellent. Stick to it. See if you can make that notion last +as long as that other one about being a great artist; or, yes, the next +scheme was to write books--books that didn't 'preach' but kept folks +laughing all the way through." + +"Now, father! You needn't tease, and you haven't answered, about the +different dresses. Do you know, already?" protested Dorothy, kissing his +hand that rested on the arm of his chair. + +"Oh! yes, I know. The orderly explained, for I wasn't any wiser than you +before he did. The blue girls are 'probationers,' or under-graduates. +They have to study and take care of cranky sick folks for three whole +years before they can wear those white clothes. Think of that, little +Miss Impatience, before you decide on the business! Three years. That's +a long time to be shut up with aches and pains and groans. But a noble +life. One that needs patience; even more than the Peabody course!" + +They all laughed, even Dorothy who was being teased. After any new +experience, it was her propensity immediately to desire to continue the +delightful novelty. After a visit to a famous local picture gallery, she +had returned home fully intent upon becoming an artist who should be, +also, famous. To that end she had wasted any number of cheap pads and +pencils, and had littered her mother's tidy rooms with "sketches" +galore. When she had gone with a schoolmate to a Peabody recital, she +had been seized with the spirit of music and had almost ruined a +naturally sweet voice--as well as the hearers' nerves--by a +self-instructed course of training, which her teasing father had +sometimes likened to a cat concert on a roof. However, upon learning +that it required many years of steady practise and that her life must be +filled with music--music alone--if she ever hoped to graduate from the +Institute, she abandoned the idea and aspired to literature. + +So from one ambition to another, her almost too active mind veered; but +her wise guardians allowed it free scope, believing that, soon or late, +it would find the right direction and that for which nature had really +fitted her. The greatest disappointment the postman had felt, concerning +these various experiments, was about the music. He was almost +passionately fond of it, and rarely passed even a street organ without +a brief pause to listen. Except, of course, when he had been upon his +rounds. Then he forced himself past the alluring thing, even if he had +himself to whistle to keep it out of mind. This habit of his had gained +for him the nickname, along his beat, of the "whistling postman"; and, +had he known it, there were many regrets among those who had responded +to his whistle as promptly as to his ring of the bell that they should +hear the cheerful sound no more. + +The news of his collapse had quickly spread, for a new postman was +already on his route, and it was only at Bellevieu, where "Johnnie" +would be most missed, that it was not known. + +The eagle-gate was shut. Ephraim was not to drive his fat horses through +it that morning, nor for many more to come. During the night Mrs. Cecil +had been taken ill with one of her periodical bronchial attacks, of +which she made so light, but her physician and old Dinah so much. To +them her life seemed invaluable; for they, better than anybody else, +knew of her wide-spread yet half-hidden charities, and they would keep +her safely in her room, as long as this were possible. + +After a time, the invalid would take matters into her own hands and +return to her beloved piazza; for she was the only one not frightened by +her own condition, and was wont to declare: + +"I shall live just as long, and have just as many aches, as the dear +Lord decrees. When He's through with me here He'll let me know, and all +your fussing, Dinah, won't avail. My father was ninety, my mother +ninety-seven when they died. We're tough old Maryland stock, not easily +killed." + +Indeed, frail though Mrs. Cecil looked, it was the fragility of extreme +slenderness rather than health; and it was another pride of Dinah's that +her Miss Betty had still almost the figure of a girl. Occasionally, even +yet, the lady would sit to read with a board strapped across her +shoulders, as she had been used when in her teens, to keep them erect; +and it was her boast that she had kept her "fine shape" simply because +never, in all her life, had she suffered whalebone or corset to +interfere with nature. + +This Saturday morning, therefore, a colored boy waited beneath the +eagles, to receive his mistress's mail and to prevent the ringing of the +gate-bell, which might disturb her. In passing him, on her way home, +Dorothy noticed the unusual circumstance and thought how much the +gossip-loving dame would miss her ever-welcome "Johnnie." But she was +now most fully engrossed by her own affairs and did not stop to +enlighten him. + +After leaving the hospital, Mrs. Chester and she had gone downtown to +replace the shoes and stockings so recklessly discarded the day before; +Dorothy hobbling along in the felt slippers and declaring that she would +suffer less if she were barefooted. But her mother had answered: + +"No, indeed! I'd be ashamed to be seen with such a big girl as you in +that condition. Besides, I must get some new things for John. So, while +I select the nightshirts and wrapper he needs, you go into the shoe +department and buy for yourself." + +"Oh, mother! May I? I never bought any of my clothes alone. How nice +and grown-up I feel! May I get just what I like?" + +"Yes. Only, at the outside, you must not pay more than two dollars for +the shoes, nor above a quarter for the stockings. I could scold you for +spoiling your old ones, if I were not too thankful about your father to +scold anybody." + +So they parted by the elevator in the great store, and with even more +than her native enthusiasm Dorothy plunged into these new delights of +shopping. The clerk first displayed a substantial line of black shoes, +as seemed most suitable to a young girl in the plainest of gingham +frocks; but the small customer would have none of these. Said she: + +"No, I don't like that kind. Please show me the very prettiest ties you +have for two dollars a pair," and she nodded her head suggestively +toward a glass case wherein were displayed dainty slippers of varying +hues. There were also white ones among them, and Dorothy remembered that +her chum, Mabel Bruce, had appeared at Sunday school the week before, +wearing such, and had looked "too lovely for words." But then, of +course, Mabel's frock and hat were also white and her father was the +plumber. When Dorothy had narrated the circumstance to father John, and +had sighed that she was "just suffering for white shoes," he had laughed +and declared that: + +"Plumbers were the only men rich enough to keep their daughters shod +that way!" + +But she saw now that he was mistaken. These beauties which the rather +supercilious clerk was showing her didn't cost a cent more than the +limit she had been allowed. Indeed, they were even less. They were +marked a "special sale," only one dollar ninety-seven cents. Why, she +was saving three whole cents by taking them, as well as pleasing +herself. + +The transaction was swiftly closed. White stockings were added to the +purchase, on which, also, the shopper saved another two cents, so that +she felt almost a millionaire as she stepped out of the shoe department +and around to the elevator door, where she was to meet her mother. The +lady promptly arrived but had not finished her own errands; nor, in the +crowd, could she see her daughter's feet and the manner of their +clothing. She simply held out her front-door key to the girl and bade +her hurry home, to put the little house in order for the coming Sabbath. + +Thus Dorothy's fear that her mother might disapprove her choice was +allayed for the time being. She would not be sent back to that clerk, +who had jested about the felt slippers in a manner the young shopper +felt was quite ill-bred, to ask him to exchange the white shoes for +black ones. So she stepped briskly forth, keeping her own gaze fixed +admiringly upon the snowy tips which peeped out from beneath her short +skirts, and for a time all went well. She managed to avoid collision +with the bargain-morning shoppers all about her and she wholly failed to +see the amused faces of those who watched her. + +On the whole, Dorothy C. was as sensible a girl as she was a bright one; +but there's nobody perfect, and she was rather unduly vain of her +shapely hands and feet. They were exceedingly small and well-formed, and +though the hands had not been spared in doing the rough tasks of life, +which fall to the lot of humble bread-earners, her father John had +insisted that his child's feet should be well cared for. He, more than +Martha, had seen in their adopted daughter traces of more aristocratic +origin than their own; and he had never forgotten the possibility that +sometime she might be reclaimed. + +Usually Dorothy walked home from any downtown trip, to market or +otherwise, and set out briskly to do so now. But, all at once, a +horrible pain started in the toes of her right foot! She shook the toes, +angrily, as if they were to blame for the condition of things; and thus +resting all her weight upon her left foot that, likewise, mutinied and +sent a thrill of torture through its entire length. Did white shoes +always act that way? + +She stopped short and addressed the misbehaving members in her sternest +tones: + +"What's the matter with you to make you hurt so? Never before has a new +shoe done it; I've just put them on and walked out of the store as +comfortably as if they were old ones. Hmm! I guess it's all imagination. +They aren't quite, not _quite_ so big as my old ones were, but they fit +ex-quis-ite-ly! Ouch!" + +"Excruciatingly" would have been the better word, as Dorothy presently +realized; but, also, came the happy thought that she had "saved" enough +money on her purchases to pay her car-fare home. She knew that mother +Martha would consider her extravagant to ride when she had no market +basket to carry but--Whew! Ride she must! That pain, it began to make +her feel positively ill! Also, it rendered her entrance of the car a +difficult matter; so that, instead of the light spring up the step she +was accustomed to give, she tottered like an old woman and was most +grateful for the conductor's help as he pulled her in. She sank into the +corner seat with a look of agony on her pretty face and her aching toes +thrust straight out before her, in a vain seeking for relief; nor did it +add to her composure to see the glances of others in the car follow hers +to the projecting feet while a smile touched more faces than one. + +Poor Dorothy never forgot her first purchase, "all alone"; and her +vanity received a pretty severe lesson that day. So severe that as she +finally limped to the steps of No. 77 she sat down on the bottom one, +unable to ascend them till she had removed her shoes. The misery which +followed this act was, at first, so overpowering that she closed her +eyes, the better to endure it; and when she opened them again there +stood a man before her, looking at her so sharply that she was +frightened; and who, when she would have risen, stopped her by a gesture +and a smile that were even more alarming than his stare. + +"Well, what is it?" demanded the little girl, suddenly realizing that in +this broad daylight, upon an open street, nobody would dare to hurt her. + +The stranger's unlovely smile deepened into a gruff laughter, as he +answered: + +"Humph! You don't appear to know me. But I know you. I know you better +than the folks who've brought you up. I can help you to a great fortune +if you'll let me. Hey?" + +"You--can? Oh! how!" cried Dorothy, springing up, and in her amazement +at this statement forgetting her aching feet. "A fortune!" And that was +the very thing that father John now needed. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DOROTHY ENTERTAINS + + +Dorothy's punishment for her unwise purchase was to wear the white shoes +continually. This was only possible by slitting their tops in various +places, which not only spoiled their beauty but was a constant "lecture" +to their wearer; who remarked: + +"One thing, mother Martha, I've learned by 'shopping'--the vanity of +vanity! I've always longed for pretty things, but--call _them_ pretty? +Doesn't matter though, does it? if we're really going to move and +everything to be so changed. When we live in the country may I have all +the flowers I want?" + +"Yes," answered the matron, absently. Although this was Sunday, a day on +which she faithfully tried to keep her mind free from weekday cares, she +could not banish them now. Instead of going to church she was to visit +the hospital and spend the morning with her husband. Dorothy was to +attend Sunday school, as usual, wearing the slitted shoes, for the +simple reason that she now possessed no others. Afterward, she might +invite Mabel Bruce to stay with her, and they were to keep house till +its mistress's return. + +"I hope you'll have a very happy day, dear. After I leave John, though I +shall stay with him as long as I am allowed, I must go to see Aunt +Chloe. There'll be no time for visits during the week, and besides, +she'll want to hear about everything at first hand. Poor old creature! +It'll be hard for her to part with her 'boy' and I mustn't neglect her. +You needn't cook any dinner, for there's a good, cold lunch. I made a +nice custard pie for you, last night, after you were asleep. There's +plenty of bread and butter, an extra bottle of milk, and you may cut a +few thin slices of the boiled ham. Be sure to do it carefully, for we +will have to live upon it for as long as possible. If you tell Mrs. +Bruce that the invitation is from me I think she'll let Mabel come. +Don't leave the house without locking up tight, and after you come back +from Sunday school don't leave it at all. Have you learned your lesson? +Already? My! but you are quick at your books! Good-bye. I hope you'll +have a happy day, and you may expect me sometime in the afternoon." + +"But, mother, wait! There's a cluster of my fairy-roses out in bloom and +I want to send them to father. A deep red sort that hasn't blossomed +before and that we've been watching so long. I'll fill it with kisses, +tell him, and almost want to get half-sick again, myself, to be back in +hospital with him. Aren't you going to take him any of that nice ham? +You know he loves it so." + +"No, dear. I was specially told not to bring food. The nurses will give +him all he needs and that's better for him than anything we outside +folks could fix. Afterwards--Well, let us hope we shall still have +decent stuff to eat! Now I'm off. Good-bye. Be careful and don't get +into any sort of foolishness. Good-bye." + +Dorothy gazed after her mother as she disappeared and felt a strange +desire to call her back, or beg to go with her. The house was so empty +and desolate without the cheerful presence of the postman. Their Sunday +mornings had used to be so happy. Then he was at liberty to walk with +her in the park near-by, if it were cold weather; or if the lovely +season for gardening, as now they repaired to the little back yard which +their united labors had made to "blossom like the rose." + +John Chester had bought No. 77 Brown Street. It was not yet much more +than half paid for, but he considered it his. Martha was the most +prudent of housekeepers and could make a little money go a long way; so +that, even though his salary was small, they managed each month to lay +aside a few dollars toward reducing the mortgage which still remained on +the property. But he had not waited to be wholly out of debt to begin +his improvements, and the first of these had been to turn the bare +ground behind the house into a charming garden. Not an inch of the +space, save that required for paths and a tiny shed for ash and garbage +cans, was left untilled; and as Baltimore markets afford most beautiful +plants at low rates he had gathered a fine collection. Better than +that, there were stables at the rear, instead of the negro-alleys which +intersect so many of the city blocks, and from these he not only +obtained extra soil but stirred his stable friends to emulate his +industry. Vines and ivies had been planted on the stable walls as well +as on his own back fence, so that, instead of looking out upon ugly +brick and whitewash, the neighbors felt that they possessed a sort of +private park behind their dwellings, and all considered father John a +public benefactor and rejoiced in the results of his efforts. Many of +them, too, were stirred--like the stable-men--to attempt some gardening +on their own account, and this was not only good for them but made the +one-hundred-block of Brown Street quite famous in the town. + +Dorothy had visited the garden that morning before breakfast and had +found the new roses which were the latest addition to their stock. She +had also shed a few tears over them, realizing that he who had planted +them would watch them no more. + +"Dear little 'fairies'! seems if you just blossom for nothing, now!" +she had said to them, then had resolved that they should go to him since +he could not come to them; and, having cut them, she fled the garden, +missing him more there than anywhere. + +Once Dorothy C. would have been ashamed to appear among her classmates, +in their Sunday attire, wearing her slitted shoes; but to-day her mind +was full of other, far more important, matters. So she bore their +raillery with good nature, laughed by way of answer, and was so +impatient to be at home, where she could discuss all with her chum, that +she could hardly wait to obtain Mrs. Bruce's consent to the visit. So, +as soon as the two girls were cozily settled in the little parlor, she +exclaimed: + +"Mabel Bruce! I've something perfectly wonderful to tell you. Do you +know--_I'm an_--_heiress_!" + +"No. I don't know, nor you either," returned Mabel, coolly; rocking her +plump body to and fro in the postman's own chair, and complacently +smoothing her ruffles. Then she leaned forward, glanced from her own +feet to Dorothy's, and carefully dusted her white shoes with her +handkerchief. + +The little hostess laughed, but remarked, a trifle tartly: + +"That's what I call nasty-nice. Next time you'll be wiping your nose on +that same thing and I'd rather have the dust on my shoes than in my +nostrils. But no matter. I've so many things to tell you I don't know +where to begin!" + +"Don't you? Well, then, you're such a terrible talker when you get +started, s'pose we have our dinner first. I'm terrible hungry." + +"Hungry, Mabel Bruce? Already? Didn't you have your breakfast?" + +"Course, I did. But a girl can't eat once and make it last all day, can +she?" + +"I reckon _you_ can't. You're the greatest eater I ever did see. All the +girls say so. That's why you're always put on the refreshment committee +at our picnics. Even Miss Georgia says: 'If you want to be sure of +enough provision make Mabel chairman.' A chairman is the boss of any +particular thing, if you don't know:" instructed this extremely frank +hostess. + +"Oh! course I know. You just said I was one and folks most gen'ally know +what they are themselves, I guess," answered the plumber's daughter, +without resentment. What anybody _said_ didn't matter to phlegmatic +Mabel so long as their _doing_ agreed with her desires. She was fond of +Dorothy C. Oh! yes, she was sincerely fond as well as proud! The +Chesters were bringing up their daughter very nicely, her mother +declared, and that Dorothy had the prettiest manners of all the girls +who came to their house. Mabel had her own opinion of those manners, of +which she had just had a specimen, but she never contradicted her mother +and not often her playmates. As a rule she was too lazy, and was only +moved to dispute a statement when it was really beyond belief--like that +of her chum's having suddenly become an "heiress." Heiresses were rich. +Mabel wasn't very wise but she knew that, and witness Dorothy's ragged +shoes. Heiress? Huh! It was more sensible to return to the subject of +dinner, for the visitor had sampled Mrs. Chester's cooking before now +and knew it to be excellent. So she rose and started for the kitchen, +and with an exclamation of regret the hostess followed the guest, though +cautioning her: + +"If we eat our lunch now, at a little after eleven o'clock, you mustn't +expect another dinner at one. My mother didn't say I could have two +meals, so you better eat dreadful slow and make it last." + +"All right. I will. Maybe, too, I'll go home by our own dinner time. +Sundays, that isn't till after two o'clock, 'cause my mother goes to +church and has to cook it afterward. Sunday is the only day my father is +home to dinner, so he wants a big one and mother gets it for him. Your +father's home Sundays, too, isn't he?" + +"He--he was--He used----" began Dorothy, then with a sudden burst of +tears turned away and hid her face in her hands. + +Warm-hearted, if always-hungry, Mabel instantly threw her arms about her +friend's waist and tried to comfort her with loving kisses and the +assurance: + +"He will be again, girlie. Don't you worry. Folks go to hospitals all +the time and come back out of them. My father, he had the typhoid fever, +last year, and he went. Don't you remember? and how nice all the +neighbors were to me and ma. And now he's as strong--as strong! So'll +your father be, too, and go whistling round the block just like he used +to did. Don't cry, Dorothy C. It makes your eyes all funny and--and +besides, if you don't stop I'll be crying myself, in a minute, and I +don't want to. _I_ look perfectly horrid when I cry, I get so red and +puffy, and I shouldn't like to cry on this dress. It's just been done up +and ma says I've got to keep it clean enough to wear four Sundays, it's +such a job to iron all the ruffles." + +Despite her loneliness Dorothy laughed. There was a deal of +consideration for herself in Mabel's remarks, yet her sympathy was +sincere as her affection long-proved. She had been the first playmate of +the little foundling, and it was her belief--gathered from that of her +parents--that the Chesters' adopted child would turn out to be of good +birth, if ever the truth were known. In any case, she was the prettiest +and cleverest girl in school, and Mabel was proud to be the one selected +this morning as a companion. + +"O you funny Mabel!" cried Dorothy. "You're sorry for both of us, aren't +you! Well, come along. We started to get lunch and to talk. You go to +the ice-box and get the things, while I set the table. Wait! Put on my +tie-before, to keep your dress clean. Good thing your sleeves are short. +Arms'll wash easier than ruffles. Hurry up--you to eat and I to talk." + +Very shortly they were engaged in these congenial matters, though Mabel +almost forgot that she was hungry in her astonishment at Dorothy's +opening statement: + +"We're going to move. I guess this is about the last time you'll ever +come to this house to dinner." + +"Going--to--move!" ejaculated Mabel, with her mouth so full of pie that +she could hardly speak. + +"Yes. We've got to pack up this very week." + +"Where to? Who's going to live here? Who told you? Why?" demanded Mabel, +hastening to get in as many questions as she could, during the interval +of arranging a sandwich for herself. + +"I don't--know! Why I never thought to ask, but I know it's true because +it was my mother told me. 'Into the country,' she said, 'cause the +hospital folks say that's the only thing for my father to do if he wants +to get well. And of course he wants. We all want, more than anything +else in the world. So, that's why, and that's the first piece of news. +And say, Mabel, maybe your folks'll let you come and see me sometimes. +That is, if my folks ask you," she added, with cautious afterthought. + +"Maybe! Wouldn't that be just lovely? We'd go driving in a little +T-cart, all by ourselves, with a dear little pony to haul us, and--and +peaches and plums and strawberries and blackberries--Um!" exclaimed the +prospective guest, compressing her lips as if she were already tasting +these delights. + +"I--don't--know. Perhaps, we would. If we had the pony, and the cart, +and were let. That's a lot of 'ifs' to settle first." + +"Why, of course. I was in the country once, two whole weeks. It was to a +big house where my father was putting the plumbing in order for the +family and the family had gone away while he was doing it. It was there +he got the typhoid fever, and they went away because they didn't want to +get it. They left some 'coons' to do the cooking and told my father he +could bring me and ma, and we could have a vacation in a cottage on the +place. So we did; and the man, the colored one, that took care of the +horses used to hitch the pony up to the T-cart and me and ma rode out +every day. Course, if you live in the country you'll have to have a +pony. How else'd you go around? There wasn't any street cars to that +country, 'at ever I saw, and folks can't walk all the roads there are. +Pooh! You see, I've been and you haven't, and that's the difference." + +"Yes, you've been and I haven't, but, Mabel Bruce, I know more about +things that grow than you do, for I know--even in Lexington Market--you +don't get strawberries and peaches at the same time. So you needn't +expect all those good things when you come. You'll have to put up with +part at a time, with whatever happens to be in our garden. If we have a +garden! And as for ponies, our house in the country won't be a big one, +like yours was, that much I know, too. We haven't any money, hardly. My +mother Martha was crying about that yesterday, though she didn't know I +saw her till I asked and after I'd spent all those two dollars for these +silly shoes. Mabel Bruce, don't you ever go buy shoes too small for you. +Umm. I tell you if you do your feet'll hurt you worse than my head did +after I banged it--the dog banged it--on Mrs. Cecil's stoop. Isn't she a +funny old woman? My father thinks she is the wisest one he knows, but +I--I--Well, it doesn't count what I think. Only if I was as rich as she, +and I expect I will be sometime, I wouldn't keep Great Dane dogs to jump +on little girls like she does. Have some more ham, Mabel?" + +The mere thought of her prospective wealth had increased Dorothy's +hospitality--at her mother's expense: but to her surprise her guest +replied: + +"No--I guess--I guess I can't. Not 'less you've got some mustard mixed +somewhere, to eat on it. I've et----" + +"Eaten," corrected her classmate, who was considered an expert in +grammar. + +"Et-ten about all I can hold without--without mustard, to sort of season +it. Ma always has mustard to put on her ham; and yours is--is getting +sort of--bitter," replied Mabel, leaning back in her chair. She always +ate rapidly--"stuffed," as her father reproved her--and to-day she had +outdone herself. The food was delicious. Mrs. Chester was too thrifty a +housewife ever to "spoil" anything, no matter how inexpensive a dish, +and in her judgment, boiled ham was a luxury, to be partaken of +sparingly and with due appreciation, never "gobbled." + +Therefore it was with positive consternation that Dorothy's thoughts +came back to practical things and to the joint which she had placed +before her guest, allowing her to carve. Though she had herself barely +tasted the morsel placed upon her own plate, being too much engaged in +talking, she now perceived that Mabel had done more than justice to her +lunch. So it was with a cry of real distress that she snatched the dish +from the table, exclaiming: + +"Well, I guess you don't need mustard to sharpen your appetite, you +greedy thing! Beg pardon. That was a nasty thing to say to--to company, +and I'm sorry I said it. But mother told me we had to live on that ham +most the week, she'd be so much too busy to cook and--Why, Mabel Bruce! +You've eaten almost half that pie, too! Hmm. I guess you can stay +contented the rest the day. You won't need to go home to your +two-o'clock dinner!" + +No offense was intended or received. These two small maids had been +accustomed, from infancy, to utter frankness with one another, and with +perfect amiability the guest replied: + +"Maybe I do eat a little too much. Ma thinks I do, sometimes, and pa +says that's the reason I'm so fat. I'd rather not be fat. I'd like to be +as slim as you are, Dorothy C. Ma says you've got such a pretty figure +'t you look nice in anything. Well, I guess since I've got to keep my +dress so clean for so long, I won't offer to help do the dishes. I'll go +sit in the parlor and take care of the front of the house." + +With that Miss Mabel took off her friend's "tie-before," a big gingham +apron which covered all her skirts, and hung it on its nail, then +retreated to the postman's rocker, at perfect peace with herself and all +the world. + +Not so Dorothy C. She looked after her chum with a contempt that was as +new as it was uncomfortable. She had promised herself a real treat in +discussing her own affairs--for the first time in her life become +important ones--with this reliable confidante, but now she was bitterly +disappointed. "Mabel is selfish, but Mabel is truthful. She never speaks +ill of another and she always keeps her word:" had been Miss Georgia's +decision once, when some class matters had gone wrong and the plumber's +daughter had been accused of "tattling." To this Dorothy now added: "And +Mabel is a regular, gluttonous simpleton. She isn't really interested +in anybody except--Mabel!" + +With this uncharitable sentiment, the little hostess proceeded to clear +away; and did this with so much vim that she dropped a tumbler and broke +it. This was sufficient to calm her anger and turn what was left of it +against her own carelessness, anticipating her mother's reproof. She +finished her task very quietly, now, and then repaired to the parlor, +where she found Mabel had fallen asleep in the rocker. + +Also, at that moment, there sauntered past the windows a man who peered +through them with considerable curiosity: and who at sight of Dorothy C. +stopped sauntering, lifted his eyebrows questioningly, and, turning +around, walked back to the steps. + +Dorothy's heart almost choked her, it so suddenly began to beat +violently, while a chill ran through her whole body, and made her recall +a saying of old Aunt Chloe that "when a body turns all goose-flesh it's +a sign somebody is walking over her, or his, grave." Father John laughed +at this superstition as he did at many another of the dear old aunt who +had "raised" him, an orphan; and had he been present Dorothy would have +laughed with him. But she didn't laugh now; though she was presently +calm enough to review the situation and to decide that none could be +better. Also, that she must, at once, get rid of Mabel Bruce. For this +was the same man who had appeared before her, on the previous morning, +and had, at first startled, then profoundly interested her. He had +imposed secrecy upon her; at least secrecy as far as her parents were +concerned, though she had meant to tell Mabel all that he had told her. +She didn't like secrets. She hated them! Yet if they were to benefit +those whom she loved better than herself she was willing to keep +them--for a time. + +In another moment she had roused her visitor by a strong shake of the +pretty, plump shoulder under the lace-trimmed frock, and had said, +rather loudly: + +"Mabel, if you're going home to dinner, you'd better go now. +Because--because I have some business to attend to, and I shall have to +see the gentleman alone." + +She felt that though her words might be rude--she wouldn't like to be +sent home, herself, from a visit--yet her manner was beautifully +grown-up and dignified; and, as Mabel obediently vanished, "Miss +Chester" bade the gentleman waiting outside to enter. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DOROTHY GOES UPON AN ERRAND + + +When Mrs. Chester returned she was tired and found Dorothy so. The girl +took her mother's hat and put it away in its box, brought her a fan, and +asked if she should get her something to eat. + +"No, dear, thank you. I had dinner, all I wanted, with Aunt Chloe +Chester. She takes this trouble of ours very hard, and declares that she +will not live to see 'her boy' come back to Baltimore. She wishes she +could die first, right away, so 'that he could go to my funeral while +he's handy to it.'" + +"Horrors! I--I suppose I love Aunt Chloe, because she was so good to +father John, but I hope I'll never grow into such a terrible old woman. +Seems if she had always to be dragged up out of the gloom into the +sunshine. It's always the worst things are going to happen--with her. I +don't see how father ever grew up to be such a sunshiny man, always +under her hand, so. You must have had a dreary visit." + +"It wasn't a restful one; but the reason for John's always looking on +the bright side may be just that she always did the opposite. But you +look sober, too, dearie. Wasn't Mabel's visit a pleasant one? How long +has she been gone?" + +"Oh! a good while. She went home to dinner. I--she ate 'most all the +ham. All the best big slices anyway, and full half the pie. Then she +wanted mustard, so she could eat more. She said that sometimes when she +couldn't eat a big lot and they had extra good things, she'd get up and +walk around the table, so she could. She didn't say that, to-day, +though, but did once at a school picnic. And I--I broke a tumbler. One +of the best." + +"Why, Dorothy C.! How could you?" returned Mrs. Chester, but not at all +as if she really heard or were in the least vexed. Then, as if forcing +herself to an interest in small, home matters, she asked: "Were you +very lonely after she went?" + +"No, indeed. I wasn't alone--I mean, I wasn't lonely. Did father like +his roses?" + +"Yes, darling, and he fully appreciated your cutting them. He said he +knew how you disliked it, for you'd never got over your baby notion that +it hurt the plants, just as a cut finger hurt you. He said, too, that I +was to tell you he'd found all the kisses, every one, but if you wanted +any paid back you'd have to come to Johns Hopkins after them. It was a +comfort to find him so happy and sure of getting well. I wish I were +half as sure!" + +Dorothy opened her lips to say something which it seemed impossible to +keep from this beloved little mother opposite, who already seemed so +changed and worn; who had lost every bit of that gayety which had been +so astonishing, yesterday. But not yet--not yet. Besides, she was fully +as truthful as Mabel Bruce and had given her pledge to silence. Then she +remembered that she did not know to what part of the "country" they were +destined, and asked: + +"Mother Martha, can't you tell me something of your plans? Where we are +going and when? And what is to become of this dear home?" + +There was so much earnestness and sympathy in the girl's tones that Mrs. +Chester forgot how young she was, and now talked with her as she might +have done with a much older person; almost, indeed, as she would have +done with the postman himself. + +"We are going to a far-away state; to a place I haven't seen since I was +a child, myself--the Hudson River highlands." + +"Why--the Hudson River is in New York and we're in Maryland!" cried +Dorothy. "Why go so far, away from everybody we know and care for? +Wouldn't it do just to go to some little spot right near Baltimore, +where we could come into the city on the cars, at any time? Isn't that +what the Johns Hopkins doctors call the 'country'?" + +"Oh! if we only might! But, my dear, there's an old saying about +'beggars' being 'choosers.' We aren't beggars, of course, but we are too +poor to be 'choosers.' Fortunately, or unfortunately, as time will +prove, I have a little place in the country where I told you. It +belonged to an old bachelor uncle who died long ago. It has stood empty +for many years and may be badly out of order. He willed it to me, as my +portion of his estate: and though some of his other heirs have once or +twice offered to buy it from me, the price they offered was so small +that John had me refuse it. He's said in jest: 'No telling how glad we +may some time be of that rocky hill-farm, Martha. Better hold on to it, +as long as we can pay the taxes and keep it.' The taxes were not heavy, +and we've paid them. Now, it is the only place out of the city where we +have a right to go; and in one sense there couldn't be a better. It's +one of the healthiest spots on earth, I suppose: and there'll be plenty +of room for John to live in 'the open,' as he's advised. So we must go;" +and with a heavy sigh mother Martha ceased speaking and leaned her head +back, closing her eyes as if she were about to sleep. + +But underneath all her calmness of tone had lain a profound sadness, and +none but the absent John could have told how bitter to her was the +coming severance from all she had ever held dear. Though born in New +York State, she had come south with her parents when she was too small +to remember any other home than their humble one in this same city. Here +she had met and married John. Here they had together earned their cozy +home. Here were all her church associations, and here the few whom she +called friends. + +She had always leaned upon her husband's greater wisdom and strength in +all the affairs of their quiet lives, and now that she needed them most +she was deprived of them. Alone, she must pack up, or sell, their +household goods, and not an article of them but was dear because of some +sacrifice involved in its purchase. Alone, she must attend to the sale +or rental of their house, for the doctors had told her that very morning +that her patient must not be disturbed "for any cause whatever. There +was a chance, one in a thousand, that he might get well. If this chance +were to be his it depended upon his absolute freedom from care and +responsibility." + +She had assured them that this should be so, and it had seemed easy to +promise, in the face of the greater sorrow if he must remain an invalid +or, possibly, die. But now, back in the security of her beloved home, +her courage waned; and Dorothy, watching, saw tears steal from under the +closed eyelids and chase one another down the pale cheek, which only +yesterday, it seemed, had been so round and rosy. + +To a loving child there is no more piteous sight than a mother weeping. +It was more than Dorothy could bear, and, with a little cry of distress, +she threw herself at Mrs. Chester's knees and hid her own wet eyes upon +them. Then she lifted her head and begged: + +"Don't cry, mother! Dearest mother Martha, please, please, don't cry! +You've never done it, never; in all my life I haven't seen you, no +matter what happened. If you cry we can't do anything, and I'm going to +help you. Maybe we won't have to go away. Maybe something perfectly +splendid will happen to prevent. Maybe darling father will get well, +just resting from his mail route. Surely, nobody could fix him nicer +nourishments than you can, if we can afford it. Maybe we shall be able +to afford--Oh! if only I could tell you something! Something that would +make you happy again!" + +Mother Martha ceased weeping and smiled into the tender eyes of the +devoted child who had so well repaid her own generosity. Then she wiped +both their faces and in quite a matter-of-fact way bade Dorothy sit +down, quietly, while she told her some necessary things. One: that in +the morning she should be sent to the post-office, to receive the +envelope containing the ten dollars due for her own board. Mrs. Chester +had arranged with the new postman about it and there would be no +difficulty. There was never a word written with these payments. The +postman's address was on the outside the envelope, which was never +registered, had never gone astray, and had never held more than the +solitary crisp ten-dollar bill expected. + +"We shall need all the money we can get in hand, for the expenses of our +moving will be heavy--for us. I'm going to see some real-estate men and +decide whether it is best to sell, or rent, this house. I shall be very +busy. John isn't to stay at the hospital but a week, and so by the end +of this coming one I want to be in our new home. I rather dread the +journey, though we can easily make it in a day--or less. But your father +thinks he can get along real well on crutches, that we'll have to buy, +of course; and I've noticed that people on the street cars, even, are +always kind and helpful to invalids. John believes that it's a good, +jolly old world, and you and I must try to believe the same. He says +there's lots of truth in the saying: 'He that would have friends must +show himself friendly.' I reckon nobody ever turned a friendlier face +toward others than John has, and that's why everybody loves him so. + +"Now, dearie, fetch me my Bible and I'll read awhile. I don't feel as if +I'd had any real Sunday, yet. Then, by and by, you may make me a cup of +tea and we'll get to bed early. Of course, there'll be no more school +for you here, though I shall want you to step in and bid Miss Georgia +good-bye. That's no more than polite, even if you don't love her as you +should." + +Dorothy made a little mouth, which for once her mother did not reprove: +and presently they both were reading. At least, Mrs. Chester really was, +while the peace of the volume she studied stole into her troubled heart +and shed its light upon her face. Dorothy, also, held her book in her +hand and kept her eyes fixed on the printed pages; but, had her mother +chanced to look up and observe, she would have seen no leaves turned; +though gradually an expression of almost wild delight grew upon the +mobile features till the girl looked as if she were just ready to sing. + +However, she said nothing of her happy thoughts and watched her mother +fall asleep in the drowsy heat of the late afternoon, and from the +fatigue of a sleepless night and a busy day. Then she crept on tiptoe +out of the room, noiselessly removing her slitted shoes before she rose +from her chair, and presently had gained the kitchen at the rear. Here +she lighted a little gas stove and put on the kettle to boil. Then she +did what seemed a strange thing for a girl as strictly reared as she, +on a Sunday evening. She caught up her short skirts and, after the +manner of pictured dancers upon wall-posters, began to whirl and +pirouette around the little space, as if by such movements, only, could +she express the rapture that thrilled her. + +"There, I reckon I've worked myself down to quiet!" she exclaimed, at +length, to the cat which entered, stretching its legs in a sleepy +fashion and ready for its supper. "Now, I'll feed you, Ma'am Puss, +though you ought to feed yourself on the rats that bother our garden. +Queer, isn't it? How everything 'feeds' on something else. I hate rats, +and I hate to have them killed. Killing is horrible: and, I'm afraid +that to have my roses killed by the creatures is worst of all." + +Ma'am Puss did not reply, except by rubbing herself against her +mistress's legs, and, having filled a saucer with milk, Dorothy went out +into the garden and stayed there a long time. There many thoughts came +to her, and many, many regrets. Regrets for past negligencies, that had +caused the drooping--therefore suffering--of some tender plant; for the +knowledge of her coming separation from these treasures which both she +and father John had loved almost as if they were human creatures; but +keenest of all, regrets for the lost activity of the once so active +postman. Mother Martha's griefs and her own might be hard to bear, but +his was far, far worse. Nothing, not even the delightful surprises she +felt she had in store for him, could give him back his lost health. + +She had no propensity to dance when she went indoors again. It was a +very sober, thoughtful Dorothy C. who presently carried a little tray +into the parlor and insisted upon the tired housemistress enjoying her +supper there, where she could look out upon the cheerful street with its +Sunday promenaders, "and just be waited on, nice and cozy." + +Both inmates of the little home slept soundly that night. Sleep is a +close friend to the toilers of the world, though the idle rich seek it +in vain: and the morning found them refreshed and courageous for the +duties awaiting. There would be few tears and no repining on the part of +either because of a home-breaking. Bitterer trials might come, but the +depth of this one they had fathomed and put behind them. + +Moreover, it fell in with Dorothy's own desires that she was to make the +post-office trip: and she started upon it with so much confidence that +her mother was surprised and remarked: + +"Well, small daughter, for a child who knows so little of business and +has never been further down town than the market, alone, you are +behaving beautifully. I'm proud of you. So will your father be. Maybe, +if any of the agents I'm going to telephone come here to-day and keep +me, I'll let you go to pay the daily visit to John and tell him all the +news. Take care of the street crossings. It's so crowded on the business +streets and I should be forlorn, indeed, if harm befell my Dorothy C." + +Even when the child turned, half-way down the block, to toss a kiss +backward to her mother in the doorway, that anxious woman felt a strange +fear for her darling and recalled her for a final caution: + +"Be sure to take care of your car-fare, Dorothy; and be more than sure +you don't lose the money-letter. When you board a car look to see +another isn't coming on the other track, to knock you down." + +The little girl came back and clung to Mrs. Chester for a moment, +laughing, yet feeling her own courage a trifle dashed by these +suggestions of peril. But she slipped away again, determining to do her +errands promptly, while, with a curious foreboding in her mind, the +housemistress re-entered her deserted home, reflecting: + +"John always laughs at my 'presentiments,' yet I never had one as strong +as this upon me now that I did not wish, afterward, I had yielded to it. +I've half a mind to follow the child and overtake her before she gets +into a car. I could snatch a little while to do those downtown errands +and she'd be perfectly safe here. Pshaw! How silly I am! Dorothy is old +enough to be trusted and can be. I'll put her out of mind till I hear +her gay little call at the door, when she rings its bell: 'It's I, +mother Martha! Please let me in!'" + +But alas! That familiar summons was never again to be heard at No. 77 +Brown Street. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +AN OFFICE SEEKER AND A CLIENT + + +"Well, little girl, what are you doing here?" + +Dorothy had safely reached the big post-office, which seemed to be the +busiest place she had ever entered; busier even than the department +stores on a "bargain day;" and she had timidly slipped into the quietest +corner she could find, to wait a moment while the crowd thinned. Then +she would present her note, that asked for father John's letter to be +given her, and which was in his own handwriting, to make sure. But the +crowd did not thin! Besides the swarms and swarms of postmen, wearing +just such gray uniforms as her father's, there were so many men. All +were hastening to or from the various windows which partitioned a big +inner room from this bigger outside one and behind which were other men +in uniform--all so busy, busy, busy! + +"Why! I didn't dream there could ever be so many letter-carriers! and +each one is so like father, that I'm all mixed up! I know I've got to go +to one those windows, to give this letter and get the other one, but how +will I ever get a chance to do it, between all those men?" + +Then while Dorothy thus wondered, growing half-frightened, there had +come that question, put in a familiar tone, and looking up she saw +another gray-uniformed person whom she recognized as her father's +friend. Once he had been to their house to dinner, and how glad she now +was for that. + +"Oh, Mr. Lathrop! How glad I am to see you! I've got to get a letter and +I don't see how I'll ever have the chance. The people don't stop coming, +not a minute." + +"That's so, little girl--Beg pardon, but I forget your name, though I +know you belong to John Chester." + +"Dorothy it is, Mr. Lathrop. Could you--could you possibly spare time to +help me?" + +"Well, I reckon there's nobody in this office but would spare any +amount of time to help one of John Chester's folks. I was just starting +on my rounds--second delivery--heavy mail--but come along with me and +I'll fix you out all right." + +He turned, shifted his heavy pouch a little, and caught her hand. Then +he threaded his way through the crowd with what seemed to his small +companion a marvelous dexterity. It happened to be the "rush hour" of +business, and at almost any other, Dorothy would not have found any +difficulty in making her own way around, but there was also the +confusion of a first visit. Presently, however, she found herself at the +right window to secure the letter she sought, received it, and heard Mr. +Lathrop say: + +"There. That's all right. I reckon you can find your way out all safe, +and I'm in a hurry. Please make my regards to your mother and tell her +we've heard where John is and some of us are going to see him, first +chance we get. Too bad such a thing should happen to him! Don't let +anybody snatch that letter from you, and good-bye." + +Then Dorothy found herself alone and no longer afraid. She had +accomplished her mother's errand--now she must attend to a much more +important one of her own. She gazed about her with keenest interest, +trying to understand the entire postal business, as there represented +before her, and assuring herself that after all it was extremely simple. + +"It's just because it's new. New things always puzzle folks. As soon as +I've been once or twice I shan't mind it, no more than any of these +people do. I wonder which way I must go? If he's the head man he ought +to have the head room, I should think. Hmm. I'll have to ask, +and--and--I sort of hate to. Never mind, Dorothy C.! You're doing it for +father John and mother Martha; and if you plan to be grown-up, in your +outsides, you must be inside, too. Father hates bold little girls. He +says they're a--a--annemoly, or something. It belongs to girl children +to be afraid of things. He thinks it's nice. Well, I'm all right nice +enough inside, this minute, but--I'll do it!" + +After these reflections and this sudden resolution Dorothy darted +forward and seized the arm of a negro who was cleaning the floor. + +"Please, boy, tell me the way to the head man's place. The real +postmaster of all." + +"Hey? I dunno as he's in, yet. He don't come down soon, o' mornin's. +What you want to see him for?" + +"On business of my own. The way, please," answered Dorothy, bracing her +resolution by the fancied air of a grown person. + +The negro grinned and resumed his scrubbing, but nodded backward over +his shoulder toward a tall gentleman just entering the building. + +"That's him. Now you got your chance, better take it." + +There was nothing to inspire fear in the face of this "head man of all," +nor was there anything left in Dorothy's mind but the desire to +accomplish her "business" at once and, of course, successfully. Another +instant, and the gentleman crossing the floor felt a detaining touch +upon his sleeve and beheld a bonny little face looking earnestly up into +his own. Also, a childish voice was saying: + +"I'm John Chester's little girl. May I ask you something?" + +"You seem already to be asking me something, but I'm happy to meet you, +Miss Chester, and shall be very glad to hear all about your father. He +was one of the very best men on the force, one of the most intelligent. +I can give you five minutes. Come this way, please." + +Dorothy flashed him one of her beautiful smiles, and the postmaster, who +happened to love all children, observed that this was a very handsome +child with a pair of wonderful, appealing eyes. Though, of course, he +did not express his admiration in words, Dorothy felt that she had +pleased him and her last hesitation vanished. + +As soon as they were seated in a private apartment, she burst into the +heart of the matter, saying: + +"Please, Mr. Postmaster, will you let me take my father's place?" + +"W-wh--at?" asked the gentleman, almost as if he whistled it in +astonishment. + +Dorothy laughed. "I know I'm pretty small to carry big pouches, +'specially the Christmas and Easter ones, but you always have 'extras' +then, anyway. I know my father's whole beat. I know it from end to +end--all the people's houses, the numbers to them, and lots of the folks +that live around. What I don't know I can read on the envelopes. I'm a +quick reader of handwriting, Miss Georgia says." + +The postmaster did not interrupt her by a word, but the twinkle in his +eyes grew brighter and brighter and at the end he laughed. Not harshly +nor in a manner to hurt her feelings, which he saw were deep and +sincere, but because he found this one of the most refreshing +experiences of his rather humdrum position. Here was a visitor, a +petitioner, quite different from the numberless illiterate men who +bothered him for office. He hated to disappoint her, just yet, so asked +with interest: + +"And who is Miss Georgia?" + +"She's my teacher. She's the vice principal of our school. She's +dreadful smart." + +"Indeed? But what, Miss Chester, put this notion into your head? By +taking your father's 'place' I conclude that you are applying for his +position as mail-carrier. Did you ever hear of a little girl postman?" + +"No, sir, I didn't, but there has to be a first time, a first one, to +everything, doesn't there? So I could be the first girl postman. And why +I want to is because I think I must support my parents." + +The applicant's reply was given with the serious importance due from a +young lady whom such a fine gentleman called "Miss Chester"; and when he +again desired to know whose idea it was that she should seek a place on +"the force," she answered proudly: + +"All my own. Nobody's else. Not a single body--not even my mother +Martha--ever suspects. I want it to be a surprise, a real, Christmassy +surprise. Oh! She's feeling terrible bad about our leaving our home and +not knowing what we'll have to live on. So I thought it all out and that +I'd come right to you and ask, before any other substitute got +appointed. + +"Well, maybe the notion came that last day my father carried the mail. +His poor legs and feet got so terribly wobbly that he was afraid he'd +fall down or something and couldn't finish his delivery. So I walked +alongside of him and ran up the steps and handed in the letters and +everybody was just as nice as nice to us, except old Mrs. Cecil, who +lives at Bellevieu. She was mad. She was real mad. She said we were +breaking the law, the two of us. Think of that! My father, John Chester, +a law-breaker! Why, he couldn't break a law to save his life. He's too +good." + +The postmaster smiled. He had, apparently, forgotten that he was to give +only five minutes to this small maid, and he was really charmed by her +simplicity and confidence. + +"Was that the day Mr. Chester was taken to the hospital? The boys have +told me about him--some things. How is he doing? Will he be there long? +You see, I can ask questions, too!" continued the gentleman, very +socially. + +"My mother says there's a chance he may get well. He's to be there only +this week that ever is. Then he's to be taken into the country, away, +away to some mountains in New York State. He's got to live right +outdoors all the time, and he mustn't worry, not a single worry. My +mother daren't even talk with him about selling, or renting, our house, +or the furniture, or--or anything. So she talks to me--some." + +"I hope you talk to her--more than 'some'; and I'm wondering if you had +done so before you came to me whether I should ever have had the +pleasure of your acquaintance." + +Was there a reproof in this? Dorothy's sensitive heart fancied so, yet +she couldn't imagine in what she had done wrong. With a little waning of +hope--the postmaster had been so delightful that she was already sure he +would grant her request--she asked: + +"Is it bad? why shouldn't I want to earn the money for my parents? Same +as they have for me and us all. If I had the place, they could go to the +country, just the same, and the money could be sent to them to live on +every month. Of course, I'd have to not go with them. I reckon Mrs. +Bruce, the plumber's wife, would let me live with her, if my folks paid +her board for me. Mabel and I could sleep together, and I'd help with +the dishes and work, 'cause if I were a postman I couldn't go to school, +of course. I'd have to study nights, same as father has. So, if I didn't +make much trouble, maybe Mrs. Bruce wouldn't charge much. But, excuse +me. My father John says I talk too much, and that when I go to do +errands I should stick to business. He says it doesn't make any +difference to the folks that hire you to work for them whether you're +rich or poor, sick or well. All they want is to have the work done--and +no talk about it. I'm sorry I've said so much. I didn't mean to, +but----" + +"But," repeated the postmaster, suggestively; and Dorothy finished her +sentence: + +"I haven't talked a single word to anybody else, and it seems so good to +do it now. I never had a secret--secrets, for I've got another one yet, +that I can't tell--before and I don't like them. I beg your pardon, +and--May I have my father's position?" said Dorothy, rising, and seeing +by the big clock on the wall that she had long overstayed the time +allotted for this interview. + +The gentleman also rose, and laid his hand kindly upon her shoulder, but +his face and voice were grave, as he answered: + +"No, my dear, I am sorry to disappoint you, but you ask the impossible. +You could not--But there's no use in details of explanation. As your +wise father has taught you, business should be reduced to its simplest +terms. I cannot give you the place, but I can, and do, give you the best +of advice--for one of your imaginative nature. Never cherish secrets! +Never, even such delightful, surprising ones, as this of yours has been. +Especially, never keep anything from your mother. When anything comes +into your mind which you feel you cannot tell _her_ banish the idea at +once and you'll stay on the safe side of things. Good-morning." + +Other people were entering the private office and Dorothy was being +courteously bowed out of it, before she fully realized that she had not +obtained her desire, and never would. For a few seconds, her temper +flamed, and she reflected, tartly: + +"Huh! I should make as good a postman as lots of them do. My father says +some of them are too ignorant for their places. _I_'m not ignorant. I'm +the best scholar in my class, and my class is the highest one in our +Primary. I could do it. I could so. But--Well, he was real nice. He +acted just as if he had little girls of his own and knew just how they +felt. He laughed at me, but he didn't laugh hateful, like Miss Georgia +does on her 'nervous days' when she mixes me all up in my lessons. And +anyhow, maybe it's just as well. If I'd got to be a letter-girl I +couldn't have gone to the country with father and mother, and I should +have about died of lonesomeness without them. Maybe Mrs. Bruce wouldn't +have had me, nor the minister's folks either. Anyway, I've got that +other, more splendid secret, still. I _have_ to have that, because I +have it already, and so can't help. Miss Georgia would say that there +were two too many 'haves' in that sentence, and the 'two too' sounds +funny, too. Now I must go home. I've got my money-letter all right and, +after all, I'm glad mother Martha doesn't know that I wanted father's +beat, she'd be so much disappointed to know how near we came to staying +here and couldn't." + +With which philosophic acceptance of facts and a cheerful looking +forward to the "next thing," the rejected seeker after public office ran +up the hill leading from the post-office and straight against another +opportunity, as it were. + +Just as she had signalled a car, the "gentleman" who had twice called +upon her and who had told her that his name was "John Smith," appeared +beside her on the sidewalk, raised his hat, and with an engaging air +exclaimed: + +"Why, Miss Chester, how fortunate! I was just on the point of going to +see you. Now, if you will go with me, instead, it will save time and +answer just as well. We don't take this car, but another. My office is +on Howard Street, and we'll walk till we meet a Linden Avenue car. This +way, please. Allow me?" + +But Dorothy shrank back from this overly pleasant man. It was with the +same feeling of repulsion that she had experienced on each of their +previous meetings, and which she had tried to conquer because of the +great benefit he claimed he had sought her to bestow upon her. + +Her next sensation was one of pride, remembering that this was the +second time that morning for her to be called "Miss Chester." Each time +it had been by a grown-up gentleman and the fact made her feel quite +grown-up and important, also. Besides, this present person was able, he +said, to more than compensate for any disappointment the postmaster had +inflicted--though, of course, that affair was known only to "the head +man of all" and herself. However, she couldn't accept Mr. Smith's +invitation, for, she explained: + +"Thank you, but I can't go with you now. I'm doing an errand for my +mother and she'll be expecting me home. She's very busy and needs me to +help her. Nor do I want to make her worry, for she has all the trouble +now she can bear. The first time I can come, if you'll tell me where, +I'll try to do so. Are you sure, sure, Mr. Smith, that I am really an +heiress and you will help me to get the money that belongs to me?" + +"Perfectly sure. A lawyer like me doesn't waste his time on any doubtful +business. I have more cases on hand, this very minute, than I can attend +to and ought not to stand idle here one moment. Don't, I beg of you, +also stand in your own light, against your real interests and the +interests of those who are dearer to you than yourself. It is very +simple. As soon as you reach the office I'll give you paper and pen and +you can send a message to your mother, explaining that you have been +detained on business but will soon be with her. Ah, yes, the note by all +means. It quite goes against my nature to cause anybody needless +anxiety. Here's our car. Step in, please." + +As she obeyed Dorothy thought that she had never heard anybody talk as +fast as the man did. Faster even than she did herself, and with an +assured air of authority which could not fail to impress an obedient +child, trained to accept the decisions of her elders without question. +She still tightly clutched the envelope containing the precious +ten-dollar bill, and had so nervously folded and unfolded it that, by +the time they reached the place on North Howard Street, it was in such a +state she was ashamed of it. + +"Right up stairs, Miss Chester. Sorry I haven't an elevator to assist +you," remarked the lawyer, curiously regarding her feet in their poor +shoes. "However, there are plenty willing to climb three flights of +stairs for the sake of my advice. I've been in business right here in +Baltimore longer than I care to remember--it makes me feel so old. +Lawyers who have lovely young clients prefer to remain young themselves, +you know." + +"No, I don't know. I know nothing about lawyers, anyway, and I don't +like it in here. I was never in such a dark house before. I--I think I +won't stay. I'll go home and tell my mother everything. That's what the +other gentleman advised and I--I _liked him_. Good-bye," said the now +frightened girl, and turned about on that flight to the third story. + +But Mr. Smith was right behind her. She'd have to brush past him to +descend the narrow stairway, and he was again chattering away, +pretending not to hear her objections, but glibly explaining: + +"The reason the house is so dark is because it is so old--one of the +oldest in the city, I've been told. Besides, each floor has been turned +into a flat, or suite of offices, and the tenants keep their doors +closed. That's why I chose the top story for my own use--it's so much +lighter, and--Here we are!" + +Here they were, indeed, but by no stretch of imagination could the +apartment be called light. There was a skylight over the top of the +stairs, but this was darkened by gray holland shades, and though there +appeared to be three rooms on this floor, the doors of all were closed +as the doors on the floors below. + +Dorothy was trembling visibly, as her guide opened the door of the +middle room--the "dark one" of the peculiarly constructed city +houses--and she faced absolute blackness. But her host seemed to know +the way and to be surprised that nobody was present to receive them. +With exclamations of annoyance he hurried to light a single gas jet and +the small flame illumined a dingy, most untidy "office." + +Yet still with a grand flourish of manner the lawyer pushed a chair +before a littered desk, rummaged till he found paper, ink, and pen, and +waved his small client toward it. She was almost in tears, from her +fright; yet still bolstered her courage with the thought: "For my father +and mother!" and resolved to see the business through. + +Certainly no such gentlemanly appearing person could intend injury to an +unprotected child. Why should she imagine it? + +Drawing the paper toward her she began to write and had quickly finished +the brief note which told her mother as much, and no more than, her +instructor had prescribed. He had kept his eyes rather closely fixed +upon the wrinkled envelope she held, and now carelessly remarked: + +"You could send that letter home with your note, too, if you wish, +though you'll be detained only a little while. I don't see why that +witness I spoke of hasn't come. I do hate a dilatory client! Will she +need it, do you think?" + +"She might. I will send it, I guess," answered poor Dorothy, and giving +the folded envelope still another twist, enclosed and sealed it in her +own note which she handed to her "lawyer." + +He took it, hastily, and informed her that he would "just trip down +those troublesome stairs and find a messenger boy, then be back in a +jiffy." + +As he reckoned time a "jiffy" must have meant several hours; for the +whole day had passed and still he had not returned. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +TENANTS FOR NO. 77 + + +"Oh! do get out of the way, Ma'am Puss! What possesses you to be always +under foot? If you're looking for your little mistress she's not here, +She's gone away down town on business," cried Mrs. Chester to the cat, +as she stumbled over the creature for the third time in about as many +minutes. + +The animal's behavior annoyed her. For some time it had kept up an +intermittent and most doleful mewing and, as if seeking some precious +thing no longer to be found, it had wandered in and out of corners in a +nerve-distracting way. + +The house mistress herself was almost as uneasy as the cat, and she had +endured about all the mental strain she could without collapse; or, at +least, venting her overtaxed patience upon somebody. Ma'am Puss happened +to be the "somebody" most convenient, and with a fresh sinking of her +spirits, Martha Chester recalled the many frolics her husband, as well +as daughter, had had with their pet. Would anything in her life ever be +again as it had been! + +Sitting down in the nearest chair, for a moment, the lonely woman took +the sleek maltese into her arms and held it close, stroking its fur +affectionately, and in a manner to surprise the recipient of this most +unusual attention. For Martha didn't like cats; and the only reason +Ma'am Puss was tolerated on her premises was because she liked rats and +mice still less. But now she not only petted but confided to the purring +feline the fact: + +"Dorothy has been gone four hours, and I'm dreadfully worried. At the +longest she shouldn't have been gone more'n two, even if there was a +hold-up on the car line. Besides, she wouldn't have waited for such a +thing, anyway. She'd have started home on her own feet, first, for she's +a loving child and knows I need her help. That money-letter! I'm afraid +somebody's waylaid her and took it away. It wasn't so much--to some +people--but ten dollars? Why, Puss, a man was murdered out Towson way +for less than that, not so long ago! I wish she'd come. Oh! How I wish +she'd come!" + +But Dorothy did not come. There was no sign of her on the street, no +matter how many times the anxious watcher ran to the door and looked +out; and the four hours were fast lengthening into five when the first +change came to divert Mrs. Chester's thoughts, for the time being, from +her terrible forebodings. As she gazed in one direction for the sight of +a blue gingham frock a cheerful voice called to her from another: + +"Howdy, Mis' Chester? Now ain't I brought you the greatest luck? Here's +my sister-in-law, without chick nor child to upset things, and only a +husband that's night watchman--is going to be--come right here to +Baltimore an' is looking for a house. Firm he's worked for is putting up +a new factory, right over in them open lots beyond an' nothin' to do but +he must take care of 'em. This is my sister-in-law, Mis' Jones, Mis' +Chester. I was a Jones myself. Well, they're ready to rent or buy, +reasonable, either one; and I reckon it's a chance you won't get in a +hurry--no children, too! What you say?" + +For a moment Martha could say nothing, except to bid her callers enter +the house and to place them comfortably in the cool parlor; and even her +first remark bore little on the subject Mrs. Bruce had presented. +Handing fans all round she ejaculated: + +"It's so terrible hot! I'm all beat out--picking up and--and worrying." + +"Well, to get your house off your hands so sudden'll be one worry less," +comforted Mrs. Bruce, fanning herself vigorously and looking as if such +a thing as anxiety had never entered her own contented mind. + +"I--I just stepped 'round to the drug-store, a spell ago, and telephoned +to three real-estate men to come up an' look things over. I--Why, it's +only Monday morning, and I've got a whole week yet. I mean--It seems so +sudden. I've got to see John--No, I haven't. It seems dreadful to take +such steps, do business without him, which I never have, but the +doctors--How much rent'd you be willing to pay, Mis' Jones?" + +Poor Mrs. Chester was strangely distraught. Her neighbor, the plumber's +wife, had never seen her like this, but she understood some part of what +the other was suffering, though, as yet, she was ignorant of Dorothy's +prolonged absence; and she again tried to console: + +"I know just how you feel. Havin' slaved so long to pay for the house, +out of a postman's salary, an' him an' you bein' such a happy contented +couple--Don't doubt I'm feelin' for you an' wantin' to lend a hand, if +so be I can. As to rent, there ain't never no houses on this one-hunderd +block of Brown Street _to_ rent. We both know that, 'cause it's the +nicest kept one, with the prettiest back yard anywhere's near. No negro +houses in the alleys, neither. So, course, this is a splendid chance for +Bill and Jane; but I asked Mr. Bruce an' he said twenty dollars a month +was fair and the goin' rates." + +Mrs. Chester listened with still greater dismay. At the utmost she had +expected the watchman would offer no more than fifteen dollars, but +twenty! The highest rate she had looked to receive from anybody. Of +course she wanted to rent--she had now fully decided not to sell--but to +succeed so promptly, was almost like having the ground taken from +beneath her feet. + +At last she forced herself to say: + +"I know it's a good chance. I'm not unmindful it's a neighborly thing in +you, Mrs. Bruce, or that Mrs. Jones'd make a good tenant. I'm--Well, +I'll try to give you your answer some time to-night. Will that do?" + +Mrs. Bruce rose and there was some asperity in her tone as she returned: + +"I s'pose it'll have to do, since you're the one to pass the word. But +we'll look round, other houses, anyway. My folks have left their old +place an' this week's the only idle one Bill'll have. He wants to help +Jane settle--she ain't overly strong--and they'd like to move in +a-Wednesday, or Thursday mornin' at the latest." + +"So--soon!" gasped the mistress of No. 77. Despite her will a tear +stole down her cheek and her warm-hearted neighbor was instantly moved +to greater sympathy. Laying her fat hand on Mrs. Chester's bowed head +she urged: + +"Keep up your spirit, Martha. If you just rent, why you know you can +come back any time. A month's notice, give an' take, that's all. I'm +hopin' John'll get well right away, an' you'll all come flyin' back to +Baltimore. By the way, where's Dorothy? Mabel said she wasn't goin' to +school no more." + +"Oh, Mrs. Bruce, I don't know! I don't know!" and the anxious mother +poured out her perplexities in the ear of this other mother, who +promptly said: + +"Well, if I was you, Martha Chester, I'd put on my hat and go straight +down to that post-office an' find out what had become of her. If 'twas +Mabel, I should." + +"Oh! that's what I've been longing to do! But I thought the real-estate +men might come, and I dared not leave. I'm getting so nervous I can't +keep still, and as for going on with my packing, it's no use. I must go +to see John, this afternoon, too, and----" + +"Martha Chester, have you had a bite to eat?" demanded Mrs. Bruce, in an +accusing tone. + +Martha smiled, and reluctantly answered: + +"I don't believe I have. I didn't think, but--course, it's past lunch +time." + +"Lunch! Hear her, Jane. She's one o' the fashionable women 't cooks her +dinner at sundown!" cried the plumber's wife, with an attempt at +raillery, but in her mind already deciding that hunger was half the +matter with her neighbor's nerves. "Now, look here, the pair of you. Me +an' him is more sensibler. We have our dinner at dinner time, and you +know that was as nice a vegetable soup we had this noon, Jane Jones, as +ever was made, an' you needn't deny it. You just stay here a minute an' +Martha'll show you round the house, an' the garden--That garden'll +tickle Bill 'most to death, he's that set on posies!--while I skip home +and fetch a pail of it. 'Twon't take a minute to do it, an' it can be +het up on the gas stove, even if the range fire's out. By that time +Dorothy C. 'll have got back: an' me an' Jane'll help her keep house +while you step across to Johns Hopkins. I reckon that's good plannin', +so you begin while I skip." + +The idea of corpulent Mrs. Bruce "skipping" brought a smile to both the +listeners' faces, but Martha was already greatly comforted and now +realized that she was, indeed, faint from want of food. She had taken +but little breakfast, being "too busy to eat," as she explained; but she +now set out on a tour of the little house with much pride in it, and in +the fact that taken unaware, even, it would be found in spotless order. +Her washing was already drying in the sunny garden among the roses and +Mrs. Jones's delight over that part of the premises was most flattering. + +Indeed, there was a dainty simplicity about the little country-woman +which now quite won Mrs. Chester's heart, and after they had examined +each of the rooms, and each had found Mrs. Jones more and more +enthusiastic, the impulsive housemistress exclaimed: + +"Maybe you'll think I'm queer, but I believe the Lord just sent you! +That you're the very one will love our home for us while we're away." + +"Oh! I'm glad to hear you say that. It's the way I feel about things. I +ain't so glib a talker as _his_ folks is, but I think a good deal. I've +always hankered to live in a city, where if _I_ wanted a bucket of +water, all I'd have to do would be to turn a spigot, 'stead of tugging +it up a hill from a spring or hauling it out a well. An' Bill, he's +tidy. I've trained him. I begun right off, soon's we was married. The +Joneses they--well, they ain't none of 'em too partic'lar, though +warmer-hearted folks never lived. But, my man? Why, bless you, now he'd +no more think o' comin' in from outdoors without takin' off his boots +an' puttin' on his slippers 'an he'd think o' flyin'. I didn't have to +scold him into it, neither. 'Twas just himself seein' me get down an' +scrub up the mud he'd tracked in, without even wipin' his feet. But, my! +I said I wasn't no talker, an' here I'm makin' myself out a +story-teller. But, if so be you an' him come to a right agreement, I +promise you one thing: I'll take just as good care, or better, of your +prop'ty as if it was my own. Nobody couldn't do more than that, could +they?" + +"No, indeed: and I'm glad I can have such good news to tell John when I +go to him. After all, Mrs. Jones, property troubles don't compare with +troubles of your heart. I feel so different, all in these few minutes, +so glad you came. I reckon there won't be no difficulty about the +agreement: and--look! There comes Mrs. Bruce already and a colored girl +with her." + +The plumber's wife entered, panting from her efforts to carry a big pail +of soup at sufficient distance from her fat sides to keep it from +spilling, and announcing that the basket the little colored maid had in +hand contained "a few other things I picked up, might come in nice." + +"An' I collared 'Mandy, here, on the street. She's the girl does my +front, an' I thought she might do yours, to-day. She does it for a +nickel and don't you pay her no more. Hear, 'Mandy? If you leave a speck +on this lady's steps, I won't give you that baker's cake I promised. +Where's your cleanin' things, Mis' Chester?" + +These were quickly produced and then the housemistress sat down to her +meal, her guests declining to join her in it, though more than willing +to sit beside her and talk while she ate. Moreover, Mrs. Bruce was +extremely proud to show this other notable housekeeper a specimen of her +own cooking, knowing that she was usually considered a failure in that +line, but had succeeded well this time. + +Then said Mrs. Jones: + +"I've been thinkin' things over a mite, whilst you two talked. Bill's +and my goods are to the depot here, ready packed an' waitin', and I've +not a hand's turn to do, till I get a place to unpack them in. If you'll +let me I'd admire to come help you get your stuff ready for movin'. +Havin' just done mine I've sort of got my hand in, so to speak, an' can +take hold capable. I'll look after the house, too, and learn the ways of +it, while you're off on your errands or seeing your husband, or the +like. What say, sister, to that notion?" + +"I call it first-rate: an' I'll be able to help some, 'tween times. Now, +Martha Chester, if you've finished your dinner, be off with you. Jane +an' me'll do everything all right, an' I'm getting as wild to have +Dorothy back as you are. Don't suppose she's one to run away an' play +with some the school children, do you?" said Mrs. Bruce. + +"No, I don't. I wish I did think she might, but Dorothy never ran away, +not in all her life, except when she was a mite of a thing and followed +her father on his route. Well, you can tell the real-estate men, if they +come, 't the thing is settled already. I say it 'tis, but I reckon +they'll be some put out, comin' up here for nothing. Good-bye. Do wish +me good luck! and I'll hurry back." + +Late though she felt that she was for her hospital visit, Mrs. Chester +hurried first to the post-office, her anxiety increasing all the way, +and reached it just as Mr. Lathrop was leaving it for his last delivery. +To her anxious inquiry he returned a discouraging: + +"No. I haven't seen Dorothy since early this morning, when I helped her +a bit in getting her money-letter. But I'll ask if anybody else knows +what became of her. Doubtless she'll turn up all right and with a +simple explanation of her absence. She's a bright little girl, you'll +find her all safe. I'll go back with you now." + +Thus for the second time that day, the busy postman delayed his own work +to do kindness to a comrade's family, nor could he quite understand why +his faith in his own words was less than he wished hers to be. It was +rare to hear of a child being lost in that safe city, and it would be a +bitter blow to the already afflicted John Chester if harm befell his +adopted daughter. When no good news could be obtained here, he advised +Martha to go on to the hospital but to say nothing to her husband of +Dorothy. He would notify the police, and if she had met with any +accident, or by some rare mischance lost her way, she would speedily be +traced. + +Because she could do no better, Mrs. Chester followed his advice, +boarded a car for the hospital, and was soon at her husband's side. But +alas! She was to find no comfort in this interview. With a natural +reaction from his first elation over the possibility of recovery he was +now greatly depressed. Having lived so long on will-power, and having +once given up, he had developed a great weakness of body, and, in a +degree, of mind. Before his wife was admitted to his presence she was +warned that nothing but the pleasantest topics must be discussed, and +was told that the doctors now desired him to be removed to the country +right away. + +"This terrible heat has injured him, as it has others. Get him out of +town at once, Mrs. Chester, if you would save his life." + +So when he asked for Dorothy she ignored his question, but talked glibly +of the fine chance that they had of letting the house: yet to her +amazement he showed no interest in this matter. + +"Do whatever you think best, little woman. I don't care. I don't believe +I'll ever care about anything in the world again." + +"Oh, John! Don't say that. You'll be better soon. But, good-bye till +to-morrow:" and hastily bidding him expect her then, with some home +flowers and "lots of good news," she hurried away. + +"No news?" she asked, as her own door opened to receive her, and the +gentle little country-woman welcomed her. + +"Oh! no. Not yet. Ain't hardly time!" cheerfully responded Jane Jones, +just as if she were imparting other tidings. "Mustn't look for miracles, +nowadays. That child's off visitin', somewheres, you may depend. And you +mustn't be hard on her when she comes back," advised this new friend. + +"Hard on her? Me? Why, I'd give ten years of my life to know she was +safe, this minute! _Hard on her!_ All I ask is to hold her fast in my +arms once more. But, course, you don't know Dorothy C. The little child +that was _sent_, and that's made John an' me so happy all her life. +Look. Here's her picture. We thought it was extravagant, but somehow we +felt we had to have it. 'Twas taken this very spring, on the same day we +found her on the steps." + +From a little secretary in the dining room Mrs. Chester produced the +photograph, still carefully wrapped in its waxed paper covering, and +displayed to her admiring guest the picture of a very lovely child. The +shapely head was crowned by short brown curls, the big brown eyes looked +eagerly forth, and the pretty red lips were curved in a half-smile that +was altogether bewitching. + +"Why! She's a beauty! A regular beauty! She looks as if she belonged to +high-up folks; I declare she does," commented Mrs. Jones. + +Mother Martha was touched by this sincere admiration, and lifting the +picture to her lips lightly pressed a kiss upon it. Then she carefully +put it away again, saying with a sigh: + +"We'd laid out to get it framed, soon, and hang it in the parlor. That's +why we had but one taken. John thought one big one was better worth +while than a dozen small ones. My! Hark! What's that? Such a ring--my +heart's in my mouth--you open the door--please--I can't!" and so +imploring, Mrs. Chester sank upon the lounge and covered her face with +her hands. + +Even Mrs. Jones was all a-tremble and her hands fumbled so with the +unfamiliar latch that the housemistress sprang to her feet and opened +the door herself with the glad cry: + +"Dorothy! Dorothy, have you come?" + +"Not Dorothy, Mrs. Chester; just Lathrop, you know, with a detective, +come to get some points." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +STRANGE EXPERIENCES + + +"Why doesn't he come back! Oh! what will my mother think of my staying +away like this? All the help she has now, too, and needing me so much. +I'll wait just five minutes longer, then I'll go home, anyway, whether +that 'witness' who's to tell me so much about myself and my real father +and mother comes or not. No father or mother could be as dear to me as +father John and mother Martha. I don't want any others. Let them keep +their old fortune the rest of the time, since they've kept it so long +and never sent for me," said Dorothy C. to herself, after she had waited +with what slight patience she could for Mr. Smith's return, and more +than an hour had already passed. + +Hitherto she had not deemed it polite to explore her present quarters, +but now began to do so in an idle sort of way. If her "lawyer" left her +so long alone he couldn't blame her if she amused herself in some +manner; and first she examined the few books which were tossed in a heap +on the untidy desk. They did not look like law-books, many of them, +though one or two were bound in dirty calf-skin and showed much +handling. In any case none of them interested her. + +Next she tried to open the window, that gave upon the hall from one side +of the room as the door by which she had entered did upon another, but +found it fast. + +"Why, that's funny! What would anybody want to nail an inside window +tight for? Oh! maybe because this is an apartment house, he said, and +other people might come in. My father says he wouldn't like to live in a +flat, it's so mixed up with different families. He'd rather have a tiny +house like ours and have it separate. Well! if I can't open the window, +I reckon I can that door which must go into a back room." + +Immediately she proceeded to try this second door, which was opposite +the nailed window, and, to her delight, found that it yielded easily to +her touch. But the room thus disclosed was almost as dark as the +"office" she had just quitted, although it had two windows at the back. +The upper sashes of these had been lowered as far as possible, but +behind them were wooden shutters and these were also nailed, or spiked +fast. There were crescent-shaped holes in the tops of the shutters and +through these a little air and light penetrated into the gloom of what, +now that her eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, she perceived +was a bedroom. From one side of this opened a bathroom, whose window was +secured like those of the bedroom, but where was the cheerful sound of +running water. + +Now terribly frightened by her strange surroundings, Dorothy's throat +grew so dry and parched that she hastened to get a drink from the +faucet, beneath which hung a rusty tin cup. Then she thought: + +"Maybe I can get out into the hall by this bathroom door!" + +It could not be opened, and now half-frantic with fear, the imprisoned +girl ran from one door to another, only to find that while she had the +freedom of the three apartments, every exit from these into the hall was +securely bolted, or locked, upon the outside, and realized that it was +with some evil intention she had been brought to this place. + +For hours she worked over doors, then windows, and back again to the +doors--testing her puny strength against them, only to fail each time. +The heat was intolerable in the rooms, for it was the top story of a +small house with the sun beating against the roof. Even below, in the +street, people mopped their faces and groaned beneath this unseasonable +temperature. As for poor Dorothy, she felt herself growing faint, and +remembered that she, as well as her mother, had taken but a light +breakfast; but her eyes had now grown accustomed to the dim light of the +rooms and the gas jet still flickered in the "office," so that, after a +time, she threw herself on the bed, worn out with her efforts and hoping +a few moments' rest might help her "to think a way out" of her prison. + +How long she slept, she never knew, for it was that of utter +exhaustion, but she was suddenly roused by the sound of a bolt shot in +its lock, and the opening of the "office" door. It was Mr. Smith +returning, profuse with apologies which Dorothy scarcely heard and +wholly disdained, as, darting past him, she made for the entrance with +all her speed. + +"Why, Miss Chester! Don't, I beg, don't treat me so suspiciously. +Indeed, it is quite as I tell you. I was--was detained against my will. +I have only just now been able to come back here, and you must +imagine--for I cannot describe them--what my sufferings have been on +your account. I know that you'll think hardly of me, but, indeed, I mean +you nothing but good. Wait, please; wait just a moment and taste these +sandwiches I've brought and this bottle of milk. You must be famished. +You can't? You won't? Why, my dear young lady, how am I ever to do you +any good if you mistrust me so on such slight grounds?" + +"Slight grounds!" almost screamed Dorothy, struggling to free herself +from the man's grasp, which, apparently gentle, was still far too firm +for her to resist. + +At once, also, he began again to talk, so fast, so plausibly, that his +words fairly tripped each other up, and still pressing upon her +acceptance a paper of very dainty sandwiches and a glass of most +innocent appearing milk. + +"Just take these first. I should be distressed beyond measure to have +you return to your home in this condition. I have a carriage at the door +to carry you there and we'll start immediately after you have eaten, or +at least drank something. You needn't be so alarmed. Your mother +received your note only a few moments after you sent it, with the +envelope enclosed. She is now most anxious for you to hear all that my +witness--witnesses, in fact--have to disclose as to your real parentage +and possessions. It is such a grand thing for her and her husband, now +that he has lost his health. Just five minutes, to keep yourself from +fainting, then we'll be off. Indeed, I'm far more anxious to be on the +road than you are, I so deeply regret this misadventure." + +At that moment there was the ring of sincerity in his words, and also +just then there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, followed by +the appearance at the door of a hack-driver in the attire of his class. + +"Time's erbout up, suh, 't I was hired for, an' soon's you-all's ready, +suh, I----" + +"All right, Jehu. I'll pay for overtime, but can't hurry a young lady, +you know. Especially one that's been shut up by accident almost all day +in my office." Then turning to Dorothy, who still refrained from +touching the sandwiches which, however, began to look irresistibly +tempting, he begged: "At least drink the milk. This good fellow seems to +be in haste, though it's only a few minutes' drive to Brown Street and +you can nibble the sandwiches in the carriage." + +She was not worldly-wise, she was very hungry, and the man seemed +profoundly distressed that she had suffered such treatment at his hands. +Moreover, it appeared that the shortest way to liberty was to obey him. +She would drink the milk, she was fairly famishing for it, but once +upon the street she would enter no carriage of his providing but trust +rather to her own nimble feet to reach her home, and, if need be, to the +protection of the first policeman she could summon. + +Wrapping the sandwiches once more in their paper, she hastily drank the +milk and again started to leave. This time she was not prevented nor as +they left the "office" did its proprietor use the precaution of the bolt +which anybody from outside could unfasten--none from within! But he did +turn out the gas, with a noteworthy prudence, and still retained his +courteous support of Dorothy's arm. + +Released at last from the imprisonment which had so terrified her she +was strangely dizzy. Her head felt very much as it had done when she had +been knocked down by Mrs. Cecil's big dogs, and it was now of her own +accord that she clutched Mr. Smith's arm, fearing she would fall. + +How far, far away sounded the hackman's footsteps, retreating before +them to the street! How queerly her feet jogged up and down on the +stairs, which seemed to spring upward into her very face as she +descended! In all her life she had never, never felt so tired and +curiously weak as now, when all the power to move her limbs seemed +suddenly to leave her. + +"Ah! the carriage!" She could dimly see it, in the glare of an electric +light, and now she welcomed it most eagerly. If ever she were to reach +that blessed haven of home she would have to be carried there. So she +made no remonstrance when she was bodily lifted into the coupé and +placed upon its cushions, where, at once, she went to sleep. + + * * * * * + +"Here girl. Time you woke up and took your breakfast." + +After that strange dizziness in descending the stairs of the house in +Howard Street, Dorothy's first sensation was one of languid surprise. A +big, coarse-looking woman stood beside the bed on which she lay, holding +a plate in one hand, a cup in the other. Broad beams of sunlight +streamed through an uncurtained window near, and a fresh breeze blew in +from the fields beyond. + +"Why--the country! Have we come to it so soon and I not knowing? Mother! +Where is my mother?" she asked, gaining in strength and rising upon her +elbow. Then she saw that she had lain down without undressing and +cautiously stepped to the floor, which was bare and not wholly clean. +Her head felt light and dizzy still, so that she suddenly again sat down +on the bed's edge to recover herself. Thereupon the woman dragged a +wooden chair forward and, placing the breakfast on it, said: + +"I can't bother no more. Eat it or leave it. I've got my fruit to pick." + +Then she turned away, but Dorothy reached forward, caught the blue denim +skirt, and demanded: + +"Tell me where my mother is? I want her. I want her right away." + +"Like enough. I don't know. I'm goin'. I'll be in to get your dinner. +You can lie down again or do what you want, only stay inside. Orders." + +Dorothy was very hungry. The hunger of yesterday was nothing compared to +the craving she felt now and, postponing all further questions till +that was satisfied, she fell to eating the contents of the great plate +with greed. Then she drank the bowl of coffee and, still strangely +drowsy, lay back upon the pillow and again instantly dropped asleep. + +The clatter of dishes in the room beyond that one where she lay was what +next roused her and her head was now nearly normal. Only a dull pain +remained and her wits were clearing of the mist that had enveloped them. +Memories of strange stories came to her, and she thought: + +"Something has happened to me, more than I dreamed. I've been kidnapped! +I see it, understand it all now. But--why? _Why?_ An orphan foundling +like me--what should anybody steal me away from my home for? Father and +mother have no money to pay ransom--like that little boy father read +about in the paper--who was stolen and not given back till thousands of +dollars were sent. But I'm somewhere in the country now, and in a house +that's all open, every side. It's easy to get away from _here_. I'll go. +I'll go right away, soon as I wash my face and brush my hair--if I can +find a brush. I'll go into that other room and act just as if I wasn't +afraid and--that dinner smells good!" + +The big woman, whose denim skirt and blouse suggested the overalls of a +day laborer, was bending over a small cooking stove whereon was frying +some bacon and eggs. A great pot of boiled potatoes waited on the +stove-hearth, and on an oilcloth-covered table were set out a few +dishes. A boy was just entering the kitchen from the lean-to beyond and +was carrying a wooden pail of water with a tin dipper. He was almost as +tall as the woman but bore no further resemblance to her, being +extremely thin and fair. Indeed, his hair was so nearly white that +Dorothy stared at it, and his eyes were very blue, while the woman +looked like a swarthy foreigner from some south country. + +Mother Martha had a saying, when anybody about her was inclined to +sharpness of speech, that "you can catch more flies with molasses than +with vinegar," and, oddly enough, the adage came to Dorothy's mind at +that very instant. She had come into the kitchen prepared to demand her +liberty and to be directed home, but she now spoke as politely as she +would have done to the minister's wife: + +"Please, madam, will you show me where I can wash and freshen myself a +little? I feel so dirty I'd like to do it before I eat my dinner or go +home." + +The woman rose from above her frying pan with a face of astonishment. +She was so tanned and burned by the sun as well as by the heat of +cooking that the contrast between herself and her son--if he were her +son--made him look fairly ghostlike. Furthermore, as the inwardly +anxious, if outwardly suave, little girl perceived--her face was more +stupid than vicious. + +Without the waste of a word the woman nodded over her shoulder toward +the lean-to and proceeded to dish up her bacon, now cooked to her +satisfaction. She placed it in the middle of a great yellow platter, the +eggs around it, and a row of potatoes around them. Then she set the +platter on the table, drew her own chair to it, filled a tin plate with +the mixture, and proceeded with her dinner. She made no remark when the +boy, also, sat down, and neither of them waited an instant for their +girl guest. + +But Dorothy's spirit was now roused and she felt herself fully equal to +dealing with these rustics: and it was with all the dignity she could +summon that she drew a third chair to the table and herself sat down, +saying: + +"Now, if you please, I wish to be told where I am and how I came here." + +The hostess paid no more heed than if a fly had touched her, but the lad +paused in the act of shoveling food into his mouth and stared at +Dorothy, as he might have done at the same fly, could it have spoken. +Nor did he remove his gaze from her till she had repeated her question. +Then he shifted it to the woman's face, who waited awhile longer, then +said: + +"I tell nothing. Drink your milk." + +"Oh, indeed! Then I suppose I must find out for myself. I don't care for +the milk, thank you. I rarely drink it at home, but I'm fond of bacon +and eggs, and yours look nice. Please serve me some." + +The woman made no answer. She had finished her own meal and left the +others to do the same. So, as the taciturn creature departed for the +open fields, with a hoe over her shoulder, Dorothy drew the platter +toward her, found a third empty tin plate, and helped herself. + +She had noticed one thing that the others had, apparently, not known she +had: a sign of silence interchanged between the woman and the lanky lad. +He had been bidden to hold his tongue and been left to clear up the +dinner matters. He did this as deftly as a girl, though not after the +manner in which Dorothy had been trained: and casting a look of contempt +upon him, she finished her dinner, rose, and quietly left the room and +the house. + +But she got no further than a few rods' distance when she felt a strong +hand on her arm, herself turned rudely about, and led back to the +cottage. There she was pushed upon the doorstep and a note thrust into +her hand by this abnormally silent woman, who had returned from the +field as suddenly as if she had sprung from the earth at the girl's very +feet. + +The note was plainly enough written and to the point: + + "Stay quiet where you are and you'll soon be set free. Try to run + away and you'll meet big trouble." + +There was no signature and the handwriting was unknown: and Dorothy was +still blankly gazing at it when it was snatched from her hand, the woman +had again disappeared, and a huge mastiff had come around the corner of +the cottage, to seat himself upon the doorstep beside her. His +attentions might have been friendly; but Dorothy was afraid of dogs, and +shrank from this one into the smallest space possible, while there +fluttered down over her shoulder the note that had been seized. There +was now pinned to it a scrap of paper on which were scrawled three +words: + +"Drink no milk." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE FLITTING + + +Disappointed, Mrs. Chester had stepped back into her little hall, and +the postman with the detective followed. Then they went further still +and settled themselves in the parlor, as if come for a prolonged stay. +To the detective's inquiry whether the missing Dorothy had recently met +any strangers, made acquaintances who might be able to furnish some clew +to her present whereabouts--as friends of longer standing had not been +able--the mother answered: "No. She was always at home or in the +immediate neighborhood." + +But conquering her timidity, the country-woman now interrupted: + +"Wait a minute. Mabel was here yesterday, wasn't she?" + +"Why, yes. She came home with my little girl from Sunday school and +spent part of the day. Why she did not stay longer I don't know. What +of it?" returned mother Martha, drearily. + +"She didn't stay longer because she was sent home. I was there and I +noticed what a good-natured child she was not to get mad about it. She +told her mother that Dorothy had a gentleman caller and had to see him +on business. We both laughed over it, 'cause 'twas so grown-up an' +old-fashioned like. An', sister, she said as how city children didn't +scarce have any childhood, they begun to be beauin' each other round so +early. We _laughed_, but still, I thought 'twas a pity, for I like +little girls to stay such, long as they can." + +"Nonsense! My Dorothy is--was the simplest child in the world. A +gentleman caller--the idea is ridiculous!" cried Mrs. Chester, +indignantly, and poor Mrs. Jones felt herself snubbed and wished that +she had held her tongue. + +Not so the detective, who quietly asked: + +"Who is this Mabel, and where can she be found?" + +"She's my niece an' likely she'll be found in bed, by now. No matter +about that, though. If you'd like to see her I'll fetch her to once," +answered Mrs. Jones, promptly rising. + +"Do so, please," said the officer, and the woman hurried away. + +The postman friend employed the interval of her absence in telling the +plans formed by "the boys" for the benefit of their ailing comrade. + +"You see, Mrs. Chester, John's about the best liked man on the force and +we want he should be the best cared for. So, to-night, after I saw you I +ran over to the hospital myself and saw one the doctors--the one that +has most to say about John. He wants to get him into the country right +away. Then back I hurried and got leave of absence, from Wednesday night +till next Monday morning, and I'm going with you, to help you on the +trip and see him settled all straight. No--Don't say a word yet! It'll +be all right. It's settled. You can get ready." + +"Oh! but I can't, I can't!" protested Martha, deeply touched by this +kindness, yet feeling as if she were being fairly hurled out of her old +life into the new one. Besides, if this mystery of Dorothy's +disappearance were not cleared she could never leave the city, never! +and so she stoutly declared. + +"But--it's a case of adopted daughter _versus_ a husband's life, seems +to me," put in the detective quietly. "Moreover, I'm told by Lathrop, +here, that Chester isn't to be worried about anything. _Anything._ His +chance of recovery depends on it." + +The tortured housemistress was vastly relieved to see not only Mabel, +but the entire household of Bruce-and-Jones, coming swiftly toward the +house and presently entering at the doorway, left open because of the +great heat. Both the plumber and his wife were panting from their +exertions; Mr. Jones was as excited as if he were going to a circus; his +wife uncommonly proud of her part in the occasion; and the terrified +Mabel weeping loudly: + +"I don't know a thing! I don't--I don't!" + +"Why, Miss Bruce, what a surprising statement from such a bright-looking +young lady as you!" exclaimed the detective, suavely, and the girl +stopped sobbing long enough to see that this was no formidable +policeman in blue-and-brass but a very simple gentleman, in a business +suit rather the worse for wear. In another moment he had gallantly +placed this possibly important witness in the coziest corner of the +sofa, and had placed himself beside her, as if to protect her from the +inquisitiveness of her friends. + +Then in a tone so low that it effectually prevented their words being +overheard, he deftly drew from the now reassured Mabel a much better +description of Dorothy's caller than fear would have extorted. Indeed, +she became inclined to enlarge upon facts, as she saw her statements +recorded in a small notebook. But this finally held no more than the +brief entry: + +"Tall. Light hair. Left eye squints. Eyebrows meet. Glib. Name not +given." + +Then the notebook was closed and pocketed, the cross-examination was +over, and all were free to take a part in a discussion--which they did +so volubly, that the detective smiled and called a halt. Moreover, his +words had the weight of one who knew, as he said: + +"We've gone into this business very promptly, and it must, for the +present, be kept out of the newspapers, else the guilty party who is +detaining Dorothy--if there is such a party--will be warned and may +escape. It is but twelve hours since the child disappeared. At the end +of another twenty-four will be time enough to publish. Meanwhile, Madam, +rest assured that we shall keep steadily at work, trying to locate your +missing daughter and--I wish you all good-evening." + +The gentleman's departure was a relief. It seemed to lessen the horror +of Dorothy's absence, though her mother was glad to know that the +efforts of the police were being made to trace her. But--Why, the +darling might come walking in, at any moment, and how distressed she'd +be to find herself an object of such unpleasant importance! + +"Now, Mrs. Chester," said Mr. Lathrop, "we 'boys' don't want you to +worry one minute about this moving business. We've agreed to send a +professional packer and his men here, the first thing to-morrow morning. +You needn't touch one thing. It's better that you should not, for if +all is left to this man he is responsible for everything. You just +rest, visit John and get him braced up for his journey, and take it +easy. If little Dorothy is back before Thursday morning, when we start, +all right. She shall go with us and be the life of the party. If she +isn't--why, as soon as she does come, some way will be found, somebody, +to bring her safely to you." + +"Oh, Mr. Lathrop! You and the 'boys' are goodness itself, but I can't--I +cannot go away in such uncertainty. If Dorothy isn't found--John will be +the first one to say that we must wait until she is." + +This was a natural attitude of mind, and Mr. Lathrop, as well as all the +other friends of the Chesters, anticipated it. But by slow degrees, the +arguments of her pastor, the hospital doctors, and the honest neighbors +who sympathized with the tortured mother, finally succeeded in bringing +her to view the matter as they did. + +"Not an effort shall be relaxed, any more than if you were on the spot +to direct us. We all feel as if we, too, had lost a beloved child and +none of us will rest until this mystery is cleared. Trust the advice of +all your best-wishers, Mrs. Chester, and take this fine chance offered +your lame husband to make the long journey under the care of his postman +friend," urged the minister, and his final argument procured her +consent. + +"Oh! these last two days! Shall I ever forget them!" cried Mrs. Chester, +when Wednesday evening had arrived and she sat in her dismantled home +upon one of her incoming tenant's chairs. "To think that on Monday +morning, when you came, Mrs. Jones, I hadn't touched a single thing to +pack! and now--there isn't one left. All in boxes an' crates, over there +to the station; me all alone; no Dorothy C.; no John--I'm just +heart-broke!" + +Mrs. Jones's patience was tried. For these two busy days she and her +"Bill" had stayed at No. 77, helping where help was needed, and keeping +a careful eye to the "professional" packing which they more than half +distrusted. The frail country-woman had just gone through the same sort +of business, almost single-handed, and she felt that her new friend +failed to realize the blessings of her lot and that a reproof was in +order. + +"Well, Mis' Chester, you may be. I can't tell. I never had chick nor +child to make me sad or glad, ary one. But if I'd adopted one, right out +of the streets as you did, an' she'd seen fit to run away an' turn her +back on a good home, after enjoyin' it so long, an' I'd still got my +_man_ left, an' folks had been that generous to me, payin' for +everything--Laws! I sh'd think I had some mercies left. _Some._" + +Mother Martha rose. She was not offended, but she was deeply hurt and +she was glad the time had come to say good-bye. With a weary smile she +held out her hand, saying: + +"Well, that's right, too, but you don't understand. Nobody can who +hasn't lived with _Dorothy_. There was never a child like her. Never. +I'll be going. I said good-bye to everybody--everything, this side the +city, and I've fixed it to sleep at a boarding house right across the +street from the Hospital. We've got to make an early start and I'll be +close on hand. If she--O my darling!--Good-bye. I--I hope you'll be as +happy here as I was before all this trouble came upon me. No. I don't +want company. I want to be alone. It's the only way I can bear it +and--good-bye, old home! Good-bye--good-bye!" + +The door opened and the mistress of the prettiest house on Brown Street +vanished into the darkness of a somber, sultry night; and what her +feelings were only those who have thus parted with a beloved home can +understand; and what the hours of sleeplessness which followed only she +herself knew. + +The morning found her sunshiny and bright, as if her whole heart were in +this sudden flitting, and waiting in the carriage at the hospital door, +while an orderly and Mr. Lathrop, superintended by a nurse and doctor, +helped John Chester to make his first short journey upon crutches. + +The excitement of the event had sent a flush to his cheeks and a +brightness to his eyes which made him look so like his old self that his +wife rejoiced that, after all, there had been no delay in their removal. +Yet, once in the carriage, with his useless legs stretched out before +him, he suddenly demanded: + +"Why, where's my girl? Where's Dorothy C.?" + +He looked toward his wife, but it was Mr. Lathrop who answered: + +"Oh! she's coming later. We--we couldn't bother with a child, this +trip." + +"Couldn't 'bother' with my Dorothy! Why, friend, you're the best I have, +but you don't know Dorothy. Humph! She's more brains in her curly head +than anybody in this party has in theirs. Beg pardon, all, but--but you +see I'm rather daft on Dorothy. I simply cannot go without her. What's +more, I shan't even try." + +This was worse than they had expected. Martha had felt that her husband +should no longer be deceived as to the state of things; even in his +weakened condition she believed that his good sense would support him +under their dreadful trial, and that he would suffer less if the news +were gently broken to him here than if he were left to learn it later, +in some ruder way. But her judgment had been overruled even as now his +decision was; for without an instant's delay Mr. Lathrop ordered the +carriage to drive on and that memorable journey had begun. + +As he was lifted out of the vehicle at the station entrance, he turned +upon his wife and for the first time in her memory of him spoke harshly +to her: + +"Martha, you're deceiving me. Taking advantage of my helplessness. +You've always been jealous of my love for little Dorothy, and now, I +suppose, just because I can't work to support her you've got rid of her. +Well, I shall have her back. I may be a cripple, but my brain isn't +lame--it's only my legs--and I'll find some way to take care of her. She +shall come back. Trust me. Now, go ahead!" + +He submitted to the porter and his friend Lathrop, and, the train just +rolling in, he was carried through the gates and placed aboard it in the +parlor car where seats had been procured. He had never before traveled +in such luxury, but instead of the gay abandon with which he would once +have accepted and enjoyed it, he seemed now not to notice anything +about him. Except that, just as the train was moving out, he caught at a +newsboy hurrying from it, seized a paper, tossed a nickel, and spread +the sheet open on his knee. + +Alas! for all the over-wise precautions of his friends! The first words +his eyes rested upon were the scare-head capitals of this sentence: + + THE FATE OF POSTMAN JOHN CHESTER'S DAUGHTER DOROTHY STILL + UNKNOWN--KIDNAPPING AND MURDER THE PROBABLE SOLUTION OF THE + MYSTERY. + +He stared at the letters as if they had no significance. Then he read +them singly, in pairs, in dozens--trying to make his shocked brain +comprehend their meaning. The utmost he could do was to see them as +letters of fire, printed on the air before him, and on the darkness of +the tunnel they now entered. A darkness so suggestive of the misery that +had shrouded a once happy household that poor Martha, burying her face +in her hands, could only sob aloud. + +But from the stricken "father John" came neither sob nor groan, for +there was still upon him the numbness of the shock he had received; and +it was in that same silence that he made the long journey, with its +several changes, and came at last to the farmhouse on the hilltop, which +was to have been made glad by a child's presence and was now so +desolate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +JIM BARLOW + + +Dorothy reread the note. Then she took off the scrawl attached to it and +tore it into bits, remarking to the mastiff, or whoever might hear: + +"Well, I don't want any milk. I shall never like it again. I believe +that dreadful man put something in it last night--was it only last +night?--that made me go to sleep and not know a thing was happening +after I got into the carriage till I woke up here. Milk! Ugh!" + +With a shudder of repulsion she looked over her shoulder just as a +sibilant, warning "S-Ssh!" came from the room behind. Then she stood up +and screamed as the mastiff, likewise rising, grasped her skirt in his +teeth. + +"Hush! you better not let her hear you!" was the second, whispered +warning, and though she peered into the kitchen she could see nobody, +till, after a moment, she discovered a pair of dirty bare feet +protruding from under the bed that stood in one corner. + +Dorothy was afraid of the dog that held her, but she was not usually +afraid of human beings; so she called quite loudly: + +"You long white boy, come out from that place. I want to talk to you!" + +The dog loosened its grip long enough to growl, then took a fresh hold, +as the lad cautiously drew himself into full sight and noiselessly stood +up. But he laid one grimy hand on his lips, again commanding silence, +and snatching a big basket from the floor ran out of a rear door. + +The girl tried to follow. Of the two human beings she had seen in this +isolated cottage the long boy seemed the gentler, and she was determined +to make him, or somebody, tell her where she was. The mastiff still held +her prisoner and she suspected he was acting upon orders. Her temper +rose and with it her courage. It was absurd that she could not do as she +pleased in a little bit of a country cottage like this, where there were +no locks nor bolts to hinder! So for the third time she moved, and for +the third time the dog's great teeth set themselves more firmly on her +light clothing. Clenching her small hands in her impotent wrath, she +began to screech and yell, at the top of her voice, incessantly, +deafeningly, defiantly. Pausing only long enough to renew her breath, +and wondering if that old woman she could see yonder, picking berries +from a bed, could endure the noise as long as she could endure to make +it. + +Apparently, the uproar had no further result than to tire her own +throat; for, until she had finished gathering the strawberries from one +long row of vines, the woman did not pause. But, having reached the +limit of the bed and of the crate she moved along before her as she +worked, she suddenly stood up, lifted the crate to her head, and strode +back to the house. There she deposited her precious fruit in an outer +shed and entered the kitchen. From the small clock-shelf she gathered a +pad of writing paper, a bunch of envelopes, and a lead pencil; which +with an air of pride, and the first semblance of a smile Dorothy had +seen upon her grim features, she offered to the child. + +"Here. To write on. To your ma. He left 'em. Tige, let go!" + +Instantly, the mastiff loosened his hold of Dorothy's skirts and +followed his mistress into the strawberry patch whither she had again +gone, carrying another crate filled with empty baskets. Evidently, this +was a truck-farm and the mistress of it was preparing for market. Just +such crates and cups, or little baskets, were now plentiful at all the +city shops where groceries were sold, and Dorothy's hopes rose at the +thought that she might be taken thither with this woman when she went to +sell her stuff. + +"Oh! that's what she'll let me do! So what's the use of writing? And how +fine those berries look! I'd like to pick some myself. I'd rather do it +than do nothing. I'll just go and offer to help." + +In better spirits than she would have thought possible, even a few +moments before, the homesick girl ran across the garden and to the +woman's side, who merely looked up and said nothing, till Dorothy +lifted one of the wooden cups and began to pick fruit into it. + +For a brief space the other watched her closely, as the nimble little +fingers plucked the beautiful berries; till by mischance Dorothy pulled +off an entire stem, holding not only ripened fruit but several green and +half-turned drupes. Whereupon her fingers were smartly tapped and by +example, rather than speech, she was instructed in the art of berry +picking. + +"Oh! I do love to learn things, and I see, I see!" cried the novice, and +smiling up into the old face now so near her own, she began the task +afresh. Already the market-woman had resumed her own work, and it seemed +incredible that such coarse fingers as hers could so deftly strip the +vines of perfect berries only, leaving all others intact for a future +picking. Also, she had a swift way of packing them in the cups that left +each berry showing its best side and filled the receptacle without +crowding. + +"Ah! I see! I'm getting the trick of it! And that's what mother means +by paying for a quart and not getting a quart, isn't it? Oh! how +delicious they are!" and, without asking, Dorothy popped the plumpest +berry she had yet found into her own mouth. + +That was a mistake, as the frown upon the woman's face promptly told +her; and with a sudden sinking of her heart she realized again that she +was, after all, a prisoner in an unknown place. She rose, apologized in +a haughty manner, and would have retreated to the cottage again had she +been permitted. But having proved herself of service, retreat was not so +easy. Again she was pulled down to a stooping posture and her cup thrust +back into her hand. + +"Work. Eat spoiled ones. Don't dally." + +Dorothy obeyed; but alas! her self-elected task grew very wearisome. The +heat was still great and the afternoon sun shone full upon her back, and +there seemed positively no end to the berries. There were rows upon rows +of them, and the woman had only just begun when Dorothy joined her. Or +so it seemed, though there were already several crates waiting in the +little shed till the full day's crop should be garnered. + +At the end of one row of vines she stood up and protested: + +"I can't pick any more. I'm so tired. Please tell me where I am and what +your name is. Tell me, too, when I can go home and the way." + +"No matter. Go. Write. I'll take it. Here;" and this big woman of small +speech held out on the palm of her great hand a half-dozen over-ripe +berries, which Dorothy hesitated to accept, yet found delicious when she +did so. + +"Thank you! and if you won't tell me who you are or where I am, I shall +call you Mrs. Denim, after the clothes you wear; and I shall find out +where this farm is and run away from it at the first chance. I'd rather +that horrid old dog would eat me up than be kept a prisoner this way. Is +that long boy your son? May I go talk to him? May he show me the way +home to Baltimore?" + +To none of these questions was any answer vouchsafed, and offended +Dorothy was moved to remark: + +"Humph! You're the savingest woman I ever saw! You don't waste even a +word, let alone a spoiled strawberry. Oh! I beg your pardon! I didn't +mean to be quite so saucy, but I'm almost crazy to go home. I want to go +home--_I want to go home_!" + +There was such misery in this wail that the long boy, weeding onions a +few feet away, paused in his tedious task and raised his shock head with +a look of pity on his face. But the woman seemed to know his every +movement, even though her own head was bowed above the vines, and shot +him such an angry glance that he returned to his weeding with no further +expression of his sympathy. + +Poor Dorothy C.! Homesickness in its bitterest form had come upon her +and her grief made her feel so ill that she dropped down just where she +was, unable longer to stand upright. Instantly, she was snatched up +again by "Mrs. Denim's" strong arms and violently shaken. That anybody, +even an ignorant stranger, should lie down in a strawberry patch and +thus ruin many valuable berries was the height of folly! So, without +more ado, Dorothy was carried indoors, almost tossed upon the bed in the +kitchen, and the paper and pencil thrown upon the patchwork quilt beside +her. Then she was left to recover at her leisure, while whistling to +Tige to watch the girl, "Mrs. Denim" returned to her outdoor labors; nor +was she seen again till darkness had filled the narrow room. + +Then once again Dorothy was lifted and was now carried to a loft above +the kitchen, where, by the dim light of a tallow candle, she was shown a +rude bed on the floor and a plate of food. Also, there was a bowl of +milk, but at this the girl looked with a shudder. She wasn't hungry, but +she reflected that people grew faint and ill without food, so she forced +herself to nibble at the brown bread, which had been dipped in molasses, +instead of being spread with butter, and its sweetness gave her a great +thirst. Slipping down the stairs, she found the pail and dipper and got +her drink, and it was with some surprise that she did this unreproved. + +However, a snore from the bed explained why. "Mrs. Denim" was asleep +and the "long boy" was invisible. At the foot of the stairs, Dorothy +hesitated. Wasn't this a chance to steal away and start for home? Once +out of this house and on some road, she would meet people who would +direct her. She had heard her father say, time and time again, that the +world was full of kindness; and, though her present circumstances seemed +to contradict this statement, she was anxious to believe it true. But, +as she stood there debating whether she dare run away in the darkness or +wait until daylight, the sleepless Tiger gave a vicious growl and +bounded in from the shed where he had lain. + +That settled it. With a leap as swift as his own Dorothy sped back over +the stairs and flung herself on the "shake-down" where she had been told +to sleep; and again silence, broken only by its mistress's snores, fell +upon this lonely cottage in the fields. + +Dorothy's own sleep was fitful. This low room under the eaves was close +and warm. Her head ached strangely, and her throat was sore. At times +she seemed burning up with fever, and the next instant found herself +shaking with the cold. She roused, at length, from one disturbed nap to +hear the sound of wheels creaking heavily over rough ground, and to see +the attic dimly lighted. + +"Can it be morning already? Is that woman going to market and not taking +me, after all I begged her so?" cried the girl aloud and, hurrying from +the bed to the low window, looked out. + +It was the light of a late-rising moon that brightened the scene and +there was slowly disappearing in the distance one of those curious, +schooner-shaped vehicles which truck-farmers use: and with a vain belief +that she could overtake it, Dorothy again rushed down the stairs and +plump upon the mastiff crouched on the floor below, and evidently on +guard. + +But, yawning and stretching his long limbs, there just then entered the +shock-headed youth; and his "Pshaw!" Dorothy's "O-Oh!" and Tiger's growl +made a trio of sounds in the silent house: to which he promptly added +his question: + +"Huh? you awake?" + +"Yes, yes! But I want to go with that woman! Call off the dog--I must +go--I _must_!" + +The boy did call the dog to him and laid his hand upon the creature's +collar; then he said: + +"I'm glad of it." + +"Glad that I'm left, you--horrid thing!" cried Dorothy, trying to run +past him and out of the door. + +But she was not permitted, even had her own strength not suddenly +forsaken her: for the lad put out his free hand and stopped her. + +"Glad you're awake. So's we can talk," he said; and now releasing the +mastiff, whom he bade: "Lie down!" he led her to the doorstep and made +her sit down, with him beside her. + +"So you _can_ talk, if you want to! I thought you were tongue-tied!" she +remarked, now realizing that the wagon had passed beyond reach, but +thankful to have speech with anybody, even this silly-looking fellow. +"What's your name?" + +"Jim. Jim Barlow. I hain't got no folks. All dead. I work for her," he +answered, readily enough, and she understood that it was only from fear +he had been so silent until now. + +"Are you afraid of her? Do you mean 'her' to be that dreadful woman?" + +"Yep. She ain't so bad. She's only queer, and she's scared herself of +_him_. What's yourn?" + +"My name, you mean? Dorothy Chester. Who's 'him'? Has 'she' gone to +market? Does she go every market day? To Lexington, or Hollins, or +Richmond--which? What's her name?" + +Jim gasped. His experience of girls was limited, and he didn't know +which of these many questions to answer first. He began with the last: +and now that he had the chance he seemed as willing to talk as Dorothy +was to listen. Apparently, neither of them now thought of the hour and +its fitness for sleep: though Tiger had lain down before them on the +flat stone step and was himself snoring, his need of vigilance past for +the time being. Said the boy: + +"Stott. Mirandy Stott. Her man died. _He_ was a baby. She brung him +up--good. She earned this hull truck-farm. She makes money. All for him +an' he keeps her close. She sent him to school an' made a man of him. +She can't read nor write. She makes her 'mark,' but he can, the +first-ratest ever was. I can, too, some. I'm learnin' myself. I'm goin' +to school some time, myself, after I leave her." + +"If you're going to school, I should think it was time you began. You're +a big boy," said Dorothy. "Why don't you leave her now?" + +"Well--'cause. She--I come here when my folks died an' I hadn't no other +place. She treats me decent, only makes me hold my tongue. She hates +folks that talk. _He_ talks fast enough, though. So I--I've just stayed +on, a-waitin' my chance. I get good grub an' she don't lick me. She +likes me, I guess, next to him. She likes him better even than she likes +money. I don't. I'm scared of him. So's she. She does what he says every +time. That's why I said 'no milk.'" + +"Who is 'he'? Does he live here? What is about the milk?" + +There was nobody anywhere near them except the dog. By no possibility +could anybody besides Dorothy hear the information next imparted: yet +Jim stood up, peered in every direction, and when he again sat down +resumed in a whisper: + +"You ain't the first one. 'Tother was a boy, real little. He cried all +the time, first off. Then 'he' fetched some white powders an' she put +'em in the kid's milk. After that he didn't cry no more but he slept +most all the time. I seen her. I watched. I seen her put one in yourn. I +liked you. I thought if you stayed you'd be comp'ny, if you was awake. +That's why." + +"What became of the little boy?" asked Dorothy, also whispering, and +frightened. + +"He took him away. I studied out 't he gets money that way. He wouldn't +do it, 'less he did, seems if. I guess that's what he's plannin' 'bout +you. I'll watch. You watch. Don't mad her an' she'll treat you good +enough. 'Less--'less he should tell her different. Then I don't know." + +Dorothy sat silent for a long time. She was horrified to find her own +suspicions verified by this other person though he seemed to be +friendly; and her mind formed plan after plan of escape, only to reject +each as impossible. Finally she asked: + +"Where is this house? How far from Baltimore?" + +"'Bout a dozen mile, more or less. Ain't no town or village nigh. That's +why she bought it cheap, the land laying away off that way. So fur is +the reason she has to have four mules, 'stead of two, for the +truck-wagon. She makes money! All for him. Him an' money--that's the +hull of her." + +"Say, Jim, do you like me? Really, as you said?" demanded Dorothy, after +another period of confused thought, her brain seeming strangely dull and +stupid, and a desire to lie down and rest greater, for the present, than +that for freedom. + +"Course. I said so," he responded, promptly. + +"Will you help me get away from here, back to my home? Listen. You told +me about yourself, I'll tell about myself:" and as simply as possible +she did so. Her story fell in exactly with his own ideas, that money was +to be extorted for her restoration to her family, but his promise to +help her was not forthcoming: and when he did not reply, she +impatiently exclaimed: "You won't help me! You horrid, hateful wretch!" + +"Ain't nuther. Hark. One thing I know if I don't know another. I won't +lie for nobody, even her or him. If I can--_if I can_--I'll help you, +but I ain't promisin' nothin' more. I'll watch out. You watch, an' _if I +can_, without makin' it worse for you, I will. Now I'm goin' to bed. You +best, too. She's found out you can work an' you'll have to. I've got +plowin' to do. I sleep out yonder, in the shed. Tige, you stay where you +be." + +Without further words, Jim retreated to his bunk in the shed and Dorothy +to her attic. She was now conscious only of utter weariness and a +racking pain through her whole body. She was, in fact, a very sick +girl. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DOROTHY'S ILLNESS + + +"Measles." + +This was the one-word-verdict announced by Mrs. Stott's lips, as a few +hours later, she stood beside the bed in the kitchen and sternly +regarded the girl whom she had just brought from the attic and laid +there. She didn't look pleased, and poor Dorothy had never felt so +guilty in her life--nor so wretched. Yet she plucked up spirit enough to +retort: + +"I didn't get them on purpose!" + +Then she covered her eyes with her hands and fell to weeping, +remembering mother Martha's tenderness whenever she had "come down" with +any childish disease. Remembering, too, how father John had teased her +about being such a "catcher." "Such a sympathetic child nobody must have +chicken pox, scarlatina, or even mumps, but you must share them! Well, +a good thing to get through all your childish complaints in your +childhood, and have done with them!" Almost she could hear his dear +voice saying those very words and see the tender smile that belied their +jest. Oh! to feel herself lifted once more in his strong arms! and to +know that, no matter what was amiss with her, he never shrank from +fondling or comforting her. + +This woman did shrink, yet how could it be from fear of infection to +herself? Besides, she made Jim stay wholly outside in the shed; and thus +the acquaintance begun during the night was suddenly suspended. Still, +though there was real consternation in her mind, the farm mistress was +not unkind. It may be that she felt the shortest way to a recovery was, +also, the least expensive one to herself; and immediately she went to +work upon her patient, after one more question: + +"Know anybody had 'em?" + +"Yes. Lots. Half my class," answered Dorothy, defiantly. + +"Hmm. Yes. Measles," commented Mrs. Stott, as she put on her sunbonnet +and went out to rummage in her sage bed for fresh sprigs with which to +make a tea. This she forced Dorothy to drink, scalding hot; next she +covered her up with the heavy quilt, fastened the windows down, and +ordered Tige to take up his post beside the bed. Then she commanded: +"Stay in that bed. Get out, take cold, die. Not on my hands." + +"Suppose she doesn't care if I do die on the hands of somebody else!" +reflected the patient, but said nothing aloud. Yet she watched the woman +do a strange thing--go to the door at the foot of the attic stairs, lock +it, and put the key in her pocket. Then she went out of the cottage and +took Jim with her. + +Left alone with the dog, Dorothy C. had many sad thoughts; but soon +bodily discomfort banished her more serious anxieties and she became +wholly absorbed in efforts to find some spot on that hard couch where +she might rest. + +"I'll get up! I can't bear this heat!" she cried, at last, and tossed +the heavy covers from her. But no sooner had she done so than a heavy +chill succeeded and she crept back again, shivering. Thus passed the +morning and nobody came near; but at noon when the farm woman re-entered +the kitchen Dorothy's piteous plea was for "Water! Water!" and she had +become oblivious to almost all else save the terrible thirst. + +With the ignorance of her class the now really alarmed Mrs. Stott +refused the comforting drink, only to see her charge sink back in a +state of utter collapse; and, thereafter, for several days, the child +realized little that went on about her. On the few occasions when she +did rouse, she was so weakly patient that even the hard-natured woman +who nursed her felt her own heart softened to a sincere pity. Curiously, +too, Tiger became devoted to her. He would stand beside the bed and lick +the wan hand that lay on the quilt, as if trying to express his +sympathy; and his black, cool nose was grateful in her hot palm. + +Miranda Stott smiled grimly over this new friendship and, for the +present, did not interfere with it. Dorothy couldn't get away then, even +with the mastiff's connivance; but her hostess most heartily regretted +that the girl had ever come. She had perplexities of her own, now, which +this enforced guest and her illness greatly increased; and, as she +gradually returned to strength, Dorothy often observed a deep frown on +the woman's face and, in her whole bearing, a strange attitude of +listening and of fear. + +One afternoon, when Miranda and Jim were hard at work in the field +beyond the house and Dorothy still lay upon the bed, though for the +first time dressed in her own clothes, which her nurse had found time to +launder, the girl fancied that she heard a groan from somewhere. + +"Why, Tige, what's that?" she asked, half rising and listening intently. + +He answered by a thump of his tail on the boards and his head turned +sidewise, with his ears pricked up. Evidently, he, too, had caught the +sound, and was puzzled by it. + +A moment later, Dorothy was certain she heard a movement of somebody in +the room overhead. There was but one, she knew, and it covered the +entire width of the small house, for she had seen that during her brief +occupation of it. Who could it be? + +Half-frightened and wholly curious she crossed from the bed to the door +and looked out. Yes, the two other inmates of the cottage were still in +the field, setting out celery plants, as she had heard them discussing +at dinner. + +Tiger kept close beside her and, now that she was upon her feet again, +seemed doubtful whether he were to remain her friend or again become her +watchful enemy. She settled that question, however, by her loving pat on +his head and the smile she gave him. His attentions to her, while she +had lain so weak and helpless, had won her own affection and made her +feel that she would never again be afraid of any dog. + +Suddenly Mrs. Stott looked round and saw the girl in the doorway. Then +she at once stood up, said something to Jim, and hurried to the house: +demanding, as she reached it and with evident alarm: + +"What's the matter?" + +Dorothy smiled. She had been so dependent on this woman that she had +learned to really like her, and she answered brightly: + +"Nothing but fancies, I reckon! I thought, Tiger, too, thought, we heard +somebody in the room upstairs. Then we came to the door and saw you were +both outdoors, so there couldn't have been, could there? You never have +burglars in this out-of-the-way place, do you? My darling mother Martha +is always looking out for them and there's none ever came. Oh! I'm so +glad to be well, almost well, once more. You'll let me go home to her, +won't you? The very next time you go to market? I've been such a trouble +I'm sure you'll be glad to be rid of me!" and Dorothy impulsively caught +at the woman's hand and kissed it. + +For an instant Miranda Stott looked as if she could have been "knocked +down with a feather." A kiss was as unknown and startling a thing to her +as it was possible to imagine and it disconcerted her. But her answer +was: + +"Yes, I'm glad too. I'll fetch a chair. Do you good." + +So she caught up a chair in one strong hand, leaving a muddy impress +upon it; and, seeing this, covered her other hand with her apron, then +thrust it under Dorothy's arm and so piloted her out to the celery +patch. There were no trees allowed to grow in that utilitarian spot, +except here and there a fruit tree; and under the sparse shade of a +slender plum-sapling Dorothy was made to sit, while Jim went on with his +dropping of tiny seedlings into holes filled with water. Mrs. Stott had +gone again to the house and for a moment the boy and girl were free to +talk, and all her own old interest in gardening returned. Besides, she +wanted to learn all she could about it, so that she might be useful when +she, at last, got to that home "in the country" where they were all +going so soon. + +"Why do you do that, Jim?" she asked, intently watching his long fingers +straighten the fine roots of the plants, then drop them into the +prepared drill. + +"Why, to make 'em grow. 'Cause it's the way," he answered, surprised +that anybody should ask such a foolish question. + +"Oh, I see. You drill a place with a wooden peg, then you pour water +into it, then you plant the plant. Hmm. That's easy. I'll know how to +make our celery grow, too." + +Jim looked up. "Where's your celery at?" + +"I reckon it's 'at' a seed store, yet. 'Cause we haven't got there. Say, +Jim, were you afraid you'd 'catch' the measles? the reason why you +didn't come into the kitchen at all." + +The lad laughed, slyly. + +"No, I wasn't. She was, though. 'Cause I've had 'em. She didn't know an' +I didn't tell her. Stayin' out in the barn I had time to myself. I +learned myself six more words. Hear me?" + +"Maybe I don't know them myself. Then I shouldn't know if you spelled +them right or wrong," she cautiously answered. "If I had a book I'd hear +them, gladly." + +Jim forgot that he was never expected to pause in any labor on hand and +stood up: his thin body appearing to elongate indefinitely with surprise +as he returned: + +"Why--but _you've_ been to school! Anybody could hear 'em off a book. I +could hear 'em myself that way! Pshaw!" and into this mild expletive he +put such a world of contempt that Dorothy's cheeks tingled. + +"Go ahead. Maybe I know them, but--you'd better work; Mrs. Stott is +coming." + +The woman was, indeed, almost upon them and listening suspiciously to +what they might be saying; and though there was scorn in her expression +there was also relief. She couldn't understand what any farm hand needed +of "book learning," but it sounded harmless enough when Jim pronounced +the word: "Baker. B-a-k-e-r, baker," and the girl applauded with a clap +of her hands and the exclamation: "Good! Right! Fine! Next!" + +Back on his knees again, the lad cast a sheepish glance toward his +employer, as if asking her permission to continue. She did not forbid +him, so he went on with: "Tinker. T-i-n, tin, k-e-r, ker, tinker." + +Again Dorothy commended him and was thankful that her own knowledge was +sufficiently in advance of his that she should not be put to +shame--"without a book." Also, by the time the ambitious youth had +recited his new lesson of six words, in their entirety, both he and +Dorothy were in a fine glow of enthusiasm. She, also, loved study and +found it easy; and she longed with all her heart that she could put +inside this Jim's head as much as she already learned. + +Then he was sent away to attend to the cattle for the night, to see that +the market-wagon was again packed, and to put all utensils safely under +cover. Because she could afford no waste, or thought she couldn't, +Miranda Stott took better care of her farm implements than most farmers +did; and if indoors there was much to be desired in the way of neatness, +out-of-doors all was ship-shape and tidy. She finished the celery +planting herself, and Dorothy wondered if there were people enough in +the world to eat all those plants, after they were grown. Then Miranda +took the chair from Dorothy and said: + +"Come, I want my bed again. I'll fix you outside." And as if some +further explanation were needed, added: "It's healthier. You've got to +get well, quick." + +"Oh! I want to. I am, almost, already. It is so good to be out of doors, +and--are you going to take me home, to-night, when you drive in?" + +"No. Take letter. See?" answered this laconic woman, and led the girl +into the barn and into what had been a small harness-room partitioned +from one side. This had, evidently, been prepared for occupation and +there was a suspicious air of wisdom on Jim's face, as Dorothy passed +him, fastening the cattle-stanchions, betraying that this barn bedroom +was a familiar place to him. + +"Why, it is a bedroom! If the bed is only a pile of hay! There are +sheets on it and a pillow and a blanket. My! It smells so sweet and +outdoor-sy!" cried Dorothy, thinking how much more restful such a couch +would be than that hot feather bed in the kitchen, on which she had lain +and tossed. + +"Yours. Stay here now. Jim'll bring your supper, and a chair. Fetch the +paper, boy," she concluded, as he departed for the cellar under the +cottage which was used for a dairy. + +Then Mrs. Stott went away, Tiger nestled up to her--as if offering his +society--and the still weak girl dropped down on the sweet-smelling bed +and felt almost happy, even though still refused a return home. + +"Well, it's something to be let to write to mother. I was so sick I +haven't done it often; but if, as that Mr. Smith said, she knew I was +safe she won't worry much. Not so very much. But, oh! How I want her, +how I want her!" + +The farm-mistress herself brought back the chair and paper, and waited +while Jim followed with the supper of bread and cold meat. He added a +pitcher of water without bidding, and, supposing him to have finished, +his mistress left the place. Indeed, she seemed so changed and +preoccupied that Dorothy wondered and pitied. Her own sorrows were +teaching her the divine gift of compassion, and though she was this +woman's prisoner she longed to share and soothe the distress she was so +evidently suffering. + +But she dared not. With a gesture of despair, Mrs. Stott suddenly threw +both hands outward, then hurried away into the cottage, leaving the boy +and girl staring after her. Even Jim did not tarry, though he longed to +do so; yet he managed to whisper, in his own mysterious fashion: + +"It's _him_. He's got 'em. They're goin' hard--he's old." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PLUMBER AND HIS GOSSIP + + +The eagle-gate was open again. Mrs. Cecil had recovered from her +illness, and was once more upon her broad piazza. This time she was not +awaiting the arrival of the postman but of the plumber. The sudden heat +of the southern city reminded her of her northern home in the highlands +and she was anxious to remove there as soon as possible. But, with true +Maryland housewifery, she must personally see to all the details of the +annual flitting. + +In every room of the house pictures were being swathed in tarletan, +chandeliers wrapped in the same stuff, carpets lifted, furniture put +into freshly starched slips, and the entire interior protected to the +utmost against the summer's dust and fading. Only one matter did not +progress as rapidly as this impatient little mistress of the mansion +felt it should. Nobody came at her instant command to examine the +plumbing and see that it was in order for the season. + +"And water makes more trouble than even flies. Dinah, girl! Are you sure +a message was sent to that man how I was waiting?" + +"Posi_tive_-ly sho, Miss Betty. Laws, honey, don't go worritin' yo'se'f +an' you-all jus' done gettin' ovah yo' misery. He'll be comin' erlong, +bime-by," comforted the maid, officiously folding a shawl about Mrs. +Cecil's shoulders, and having the shawl instantly tossed aside, with a +gesture of disgust. + +"O you girl! Do stop fussing about me. I'm nearly suffocated, already, +in this awful heat, and I won't--I won't be wrapped up in flannel, like +a mummy. You never had any sense, Dinah!" + +"Yas'm. I 'low dat's so, Miss Betty. Mebbe on account you-all nevah done +beaten me ernough. Yas'm, but I doan 'pear to be acquainted wid er +mummy, Miss Betty. What-all be dey like?" And with imperturbable good +nature, Dinah picked up the shawl and again placed it around her lady, +who permitted it to remain without further protest. + +"Hmm. No matter what they're like, Dinah. But you know, girl, you know +as well as I do what trouble it made for us last year, when we went away +and forgot to have the water turned off from the fountain, yonder. That +care-taker we left--Oh! dear! Is there anybody in this world fit to be +trusted!" + +Mrs. Cecil was not yet as strong as she professed to be, but her +weakened nerves seemed to add strength to her temper. A red spot was +already coming out upon her pale cheeks when there sauntered through the +gateway a corpulent man, with a kit of plumber's tools over his +shoulder. He slowly advanced to the steps, lifted his hat, and, bowing +courteously, said: + +"Good-morning, Mrs. Cecil. Glad to see you able to enjoy the fine +weather." + +"Fine weather! Morning! I should think it was afternoon--by the way +you've kept me waiting. Didn't you get my message?" + +"Oh! yes, I did. A pickaninny about as big as a button brought it. +What's to be done? The usual shutting-off, Ma'am?" + +"Everything's to be done, this year, and thoroughly. The water made no +end of trouble last season, for half the faucets weren't looked after. +As soon as we got home in the fall and turned it on in the bathroom, the +whole place was flooded." + +"So, so? That was a pity. Yes, I remember. Well, it shall be gone over +now, and I promise you nothing shall happen. By the way, all my men were +out. Can one of your 'boys' wait on me and hand me my tools? I'm kind of +stout and stooping bothers----" + +She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence. A small black boy was +throwing stones at the sparrows on the lawn, and him she summoned by the +absurd title of: + +"Methuselah Bonaparte Washington, come wait on this man!" + +The poor little wizened specimen of humanity, whose mighty name seemed +to have stunted his growth, timidly approached. His great dark eyes +were appealingly lifted, as if protesting against a forthcoming blow, +and his face was as sad as that of a weary old man. The sight of him +amused the plumber and called forth from his mistress the question: + +"Did anybody ever see such a woe-begone infant? He acts as if he had +been thrashed within an inch of his life and on every day of it, but I +know he's never been struck once. Been better for him if he had been, +likely. He's Ephraim's grandchild and petted to death. His grandfather +gave him his first name, Dinah his second, and as a graceful finish I +tucked on the last. In real fact he's simply Brown." + +Mrs. Cecil had now quite recovered her usual cheerfulness, which nothing +greatly affected except the failure of other people to instantly obey +her commands. Besides, she was lonely. She didn't like the postman who +had taken "Johnnie's" place, and was never on hand when he appeared, +indeed had not been able until now. Almost all her personal friends were +already out of town: and with her old desire to hear about her +neighbors, as well as a determination to look after the plumber's work +this time, she rose and followed him into the house and to the upper +floor where his examination of the spigots began. + +Mr. Bruce had worked at Bellevieu ever since he was an apprentice and +had not done so without learning something of its mistress's character. +So, to please her love of gossip, he turned to where she had taken a +chair to watch him and remarked: + +"Terrible sad thing about John Chester's girl." + +"'Girl'? Servant, do you mean?" instantly interested by the name of +"Chester." + +"Servant? Oh! no. That's a luxury my neighbor never had, nor any of us +in Brown Street, except when somebody was sick. We're work-a-day folks +on my block, Mrs. Cecil." + +"Humph. What do you mean, then, by 'girl'?" + +"His adopted daughter, Dorothy C. Haven't you seen about her in the +paper?" he continued, well pleased that he had found some topic +interesting to his employer. + +"No. I've seen no papers. I've been ill, or that foolish doctor said I +was, which amounts to the same thing. Anyway, I hardly ever do read the +papers in the summer time. There's never anything in them--with +everybody out of town, so." + +The plumber laughed, a trifle grimly; answering with some spirit: + +"Well, _everybody_ isn't away, when there are several hundred people +swelter all the hot season right here in Baltimore." + +"Why don't they go away? Why do they 'swelter'--such a horrid word that +is!" returned the lady, more to calm a strangely rising flutter of her +own spirits than because there was sense in the words; which sounded so +foolish to herself even, that she laughed. But her laugh was a nervous +one and was instantly followed by the inquiry: + +"What--what happened to the child?" + +"Nobody knows. Kidnapped, I suppose, or murdered. All _is_ known--she +was sent to the post-office to get a letter of her father's. He couldn't +go himself, being lame and off to a hospital. Letter was one like the +rest that came every month, and had come ever since Dorothy was left on +the Chesters' doorstep. There was ten dollars in it, likely. She got the +letter, was seen to go out of the office, and has never been seen since. +No trace of her, either, though the post-office 'boys' clubbed together +and offered a reward. A hundred dollars for any information sent, +whether dead or alive. Do you want both these spigots to have new +washers on? They need it, I think." + +"Spigots? Spigots?" repeated Mrs. Cecil, as if she did not comprehend; +and, looking up, the plumber saw to his surprise and alarm that the lady +was trembling and had turned very pale. He went to her and asked: + +"Feeling bad, Ma'am? Shall I call somebody?" + +She put her white hand to her head in a confused way and returned: + +"Bad? It's horrible! Horrible! A--_hundred_--_dollars_!" + +Mr. Bruce fancied she imagined the sum to be too large and was +indignant. He reflected, also, that this was a childless old woman, and +a rich one. In his experience he had found the wealthy also the most +miserly, and nobody who had not a daughter of her own could understand +what the loss of one might mean to a parent. His own beloved Mabel, ill +at that moment with the measles, then epidemic--what would life be worth +without her? Yet he knew, as well as anybody, that dear as his child +was, Dorothy had been infinitely her superior in way of appearance, +intelligence, even in affection. So much greater her loss then! and with +a crispness that might easily hurt his business, he demanded: + +"Do you think a hundred dollars too much to pay for the life of a +child?" + +"Too much? _Too--much!_" + +Again she was repeating his words, in that peculiar manner which might +mean either contempt or admiration. In any case she was acting +strangely. She had evidently lost all interest in the business on hand, +yet there was no suggestion of feebleness in the step with which she now +hurried out of the room, and the plumber looked after her in fresh +amazement. These idle people! How hard they were to be understood! But, +in any case, he was glad to be rid of the lady's presence. He could work +so much faster and better by himself, and if there were any harm to +Bellevieu, that coming season of its owner's absence, it should not be +his fault. There shouldn't be an inch of water-pipe, nor a single +faucet, that didn't have his critical inspection--and bill according! + +Mrs. Cecil's bell rang sharply, and Dinah hurried to answer it, that is, +she fancied she was hurrying, though her mistress knew she really +"dawdled" on the way and so informed "the creature" as she appeared. + +"Oh, you lazy thing! I must get a younger woman--I certainly must! +Didn't you hear me ring?" + +"Yas'm, I sho done did. An' I come, ain't I? What's wantin', Miss Betty? +Is yo' feelin' po'ly again, honey?" + +"Tell Ephraim to have the carriage round within five minutes--not one +instant later. Then come back and get me my outdoor things." + +"Yas'm. Dat's so. I ain't no younger 'n I was yestiddy. But what for +you-all done want Ephraim fotch de kerridge? Yo' know, Miss Betty, I +ain't gwine let yo' out ridin', yet a spell. Yas'm." + +"Will _you_ tell him or must _I_? Between you and that wretched doctor +I've been kept in this terrible ignorance. I'll never forgive you, +never, for shutting me up in my bedroom, unknowing all these days, until +now it's too late! Too late!" cried Mrs. Cecil, strangely excited and +hastily tossing off her morning gown to replace it by another fit for +the street. + +Dinah was unperturbed. She understood that her mistress would have her +will, but felt that it was a foolish one and should not be encouraged by +any enthusiasm on her own part. With an exasperating calmness she lifted +the discarded garment and carried it to a closet. From this with equal +calmness, and an annoying deliberation, she brought her mistress's +outside wraps and a black silk gown, such as she usually wore when +driving out. But she purposely made the mistake of offering a winter +one, heavily lined. She hoped that the "fuss" of dressing would change +Mrs. Cecil's plans, for it was really far too warm to go out then. Later +in the day, after the sun had set, she would help the scheme most +willingly. + +But the gentlewoman was now gaining control of her nerves and fully +understood that it was over-affection, rather than disobedience, which +made Dinah act so provokingly. With one of her kindest smiles, she took +the heavy gown back to the closet herself, and secured the lighter one +suitable to the day. Then she explained: + +"It's no silly whim, my girl, that sends me down town on such a hot +morning. Something serious has happened. Something which has just come +to my knowledge and that I must try to set right at once. If you love +me--help me, not hinder. You are to go with me, also. So, hurry and put +on a fresh apron and cap. I can finish by myself." + +"Yas'm. But yo' knows, honey, you-all only done lef yo' bed a speck o' +time. Cayn't yo' business be put off, Miss Betty?" + +"Not a minute. Not one single minute longer than necessary to take me to +Baltimore Street. Hurry. Fix your own self. Don't bother about me." + +"Yes'm. I'se gwine hu'y. But dat yere plumber gempleman--what erbout +leabin' him, to go rummagin' 'round, puttin' new fixin's in whe' ol' +ones do? Ain't you-all done bettah wait a little spell, an' 'tend to +him, yo'se'f? Hey, Miss Betty?" + +Dinah had touched upon her mistress's own regret, but a regret swallowed +by so much of a calamity that she put it aside and merely pointed to the +door, as if further speech were useless. + +It was more than five minutes before Ephraim drove his well-groomed +horses out of the eagle-gate, but it was in a very short time for one +who moved as slowly as he, and he turned his head for orders, with +expectation of: "The Park." + +Quite to the contrary the word was: + +"Baltimore Street. Kidder & Kidder's." + +"Hey? 'D you say Eutaw Place, er Moun' Ver'n Avenoo?" he inquired. + +"There, boy. You're not half so deaf as you pretend. Drive to Kidder & +Kidder's, and do it at once," she repeated with decision. + +"Yas'm. But does yo' know, Miss Betty, erbout a man was sunstroke +yestiddy, Baltimo' Street way? It sutenly is pow'ful wa'm." + +Mrs. Cecil vouchsafed no further parley with her too devoted coachman, +though Dinah took it upon herself to administer one reproof which her +fellow servant coolly ignored. + +However, he had seen that in Mrs. Cecil's eye which brooked no +disobedience, and so he guided his bays southward through the city, by +wide thoroughfares and narrow, past crowding wagons and jangling street +cars, till he turned into the densely packed street his lady had +designated. + +"Kidder & Kidder" were her men of business. He knew that. There had been +no time, for years upon years, when a firm of this same name had not +served the owners of Bellevieu. The first lawyer of that race had handed +down the business to his heirs, as the first tenant of the rich estate +had willed that to his. But it was now more common for the lady of the +mansion to send for her advisers to visit her, than for her to visit +them; and that there was something unusual in her present business both +her old servitors realized. + +It was something worth while to see how the elder Mr. Kidder, himself an +octogenarian, retaining an almost youthful vigor, rose and salaamed, as +this beautiful old gentlewoman, followed by her gray-haired maid in +spotless attire, entered his rather dingy office. How the old-time +courtesies were exchanged between these remnants of an earlier society, +when brusqueness was considered ill-bred and suavity the mark of good +blood. + +A few such greetings past, and the old lawyer conducted his +distinguished client into an inner room, exclusively his own, leaving +Dinah to wait without, and whence the pair soon emerged; the lady +urging: "You will kindly attend to it at once, please;" and he +answering, with equal earnestness: "Immediately, Madam." + +Then he escorted her to her carriage and stood bareheaded while she +entered it: each courteously saluting the other as it rolled away, and +he returning to his office with a look of anxiety on his fine face, as +there was one of relief on hers. + +"Well, I've done the best I could--now!" she exclaimed, after a time. +"I've never entrusted any matter to Kidder & Kidder that did not end +satisfactorily. That old firm is a rock in the midst of this shifting +modernity!" + +To which Dinah, not comprehending, replied with her usual: + +"Yas'm. I spec' dat's so, honey, Miss Betty." + +That evening both Ephraim and the maid, sitting under their own back +porch, exchanged speculations concerning their lady's morning trip, and +her subsequent quietude during the whole day. + +"I 'low 'twas anudder will, our Miss Betty, she done get made. Dat's +what dem lawyer gentlemen is most inginerally for. How many dem wills +has she had writ, a'ready, Dinah?" queried Ephraim. + +"Huh! I doan' know. Erbout fifty sixty, I reckon. She will her prop'ty +off so many times, dey won' be nottin lef to will, bimeby. 'Twas dat, +though, Ephraim, I 'low, too. Mebbe--Does dey put erbout makin' wills in +de papahs, boy?" + +"I doan' know. Likely. Why, Dinah?" + +"Cayse, warn't no res' twel Miss Betty done sent yo' Methusalem out to +de drug-sto' fo' to buy de ebenin' one. Spec' she was lookin' had Massa +Kiddah done got it printed right. Doan' know what she want o' papahs, +when she ain't looked at one this long spell, scusin 'twas to find out +dat." + +But neither of them guessed that Mrs. Cecil's interest lay in a +large-typed advertisement, offering five hundred dollars reward for the +return of the lost, humble little Dorothy C. Nor that this sum would +have been twice as great, had not the worldly wisdom of Kidder & Kidder +been larger than that of their aristocratic client. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE BITER BIT + + +Even healthy Dorothy had rarely slept as soundly as she did that night, +there in the airy barn on her bed of hay; and she had lain down as soon +as she had finished her brief letter to her mother--which like those +that had gone before it would travel no further than Mrs. Stott's range +fire. + +She woke in the morning to find it much later than usual when she was +roused and that it was only Jim who was calling her. He did so softly, +yet with evident excitement; and as soon as possible the girl got out of +her hostess's too big nightgown and into her own clothes, still fresh +from yesterday's laundering. Then she opened the door and ran to the +trough of water, used for the cattle; and after a liberal ducking of her +curly head, shook herself dry--for want of a better towel. Afterwards, +to the barnyard, calling eagerly: + +"Jim! O Jim!" + +"Here I be. Don't holler. I'll come, soon's I take the milk in. I +thought you'd sleep till doomsday!" he replied, still in a low tone, yet +with less caution than he usually displayed. + +She sat down on the barn door sill and waited. She had a strong +reluctance to enter the cottage which was tightly closed and where she +had so greatly suffered. So that it was with real delight she saw the +lad was bringing a plate with him, as he returned, and guessed it to be +her breakfast. + +"Oh! how nice! I'll love to picnic out here, but how does it happen? +and, Jim, what makes you so sober? Is--is she sick? Didn't she go to +market last night? Tell--talk--why can't you? I want to hear everything, +every single thing. I didn't know--I went to sleep--What a funny wagon +it is, anyway!" + +The big vehicle stood in the yard before them, its shafts resting on the +ground; and the four mules used to draw it were feeding in the pasture +beyond. Dorothy thought it wonderful how anybody, most of all a woman, +could drive four mules, as Miranda did, without reins to guide them, yet +make them so obedient to her will. The wagon, also, was a curiosity to +her, though she had often seen similar ones on the streets at home. + +It was a large affair, rising several feet upwards from its box, its +ends projecting; forward over the dashboard and, at the rear, backward +beyond a step and a row of chicken crates. The top was of canvas, that +had once been white, and the tall sides were half of a brick-red, half +of bright blue. Its capacity was enormous, and so prolific was the +truck-farm that it was always well filled when it made its city trips. + +"Have you had your breakfast, too, Jim?" asked Dorothy, rather +critically inspecting hers, which did not at all suggest the dainty +cooking of mother Martha. + +"Yep. All I wanted. He--I reckon he's powerful sick." + +"Can't you sit down by me for company? I feel so good this morning. I'd +like somebody to talk to." + +"A minute, maybe. I can make it up later." + +"Jim Barlow, I think you're a splendid boy. I never saw anybody so +faithful to such a horrid old woman. You never waste a bit of time, you +only study when you ought to sleep, and yet--yet I didn't like you at +all when I first saw you. When I get home and my father gets well, I'm +going to tell him or the minister all about you, and ask them to get you +a better place. To send you to school, or do anything you like." + +The lad flushed with pleasure, and vainly tried to keep the bare feet of +which he was so conscious out of sight in the hay upon the barn floor, +where, for this brief moment, he dared to linger. Dorothy saw the +movement and laughingly thrust forth her own pink toes, fresh from an +ablution in the trough, and from which she had had to permanently +discard her ragged ties. + +"That's nothing. We're both the same. Anyway, a barefooted boy came to +be president! Think of that. President James Barlow, of the United +States! I salute you, Excellency, and request the honor of your sharing +my brown-bread-and-treacle!" + +Then she laughed, as she had not done for many days; from the sheer +delight of life and the beautiful world around her. For it was +beautiful, that first June day, despite the ugly cottage which blotted +the landscape and the sordid implements of labor all about. + +To his own amazement, the orphan farm boy laughed with her, as he did +not know he could, as he surely never had before. This girl's coming had +opened a new world to him. She had commended his ambition and made light +of the difficulties in way of its achievement. She had assured him that +"learning is easy as easy!" and she knew such a lot! She didn't scorn +him because he was uncouth and ill-clad; and--Well, at that moment he +was distinctly glad that she was barefooted like himself. + +Recklessly forgetting that he was "using the time I was hired for"--the +hire being board and lodging, only--he dropped down on the step and +watched as she ate, so daintily that he could think of nothing but the +sparrows on the ground. And as she ate she also talked; which in itself +was wonderful. For he--Well, he couldn't talk and eat at the same time. +It was an accomplishment far beyond him, one that had never been taught +at the table of Miranda Stott. She not only chattered away but she made +him chatter, too, now, in this unwonted freedom from his mistress's eye. + +"Who's 'him'? Why, he's _hern_," he explained. "Her son, you know." + +"No, I don't know. I know nothing--except that I'm a stolen little girl +who's lost everybody, everything in the world she loves!" cried poor +Dorothy, suddenly overcome in the midst of her gayety by the thought of +her own sorrows. + +Jim had never known girls and their ways, but he had the innate +masculine dread of tears, and by the look of Dorothy's brown eyes he saw +that tears portended. To change the subject, he answered her question +definitely: + +"He's the man what brought you here. _That's_ him. He's _hern_." + +"That man--_Smith_? He here? In the cottage yonder? Then--_good-bye_!" + +Reckless of the sharp stones and stubble of the barnyard that so cruelly +hurt her tender feet, the girl was up and away; only to find herself +rudely pulled back again and to hear Jim's familiar: + +"Pshaw! He can't harm you none. He's dreadful sick. He come----" + +Here the lad paused for some time, pondering in his too honest heart how +much of his employer's affairs he had the right to make known, even to +this Dorothy. Then having decided that she already knew so much there +could be no danger in her learning more, he went on: + +"He come one night whilst you was so sick. She fetched him in the wagon +an', 'cause you was in her bed, she put him up-attic, in yourn. Ain't +but them two rooms, you know, an' the shed where I did sleep but don't +now. I don't know what he'd done but--somethin' 't made him scared of +stayin' in the city. He's been that way afore an' come out here, 'to +rest' he called it. 'To hide,' seems if, to me. 'Cause he'd never go out +door, till me or his ma'd look round to see if anybody was comin'. +Nobody does come. Never did, only them he fetched, or her did." + +Again a shudder of fear and repulsion swept over Dorothy, and again she +would have run away but Jim's next words detained her. + +"He can't move, hair ner hide. He's ketched them measles offen you an' +he's terrible bad. She thinks he's goin' to die an', queer, but now she +don't care for nothin' else. Her sun's riz an' sot in him, an' he's +treated her mean. Leastways, _I_ call it mean. She don't. She'd 'bout +lie down on the floor an' let him tramp all over her, if he'd wanted to. +She's goin' round, doin' things inside there, but she's clean forgot how +it's berry-day agin an' the crop wastin'. + +"So 'm _I_ wastin' time, an' she claims that's money. I didn't know, +afore, whuther 'twas him er money she liked best, but now I guess it's +him. If you was a mind you could help pick berries for her. _If you was +a mind_," said Jim, rising and shouldering a crate of cups, then +starting for the strawberry patch. + +Dorothy C. looked after him with some contempt. He seemed a lad of +mighty little spirit. To work like a slave even when there was nobody to +domineer over him! Indeed, she fancied that he was even more diligent in +business now than he had been before. It was very strange. + +"It's all strange. Life's so strange, too. They say 'Providence leads.' +Well, it seems a queer sort of leading that I should be sent to do an +errand and then that I should be so silly as to go with a man my folks +didn't know--and get stolen. That's what I am, now: just a stolen child, +of no use to anybody. Why? Why, too, should my father John be let to get +an 'ataxious' something in his legs, so he had to lose his place? And +mother Martha have to give up her pretty house she loves so, and go away +off to the country where she doesn't know anybody? Why should I come +here to this old truck-farm and a horrid woman and a horrider man and +get the measles and give them to him? Was it just to learn how to plant +things? I wondered about that the time I watched them do the celery. +Well, I could learn so much out of books. I needn't be kidnapped to do +it! And why on earth should I feel so sorry now for that woman in there? +Just 'cause she loves her son, who's the wickedest man I ever heard of. +And that Jim boy! I--I believe I'm going to hate him! Just positively +hate. He makes me feel so--so little and mean. Just as if I hadn't a +right to sit on this old barn door sill and do nothing but eat my +breakfast. A horrid breakfast, too, to match the horrid woman and the +horrid house and the horrider man, and the horridest-of-all-boys, Jim!" + +With that Dorothy's cogitations came to a sudden end. No poor +insignificant farm lad should put her to shame, in the matter of +conscience, or generosity, or honor, or any other of those disagreeable +high-sounding things! She'd show him! and she'd pick those old +strawberries, if her back did get hot and the sun make her head ache! No +such creature as that Jim Barlow should make her "feel all +wiggley-woggley inside," as she had used to feel when she had been real +small and disobeyed mother Martha. + +Why she shouldn't run away and try to find her home, now that Mrs. Stott +was out of sight, puzzled even herself. Yet, for some reason, she dared +not. She had no idea of the direction in which that home lay, and there +was no house visible anywhere, strain her eyes as she might to discover +one at which she might ask protection. + +The truck-farm seemed to be away off, "in the middle of nowhere." A +crooked lane ran northward from it and Dorothy knew that this must +strike a road--somewhere. But dear old Baltimore must be miles and miles +distant; since Mrs. Stott spent so many hours in going to and from it +with her produce, and in her bare feet the child felt she couldn't make +the journey and endure. More than that, down deep in her heart was a +keen resentment of the fact that, despite her own letters written and +sent by the farm-woman, mother Martha had made no response beyond that +verbal one conveyed by "Mr. Smith," that everything was "all right" and +that, in the prospect of gaining her "fortune" Dorothy was wise to +submit to some unpleasant things for the present. + +Then would arise that alternate belief that she had been "kidnapped," +and instantly following would come the conviction that she might be much +worse dealt with if she attempted escape. If "Mr. Smith" was wicked +enough to steal her, as she in this mood believed, he would stop at +nothing which would save himself from discovery and punishment. + +Jim Barlow was tormented by none of these shifting moods. His nature was +simple and held to belief in but two things--right and wrong. He must do +the one and avoid the other. This necessity was born in him and he could +not have discussed it in words, or even thoughts, as did the imaginative +Dorothy C. the questions that perplexed her. + +At that particular moment he knew that the "right" for him was to save +his employer's berries from decay, even though this meant no reward for +him save a tired back and a crust of bread for dinner. But rewards +didn't matter. Jim _had_ to do his duty. He couldn't help it. + +Now Dorothy watching from the barn doorway saw this and thought that +"duty" was "the hatefullest word in the English language. It always +means something a body dislikes!" Yet, so strong is example, that almost +before she knew it the little girl had picked her gingerly way over the +rough ground to the lad's side and had petulantly exclaimed: + +"Give me some cups then! I hate it! I hate here! I--I want to go home! +But--_give me some cups_!" + +Jim didn't even notice her petulance. He handed her a pile of "empties" +and went on swiftly gathering the berries without even raising his head, +though one long hand pointed to the row upon which she should begin. He +was pondering how these same berries were to be marketed; whether the +anxious woman in the cottage loved money so well she would leave a +possibly dying son to sell them for herself; or if she would trust the +business to him. The last possibility sent a thrill of pride through +him. If she would! If she only would, he would drive the hardest +bargains for her, he would bring home more of the beloved cash than she +expected, he would prove himself altogether worthy of trust. He knew the +way, she had taken him with her once, at a Christmas time, when she +needed his help in the extra handling. It had been a revelation to +him--that wonderful Christmas market; with all its southern richness and +plenitude, its beautifully decorated stalls, its forests of trees and +mountains of red-berried holly, and over and above all the gay good +nature of every human creature thronging the merry place. + +That had been Jim's one glimpse, one bit of knowledge what Christmas +meant, and though he knew that this was a far different season, the +glamour of his first "marketing" still hung over the place where he had +been so briefly happy. Why, even Miranda Stott, moved by the universal +good will of that day, had spent a whole cent, a fresh, new, good cent, +upon a tin whistle, and given it to her helper. She had done more; she +had allowed him to blow upon it, on their long ride home, to the +astonishment of the mules and his own intense, if silly, delight. +Suddenly, into these happy memories and hopes, broke Dorothy's voice: + +"A 'penny for your thoughts,' Sobersides! And see? since you made me +pick berries I made up my mind to beat you. I have. I've filled five +cups while you've been filling three. Your hands are so big, I s'pose, +you can't help being slow!" + +Unmoved by her gibes, which he quite failed to understand, he rose and +took her cups from her. He had reached the end of his row and must pass +to another, else he might not have wasted so much time! But he was glad +of her swiftness and felt that she would almost make up for Mrs. Stott's +absence from the field; and encouragingly remarked: + +"Take the next row, beyond mine, when you get that one done." + +"Huh! A case of 'virtue' and its 'own reward'! The more I work the +longer I may work, eh? Generous soul! But, I don't work for nothing, as +you do. Behold, I take my pay as I go!" and so saying, Dorothy plumped a +magnificent berry into her mouth--as far as it would go! For the fruit +was so large it easily made more than the proverbial "two bites." + +Jim laughed. He couldn't help it. She looked so pretty and so innocent, +though he--well, he wouldn't eat a single berry that was not given to +him. He didn't even warn her not to eat more, yet, somehow, she no +longer cared to do so. + +Dorothy never forgot that busy day. Miranda did not appear, except at +rare intervals, to give some advice but not once to reprove. Her coarse, +masculine face was so sad, so empty of that greed which had been its +chief blemish, that tender-hearted Dorothy was moved to lay her hand on +the mother's arm and say: + +"I'm so sorry for you. Sorry I gave anybody you love the measles." + +The market-woman looked at the child half-seeing, half-comforted by this +sympathy, till the last words, apparently just penetrating to her +consciousness, she rudely shook off the little hand with a look of +bitter hatred. Then she went back into the house, and for the rest of +that day the boy and girl were left to themselves. + +At noon, which he told by the sun, Jim made a little fire in one corner +of the field and roasted some potatoes under it. Then he fixed a +crotched stick above the blaze, hung on a tin pail and boiled some eggs; +and these with some bread made their dinner. Their supper was the same, +and both had appetites to give the food a relish. + +At dusk Miranda came out, ordered Dorothy into the harness room and to +bed, and this time she closed the door upon her, turning the wooden +button which fastened it upon the outside. Indignation made no +difference--Dorothy's wishes were ignored as if they had not been +expressed, and the farm-woman's manner was far harsher than it had been +at any time. So harsh, indeed, that the girl was terribly frightened and +wondered if she were going to be punished in some dreadful way for her +unconscious infection of "Mr. Smith." + +The hope that Jim might be sent to market in place of his mistress and +that he would take her with him died in her heart. She did not realize, +till she heard her prison door slam shut, how deeply she had cherished +this hope; even this belief that she was passing her last day on the +truck-farm; and when the climax of her disappointment was reached by +hearing Tiger ordered to lie down outside her door and "Watch!" she +threw herself on the hay-bed and sobbed herself to sleep. + +"H-hsst!" + +Dorothy sat up, freshly alarmed by this warning sound. + +"Why! It's daylight! I must have slept all night! That's Jim--and +nothing's happened! I'm alive, I'm well, I feel fine!" + +Delighted surprise at this state of things promptly succeeded her first +alarm, and when to the "H-hsst!" there followed the fumbling of somebody +with the door's button, she sprang to her feet and asked: + +"That you, Jim? Time to get up, already?" + +She had not undressed, and hurried to push the door open, but could not +imagine what was the matter with the "long boy." He had a newspaper in +his hand which he wildly waved above his head, then held at arm's length +the better to study, while between times, he executed a crazy dance, his +bare feet making no sound upon the hay-littered floor. + +A second later, Dorothy had rushed at him, seized the paper from his +hand, recognized that it was father John's favorite daily, and found her +own gaze startled by the sentence that had caught his: + +FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT + + +"What does it mean? What does it mean!" cried the astonished girl, +scarcely believing the words that were printed so plainly yet seemed so +impossible. "It's my own name. I'm Dorothy Chester, called Dorothy C. +It's about me--I see it's about me--there couldn't be another right here +in Baltimore--and money--all that money--who? Where? What? O long boy, +talk, talk, tell!" + +He was really as excited as she. For once he forgot caution and was +indifferent to the opinion of his mistress, whether that were good or +ill. He could not read very well. He had had to study that advertisement +slowly before he could make out even its sentences, and to do a deal of +thinking before he could actually comprehend their meaning. But he knew +that it concerned his new friend even more than himself, and laying his +hand upon her shoulder to steady her while he answered, began: + +"I did go to market. She went, too. She had to get some things for him, +an' soon's the stores was open. I sold the stuff. Some of the things she +bought was wrapped up and a pair o' shoes was in this here. I ain't got +books. I want 'em. I keep every scrap o' paper ever gets this way, an' I +learn out o' them. She fired _this_ away, for cattle-beddin'--'cause she +can't read herself--an' 'twould save a speck of straw. I called it +wicked waste, myself, so I hid it. Then whilst I was milkin' I begun to +study it out. Thinks I, mebbe I can learn a hull new word afore I get +through; an' I hit fust off on that there 'Dorothy,' 'cause 'twas yourn +an' had so many 'O's' it looked easy. I read that, then I read the +next--some more--I forgot to milk--I thought you'd never wake +up--an'--Pshaw! Pshaw--_pshaw_--PSHAW!!" + +Only by that word could the excited lad begin to express his fierce +emotions; while for a brief time Dorothy was silent, trying to +understand. Finally, and almost calmly, she said: + +"I don't know a thing about this printed stuff except that it must mean +me. I can't guess who would pay money for me, for just a little girl; +though maybe father John would if he had it. But he hadn't. He was poor, +he said, real poor; even if we did live so nice and cozy. He hadn't +anything but what he earned and out of that he had to buy the food +and clothes and pay on the house. I don't believe he ever had +five hundred dollars in all his life, at one time. Think of it! +Five--whole--hundred--dollars! Fifty--thousand--cents! My!" + +Jim regarded her with awe. Such erudition as this almost took away his +breath. That anybody, a little girl so much younger than himself, could +"reckon" figures at such lightning speed was away beyond his dreams. +More than that it convinced him that now she must be saved, restored to +people who valued her at such enormous price. His simple rule of "right +or wrong" resolved itself into two questions: Should he be loyal to his +employer and help to keep this valuable Dorothy on the truck-farm, and +show its owner how to get all that money? Because it wasn't she +herself, who had brought the girl here, and if she took Dorothy back the +reward would be hers. He reasoned that out to the end. + +On the other hand: If Dorothy belonged to somebody who wanted her so +much, shouldn't he help to restore her to that person and save them--or +him--the money? + +It was a knotty problem; one almost too profound for the mind of this +honest farm-boy. He would do right, he must; but--which was "the +rightest right of them two"? + +Dorothy settled it. Dorothy who was the most concerned in the affair and +had so much more wisdom than he. She had ceased to wonder at the strange +advertisement and had now decided how to turn it to the best account. +She was almost positively glad for all her misadventures and suffering +since it could result in infinite good to another; and that other none +but the "long boy" she had laughed at in the beginning. With a little +joyful clap of her hands, she exclaimed: + +"I know how! I know how! You have _been_--you can find the way--you +must help me back to Baltimore, to my folks, to these Kidder-Kiddery men +that offer all that money. I never heard of them. I can't imagine why +they want to pay so many good dollars for a girl, just a girl they can't +even know. I wouldn't trust them. I wouldn't go into anybody's 'office' +again for all the world. But you take me, show me the way to the city +and I'll show you the way to Baltimore Street. I know it. I know it +quite well. I've been there on a street car. Then I'll stand outside +while you go in and ask for the money. If they won't give it to you, +bring them to the street and show them--ME! I ought to call myself in +capital letters, same as I'm printed there, if I'm so expensive as that! +Think of it, Jim Barlow! If you get that five hundred dollars you can +live somewhere else and study all the time and go to college and be +President, just exactly as I told you! Oh! Oh! O--Oh! Let's start now, +this minute! I can't wait, I cannot!" + +Jim listened intently. With a slowly growing wonder and delight on his +homely features, with a widening of his blue eyes, and--at last with a +burst of tears. He was ashamed of them, instantly, but he couldn't have +helped shedding them at that supreme moment any more than he could have +helped breathing. It was as if the girl's words had opened wide the +gates of Paradise--the Paradise of Knowledge--and let him look within. + +Then the cottage door opened and Miranda Stott looked forth. The sight +of her restored him to the present and the practical side of life. The +five hundred dollars wouldn't be his, of course. That notion of +Dorothy's was as wild as--as the flight of that chicken-hawk sailing +over the barnyard. Nor could he start at once, as she demanded. He had +lived here for years and he still owed his employer allegiance--to a +certain extent. Less than ever would he leave her alone with all this +farm work on hand as well as a sick son. He must find somebody to take +his place. Then he would help Dorothy back to town, but they'd have to +be careful. + +Dorothy, also, had seen Mrs. Stott at the door, but now had a strange +indifference to her. How could anybody hurt a girl who was worth five +hundred dollars to somebody? She stopped Jim as he was moving away and +demanded: + +"Are you ready? Can we start now--when she's shut the door?" + +"Not yet." + +Her face saddened and he hastened to add: + +"S-ssh! Don't say nothin'. We'll go. I've got to think it over--how. An' +to hunt somebody to work. But--we'll go--_we'll go_!" + +He hastily turned away from the sight of her reproachful eyes nor did he +blame her for the angry: "You mean boy!" which she hurled after him as +he went into the house. But he made a chance soon to talk with her, +unheard by Miranda, and to lay his plans before her. + +"I know a feller'll come, I guess. He was in the county-farm an' jobs +round, somewheres. He don't live nowheres. I seen him loafin' round them +woods, yonder, yesterday, an' I'll try find him. If I do I'll coax him +to stay an' help whilst I'm gone. Noonin' I'll leave you get the grub, +whilst I seek him. Go 'long, just's if nothin' was different an' I'll +help you." + +Dorothy had made sundry "starts" already, but had feared to go all +alone. If Jim would only go with her and knew the way it would be all +right, but the day seemed interminable; and when her friend disappeared +at noon she was so frightened that she retreated to her barn bedroom and +shut the door upon herself. She could not lock it, for its one fastening +was on the outside; but she called Tiger to come inside with her and +felt a sort of protection in his company, sharing her chunk of brown +bread with him, even giving him by far the larger portion. + +Then Jim came back and, missing her, guessed where to find her. + +"Open the door a minute. Lemme in." + +"Oh! I'm so glad you've come! It seems--awful. That house so tight shut; +that man in it; that dreadful woman that looked at me so--so angry! I +want to get away, I must--_I must_!" + +Tired with his breathless run to the woods and back, the youth dropped +down on the floor to recover himself; then informed her: + +"I found him. He was fishin' in the run. He'll fish all day if he's let. +He'll come. He ain't got all his buttons----" + +"Wh-a-t?" + +"His buttons. His wits. He ain't so smart as some of us, but he can hoe +an' 'tend cattle first-rate. We'll go, to-night, soon's it's dark. I'll +tie some rags on your feet so's they won't get sore an' give out. I'll +have to muzzle Tige, or, if I can, I'll give him some them powders in +his milk she'd ha' used to make you dopy, if you'd give trouble. She +won't miss us first off, an' when she does--Why, we'll be gone. Be you a +good, free traveler?" + +"Why, I don't know. I never traveled," answered Dorothy, perplexed. If +they were going to walk, or run, as his talk about trying on rags +suggested, how could they travel? To her "travel" meant a journey by +boat or rail, and surely neither of these conveniences were visible. + +"Pshaw! Fer a smart girl you're the biggest fool!" returned the +farm-boy testily. He was tired, body and brain; he was trying to make +safe plans for her comfort, yet she couldn't understand plain English. +"What I mean is--can you walk, hoof it, good? Course, we can't go no +other way. If you can we'll strike 'cross lots--the nighest. If you +can't we'll have to take to the road, on the chance of bein' took up." + +"Oh! I'll walk, I'll travel, I'll 'hoof' it, fast as you want me to. +Till I die and give out; but don't, don't go anywhere near the danger of +being took up!" cried Dorothy, pleading meekly. + +Again these two young Americans had failed to understand each other's +speech. To the city-reared girl, being "taken up" meant being arrested +by the police; to the country-grown boy it was giving a ride to a +pedestrian by some passing vehicle. He looked at her a moment and let +the matter drop. Then he rose, advising: + +"You better go to work an' not waste time. To-morrow's Sunday. We +gen'ally pick all day, so's to be ready for Monday mornin' market. Stuff +fetches the best prices a-Monday. I'd like to leave her in good shape +agin I didn't get back. But I'll take you. You can trust me." + +And as she saw him return to that endless weeding in the garden, Dorothy +knew that she could do so; and that it was his simple devotion to the +"duty" she disliked that made him so reliable. + +"But oh! what a day this is! Will it never, never end? Do you know, Jim +Barlow, that it seems longer than all the days put together since I saw +my mother?" + +"Yep. I know. I've been that way. Once--once I went to--a--circus! Once +I got to go!" answered the lad, carefully storing the baskets of early +pease he had picked in the depths of the schooner. He made the statement +with bated breath, remembering the supreme felicity of the event. "She +went. She'd had big prices an' felt good. She told me 'twas a-comin' an' +I could; and--Pshaw! I never seen a week so long in all my born days, +never! An' when it got to the last one of all--time just natchally drug! +I know. But we'll go. An' say, Dorothy. The faster you pick an' pack an' +pull weeds, the shorter the day'll be. That's the onliest way I ever +lived through that last one afore that circus," comforted Jim, himself +toiling almost breathlessly, in order to leave Miranda in "as good +shape" as he could. He knew how she would miss him, and that she had +depended upon him as firmly as upon herself. + +But all days come to an end, even ones weighted with expectations such +as Dorothy's; and at nightfall Jim announced that they might stop work. +Leaving the girl to wait in the harness-room he went to the house, +secured a whole loaf of bread and two of the sleeping powders he had +seen administered to the crying boy, and a bundle of rags, with some +string. In carrying the milk to the dairy he had reserved a basin full; +and into this his first business it was to drop the powders. Then he +called Tige to drink the milk, and the always hungry animal greedily +obeyed. + +"That seems dreadful, Jim! Suppose the stuff kills him? He isn't to +blame and I should hate terribly to really hurt him," cried Dorothy, +frightened by the deed to which she had eagerly consented but now +regretted--too late. + +Jim sniffed. He supposed that all girls must be changeable. This one +veered from one opinion to another in a most trying way and the only +thing he could do was to pay no attention to her whimsies. He had +carefully explained the action of these powders and their harmlessness +and wasn't going to do it the second time. Besides, he was delighted to +find them promptly affecting the mastiff, who might have hindered their +flight. So he merely motioned Dorothy to sit down on the door sill, at +the rear of the barn and out of sight from the cottage, then bade her: + +"Hold up your foot. I'll fix 'em. Then we'll go. We can eat on the road. +Ain't so dark as I wish it was but she's asleep--right on the kitchen +floor--an' it's our chance. She's slept that way ever since he was so +bad. He don't 'pear to know nothin' now. I'm sorry for her." + +"Why, that's real ingenious! That's almost like a regular shoe! And a +good deal better than a shoe too small!" laughed the girl, wild with +pleasure that her helper had, at last, begun to do something toward +their trip. She found, too, that with these rude sandals tied on she +could walk much faster than in her tender bare feet, although Jim +cautioned: + +"Ain't nothin' but rags an' paper. Remember that. Ain't no call to go +scuffin' 'em out, needless." + +Whereupon Dorothy ceased to dance and prance, as she had been doing to +work off some of her excitement, and became quite as sober as he could +desire. Also, though she had been so anxious to start, it came with +suddenness when he said: + +"Ready. Come!" + +She glanced at Tiger, who very closely resembled a dead dog as he lay +beside the basin on the floor, then toward the house. Utter silence +everywhere; save for the fretful fussing of some hens, settling to +roost, and a low rumble of thunder from the west where it now looked +quite dark enough to satisfy even Jim Barlow. + +They struck off across lots, past the teeming garden which the active +young farmer really loved and which he felt that he would never see +again. He held Dorothy's hand in one of his, while the other carried a +stick and bundle thrown over his shoulder. The bundle was a bit of old +cloth, containing his beloved spelling book, the newspaper with the +alluring advertisement, and their loaf of bread. Nothing else; and thus +equipped, this uncouth, modern knight errant turned his back on all he +had ever known for the sake of a helpless girl, and with as true a +chivalry as ever filled the breast of ancient man-at-arms. + +For some distance neither spoke. The hearts of both were beating high +with excitement and some fear; but after a time, when no call had +followed them and they had reached the little run where Jim had sought +the half-wit, the farm-boy said: + +"Best eat our grub, now. Can't travel fast on empty stummicks. Mebbe +your feet need fixin' over, too. I brung some more rags in my jumper, +case them give out. Here's a good place to set. We can get a drink out +the brook." + +"I'd rather go on. I'm not a bit hungry!" pleaded Dorothy, who already +felt as if her mother's arms were folding about her and who longed to +make this fancy prove the dear reality. + +"I be, then. I didn't eat no noonin', recollec'?" returned Jim, and +dropped down on the bank with a sigh. + +"Oh! I'm sorry I forgot. Of course we'll stop--just as long as you +want," returned the girl, with keen self-reproach, and sat down beside +him. As she did so, there came a fresh rumble from the west and the pale +light which had guided them so far was suddenly obscured, so that she +cried out in fear: "There's going to be a fearful gust! We shall be wet +through!" + +"Reckon we will; here's a chunk o' bread," answered the matter-of-fact +youth, reaching through the gloom to place the "chunk" on her lap, and, +to his surprise, to find her wringing her hands as if in fright or pain. +"Why, tell me what ails you now." + +"No-nothing--only--ouch! Don't--don't worry--it's--Ooo-oh!" + +Despite her fierce will to the contrary Dorothy could not restrain a +bitter groan. She had not meant to hinder their flight by any breakdown +on her own part. She had intended to "travel," to "hoof it" just as +rapidly and as "freely" as her guide could; but something had happened +just now, though her feet had hurt her almost from the first moment of +their walk; but this was worse, and reaching down she felt what she +could not see--one end of a great thorn or splinter projecting from the +ball of her foot. + +"What's the matter, I say?" demanded Jim, quite fiercely for him. He had +no fear but that her pluck would be equal to any strain put upon it, but +of her physical endurance he wasn't so sure. + +"It's a thorn--or a splinter--and oh! it hurts! put your hand +here--feel!" Yet as she guided his fingers to that queer thing sticking +from her wonderful "sandals" she winced and almost screamed. "I guess +you mustn't touch it. I can't bear it. I've run something in and I +daren't pull it out--I can't--it's awful!" + +Indeed the agony was making her feel faint and queer and the boy felt, +rather than saw, that she swayed where she sat as if she were about to +sink down on the ground. + +Here was plainly another case of "duty" and an unpleasant one, from +which the lad shrank. He would much rather have borne any amount of pain +himself than have inflicted more on this forlorn little girl who +depended upon him; but all he said was: "Pshaw!" as setting his teeth, +he suddenly gripped her foot and--in an instant the great bramble was +out! + +It was heroic treatment and Dorothy screamed; then promptly fainted +away. When she came to herself she was dripping with water from the +brook, with which Jim had drenched her--not knowing what better to do; +and from a sudden downpour of rain which came almost unhindered through +the branches overhead. + +"Pshaw! I'd oughter 'a' took to the road. I hadn't no business to try +this way, though 'tis nigher!" + +That was the first thing Dorothy realized; the next that her foot was +aching horribly, but not in that sickening way it had before; and lastly +that, as the only means of keeping it dry, Jim had thrust their loaf +back into the bundle and was sitting upon that! A lightning flash +revealed this to her, but did not prepare her for her companion's next +words: + +"We got to go back!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A GOOD SAMARITAN + + +"Never! Never! I'd rather die right here in the woods!" cried Dorothy, +aghast. "Dead or alive that man shall never get me in his power again. +But I'm not afraid. God is good to orphan children--He will take care of +me--He will, He will!" + +In some way she managed to get upon her knees and the next flash of +lightning showed her thus, with her face uplifted and her hands clasped, +while an agony of supplication was in her wide brown eyes. + +Religion was an unknown thing to poor Jim Barlow, whose simple integrity +was of nature, not culture. His Sundays had been merely days on which to +toil a little harder against the morrow's market, nor had he ever been +inside a church. But something in the sight of this child kneeling +there in the night and the storm touched an unknown chord of his soul, +and before he knew it he was kneeling beside her. Not to pray, as she +did, but to hold her firmly, to comfort her by his human touch for this +fresh terror he did not understand. + +After a moment she turned and sat down again and said just as firmly as +before, but quite calmly now: + +"If you want to go back you may. I shall not. God will take care of me, +even if you leave me all alone. I've asked Him." + +"Leave you alone? I hadn't thunk of it. What you mean?" + +"You said we must go back. I shall not." + +"_Pshaw!_" It was several seconds before honest Jim could say anything +more, but those five letters held a world of meaning. Finally, he was +able to add to them and to help her seat herself again on the ground, +and he is scarcely to be blamed if he did this with some force. From his +point of view Dorothy was stupid. She should have known that he never +gave up doing that to which he had set his hand. He had promised to get +her back to Baltimore, some way, and he would keep his promise. With +another, rather milder "Pshaw!" he explained: + +"Go back an' try the road, silly! These cross-cuts are dreadful +onsartain. Full o' blackberry bushes an' thorny stuff would hurt a +tougher foot 'an yourn. More'n that: shoes made out o' rags an' paper +ain't much good in a rain storm. We'll get back to the road. Even that's +a long way off, but it's over open medders an' it's so dark nobody won't +see us er stop us. It ain't rainin' nigh so hard now. You eat a bite, +then we'll try agin." + +"Oh! forgive me, Jim Barlow, for thinking you would be so mean. I'll +trust you now, no matter what happens, but I don't want to eat. I +can't--yet." + +"Does your foot hurt bad?" + +"Not--not--so very!" + +"Well, hold on. I'll break that there sapling off an' make you a stick +to help walk on. 'Tother hand you can lean on my shoulder. Now, soon's +you say the word we'll go. Not the way we come, but another, slatin'er. +Try?" + +They stood up: Dorothy with more pain than she would acknowledge, but +putting a brave face on the matter, and Jim more anxious than he had +ever been about anybody in his life. He didn't speculate as to why all +these strange things had come into his life, as Dorothy had done, but he +accepted them as simple facts of which he must make the best. The best +he could make of this present situation was to get this lamed girl to a +public highway as soon as he could. Even that might be deserted now, on +a rainy Saturday night, but he hoped for some help there. + +"Now--come." + +Dorothy made a valiant effort and managed to get ahead a few inches. +Then, half-laughing, half-crying, she explained: + +"I can't manage it. I can't walk on one foot and drag the other. +I--Can't you hide me here, somewhere, and go on by yourself, then send +somebody back after me? Would it be safe, do you think?" + +"No, 'twouldn't, an' I shan't. If you can't walk--then hop!" + +So, resting one hand on his shoulder and the other upon the stick he had +broken, the girl--hopped! It was very awkward, very painful, and very +slow; but it was only the slowness that mattered. This was exasperating +to one whose blood was in a ferment of anxiety to be at her journey's +end. Even Jim lost patience after they had gone some distance and +stopped short, saying, with a sigh: + +"This won't do. I'll have to haul you. You're limpin' worse all the +time, an' it'd take a month o' Sundays to travel a mile this gait. Now, +whilst I stoop down, you reach up an' put your arms 'round my neck. Make +yourself light's you can, an' we'll try it that way a spell. When I gin +out we'll wait an' rest. Now ketch hold!" + +He took her staff in one hand, stooped his back like a bow, and Dorothy +clasped her arms about his shoulders. Then he straightened himself and +her feet swung clear of the ground. Fortunately, she was slight and he +strong, and for another little while they proceeded quite rapidly. Also, +he knew perfectly well the direction he ought to take, even in this +darkness of night; and he was accustomed to walking in the fields. Then, +suddenly, he had to stop. + +"Guess we better rest a spell. 'Twon't do to get _all_ tuckered out +first off;" and with that he dumped her on the wet grass, very much as +he might a sack of meal. Then he sat down himself, while she merrily +cried: + +"That's the first time I've been carried pick-a-back since I was ever so +little! How splendid and strong you are! Do you suppose we have come +half-way yet?" + +"Half-way? Pshaw! We ain't got no furder 'an the first half-mile, if so +fur. My sake, girls are orful silly, ain't they?" + +Dorothy's temper flamed. She felt she had been very brave, for her foot +had swollen rapidly and pained her greatly, yet she had suppressed every +groan and had made "herself as light as she could," according to Jim's +command. Now she would have none of his help. No matter what she +suffered she would go on by herself. Then some evil thing tempted her to +ask: + +"Do you know where you're going, Jim Barlow, anyway?" + +And he retorted with equal spirit: + +"D' you s'pose I'd haul such a heavy creatur' 's you so fur on a wrong +road?" + +After which little interchange of amenities, the pair crawled forward +again and came at last to a hedge of honeysuckle bordering a wide lane. +The fragrance brought back to Dorothy's memory her own one, carefully +tended vine in the little garden on Brown Street, and sent a desolate +feeling through her heart. Sent repentant tears, also, to her eyes and +made her reach her hand out toward her companion, with a fresh apology: + +"Jim, I've got to say 'forgive me,' again and--I do say it--yet I hate +it. You've been so good and--Smell the honeysuckle! My darling father +John told me there were quantities of it growing wild all through +Maryland, but I never half-believed it before. It makes me cry!" + +"Set down an' cry, then, if you want to. I just as lief's you would. I'm +tired." + +This concession had the remarkable effect of banishing tears from +Dorothy's eyes. She had tottered along on one foot and the tips of the +toes of the other, till the injured one had become seriously strained +and pained her so that rest she must, whether he were willing or not. It +was comparatively dry on the further side the hedge, and the vines +themselves, so closely interwoven, made a comfortable support for their +tired backs. As she leaned against it, the girl's sense of humor made +her exclaim: + +"That's the funniest thing! I felt I must cry my eyes out, yet when you +said 'go ahead and do it,' every tear dried up! But, I'm sleepy. Do you +suppose we dare go to sleep for a few minutes." + +"Pshaw! I'm sleepy, too. An' I'm goin'--s'posin' er no s'posin'." + +After that, there was a long silence under the honeysuckle hedge. A +second shower, longer and more violent than the first, arose, and dashed +its cool drops on the faces of these young sleepers, but they knew +nothing of that. The storm cleared and the late moon came out and shone +upon them, yet still they did not stir. It was not until the sun itself +sent its hot, summer rays across their closed lids that Jim awoke and +saw a man standing beside them in the lane and staring at Dorothy with +the keenest attention. + +Instantly the lad's fear was alert. He had not spoken of it to Dorothy, +but he knew that many others besides himself must have seen that +wonderful advertisement in the daily paper; and though he was not wise +enough to also know that every wandering child would suggest to somebody +the chance of earning that five hundred, he had made up his mind that +nobody should earn it. Dorothy should be restored without price, and he +had promised her his should be the task. There was that about this +staring stranger which made him throw a protecting arm over the still +sleeping Dorothy and say: + +"Well! Think you'll know us when you see us agin?" + +"Come, come, boy! keep a civil tongue in your head. Who is that little +girl?" + +"None o' your business." + +"Hold on. I'll make it my business, and lively, too, if you don't look +out. Where'd you two come from?" + +"Where we was last at." + +"You scallawag! Your very impudence proves you're up to some mischief, +but I'll ask you once more, and don't you dare give me a lying answer: +Where did you two come from?" + +"Norphan asylum," said Jim, patting Dorothy's hand to quiet her alarm; +for she had, also, waked and was frightened by the stranger, as well as +by that strange numbness all through her body and the terrible pain in +her foot. + +"Girl, what's your name?" + +Dorothy did not answer. She did not appear even to hear, but with a +stupid expression turned her head about on the honeysuckle branches and +again closed her eyes. Part of this dullness was real, part was feigned. +She felt very ill and, anyway, there was Jim. Let him do what talking +was necessary. + +Again the stranger demanded: + +"Who is that girl? Where did you get her? Is she deaf and dumb--or just +a plain everyday fool?" + +"Dunno, stranger. Give it up," said Jim, at the same time managing to +nudge Dorothy unperceived, by way of hint that that suggested +deaf-and-dumbness might serve them well. + +The man who was quizzing them so sharply had been riding a spirited +horse, which now began to prance about the lane in a dangerous way, and +for the moment distracted his attention from the children. Indeed, in +order to quiet the animal he had to mount and race it up and down for a +time, though he by no means intended to leave that place until he had +satisfied himself whether this were or were not the missing little girl, +of whose disappearance all the papers were now so full. If it were and +five hundred dollars depended on her rescue from that country +bumpkin--he was the man for the rescue! Being none other than a suburban +"constable" with a small salary, as well as a local horse jockey, +exercising a rich gentleman's new hunter--also for hire. + +As he galloped past them, to and fro, Dorothy grew more and more +frightened and ill. Her long sleep in her water-soaked clothing, added +to the pain in her foot and her lack of food, affected her seriously; +and a bed with warm blankets and hot drinks was what she needed just +then. Finally, when to the thud of the racer's feet there also sounded +the rumble of approaching wheels, she felt that her doom was sealed and +let her tears stream freely over her wan, dirt-streaked cheeks. + +Jim, also, felt a shiver of fear steal through his long limbs, and +instinctively drew his young charge closer to him, resolved to protect +her to the last. But, as the wheels drew nearer, there was mingled with +their rumble the notes of a good old hymn, and presently both wheels and +music came to an abrupt halt before the hedge and the forlorn pair +half-hidden in it. + +"Why, bless my heart! Younkers, where'd you hail from? and why should a +pretty little girl be crying on the first Sunday morning in June? When +everything else in God's dear world is fairly laughing with joy! Why, +honey, little one--what--what--what!" + +It was a tiny, very rickety gig from which the singer had leaped with +the agility of youth, though his head was almost white, and green +goggles covered his faded old eyes; and he had not finished speaking +before he had climbed upon the bank to the hedge and had put his +fatherly arms around the sobbing Dorothy. + +She opened her own eyes long enough to see that benignant, grizzled +countenance close to her, and--in an instant her arms had clasped about +the stranger's neck! With the unerring instinct of childhood she knew a +friend at first glance, and she clung to this man as if she would never +let him go, while the astonished Jim looked on, fairly gasping for the +breath that he at last emitted in the one word: "P-S-H-A-W!!" Here was +another phase of that changeable creature--girl! To cry her eyes out at +sight of one stranger and to fling herself headlong into the arms of +another--not half so good looking! + +Leaning back among the vines and coolly folding his arms, the farm-boy +resigned himself to whatever might come next. He had most carefully +planned all their trip "home" and not a single detail of it had followed +his plan. "Give it up!" he remarked for the second time, and was +immediately answered by the old man: + +"No, you don't. Nobody decent ever does give up in this sunshiny world +of God's. That isn't what He put us in it for, but to keep right on +jogging along, shedding happiness, loving Him, being content. How did +this poor little darling ever hurt her tiny foot like that?" + +Already the old fellow had Dorothy on his lap and was examining with +careful tenderness the angry-looking wound she had received, while her +curly head rested as contentedly against his breast as if it had been +that of father John himself. + +She opened her lips to tell, but she was too tired. Indeed, if she had +felt equal to the labor of it she would have poured forth her whole +story then and there. But it is doubtful if he would have tarried to +hear it, for he rose at once, carrying the girl in his arms so gently, +so lovingly, that a great wave of happiness swept over her, and she +flashed her own old beautiful smile into his goggles: + +"Oh! you good man. God sent you, didn't He?" + +"Sure, sure! To you, one of His lambs! Come, son. We'll be going! This +poor little foot must be attended to right away, and this is my 'busy +day.' On my way to preach at an early service, for the poor colored folk +who can't come later. Then to another one for scattered white folks--the +rest of the day at the hospitals--Why, bless my heart! If my Sundays +were fifty times as long I could fill every minute of them with the +Master's work!" + +More nimbly than Jim could have done, the happy old man scrambled back +into the gig, never once releasing his hold of Dorothy, gathered up his +reins, bade the lad "Hang on behind, some way!" chirruped to his sleepy +nag, and drove on singing out of the lane. + + "Bringing in the sheaves! Bringing in the sheaves! + We will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!" + +Once, in a pause of his song, Dorothy reached up and stroked his cheek, +saying: + +"You're taking me home, aren't you!" + +"Sure, sure! To my home, first, to your home next--if I can;--to your +heavenly home, when the Master wills." + +His home came soon; a tiny, one-storied building with but two rooms, a +kitchen and bedroom; smaller, even, than the cottage of Miranda Stott, +but far neater and cozier. At its door the old minister sprang from the +gig and directed Jim to leave it where it stood. + +"Old Nan won't move unless she's bid. I'll fix up this little one's +wound while you get breakfast. Happens I haven't had my own, yet, and I +know you haven't had yours. The coffee's in that canister on the shelf. +The fire's ready to the match--and the match right here! There's boiled +ham in that cupboard, potatoes to fry, in the ice-box in the shed, bread +and butter in the cellar, as well as a pail of milk. Show yourself a man +by setting the table, my boy. How glad I am to have company! I try to +have somebody most the time; but I don't often get them so easily as +I've gotten you two. Young folks, besides; you ought to eat lots! which +will give me extra appetite--not that I need it, oh no! A fine +digestion is another of my Father's good gifts to me; and do you know, +laddie, that I rarely have to buy the food to feed my guests? Always +comes in of its own accord, seem's if. Of the Lord's accord, more truly. +He's not the One to bid you feed the hungry and give drink to the +thirsty without providing the means. 'Old St. John's' is known as a free +'hotel' in all this countryside, and my children--In His Name I bid you +welcome to it this glorious Sunday morning!" + +Dorothy was on the bed in the inner room, and all the time he was +talking her jolly host was also attending to her as well as to Jim. She +was better already, simply from the cheer of his speech, and that sense +of perfect security that had come to her so promptly. Such a well-stored +little house as that was! From somewhere, out came a bundle of bandages +already prepared, a box of soothing ointment, and a basin of soft warm +water to bathe the jagged wound. + +"Learned to be a sort of doctor, too, you see. Never know when a body +may come limping up, needing care--just as you have. Tear my bandages +evenings when it rains. Never have to buy the muslin or linen--neighbors +all save it for me. Boy--what's your name?--just turn those potatoes +again. The secret of nice fried potatoes is to keep them stirred till +every bit is yellow-browned, even and tasty. It's a sin, the way some +people cook; spoiling the good gifts of the Lord by their own +carelessness. Put into everything you do--milking, plowing, cooking, +preaching, praying, the very best that's in you! That's the way to get +at the core of life, at its deepest-down happiness and content. That's +good! I reckon you're the right sort, only want a little training. The +way you slice that ham shows you're thorough. Now, watch me settle this +coffee and then--for all Thy Mercies, Lord, we humbly thank Thee." + +Such a breakfast as that had never been spread before Jim Barlow. +Dorothy had enjoyed many fine ones in her own happy home, but even she +found this something out of common; and from the chair of state in which +she had been placed at the head of the little table, beamed satisfaction +on the others while she poured their coffee, as deftly as if she were, +indeed, the "little woman" the old man called her. + +When the meal was over, said he: + +"Lad, I'm a busy man, you seem to be an idle fellow. I'll leave you to +wash the dishes and put away the food. Carefully, as you found it, +against the need of the next comer. My name is Daniel St. John. My pride +it is to bear the name of that disciple Jesus loved. Good-bye. Tarry +here as long or as short a time as you will. I never lock the door. +Good-bye. If we do not meet again on earth, I shall look for you in +Heaven." + +He was already passing out into the sunshine but Dorothy cried after +him: + +"One moment, please. You have told us your name, but we haven't told you +ours. Yes, Jim, I shall tell! It's right and this dear man will help us, +not hinder. So you needn't hold up your finger that way. Mr. St. John, I +thank you, we both thank you, more than we can say. That boy's name is +James Barlow. He's an orphan. I'm an orphan, too. My name is----" + +"Thank you for confidence. If my day didn't belong to the Master, not to +myself, I'd drive you home in the gig. If you stay here till to-morrow I +will do so, anyway. Now, I am late about His business, and must be off +at once!" + +With that he jumped into his gig, shook the reins over old Nan's back, +who went ambling down the road to the music of "Throw out the life +line!" sung to the surrounding hills and dales as only old Daniel St. +John could sing it. + +For some hours the two wanderers rested in that sunny little home, both +most reluctant to leave it, and Dorothy's own wish now being to remain +until the Monday when, as he said, their new acquaintance would be at +liberty to take them to the city. Jim was not so anxious to remain. It +was not until his companion's entreaties grew more persistent, that he +told her the truth: + +"Dorothy, we _can't_ stay. We mustn't. I dassent. You was scared o' that +feller on horseback. Well, he's been ridin' by here two, three times, +an' he's fetched another feller along. Them men mean bad to us. I've +studied out 't they ain't sure the old man ain't to home. If they was +they wouldn't wait to ketch us long. The first man, he seen us come with +St. John. He must. He couldn't have rid so fur he didn't. Well, I feel's +if _he_ ketched us, 'twould be out the fryin'-pan into the fire. We +couldn't get shet o' him--till he got that five hundred dollars. We've +got to go on, someway, somewheres. An'--go _now_, whilst they've rid +back agin, out o' sight." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A SUNDAY DRIVE + + +Mrs. Cecil was extremely restless. She had been so ever since her visit +to Kidder & Kidder. She would roam from room to room of her great house, +staying long in none, finding fault with everybody and everything, in a +manner most unusual. For though she was sharp of speech, at times, the +times were fortunately at intervals, not incessant; but now she had +altered and her dependents felt it to be for the worse. + +"I declar' my soul, Ephraim, looks lak ouah Miss Betty done got somepin' +on her min', de way she ca'y on erbout nottin er tall. Jus' cayse cook, +she done put sallyratus in dem biscuits, stidder raisin' 'em yeas' cake +way, she done 'most flung 'em offen de table. All de time fussin' wid +some us boys an' girls, erbout some fault er nother; an' I lay out it's +her own min' is all corrodin' wid wickedness. What's yo' 'pinion now, +Ephraim, boy?" + +The old colored man pushed away his plate and scratched his white wool. +He was loyalty itself to his Miss Betty, but in his heart he agreed with +Dinah that the house of Calvert had fallen upon uncomfortable times. +Fortunately, he was saved the trouble of a reply, by the sharp ringing +of the stable bell. + +"What now!" cried Dinah, hurrying away. + +Dinner had been served as usual. As usual Mrs. Cecil had attended +service at old St. Paul's, but had felt herself defrauded because the +rector had invited a stranger to occupy the pulpit: "when he knows as +well as I do that this is my last Sunday in Baltimore, before the +autumn, and should have paid me the respect of preaching himself," she +had confided to her next-pew neighbor. Whereupon that other old member +had felt herself also aggrieved, and had left the edifice for her +carriage in a most unchristian state of mind. As usual, the one +church-going and the stately dinner over, the household had settled into +a Sunday somnolence. Ephraim had a comfortable lounge in the +carriage-house loft and was ready for his afternoon nap. Cook was +already asleep, in her kitchen rocker; and having finished her own +grumble, Dinah was about to follow the universal custom, and seek repose +in the little waiting-room beyond her mistress's boudoir, while that +lady enjoyed the same within. For that stable bell to ring at this +unwonted hour was enough to startle both old servants, and to send Dinah +speeding to answer it. + +"Bless yo' heart, Miss Betty, did you-all done ring dat bell? Or did dat +Methusalem done it, fo' mischievousness?" + +"I rang it, Dinah. Tell Ephraim to harness his horses. I'm going out for +a drive." + +Dinah delayed to obey. Drive on Sunday? Such a thing was unheard of, +except on the rare occasion of some intimate friend being desperately +ill. Instantly the maid's thought ran over the list of her mistress's +intimates, but could find none who was ailing, or hardly one who was +still in town. + +"Lawd, honey, Miss Betty, who-all's sick?" + +"Nobody, you foolish girl. Can't I stir off these grounds unless somebody +is ill? I'm going to drive. I've no need to tell you, you've no right to +ask me--but one must humor imbecility! _I--am--going--to--drive!_ I--I'm +not sleeping as well as usual, and I need the air. Now, get my things, and +don't stare." + +"Yas'm. Co'se. Yas'm. But year me, Miss Betty Somerset, if yo' po' maw +was er libin' you-all wouldn't get to go no ridin' on a Sunday ebenin', +jus' if yo' didn' know no diff'rent. Lak dem po' no-'count folks what +doan' b'long to good famblies. You-all may go, whuther er no, cayse yo' +does most inginerally take yo' own way. But I owes it to yo' maw to +recommind you-all o' yo' plain, Christian duty." + +With that Dinah felt she had relieved herself of all obligation either +to duty or tradition, and proceeded with great dignity to bring out her +lady's handsome wrap and hat: while down deep in that old gentlewoman's +breast fluttered a feeling of actual guilt. It was a lifelong habit she +was about to break; a habit that had been the law of her parents in the +days of her youth. When one was a privileged person of leisure, who +could take her outings on any week-day, she should pay strictest honor +to the Sabbath. + +However, Miss Betty had made up her mind to go and Miss Betty went. Not +only thus endangering her own soul but those of Dinah and Ephraim as +well; and once well out of city limits and the possible observation of +friends, the affair began to have for all three the sweet flavor of +stolen fruit. + +"It's delightful. It's such a perfect day. 'Twould be more sinful to +waste it indoors, asleep, than to be out here on the highway, passing +through such loveliness. We'll--_We'll come again_, some other Sunday, +Dinah," observed Mrs. Cecil, when they had already traveled some few +miles. + +But it was Dinah's hour for sleep, and having been prevented from +indulging herself at home in a proper place and condition, she saw no +reason why she shouldn't nod here and now. The carriage was full as +comfortable as her own easy-chair, and she had been ordered to ride, not +to stay awake. + +So, finding her remarks unheeded, Mrs. Cecil set herself to studying the +landscape; and she found this so soothing to her tired nerves that when +the coachman asked if he should turn about, she indignantly answered: + +"No. Time for that when I give the order. It's my carriage, as I often +have to remind you, Ephraim." + +"Yas'm. Dat's so, Miss Betty. But dese yere hosses, dey ain' much usen +to trabelin' so fur, cos' erspecially not inginerally on a _Sunday_." + +"Do them good, boy, do them good. They're so fat they can hardly trot a +rod before they're winded. When we get into the country, and they have +to climb up and down those hills of the highlands, they'll lose some of +their bulk. They're a sight now. I'm fairly ashamed of them. Touch them +up, boy, touch them up. See if they can travel at all. They had a good +deal of spirit when I bought them, but you'd ruin any team you shook +the reins over, Ephraim. Touch them up!" + +Ephraim groaned, but obeyed; and, for a brief distance, the bays did +trot fairly well, as if there had come to their equine minds a memory of +that past when they had been young and frisky. Then they settled down +again to their ordinary jog, quite unlike their mistress's mood, which +grew more and more excited and gay the longer she trespassed upon her +old-time habits. + +Nobody, who loved nature at all, could resist the influence of that +golden summer afternoon--"evening" as southerners call it. To Mrs. Cecil +as to little Dorothy, hours before, came the sweet, suggestive odor of +honeysuckle; that brought back old memories, touched to tenderness her +heart, and to an undefinable longing for something and somebody on which +to expend all that stored-up affection. + +"Tu'n yet, Miss Betty? Dat off hoss done gettin' badly breathed," +suggested Ephraim, rudely breaking in upon Mrs. Cecil's reflections. + +"Oh, you tiresome boy! One-half mile more, then turn if you will and +must. For me--I haven't enjoyed myself nor felt so at peace in--in +several days. Not since that wretched plumber came to Bellevieu and +stirred me all up with his--gossip. I could drive on forever! but, of +course, I'm human, and I'll remember you, Ephraim, as well as my poor, +abused horses! One mile--did I say a half? Well, drive on, anyway." + +It was at the very turn of the road that she saw them. + +A long, lanky lad, far worse winded than her fat bays, skulking along +behind the honeysuckle hedge-rows, as if in hiding from somebody. As +they approached each other--she in her roomy carriage, he on his bruised +and aching feet--she saw that he was almost spent; that he carried a +girl on his back; and that the desperation of fear was on both their +young faces. Then looking forward along her side of the hedge, down the +road that stretched so smooth and even, she saw two men on horseback. +They were riding swiftly, and now and then one would rise in his +stirrups and peer over the hedge, as if to keep in sight the struggling +children, then settle back again into that easy lope that was certain of +speedy victory. + +Mrs. Cecil's nerves tingled with a new--an old--sensation. In the days +of her girlhood she had followed the hounds over many a well-contested +field. Behold here again was a fox-hunt--with two human children for +foxes! Whatever they might have done, how deserved re-capture, she +didn't pause to inquire. All her old sporting blood rose in her, but--on +the side of the foxes! + +"Drive, drive, Ephraim, drive! Kill the horses--save those children!" + +Ephraim had once been young, too, and he caught his lady's spirit with a +readiness that delighted her. In a moment the carriage was abreast the +fleeing children on that further side the hedge, and Mrs. Cecil's voice +was excitedly calling: + +"Come through! Come through the hedge! We'll befriend you!" + +It had been a weary, weary race. Although her foot had been so carefully +bandaged by Daniel St. John, it was not fit to be used and Dorothy's +suffering could not be told in words. Jim had done his best. He had +comforted, encouraged, carried her; at times, incessantly, but with a +now fast-dying hope that they could succeed in evading these pursuers, +so relentlessly intent upon their capture. + +"It's the money, Dorothy, they want. They mustn't get it. That's your +folkses'--do try--you _must_ keep on! I'll--they shan't--Oh, pshaw!" + +Wheels again! again added to that thump, thump, thump of steel-shod +hoofs along the hard road! and the youth felt that the race was +over--himself beaten. + +Then he peered through a break in the honeysuckle and saw a wonderful +old lady with snow-white hair and a beautiful face, standing up in a +finer vehicle than he had known could be constructed, and eagerly +beckoning him to: "Come! Come!" + +He stood still, panting for breath, and Dorothy lifted her face which +she had hidden on his shoulder and--what was that the child was calling? + +"Mrs. Cecil! Mrs. Cecil! Don't you know me? John Chester's little girl? +'Johnnie'--postman 'Johnnie'--you know him--take me home!" + +The two horsemen came riding up and reined in shortly. There was +bewilderment on their faces and disappointment in their hearts; for +behold! here were five hundred dollars being swept out of their very +grasp by a wealthy old woman who didn't need a cent! + +And what was that happy old creature answering to the fugitive's appeal +but an equally joyful: + +"Dorothy C.! You poor lost darling--Dorothy C.! Thank God you're found! +Thank Him I took this ride this day!" + +Another moment and not only Dorothy but poor Jim Barlow, mud-stained, +unkempt, as awkward a lad as ever lived and as humble, was riding toward +Baltimore city in state, on a velvet-covered cushion beside one of its +most aristocratic dames! + +This was a turn in affairs, indeed; and the discomfited horsemen, who +had felt a goodly sum already within their pockets, followed the +equipage into town to learn the outcome of the matter. + +Dorothy was on Mrs. Cecil's own lap; who minded nothing of the soiled +little garments but held the child close with a pitying maternity, +pathetic in so old and childless a woman. + +But, oddly enough, she permitted no talk or explanation. There would be +time enough for that when the safe shelter of Bellevieu was reached and +there were no following interlopers to overhear. Even Dinah could only +sit and stare, wondering if her beloved "honey" had suddenly lost her +wits; but Ephraim comprehended that his mistress now meant it when she +urged "Speed! speed!" and put his fat bays to a run such as they had not +taken since their earliest youth. + +Through the eagle-gateway, into the beautiful grounds, around to that +broad piazza where Dorothy had made disastrous acquaintance with the two +Great Danes, and on quite into the house. But there Jim would have +retreated, and even Dorothy looked and wondered: saying, as she was +gently taken in old Dinah's arms and laid upon the mistress's own +lounge: + +"Thank you, but I won't lie down here, if you please. I love you so much +for bringing me back, but home--home's just around the corner, and I +can't wait! Jim and I will go now--please--and thank you! thank you!" + +Yet now, back in her own home, it was a very calm and courteous old +gentlewoman--no longer an impulsive one--who answered: + +"For the present, Dorothy C., you will have to be content with +Bellevieu. John Chester and his wife have gone to the country. To a +far-away state, and to a little property she owns. Fortunately, I am +going to that same place very soon and will take you to them. I am sorry +for your disappointment, but you are safe with me till then." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CONCLUSION + + +Mr. Kidder, of Kidder & Kidder, had by request waited upon the lady of +Bellevieu. He was prepared to explain some uncertain matters to her and +had delayed his own removal to his country place for that purpose. The +heat which had made Baltimore so uncomfortable had, for the time being, +passed; and there was now blowing through the big east-parlor, a breeze, +redolent of the perfumes of sweet brier and lily-of-the-valley; +old-fashioned flowers which grew in rank luxuriance outside the wide +bay-window. + +Presently there entered the mistress of the mansion, looking almost +youthful in a white gown and with a calm serenity upon her handsome +features. She walked with that graceful, undulating movement--a sort of +quiet gliding--which had been the most approved mode of her girlhood, +and the mere sight of that was restful to the old attorney, who detested +the modern, jerky carriage of most maidens. + +Dorothy attended her hostess and she, too, was in white. Indeed Mrs. +Cecil considered that to be the only suitable home-wear for either maid +or matron, after the spring days came; and looking critically upon the +pair, the old lawyer fancied he saw a faint resemblance. + +Each had large brown and most expressive eyes; each had a hand and foot, +fit subject for feminine pride, and each bore herself with the same air +of composed self-sufficiency. Well, it was a fine experiment his client +was trying; he could but hope it would not end in disappointment. + +She seemed to know his thoughts without his expressing them; and as she +sat down, she bade Dorothy lay aside her cane and sit beside her. The +injured foot had received the best of medical treatment since the +child's arrival at Bellevieu and was now almost well, though some +support had still to be used as a safeguard against strain. + +"This is the child, Mr. Kidder. I think she has intelligence. A fine +intelligence," began the lady, as if Dorothy had not ears to hear. Then +feeling the girl's eyes raised inquiringly, added rather hastily: "It's +on account of 'Johnnie,' you understand, Mr. Kidder. He was one of the +most faithful persons I ever knew. That was why he was selected. Why I +am going to take his little Dorothy C. back to him as fast as +to-morrow's train will carry us. Have you learned anything?" + +"Yes, Madam. I came prepared--but----" He paused again and glanced at +the girl, whom her hostess promptly sent away. Then he proceeded: + +"It is the same man I suspected in the beginning. He was a clerk in my +office some years ago, at the time, indeed, when I first saw your ward. +He listened at a keyhole and heard all arrangements made, but--did not +see who was closeted with me and never learned your identity until +recently. That is why you have escaped blackmail so long; and he is the +author of the letters you sent me--unopened. He had his eye upon Dorothy +C. for years, but could use her to no advantage till he traced--I don't +yet know how, and it doesn't matter--the connection between yourself and +the monthly letters. He has been in scrapes innumerable. I discharged +him almost immediately after I hired him, and he has owed me a grudge +ever since. But--he'll trouble Baltimore people no more. If he recovers +from the dangerous illness he is suffering now he will be offered the +choice of exile from the state or a residence in the prison. By the way, +isn't it a case of poetic justice, that he should be thus innocently +punished by the child he stole?" + +"It is, indeed. As to the boy, James. 'Jim,' Dorothy calls him. He seems +to be without friends, a fine, uncouth, most manly fellow, with an +overpowering ambition 'to know things'! To see him look at a book, as if +he adored it but dared not touch it, is enough--to make me long to throw +it at him, almost! He is to be tested. I want to go slow with him. So +many of my protégés have disappointed me. But, if he's worth it, I want +to help him make a man of himself." + +"The right word. Just the right, exact word, Madam. 'Help _him_ to make +a man of himself.' Because if he doesn't take a hand in the business +himself, all the extraneous help in the world will be useless. Well, +then I think we understand each other. I have all your latest advices in +my safe, with duplicate copies in that of my son. + +"You leave to-morrow? From Union Station? I wish you, Madam, a safe +journey, a pleasant summer, and an early return. Good-morning." + +On the very evening of Dorothy's arrival at Bellevieu, now some days +past, she had begged so to "go home," and so failed to comprehend how +her parents could have left it without her, that Mrs. Cecil sent for the +plumber and his wife to come to her and to bring Mabel with them. + +"Why, husband! I fair believe the world must be comin' to an end! +Dorothy found, alive, and that rich woman the one to find her! Go! +Course we'll go--right off." + +Mr. Bruce was just as eager to pay the visit as his wife, but he prided +himself on being a "free-born American" citizen and resented being +ordered to the mansion, "on a Sunday just as if it were a work-day. If +the lady has business with us, it's her place to come to Brown Street, +herself." + +"Fiddle-de-diddle-de-dee! Since when have we got so top-lofty?" demanded +his better half with a laugh. "On with your best duds, man alive, and +we'll be off! Why, I--I myself am all of a flutter, I can't wait! Do +hurry an' step 'round to 77 an' get Mabel. She's been to supper with her +aunt, an' Jane'll be wild to hear the news, too. Tell everybody you see +on the block--Dorothy C. is found! Dorothy C. is found! An' whilst +you're after Mabel, I'll just whisk Dorothy's clothes, 'at her mother +left with me for her, into a satchel an' take 'em along. Stands to +reason that folks wicked enough to steal a child wouldn't be decent +enough to give her a change of clothing; and if she's wore one set ever +sence she's been gone--My! I reckon Martha Chester'd fair squirm--just +to think of it!" + +Now, as has been stated, in his heart the honest plumber was fully as +eager to see Dorothy C., as his wife was, and long before she had +finished speaking he was on his way to number 77. It was such a lovely +evening that all his neighbors were sitting out upon their doorsteps, in +true Baltimore fashion, so it was easy as delightful to spread the +tidings; and never, never, had the one-hundred-block of cleanly Brown +Street risen in such an uproar. An uproar of joy that was almost +hilarious; and all uninvited, everybody who had ever known Dorothy C. +set off for Bellevieu, so that even before the Bruce-Jones party had +arrived the lovely grounds were full to overflowing and the aristocratic +silence of the place was broken by cries of: + +"Dorothy! Dorothy Chester! Show us little Dorothy, and we'll believe our +ears. Seeing is believing--Show us little Dorothy!" + +These, and similar, outcries bombarded the hearing of Mrs. Cecil and, +for a moment, frightened her. Glancing out of the window she beheld the +throng and called to Ephraim: + +"Boy! Telephone--the police! It's a riot of some sort! We're being +mobbed!" + +But Dinah knew better. She didn't yet understand why her mistress should +bother with a couple of runaway young folks, but since she had done so +it was her own part to share in that bother. So she promptly lifted the +girl in her strong arms and carried her out to the broad piazza, so +crowded with people in Sunday attire, and quietly explained to +whomsoever would listen: + +"Heah she is! Yas'm. Dis yere's de pos'man's li'l gal what's gone away +wid de misery in his laigs. Yas'm. It sho'ly am. An' my Miss Betty, +she's done foun' out how where he's gone at is right erjinin' ouah own +prop'ty o' Deerhurst-on-de-Heights, where we-all's gwine in a right +smart li'l while. Won't nottin' more bad happen dis li'l one, now my +Miss Betty done got de care ob her. Yas'm, ladies an' gemplemen; an' so, +bein's it Sunday, an' my folks mos' tuckered out, if you-all'd be so +perlite as to go back to yo' housen an' done leab us res', we-all done +be much obleeged. Yas'm. Good-bye." + +Dinah's good-natured speech, added to the one glimpse of the rescued +child, acted more powerfully than the police whom her mistress would +have summoned; and soon the crowd drifted away, pausing only here and +there to admire the beautiful grounds which, hitherto, most of these +visitors had seen only from outside the gates. + +But the Bruce family remained; and oh! the pride and importance which +attached to them, thus distinguished! Or of that glad reunion with these +old friends and neighbors, when Dorothy was once more in their arms, who +could fitly tell? Then while Mabel and her restored playmate chattered +of all that had happened to either since their parting, Mrs. Cecil drew +the plumber aside and consulted him upon the very prosaic matter of +clothes--clothes for now ill-clad Jim Barlow. + +"I've decided to take him with us to New York State when we go, in a +very few days. I shall employ him as a gardener on my property there, +but he isn't fit to travel--as he's fixed now. Will you, at regular +wages for your time, take him down town to-morrow morning and fit him +out with suitable clothing, plain and serviceable but ample in quantity, +and bring the bill to me? I'd rather you'd not let him out of your +sight, for now that Dorothy is safe, the boy has ridiculous notions +about his 'duty' to that dreadful old truck-farming woman who has let +him work for her during several years at--nothing a year! And anybody +who's so saturated with 'duty,' is just the man I want at Deerhurst, be +he old or young." + +To which the plumber answered: + +"Indeed, Mrs. Cecil, I'm a proud man to be selected for the job and as +to pay for my time--just you settle with me when I ask you for that. +Pay? For such a neighborly turn? Well, I guess not. Not till I'm a good +deal poorer than I am now. And if there's anything needed for Dorothy +C., my wife'll tend to that, too, and be proud." + +So with that matter settled, these good friends of the rescued children +departed to their home and to what sleep they might find after so much +delightful excitement. + +Next day, too, because the doctor called in said that Dorothy must +attempt no more walking until the end of the week, Mrs. Cecil had a pony +cart sent for, and Ephraim with Dinah took the child upon a round of +calls to all whom she had ever known in that friendly neighborhood. +Mabel was invited to accompany her, and did so--the proudest little +maiden in Baltimore. They even went to their school, and Miss Georgia +left her class for full five minutes to go out and congratulate her late +pupil upon this happy turn of affairs. But at number 77 Dorothy would +not stop; would not even look. She felt she could not bear its changed +condition, for underneath all this present joy her heart ached with +longing for those beloved ones who had made that little house a home. + +Also, now that it was drawing certainly near, it seemed as if the day of +their reunion would never come; and when some time before, old Ephraim +was sent on ahead with the horses and carriages, and the great heap of +luggage which his lady found necessary to this annual removal, the child +pleaded piteously to go with him. + +"No, my dear, not yet. Two days more and you shall. You may count the +hours. I sometimes think that helps time to pass, when one is impatient. +They've been telegraphed to, have known all about you ever since Sunday +night. They'll have time to make ready for you--and that's all. But, +Brown Eyes, a 'penny for your thoughts!' What are they, pray, to make +you look so serious?" + +"I was thinking you're like a fairy godmother. You seem so able to do +everything you want for everybody. I was wondering, too, what makes you +so kind to--to me, after that day when I was saucy to you." + +It came to the lady's mind to answer: "Darling, who could be aught but +kind to you!" but flattery was not one of her failings and she had begun +to fear that all the attention of these past days was turning her +charge's head. So she merely suggested: + +"I suppose I might be doing it for 'Johnnie.' I am very fond of him." + +Thus Dorothy's vanity received a possibly needful snub; for a girl who +was well treated because of her father couldn't be so much of a heroine +after all! + +The railway journey from Baltimore to New York was like a passage +through fairyland to Dorothy C. and the farm-boy Jim. The wonders of +their luxurious parlor-car surroundings kept them almost speechless with +delight; but when at the latter great city they embarked upon a Hudson +river steamer and they were free to roam about the palatial vessel, +their tongues were loosened. Thereafter they talked so fast and so much +that they hardly realized what was happening as Dinah called them to +listen and obey the boat-officer's command: + +"All ashore what's goin'! Aft' gangway fo' Cornwall! +A-L-L--A-S-H-O-O-R-E!" + +Over the gangplank, into the midst of a waiting crowd, and there was +Ephraim with the carriage and the bays; and into the roomy vehicle +bundled everybody, glad to be so near the end of that famous journey, +and Dorothy quite unable to keep still for two consecutive moments. + +"Up, up, up! How high we are going! Straight into the skies it seems!" +cried the girl to Jim Barlow, whom nobody who had known him on the +truck-farm would have recognized as the same lad, so neat and trim he +now appeared. + +But he had no words to answer. The wonderful upland country through +which their course lay impressed him to silence, and the strength of +those everlasting hills entered his ambitious soul--making him believe +that to him who dared all high achievements were possible. + +"Will--we never--_never_ get there?" almost gasped Dorothy, in the +breathless eagerness of these last few moments of separation from her +loved ones. But Mrs. Cecil answered: + +"Yes, my child. Round this turn of the road and behold! we are arrived! +See, that big place yonder whose gates stand wide open is Deerhurst, my +home, to which I hope you will often come. And, look this way--there is +Skyrie! The little stone cottage on a rock, half-hidden in vines, empty +for years, and now--Who is that upon its threshold? That man in the +wheeled chair, risking his neck to hasten your meeting? Who that dainty +little woman flying down the path to clasp you in her arms? Ah! Dorothy +C.! Father and mother, indeed, they have proved to you and glad am I to +restore you to them, safe and sound!" + +Happy, happy Dorothy! At last, at last she was in the arms whose care +had sheltered her through all her life; and there, for the time being, +we must leave her. Of her life at Skyrie, of its haps and mishaps, of +the mystery which still surrounded her birth and parentage, another book +must tell. + +Or how beautiful Mrs. Cecil, gay and satisfied as that veritable fairy +godmother to which Dorothy had likened her, drove briskly home to +Deerhurst and its accustomed stateliness, with humble Jim Barlow too +grateful for speech, already beginning his new and richer life. + +All these things and more belong with Dorothy Chester at Skyrie, and of +them you shall hear by and by. Till then we leave her, well content. + + + + +THE END + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Obvious printer and typographical errors have been corrected without +comment. In addition to obvious errors, the following changes have been +made: + + Page 218: "t'was" was changed to "'twas" in the phrase, "... t'was + to find out dat." + + Page 251: "need less" was changed to "needless" in the phrase, "... + scuffin' 'em out, needless." + + Page 297: "the" was added to the phrase, "Glancing out of the + window...." + +With the exception of the above corrections, the author's original +spelling, punctuation, use of grammar, etc., is retained as it appears +in the original publication. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dorothy, by Evelyn Raymond + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40300 *** |