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diff --git a/78419-0.txt b/78419-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c49a030 --- /dev/null +++ b/78419-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5741 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78419 *** + + + + + _The Jack-in-the-Box Books_ + + THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + + MARION AMES TAGGART + + + + + _The Jack-in-the-Box Books_ + BY + MARION AMES TAGGART + + _Illustrated by_ + ANNE MERRIMAN PECK + + AT GREENACRES + THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + THE BOTTLE IMP + POPPY’S PLUCK + + [Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: “WHY NOT SIT UP ALL NIGHT,” SAID ISABEL. _p. 213_] + + + + + _The Jack-in-the-Box Books_ + + THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + + BY + MARION AMES TAGGART + + AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE,” + “THE DAUGHTERS OF THE LITTLE + GREY HOUSE,” ETC. + + _Illustrated by_ + ANNE MERRIMAN PECK + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + DEDICATED + TO + HAROLD GERHART + THAT DEAR LITTLE BOY + WITH LOVE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I OPENING DAY 13 + + II SAWS, HAMMERS AND NAILS--TWO KINDS! 27 + + III HURRAH AND HURRAHING 43 + + IV THE CLOUD IN THE SKY 57 + + V “THE LUCKY FOUR” 71 + + VI THE DEAR HOUSE 85 + + VII THE QUEER MAN 99 + + VIII ROUND RED RADISHES 113 + + IX QUEER HAPPENINGS 129 + + X “YOU’D HARDLY KNOW GREENACRES!” 145 + + XI THE SHADOW OF PARTING 161 + + XII MERRILY PUTTING OFF SORROW 177 + + XIII GYPSYING 191 + + XIV UNDER THE STARS 205 + + XV A CLEAR DAY 221 + + XVI HAWTHORNE HOUSE ABLOOM 237 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + “WHY NOT SIT UP ALL NIGHT,” SAID ISABEL _Frontispiece_ + + PAGE + POPPY HELD THE LINES AND ISABEL AND PRUE + JOUNCED UP AND DOWN SINGING 32 + + SO THEY WENT ON, SOWING THE WHOLE GARDEN + FULL OF OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS 64 + + POPPY CALLED, “RADISHES! ROUND RED RADISHES! + GROWN BY A RED-HEAD” 120 + + “WE’RE ALL TOGETHER, ALL TOGETHER, FOREVER AND + FOR AYE,” THEY SANG 240 + + + + +THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + + + + +THE QUEER LITTLE MAN + + +CHAPTER I + +OPENING DAY + + +Four children sat around a large room which was empty of all furniture +except wooden packing cases, in attitudes that indicated their various +temperaments. Prue Wayne, twelve years old, sat up straight; she was +as trim in muscles as in her tightly braided fair hair, her fleckless +deep collar, her correctly laced shoes which were crossed, one over the +other at the ankles above her sturdy feet. + +Isabel Lindsay, also twelve years old, half lay over the arm of her +chair on her elbow, every line of her body graceful and expressive of +interest, although her position might easily have been a lazy one. She +was far prettier than neat and shining Prudence; her dark hair turned +into rings wherever it could steal the chance, her gray-blue eyes were +brilliantly soft under their dark lashes; she had delicate, flexible +lips, and clear, healthy pallor of complexion. + +The third little girl was not yet ten. No one, even if he had not +merely kissed, but had dined on the Blarney stone, could have said she +was pretty. Fiery red hair was the first thing one saw about Poppy +Meiggs, and that could be seen afar. She was a thin little creature, +with light lashes, a sharp face, now covered with more than its +ordinary quantity of freckles, because March had been and gone and had +left upon poor little Poppy’s sensitive skin a crop of these brown +reminders of its sunny days and strong winds. + +Poor little Poppy was plain _plus_; she was downright ill-looking, but +those who loved her--and there were now several of these--forgot her +looks. + +Her temper was as fiery as her hair; she had no patience, not yet much +self-control, but she was loyal and generous, and loved her beloveds +with all her tempestuous heart. She was clever, too. Now that dear +little Mrs. Hawthorne had rescued her from destitution, after her +father had died and her mother had run away and left her children, +Poppy was fast learning more than most children of her age know. “She +grabbed everything she heard with both hands and fairly crammed it +into herself,” Mark Hawthorne said. + +Mark Hawthorne was the one boy in this group; he, like Poppy, was +perched on a window sill, but where Poppy sat up keen and small and +tense, like a sharp little splinter of redwood, Mark sat lightly +poised, swinging his crossed legs, giving the effect of a woodland, +winged thing that was his wonderful attraction. He was a beautiful +creature, lithe, graceful, his hair a tawny brown, his eyes brown and +gold, flecked like a goldstone. His face was full of witchery. He made +older people long to seize him in a tight embrace, yet feel as though +he would still be free, however tight they held him. Isabel and Prue +had dubbed him Jack-in-the-Box when they had first known him, because +he had appeared and disappeared so suddenly; like a jack-in-the-box +he was there and then he was not. But now that he and his father were +making a beautiful home for dear little Mrs. Hawthorne, Mr. Gilbert +Hawthorne’s mother, after years of cruel sorrow and separation and +bitter poverty for her, the nickname was passing into disuse. + +“Well, am I housekeeper or amn’t I?” demanded Poppy. “That’s what I +want to know. Motherkins said I was to look after the men age; that’s +French for men and boys--Mr. Hawthorne and Mark--and it means the +whole shebang. So if I say we can have this room you don’t have to ask, +so there!” Poppy was excited, but then she usually was excited. + +“I think we ought to ask her,” Prue said firmly. “My mother says no +matter if we know she’ll say yes about a thing, give her the chance to +say it. She calls it ‘proper deference.’” + +“Oh, gosh!” Poppy exploded disgustedly. “It’s all right to be good, but +you’re a regular fussy! Ain’t what I say enough, Isabel?” + +“Of course a housekeeper settles things, but if I were you I’d always +show little Motherkins you have her on your mind. She’ll love to be +told, Pops,” said Isabel, the tactful, who could get around Poppy’s +danger signals without causing an explosion, as Prue never could. + +“Well, of course I like to tickle her,” conceded Poppy, her scowl +abating, and the question was settled. + +“We’ve decided that this is Opening Day, and it sounds all right, but +I don’t know what we mean, not really! We’re to have this room for our +headquarters; Mrs. Hawthorne won’t care when Poppy asks her, because +they don’t use this half of the house, and we’re to furnish it in +packing boxes, and meet here and sit on the boxes, and have one for a +table. Please don’t any one tell me this, because we’ve said it over +and over and I’m kind of tired of it. But that’s all I do know. We +ought to open something, or open for something--or something!” Prue +apparently had got herself tangled up in the word and could not shake +it off. + +“We’ll open--open--open to begin, like spring!” cried Isabel with +a laugh. “Just to be nice and have good times, and be ready for +everything, anything that comes along. It’s the twenty-fifth of April, +and Mark is thirteen years old to-day. He’s opening his ’teens; we’re +opening a club in his honor.” + +Isabel seemed to feel that this explanation covered the case. + +“Oh, well, my gracious!” cried Prue in a sort of patient exasperation; +“we were all together before now, and ready for good times. What I say +is if a thing doesn’t mean anything, why--why--well, what does it mean?” + +“It means to run around all the faster, particular Prue; like +Pincushion when she tries to catch her tail. Now that doesn’t mean +anything, but look at the fun she has!” cried Mark catching up his +round kitten, Pincushion, now grown into a rounder little cat. “I’ll +tell you what, Prue: You’re thinking about opening things that are +full--like sardine boxes, or nuts, or a prize package. This club +isn’t like that! It’s opening _up_; not just opening. You open up +something to be filled after a while--like a new country, or a mine, or +possibilities! That’s it! We’re opening up possibilities! We don’t know +what we’re for; we just open _up_, don’t you see?” Mark explained this +with much waving of hands and with his shining eyes full of laughter, +but nevertheless he was not a little impressed by his own discovery. It +instantly became clear to him that wonderful things were to fill this +opening they were making. + +Isabel kindled with him. These two were “of imagination all compact”: +they got out of every play and every day not only more than Prue, but +more than was there to get. + +“You can’t tell _what_ will happen!” declared Isabel. “Look how we went +to the woods that day last spring, Prue! Just happened to race the way +we do, and we found Jack-in-the-Box-Mark! Shall I ever in all my life +forget how I thought maybe he was a fairy, or some one like Peter Pan, +when he told us to shut our eyes and count and then was nowhere to be +seen? Oh, you never can tell! I sort of think it’s better not to know +what we mean by Opening Day, because then we can feel it’s too big to +understand.” + +Prue had not been following Isabel’s enthusiastic reasoning. + +“Is that why you were named Mark, because you were born to-day?” she +asked. Prue-like she had been plodding along by herself the path +indicated by Isa’s allusion to the twenty-fifth of April. + +“Surest thing you know!” Mark nodded hard. “Daddy liked naming me after +St. Mark, as long as I was born on his feast. He said he wouldn’t have +called me Martha or Clotilda if I’d been born on those days, but St. +Mark was just right.” + +“How do you make packing box chairs?” asked Poppy, in her turn not +heeding what was said. + +“I’m going to put one on top of another, instead of making legs; they’d +wobble, sure,” said Mark. “Then I’ll knock out one side and leave the +other three sides. Then I’ll wad it soft and easy. Then I’ll cover it +with some kind of nice stuff. Then----” + +“Then I’ll sit on it!” shouted Poppy in high glee. “I bet it’ll +be funny! You can’t make ’em, Mark! Four, besides some for +comp’ny--Motherkins and your dad.” + +“Certainly I can make them,” said Mark with scorn. + +“I could do that, too,” said Prue, who had a taste for using a hammer, +and never failed to hit a nail on the head, nor ever hit her own nail. +“I can carpenter as well as you, Mark Hawthorne!” + +“Carpenter away, Prudence! We’ll be able to use another hand in my +shop,” Mark smiled with the kindly toleration of the sex made by nature +to wield a hammer. + +“I can’t build the chairs, but I can make the covers fit and plan how +they’ll be prettiest,” began Isabel, but Poppy, who had been looking +sharply from one to another, broke in upon her. + +“Well, _I_ shall sweep up! A nice mess you’d make if I didn’t keep it +nice! And I shall get what there is for eats, and _I_ shall fix it, so +now!” she announced. + +“Oh, mercy, you’ll do more than that, Poppy!” cried Isabel. + +Sometimes it was a slight burden to keep in order Poppy’s touchy desire +to equal the rest. She was a jealous little creature, but in her +jealousy seemed less mean than in others. She adored Mrs. Hawthorne, +Mark and Mark’s father, and loved Isabel Lindsay with a sort of furious +worship. A poor, untaught child, made motherless by her mother’s +desertion, which was so much sadder than to lose a mother by death, +Poppy had set out in life with heavy handicaps. It was natural that +she should be on the watch lest these happier children should surpass +her. They never resented her touchiness, but understood and helped +her. Isabel especially made a point of smoothing the feathers which +Poppy was always ruffling up in the fear of being ever so little out of +things. + +“I hear her!” shrieked Poppy suddenly, and darted out of the room at +top speed. + +She came back panting, towing by the hand sweet little Motherkins, like +a little craft with a prize captured on the high seas. + +“Here she is,” announced Poppy. “Now tell her and ask her.” + +Motherkins smiled inquiringly, but calmly. She was used to Poppy’s +ways. She was a very dear little woman; that was to be seen at a +glance. She had soft brown hair turning gray; it had a sheen over it +like exquisite silk. Her face had an expression of playing laughter, +yet with it the patient sadness left by her long years of desolate +grief when she had been poor and had thought that her one child, Mark’s +father, was lost to her forever. He had come back rich enough in money, +richer by far in Mark, the dear lad! Now little Motherkins, brought +back into the big house that had been her home before trouble came, was +the happiest person outside a fairy tale. But her face still bore the +imprint of what she had suffered; it had made her tender to all things, +great and small. + +The children’s name for her showed what she was. Mark could not think +of calling one as youthful and tiny as she was “grandmother,” so he +called her Motherkins, and she was a little mother to the other three. + +“Dear me, Poppy,” Motherkins remonstrated as Poppy breathlessly tugged +her into the big unfurnished room. “I’ll come along peacefully! I won’t +run away. Why use violence?” + +“We’re going to tell you something,” said Poppy putting her capture on +the most comfortable box, more comfortable than the others because it +was a better height to sit on, though not softer. “We’re having Opening +Day.” + +“Are you?” asked Motherkins glancing about with a little laugh. “What +are you opening--or is it only the day that opens?” + +“That’s it, Motherkins!” Mark leaped down from the window sill and ran +over to pat her approvingly. “That’s what I told ’em when they were +fidgetting to find out what it was about. It’s Opening Day; that’s all.” + +“And my dear boy is opening his ’teens to-day!” Motherkins looked up +with shining eyes into the golden-brown eyes bent toward her. “It +sounds nice and uncertain, as if anything might come of it, from the +four and twenty blackbirds that were in the pie, to a congress! All +sorts of things are opened, when one comes to think of it.” + +“You’re the one to catch on!” cried Mark with a triumphant crow of +delight, but Prue, steadily intent upon her duty, said: + +“We thought, Mrs. Hawthorne, we ought to ask you if you cared if we +used this room? Right along, to meet in? We kind of think we’ll do +things and have it for our headquarters. Do you care?” + +“Not in the least wee bit, except to be honored to have something so +cloudily splendid sounding in the house,” declared Motherkins. “The +room is yours from this instant.” + +“We wanted it because of the balcony out that window and the piazza +roof,” said Isabel as though that explained the mystery. + +“Oh!” said Motherkins, and Mark laughed. + +“Might be handy,” he added. + +“Certainly, but do be careful not to slip if you get in and out that +way,” said this understanding little lady. + +“Thanks, oh, thanks, you darling Motherkins!” cried Isabel. “Is that +Bunkie I hear? I know it’s his voice.” + +“It is Bunkie and has been for some time; he thinks you have been in +session without him long enough,” said Mrs. Hawthorne, rising. “And +I have a sort of Opening Day of my own. Mine is opened downstairs, +and it is not only a day, but a freezer opened! In honor of Mark +Jack-in-the-Box having a birthday. Won’t you come down to the dining +room and celebrate with me?” + +With a shout the children rushed to the door, Poppy turning three +cartwheels in rapturous welcome of these tidings. + +“I’d like to know where you hid it,” she panted coming right side +up once more. “I kinder thought maybe you and Mr. Daddy’d be doing +somethin’ for the birthday, and I sorter snooped, but not a freezer did +there be, nowheres.” + +Poppy’s English still failed her under excitement. + +Motherkins laughed. “Mark’s daddy and I can play tricks, too, little +Miss Gladys Popham Meiggs!” she cried. + +“Well, there ain’t much I can’t hunt out when I try,” boasted Poppy +justly. + +Dashing out of the room she fell over Isabel’s little rough haired +dog, mostly Scotch terrier, who had been named Bunker in honor of his +christening day, the seventeenth of June, and whom, like Poppy, Mrs. +Hawthorne had adopted when he sorely needed kindness, but against whom +Poppy harbored a little jealousy. Isabel had taken him into her heart +and home, but still Poppy disliked loving little Bunkie. + +“Gee, that Punk!” Poppy exclaimed as she tripped over the small +creature, who was rapturously running to meet the children. “Pretty +near I went kersmash over him! He’s the snarledest looking dog! He’s +the limit. If you’d of made me tumble, you raggedy ravelledy thing!” + +Laughing and shouting the three children, with Bunkie barking and +leaping, and Poppy stalking behind, really angry for a few minutes, +went down to the dining room. Only part of the house, occupied but +six months, was in order, but this room was one that was beautifully +furnished. A fire of logs blazed on the hearth in the library beyond, +its color reflected in the dark mahogany in line of the open door. + +Mr. Hawthorne, Mark’s wonderful father who knew all sorts of woodland +lore and was in every way a child’s ideal, stood at one end of the +table. Before him sat a platter with a sliding mound of delectable +brown, pink and creamy white, which he was ready to serve. + +“Many happy returns, dearest boy of mine!” he said giving Mark his ice +cream last of all. + +“Yum-Yum; opening day!” said Mark significantly, stretching his mouth +wide to admit a heaped teaspoonful of ice cream. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SAWS, HAMMERS AND NAILS--TWO KINDS! + + +Prue sat back on her heels, her thumb in her mouth and that mouth +sagging at its corners. + +Mark was sawing on the side of a packing case, making a cheerful +whistling through his teeth, but the saw was slender; it swayed and +bent a good deal, and the course it had so far followed through the +side of the box was as scalloped as if it had been cut by a cheese +scoop. + +Isabel and Poppy were tacking bright colored chintz in deep pleats over +a much smaller box. Isabel was silent; she looked pale and her lips +were closed in a line that was almost grim. Poppy on the other hand was +red even to the tips of her ears, and she betrayed a decided tendency +to scold some one, any one who gave her the least opening. + +As no one paid any attention to Prue, who had been hammering nails out +backward from a third box, she was forced to voice her woes in a bid +for pity. + +“I shouldn’t be surprised if I had lockjaw,” she said plaintively. +Isabel looked up, saw her best friend’s miserable face and the thumb in +her mouth, around which she had spoken indistinctly, and jumped up to +run over to her. + +“Did you hurt yourself, Prue darling?” she asked. + +“I struck my nail like--like--I struck my thumb nail _awful_ hard, +Isabel! Do you suppose it doesn’t hurt? I just about can’t stand the +way it aches. I think likely I’ll have lockjaw, or lose the nail, or +something.” Prue struggled to keep back the tears, but her voice was +sadder than tears. + +“Oh, no, dear!” cried Isabel. “It must be fearful, but it won’t come +off, or make lockjaw. Let me see. Poor, poor thumbling! It’s a dark +red!” + +Isabel examined the short, sturdy little thumb with the air of a whole +college of physicians, and Prue bitterly turned it and bent it back and +forth as if newly introduced to it. + +“I was not meant for a carpenter,” she said, feeling unjustly put upon. + +“Well, who was?” exploded Poppy. “I can’t get these darned----” + +“Poppy! You _must not_ say darned!” cried Prue, forgetting her pain in +her passionate desire to keep Poppy straight. + +“They are!” said Poppy. “Well then: These sweet pretty red and blue +chintz parrots, or hens, or something! I can’t get ’em on straight. And +Isa keeps a-pulling the stuff all round and how can I?” + +“Some job to saw through this box straight with a saw like a lemonade +straw, if you want to know,” Mark added to the lamenting chorus. + +“Let’s chuck it!” cried Poppy. “It’s too hard to make our own +furniture, and ’twon’t be one bit of good if we do fuss and muss it, +and all our poor fids get pounded bust!” + +“We’ve got to furnish this room, and where’d we get the money? It would +cost a lot. Mother bought some new piazza chairs, and she said the kind +that used to be about three and a half she paid seven for,” said Prue +removing her thumb to say this. It was like Prue to know about high +prices, and like her to be ready to keep on with the work in hand, +though for her it had proved to be work _on_ hand, most painful to +endure. + +The instant she had spoken she jabbed her thumb quickly between her +lips again and wriggled the fingers on the same hand because it hurt so +much. + +“Let’s go out and do stunts in the streets and people’d give us money +for it, and we’d buy furniture,” cried Poppy. + +“Oh, Poppy! They’d know us!” Isabel’s voice was horrified. + +“Sure. And not be afraid we’d be gypsies, or something, if they gave +it to us,” Poppy answered as if being known were a good thing, but she +understood Isabel nevertheless. + +“’Course we couldn’t go around like that,” said Mark. “Maybe we could +get some stuff out of people’s attics; I mean maybe people have things +they don’t use and we could borrow them, or pay for ’em by doing +errands or weeding--if they’d sell them. I’m kind of thinking we shan’t +make much of a go at tinkering boxes into chairs and tables, and by the +time we got done we’d be too old to sit down if we could do it. By the +time we got ’em done we’d be ninety-nine, and stiff from old age.” + +Isabel laughed. “Prue and I would be only ninety-eight when you were +ninety-nine, and Pops would be a young thing of ninety-six, nearly! +We’d have to stand, and let our callers sit down. Well, then, what are +we to do, Jack-in-the-Box? You’re the one that was so keen to make the +furniture, and Motherkins has given us this lovely chintz that I know +she wanted herself.” + +“Beg,” said Prue. She found it sounded like “beck” with her thumb in +her mouth, so she removed it, and went on. + +“My mother has lots of kind of wobbly chairs in the attic; so has +yours, Isa. It would be easier to brace ’em up than to fuss like this. +Besides there are some kind of outgrown, odd ones, that used to be +pretty. They are strong, but they got ugly. I don’t see why, but mother +always says when we go up there: ‘Do see those really awful chairs! And +when I was first married, and my mother bought them for me, we thought +they were beautiful!’ So they’d do for us; we’d be younger’n she was +when she was married, and maybe we’d think they were beautiful. Anyway +they’re chairs, and they’re heaps prettier than our packing box ones +would ever be, and I know mother’d let us have them.” + +“Well, so would mother,” said Isabel, her meaning, if not her +expression clear. “I suppose--But we were planning to do it all +ourselves.” + +“It’s awful silly to do things when you can’t,” said Poppy decisively. + +“I think that would be pretty clever, Miss Gladys!” laughed Mark. “All +right, then; jig’s up! Jig saw? Mine wasn’t that kind. We’ll gather up +these tools and put them all back in dad’s bench drawer. Nothing gets +my sweet-tempered dad going like having me use his tools and not put +them back! Then we’ll go out begging furniture, like survivors of a +fire.” + +“I know!” cried Poppy hopping around on her right foot, holding her +left ankle in her hand. “We’ll dress up! We must put on funny tastic +things and pretend we were all burnt up--I mean all we had in our +houses.” + +“Trust you to see a chance to dress up, Popsy!” laughed Mark. “The +word is fantastic, my dear, but I shouldn’t wonder if funny tastic was +better when you’re the one dressing up!” + +“It don’t make no odds to me, Mark Hawthorne,” said Poppy with dignity. +“I’m getting my learning as I go along, and I’m not near done with it, +and I don’t put on one single luggs, making believe I was to college.” + +Isabel dove into one of the packing cases, pretending to be searching +for a screwdriver; it never would do to let Poppy see her laugh when +Poppy was so solemnly in earnest as she then was. + +Isabel emerged flushed and short breathed. + +“We might go right to Prue’s house and mine and see what’s there,” she +said. + +[Illustration: POPPY HELD THE LINES AND ISABEL AND PRUE JOUNCED UP AND +DOWN SINGING.] + +The spring was coming on so fast that now, on the 27th of April, +the sunshine was warm enough to do away with the necessity of much +preparation for going out. Prue and Isabel and Poppy needed no more +than their blue serge coats, all similar, and their hats. Mark pulled +a slip-on sweater over his head, caught up a cap, and they were ready. +Stopping only long enough to put the borrowed tools back in their +place, the four sallied out. + +The big house, the old Hawthorne house, stood just beyond the woods. +There was a subterranean passage that had been made in Revolutionary +days, leading up to the house from the woods. It was because Mark knew +this passage and used mysteriously to appear and disappear through it, +to the wonder of Prue and Isabel, who almost suspected him of being +Peter Pan, or another citizen of fairyland, that they had dubbed Mark +Jack-in-the-Box when they had first seen him. + +Now they did not go through the hidden passage, though they had come +to use it freely themselves, but they did go by the woods; no matter +where they were going, these four children nearly always were able to +persuade themselves that the nearest way to get there was to start by +going through the woods. Much as they loved them, well as they knew +them, there was always more to love, more to discover in the woods +each time that they went into them. To-day, with the buds swelling to +bursting on the trees, the willows, distant along the brook, showing +a golden mist through the shadows; the maples red in bud; the ferns +palely green, with brown caps on their full heads, turned over like a +bishop’s shepherd-crozier, the woods were lovely as a dream, a dream +that was at the same time an assured promise of joys to come. And the +air was fragrant with arbutus, lying deep under the damp brown deposit +of last year’s leaves, modestly anxious to hide its perfection, but, +like a lovely soul, revealing itself by its sweetness as it hid. + +Isabel drew a long, inward breath. “Oh, how can it be so heavenly!” she +sighed. + +“We must go down to the brook soon and see how Château Branche is +getting on,” said Prue, forgetting to nurse her thumb. + +“Dad said we must not get up into it till he examines it, to make sure +it is strong after the winter,” said Mark. “But I’m sure it’ll be all +right. Dad built it to last. Say, isn’t it pretty nice to have a house +like that in a pine tree waiting for us when spring comes back? We’re +lucky kids!” + +“Of course it is only a platform in the branches, really,” said Prue, +the exact. “But that’s nicer than a house with a roof--and it doesn’t +rain on us unless it simply pours down.” + +“Château Branche is a house; don’t you spoil it, Prue Wayne, calling +it a platform,” cried Poppy. Prue’s literal way of getting everything +labelled exactly exasperated Poppy, and there was always within her +heart jealousy of Isabel’s affection for Prue; to Poppy Isa was +adorable perfection. On the other hand Prue had less patience with +Poppy than Isa had; her impatience, her flaming quick temper, her +sudden extremes of mood tried sensible Prue; she had to struggle to +be just to Poppy. It is to Prue’s credit that she did struggle to do +her justice, kept in mind her unfortunate childhood, and did not let +Poppy feel coolness toward her. Prue was a thoroughly good little girl, +though she was not as interesting as brilliant Mark, nor as exquisite +Isabel, nor as clever, wild little Poppy herself. + +“I won’t spoil Château Branche, Poppy; I just was thinking it was a +platform after all. But I always think of it as our house in the tree, +same’s you do,” Prue answered gently. + +“You can get some rustle in the dry places, but not like in the fall,” +said Poppy. She had forgotten her warning about Château Branche, and +was going along scuffling her feet through the piles of leaves which +eddying winter winds had heaped in places. + +“I’ll be glad when we can come here and sit around; it’s a little +weeny bit damp yet,” said Isabel with a slight shiver. + +“Race me out, the way we always did; you’ll get cold,” said Prue with +an anxious look at more delicate Isa. + +“Oh, but I can’t go straight to your house, either of your houses,” +said Poppy unexpectedly, and with trouble as to her plurals. “I forgot! +Motherkins told me this morning I had to go to the store for her some +time to-day, and this is the last chance. Come with me.” + +“Why didn’t you say so before, Poppy?” cried Prue. + +“Well, what’s the odds? We’d go through the woods anyway, and turn +around,” Poppy reminded her. + +“Nice to know,” observed Isabel, but they did “turn around,” and struck +out of the woods by another path leading to the business end of the +town, instead of keeping on toward Prue and Isabel’s homes. + +Poppy’s errand was at the grocer’s, but she also went to the druggist +to get an insect destroyer for Motherkins’ beloved garden, to do away +with the hungry slugs waiting for her plants to put up their tender +shoots. The drug store was next to the post office. Greenacres’ +postmaster was a character, a small, weazened, deformed man named +Babcock, toward whom all the children of Greenacres held two distinct +attitudes of mind in the first and second stages of their knowing him. +When they were small they were all afraid of him; his deformed body, +and sharp, curious face filled them with terror. After they were past +seven they swung from fear of him to love for Mr. Babcock; he was +eccentric, but kind, and did many things for the children that won +their gratitude; it mingled with pity for him to make them love him. + +Now, as Isabel, Prue, Poppy and Mark came out of the drug store they +saw Mr. Babcock in the post office doorway. + +“Saw you out of my private office,” he said. “How are you, Hawthorne +sprig? And how are you, Isabel Lindsay and Prudence Wayne? And you, +Miss Meiggs? Want a horse, Poppy?” + +“Oh, my gracious!” gasped Poppy. “What do you mean?” + +“A horse, a horse, a horse,” Mr. Babcock thrice repeated. “H-o-r-s-e, +an animal that used to be common, but got side-tracked by gasoline +engines and the farmers’ flivvers, but is still useful, and to my +mind beats autos. I’ve got a horse, a buckboard--old-time, sagging +buckboard!--to give away, and I sort of picked you out as the one to +have it.” + +“Me! Me!” Poppy sat straight down on the sidewalk regardless of +everything. + +“I won’t sell him. I could, to some one who’d get what was left in him +out of him in a year and let him starve after that,” said Mr. Babcock, +in a fury at his own imagining. “I won’t sell him. He’s twenty-two +years old, but he’s good for a long time, decently treated; sound and +can trot right along, not a bad looking fellow, chestnut, came of good +stock. Think your folks’d let Poppy have him, Mark?” + +“I think so, I’m sure so,” said Mark, as surprised as Poppy, but rising +to the occasion as she was too overcome to do. “My father said he’d +like to have a horse on the place. I think he’d keep yours for Poppy, +if she’d let dad use him sometimes.” + +“I won’t sell him,” said Mr. Babcock again, shaking his head hard. “I’d +just’s lieves as not Gilbert Hawthorne’d use him. When he was a littler +boy’n you are now he was as kind to animals as a lamb! But he’s to be +Poppy’s horse, mind that! _And_ her buckboard! Want to see him? Will +you have him, Poppy?” + +“Oh, my days, my days!” cried Poppy, bursting into excited tears. “I +don’t want to see him! He’s a horse, he’s alive, he goes, don’t he? Oh +my, a horse! Say, I’ll die! He’ll haul me to the cemetery first thing! +Oh, Mr. Babcock, you ain’t postmaster, you’re an angel, just an angel! +Le’me hug you! Oh my land of lollypops, I’ll bust!” + +“Well, come along to the stable; it’s better for busting than the +street, and you can see the horse,” said Mr. Babcock, laughing. “Here, +get up off the walk! I’ll hitch him up, or do you want to ask your +father first, Mark?” + +“No. Dad’ll say yes, but if he doesn’t I’ll bring the horse back. I’d +better take a bag of oats home on the buckboard,” said Mark. + +Isabel and Prue had not spoken. This was too amazing to allow of +speech. They silently followed to the stable, and were introduced to +the horse, whose long brown nose thrust itself forward over the stall +door as they entered, showing that it was used to sugar in the pockets +of visitors. + +“I’ve done my best for you, old man; I’d keep you if I could, but +you’ll be all right where you’re going. I wouldn’t sell you,” Mr. +Babcock said with a quaver in his voice. + +Poppy solemnly took the brown face between her palms and kissed the +middle of the boney nose. + +“My little darling, you are to be my child,” she said with rapturous +tears running down her own short, freckled nose. + +Mr. Babcock led the horse out. He proved to be decidedly well-built, +with fine, straight legs, a full tail, a good head. + +Mr. Babcock put on the harness and led the horse out to be backed into +the shafts of the buckboard, standing in the stable yard. + +“Get up on the seat, Poppy. He’s yours, so you drive home. He won’t +play a trick on any one, not for the world. Mark, you might get up +along side of her. Good-by, all of you. Good-by, old friend. I’ve done +my best for you. I wouldn’t sell you,” Mr. Babcock said, handing Poppy +the lines. + +Isabel and Prue climbed up on the buckboard. There was no question in +their minds of not going back to the Hawthorne house; this was too +exciting an adventure to leave unfinished. + +As the horse began to move, obedient to Poppy’s tightening of the +lines, and Mark’s order to: “Get up,” Poppy being unable to speak, +Isabel found her tongue for the first time. + +“What’s his name, Mr. Babcock?” she asked. + +“Hurrah. He was born on the day of Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay,” said +Mr. Babcock. + +He did not smile, but Isabel, Prue and Mark fell over rocking with +laughter. + +Poppy was unable so much as to hear the horse’s name. + +The quest of furniture was completely forgotten. Slowly and with +decorum, the buckboard started away, drawn by Hurrah and watched and +watched out of sight by Mr. Babcock whose eyes glistened with moisture. + +After they had gone beyond the business streets, Hurrah voluntarily +began to trot. + +Poppy held the lines and Isabel and Prue jounced up and down on the +body of the buckboard, singing with Mark at the tops of their voices: +“Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HURRAH AND HURRAHING + + +Poppy ate her supper in a daze that did not interfere with her +appetite, but did keep her from knowing what she ate. + +Mark was not much less excited. It really was an amazing thing to come +home from the post office with a horse and buckboard, “precisely as if +it had been sent parcel post,” Mark said. + +“And you would have to go down to get it, if it had come that way, +because the carrier won’t carry awful big packages,” Poppy added. + +Mr. Hawthorne had raised his eyebrows doubtfully when they asked him if +Hurrah might stay on the place, but he had not the heart to say no, and +when he saw the horse he said yes, willingly. + +“He’s not a colt, but he’s a healthy, good looking elderly gentleman, +and he’s welcome,” Mr. Hawthorne said. “You and Mark must take care of +him between you, Poppy, bed him, curry him and feed him; that’s fair if +I buy him feed. We’re the sort of people, thank God, that a horse, or +even a child more or less, can be tucked away among and not worry us.” + +“Oh, dad, you peach! I like everything about you best of anything else; +I think the best thing about you is whatever I happen to think of, but +the very best thing about you, straight, right along, all the time, is +the way you are with birds and beasts and us kids!” cried Mark, beaming +adoringly on this ideal father of his. + +After supper Mark came out on the piazza. Poppy’s rockers were making +such a racket that she did not hear him, so he stood still, shaking +with laughter, watching and listening to her. + +She was deep in a great porch rocker, clasping its arms with her thin, +well-shaped little hands. She was rocking furiously, swinging her body +forward and back with the motion of the chair. Her flaming red hair +swung forward and back as she rocked; it had the effect of flames in +the wind--and indeed her excited little brain was on fire. + +The rockers struck hard on their rear tips, then just as hard on their +front tips and made a great noise on the piazza floor as they rocked, +but high over their noise soared Poppy’s remarkably clear, true and +sweet voice, fairly shouting a song which she had just made. It +relieved her feelings, but the words were hardly poetry. + +She sang: + + “Hurrah, hurrah for Hurrah, rah, rah! + He’s brown and alive and better’n a car. + He can eat oats and hay and not old gasoline; + And his nose is so soft you might think it was cream. + Hurrah! Hurrah loves me, if I am a red-head! + He’s my own horsie darling and I’ve put him to bed.” + +In her ecstasy Poppy lurched over an arm of the chair and caught sight +of Mark, crimson from suppressed laughter, his hand over his mouth. + +“Laugh if you want to!” she shouted. “Just laugh! It’s all so, and I’ve +got a horse, and if I don’t die in the night thinking about it I’m +going to sing a whole uproar about it to-morrow. Oh, Jack-in-the-Box, +honest to goodness, am I Poppy; honest, am I?” + +“You dear child, don’t you know no one but Poppy could be so glad?” +said Motherkins coming out past Mark and taking the quivering little +body in her arms. “Dear, your head is burning and your hands are icy! +You must quiet down, childie, or you won’t be able to look after +Hurrah. Come, sit on the arm of my chair, and let us plan how we’ll +drive through sweet, shady roads with Hurrah, when it is June.” + +“You don’t know how it feels to have a horse given you. Who’ll wipe the +dishes?” cried Poppy. + +Motherkins laughed. “You and I, perhaps, after a while, but we’ll rest +first. And the day after to-morrow we shall have some one to do it for +us.” + +Mr. Hawthorne drew a chair into the farther corner of the piazza and +Mark came to sit on the arm of his chair, as Poppy sat on Motherkins’. + +“Are you bothered, dad?” whispered Mark, sensing something unnatural in +his father’s silence. + +Mr. Hawthorne rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder as the other dropped +on the rough coat of Semper Fidelis, “Semp,” his devoted dog, never far +from his master. + +“S-sh!” warned Mr. Hawthorne. “Don’t let Motherkins hear that! I don’t +know, my laddie, whether I am bothered or not, or rather whether I’m +reasonably bothered or not. I suppose I do know that I am a little +uneasy in my mind.” + +“Could I know?” hinted Mark. + +“Not to-night. If there’s anything to tell you shall know, of course. +I’m not sure that there is. You tell me, instead, what you are going +to do about furnishing your club room--isn’t it a club room? You told +me that you’d given up making the furniture,” Mr. Hawthorne diverted +Mark’s thoughts. + +“I guess the furniture gave up letting us make it!” Mark laughed. +“We’re going to see if we can’t get some, enough, from Mrs. Lindsay +and Mrs. Wayne; old stuff stored in their attics. We’re going in the +morning, Poppy and I, with Hurrah in the buckboard, and if there’s any +for us we’ll load it up.” + +“I’ll drive,” Poppy called across. She had not heard anything else that +Mark and his father had said, but she instantly caught the allusion to +Hurrah. + +Before it was light Poppy was out of bed the next morning, creeping +down the stairs, her shoes in her hand, making no more sound than a red +maple leaf makes eddying down from the tree in the wind of October. + +She put on her shoes on the back porch and sped over the wet grass, +frantic to get into the stable to see whether Hurrah were a fact or a +dream. Almost she had convinced herself that she had dreamed the whole +marvelous story, and there was no one about to tell her that her joy +was real. + +There was Hurrah, real enough, looking immense in the dim light. But +Poppy’s anxiety underwent a swift change. Hurrah was a fact, but he was +lying down! Poppy had never before seen a horse off his feet; instantly +she made up her mind that he was desperately ill. + +“Oh, my darling, my darling, my darlingest!” she wailed, bursting into +a tempest of tears. “It’s those nasty little sharp oats! I thought +they’d stick you! Oh, Hurrah, Hurrah! That you can’t do! Get up and +speak to me, angel!” + +Hurrah looked at Poppy languidly, then he yawned prodigiously, and this +finished her hope of him. She had never seen anything so alarming as +this cavernous mouth, stretched to show uneven brownish teeth. She did +not know that Hurrah was not accustomed to being called at four in the +morning and was not anxious to waken. + +Poppy turned away with a great rending sob, and rushed back to the +house, crying so hard at the top of her penetrating voice that by the +time she got to the house Motherkins, Mr. Hawthorne and Mark all had +their heads out of windows on the side of the house nearest to the +stable. + +“Poppy, dear, what is it?” cried Mr. Hawthorne. He was sure that some +one had stolen Hurrah in the night, or else that he had hung himself in +his halter. + +“Come, come, come! He’s dying! My horse is dying!” shrieked Poppy. + +“Choking in his halter probably,” said Mr. Hawthorne. “All right, +Poppy; wait there. I’ll be down in a minute.” + +“But, daddy, we didn’t put a halter on the horse,” said Mark as they +both hurried to their rooms to throw on some clothes and go to Hurrah’s +rescue. They ran to the stable, Mark and his father out-stripping +Poppy, whose breath was nearly used up from running. + +Hurrah had risen and stood sleepily looking over the low door at the +rear of his stall as his new friends entered. + +“What’s wrong with you, old chap?” asked Mr. Hawthorne, putting one +hand on the soft brown ears, the other under Hurrah’s fore leg to try +his temperature. “Why, Poppy, I don’t see anything wrong with your +horse, except that he feels, like the Sluggard: ‘you have waked me too +early, let me slumber again.’ Why did you think he was dying?” + +“He--he was lying down,” sobbed Poppy, “and he opened his mouth +fearful, as if he was sick at his stomach and gasping for breath.” + +Mark uttered a shout of pure joy and his father laughed. + +“Horses lie down to sleep; didn’t you know that, little Poppy? And he +was yawning. He doesn’t want to be called at four in the morning, at +his age. To tell the truth, neither do I! Let’s all turn in again, and +I’m afraid I’ll have to forbid your visiting Hurrah till we’re all up. +Never mind this time; I’ll wager you thought you’d dreamed him, and +came out to see if he were real.” + +Mr. Hawthorne gently rumpled Poppy’s hair, which was already +sufficiently disturbed by a night of restless tossing. + +After breakfast Mark, seated on the rear of the buckboard, with his +feet dangling, and Poppy on the seat to drive, started away in pursuit +of furniture. + +Mr. Hawthorne called after them to say that Mark must get up beside +Poppy to be ready to help her if she needed help, but otherwise +their triumphal start was not hindered, and Hurrah showed no sign of +dangerous illness. + +They found Prue at Isabel’s house. Both little girls hailed them +gleefully. + +“We didn’t believe it was so; we thought we must have imagined it, but +there he is, and you have him!” cried Isabel. “Mother, motherums, come +see the horse! Poppy’s driving him. Where’s your whip, Pops?” + +“I never strike him,” said Poppy sternly, as if she had driven Hurrah +for years. + +“Well, he’s really a nice looking horse. Really very nice! And how +happy you are, little Poppet! I am delighted that you have him.” Mrs. +Lindsay looked delighted. She had a beautiful face, sweet and calm, +with a lovely light in her eyes, the beauty of one who had suffered. +She had lost her other children in an epidemic of diphtheria; only +Isabel had been left to her, and through the brightness of her smile +shone the strength that had conquered grief unselfishly. + +“I asked my mother, and she says we may have some things she stowed +away,” said Prue. + +“And you are welcome to several chairs and a table from my attic,” +added Mrs. Lindsay. “Shall we go up and look them over? Tie Hurrah, +Mark, and come up with us.” + +The children trooped up the stairs, up the first and second flights, +but Poppy lagged behind unnaturally; she was usually ahead of the +others. She was sorely tempted to stay with Hurrah and keep flies off +him, though the flies were still not abundant. + +Mrs. Lindsay was one of those delightful people who remember precisely +what they liked when they were in short skirts with their hair braided +and ribbon-tied. + +She selected a low rocking chair that would fit any one not above four +feet high; another with a cheerful design of flowers painted on its +wooden back; a low, bulging willow armchair that had seen better days, +but might then have been stiffer; a queer old footstool covered with +worsted embroidery, and a table of oak with a drawer in it and a shelf +across the bottom which would comfortably hold games and sizable books, +besides not being too good to put one’s feet on, in case one were +writing at the table. + +“Now, with Mrs. Wayne’s contributions, you will have enough,” said Mrs. +Lindsay dusting her hands as she emerged from beneath the eaves. “But I +think I shall contribute some dishes, for I’m sure you’ll like to have +your own, in case you ever entertain. And I have a small kerosene stove +I’ll let you use, if Mrs. Hawthorne isn’t afraid of fire; it’s really +quite safe. You can boil water and make tea on it, or candy, if you +watch it and don’t let it boil over.” + +“Isn’t she the duckiest duck of a mother!” cried Isabel hugging this +Lady Bountiful of the Understanding Heart. “You see we can sort of keep +house.” + +“And my mother has a cot bed she’s going to let us have for a couch, +with a cover thrown over it, so if anything happened we could stay +right there, over night, one or two of us!” Prue added. + +“We’ll have to make a lot of trips to haul this all up on the +buckboard, but we can take our time at it,” said Mark. + +“I’m perfec’ly willing to lend my horse, but I don’t want him tired +out,” said Poppy with much dignity. + +“We’ll all walk beside him and sing to him as we march, Pops,” said +Mark, as Isabel and Prue chuckled over Poppy’s magnificence. + +It did require many trips, but the loads were light, and even Poppy was +satisfied that the effort was not too much for Hurrah’s health since +they themselves bore up well trotting along beside him. + +Mrs. Wayne had an old rug that gave the last touch of completeness to +the Club Room. They spread it in the middle of the room, and though it +did not reach far in either direction, as Prue pointed out, it made the +room look quite different than it would if the floor had been entirely +bare. + +With the cot set up and spread with a faded striped cover, and the +chairs carefully set in careless positions, as if they had just been +used, and the table with books on its four corners and a checkerboard +and steeple chase and a box of Lotto, and Authors on the shelf +underneath, and an inkstand and paper and pens and pencils placed +exactly in the middle of the table top, the room looked as though there +might be a reason for calling it a Club Room. If there were such reason +the children had no notion of what it was. There was a Club Room, but +in no true sense was there a club. + +“You may come in to see it, Motherkins,” said Mark, as Mrs. Hawthorne +peeped in at the door, asking if she might see what they had done. “Of +course we do want you to see it, but we shall ask you to come formally, +you and daddy, and Mrs. Wayne and Mrs. Lindsay--our Benefactors’ Day, +it will be, and then you must try to feel as if you hadn’t seen it +before. But come right in; we say it looks nifty; what do you say?” + +“Nifty indeed!” cried Motherkins admiringly. “Why, it’s a regular +treasure house of grandeur! And it’s in bad taste to have everything +spick and span new, as if you were all varnished, and never had +anything in all your lives before! I see that the fastening is off that +window, but that doesn’t matter.” + +“Oh, dear, no; nobody will bother these windows,” said Mark confidently. + +“Your father could put a fastening on,” Motherkins went on, as if not +satisfied to feel that the window could not be fastened. + +“Little Motherkins-wee is afraid some one will creep in here and carry +her off,” chanted Isabel, catching Mrs. Hawthorne around the waist and +making her dance. + +“Because she’s so little and so nice, nice nice!” Poppy joined in the +song, dancing around Isabel and Motherkins, waving her hands to the +rhythm. + +The children all treated Motherkins as if she were a superior sort of +toy. + +“No fear of any one getting into the Club Room,” said Mark again. + +And this showed exactly how much he knew about it! + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE CLOUD IN THE SKY + + +“Say, Isa, I’m perfectly sure something is bothering dad,” Mark said +drawing his brow into an anxious knot. + +“So am I,” Isabel agreed. “He thinks and thinks, not pleasant thoughts. +He frowns and looks straight through you as if you were cheesecloth, +and he is pale. You don’t suppose he is sick, and knows it, and is +worrying about you and Motherkins?” + +“Oh, no-o-o!” Mark shook his head so hard that the negative came out +in syllables. “There’s nothing like that the matter! I can always tell +when dad doesn’t feel well. It’s bother. I wonder what can be worrying +him now, when everything has come out so just right!” + +Isabel and Mark were on their way to get certain flower seeds which +Motherkins needed to plant her old-fashioned flower garden with all the +kinds of flowers which she had grown in that same garden long before +Mark was born. Then this great house had been her home; in the meantime +it had been lost to her, and now that she had got it back through the +return of her lost son, with a modest fortune with which to buy the old +place back, she was happily restoring her beloved garden in its old +place, with its old flowers. + +The children had offered to help Motherkins with her planting. Prue +stayed with Poppy, getting ready the seeds already on hand, while +Isabel and Mark went to supply deficiencies from the store and also to +buy a new hoe and rake “to tuck them into the bed,” Mark said. + +They came back sooner than they were expected, each with a long-handled +tool over their shoulder, and quite breathless and heated from hurrying. + +Their haste was explained by the pasteboard box which Mark carried by +its tape handle. It was a treat for the stay-at-homes--strawberry and +vanilla!--to square accounts; Isa and he had eaten their cream in the +drug store and did not want to take advantage of their friends. + +Isabel and Mark sipped cold water and watched Prue and Poppy eat +their ice cream, recovering breath meanwhile. Then all four went out +and began to dig and hoe vigorously in the garden that lay under the +eastern wall of the house under the direct rays of the morning sun, in +the best possible place for the well-being of flowers. + +It had grown warm as the sun mounted. The dining room windows were open +and Motherkins sat in one of them studying a seedsman’s catalogue when +her son came into the room. + +She looked up to greet him, and must have been struck by the troubled +look on his face which the children had been seeing, for they, working +below the window in the garden, heard her exclaim in a startled voice: + +“Why, Gilbert, dear, what is wrong? You look distressed!” + +Mr. Hawthorne dropped wearily into a chair opposite to her and rumpled +his hair in a way he had when things went wrong. Then he rumpled Semp’s +hair; he had come after him and was leaning against him. + +“Oh, distressed is a strong word, small mother!” he said laughing at +her with no sound of merriment in the laugh. “I’m all right.” + +“Aren’t you going to tell me about it, Gilbert?” said Motherkins +quietly, as if he had said that he was not all right. “I have noticed +that you looked anxious, as if something were on your mind, for several +days, but when you came in just now you startled me. You’d better tell +me, dear.” + +“You’re a great little woman for seeing what lies behind people’s +foreheads!” said her son. “When I was a child you always knew what I +didn’t tell you quite as well as what I told! I remember believing +firmly that you had a sort of X-ray wireless apparatus--only I couldn’t +have called it that--which looked through me and caught my thoughts. +Well, then, I’ll own up! I have been somewhat troubled for a few days +over what must prove to be nonsense, and to-day I had a letter that +increased the worry.” + +“A letter from----?” Motherkins waited for him to complete her sentence. + +“From a firm of lawyers of shady reputation as to honor, but with a +reputation for skill in winning cases by their tricks. I have been +keeping off telling you, but I suppose you’ve got to know.” Mr. +Hawthorne looked disgusted, but he settled back in his chair to tell +the story, pulling Semp’s ears as he talked. + +“You know, mother, I saved the life of young Maurice Ditson. He was the +son of James Ditson, who was the wealthy manufacturer--you know all +that, and how to prove his gratitude Mr. Ditson left me all the money +Mark and I have, except Mark’s small inheritance from his mother. Well, +Maurice Ditson turned out so badly that I’m afraid if his father had +lived to know about it he’d have felt that it would have been better +if I hadn’t saved his son, that it would have been better if he had +died innocent rather than lived to disgrace his father’s honorable +name. In any case, Maurice could spend all that his father and several +other millionaires could give him, and he wants now to get away from +me the money his father left to me. He’s trumped up a tale that is too +long to go into, that would set aside the will, if it could be proved. +He’s engaged Sharp and Geiger to take the case, and they have plenty +of skill and no conscience at all. So I don’t know! It’s an outrageous +attempt, of course, but that’s not saying it may not succeed, and if it +does----” Gilbert Hawthorne paused and looked at his mother. + +“If it does,” she said, “we shall lose this dear place and be poor +again?” + +“Oh, mother dear, that’s exactly what would happen!” cried Gilbert. + +“Let us hope and pray that the wickedness will be foiled. It would be +cruelly hard when we are so happy, so gratefully, cloudlessly happy +in our old home! Somehow I think the plot can’t succeed. But in any +case I have you, my son; nothing can take from me my greatest joy in +having you again. And with you our dear lad, who seems to give me you +again twice over! So at the worst I shall not be as I was before, +heartbroken, alone! You must do all that may be done to prevent this +dishonesty from succeeding, dear, and after that we will try not to +worry,” said the brave little mother. + +“You little wonder!” cried her son, jumping up to pick his small mother +up bodily and hug her hard in his relief that she took his dreaded +revelation so quietly. “You may be sure I’ll do all I can to defeat +Maurice Ditson! Why, mother, the few thousands his father left me, and +which the fine old fellow wanted me to have--and more!--was nothing out +of the great fortune which he left Maurice, and which he has already +wasted!” + +“No. Mr. Ditson was deeply indebted to you; it was justice to prove his +gratitude. Well, dear, in the meantime the garden is to be sown, I hope +for us to enjoy, but whatever is to come, to-day the garden is to be +sown and planted! Will you help us? Try to put this whole dismal matter +out of your mind. It is a lovely day to be making a garden!” + +Little Mrs. Hawthorne arose as she spoke and crossed over to gather +up from the table the boxes into which Prue and Poppy had put the +envelopes of seeds which they had assorted. She was a tiny woman, +almost like a creature all soul and no body, but the spirit in that +little frame was high and brave; it knew how to meet prosperity or +misfortune. + +The children beneath the window had clearly heard every word that had +been said by the mother and son. They had made no pretense of working, +but had stood listening, horror-stricken, to what had been said. + +Now Mark, white-faced, with blazing eyes, threw down the hoe upon which +he had been leaning. + +“It can’t happen, you know!” he whispered hoarsely. “It would be too +awful. It can’t possibly happen.” + +“But you know, Jack-in-the-Box, the things too awful to happen are the +ones that do happen, quite often. It frightens me!” said Isabel, and +her dilated eyes showed that it did frighten her. + +“If you had to leave this dear, dear old house----” began Prue, looking +grim, but Poppy interrupted her with a scream of rage, dancing up and +down in a frenzy. + +“We won’t, we sha’n’t, we won’t!” she cried. “We’ll get guns and drag +’em up the secret passage! We’ll boil water and pour it on ’em! We’ll +chuck ’em in the cellar with straw on top ’em and set ’em afire! Let +’em try to take this house! And if they took it I’d earn money for +Mis’ Hawthorne, ’nough, too! I’ll get that nice glass bottle man, +what deals in ’em, over to Hertonsburg, what picked me up the day I +went off, long ago, last year, and took me home to his house, to show +me how to make money out of bottles, or something. His wife was awful +smart--and nice. I’ll take boarders. Oh, Mark, Mark--Oh, Motherkins, +Mr. Daddy, don’t let ’em take your money and your life!” + +Poppy hurled herself upon little Motherkins and her son as they came +into the garden, ending her appeal with a form of words which she must +have somewhere heard and retained. + +“Oh, dear, we forgot the children, especially Poppy!” said Mrs. +Hawthorne in dismay. “Of course they heard every word! Poppy, child, +it’s far better to be poor than not to be able to control yourself. You +must learn to be quiet. You are shaking and are cold! None of us is +excited. You never will be helpful, a useful, wise, strong woman, if +you fly off like a Fourth of July sparkler over everything that stirs +you. But I know it is because you love me.” + +[Illustration: SO THEY WENT ON SOWING THE WHOLE GARDEN FULL OF +OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS.] + +Motherkins stooped to stroke the frizzy, flaming hair and to kiss the +quivering face. + +“All little Motherkins’ pills are sugar coated,” laughed Mark. + +Poppy choked, and shook, and swallowed hard for a few moments, while +Motherkins continued to soothe and smooth her. Then she straightened +herself and said: + +“I will, I will, honest to goodness, I will! I’ll keep the lid on. That +time I ran off and stopped over night to Mr. Thomas Burke’s, my nice +bottle man’s--906 North Street, Hertonsburg, is where ’tis--he told me +I’d be fine if I’d only keep the lid on, so I shall. I’d love to have +you poor if I could earn tons of money and give it to you, to sorter +pay back.” + +“I shouldn’t be poor, Poppy dear, if you gave me tons of money,” +laughed Motherkins. “Don’t worry, child! You are too little a girl to +worry, and I’m sure we shall all be happy till the stars have eaten up +the moon because it is made of green cheese!” + +The four children laughed over this suggestion, then Prue frowned and +began to say: “But it isn’t, you know, Mrs. Hawthorne,” when Mark +drowned her out, crying: + +“They’ve begun to nibble at it already, Motherkins! There’s only a half +piece in the sky; I saw it last night. Does the Dog Star--Sirius--eat +the most?” + +“Silly thing!” said Poppy, with a grown-up manner. “There’s terrible +much place for garden everywheres on this place. I wish I could have a +piece to raise stuff to sell, if we get poor.” + +“Why, so you may!” cried Mr. Hawthorne, kindly refraining from pointing +out the fact that if they became poor the place would no longer be +theirs. + +“Help yourself, Poppy! Pick out the spot you like best and I’ll have +it dug up for you and raked smooth and we’ll see what sort of a farmer +you’ll be.” + +“I’ll be a very good raiser, I know that, because I ain’t lazy,” said +Poppy, with no mock modesty. “If you want to raise things you’ve got to +work like everything, that’s what you have. And I ain’t--am not lazy.” + +“We could help you,” remarked Isabel wistfully, her eyes and voice +betraying how much she would like a share in this enterprise. + +“Mr. Daddé,” as Isa used to call Mark’s father when she first knew +him because his name was a secret and she only knew Mark’s name for +him--Daddy, “Mr. Daddé” saw that Isabel envied Poppy her promised +garden, and he also saw what profitable pleasure there might be in a +garden apiece for them all. + +“Instead of helping Poppy, why don’t each of you take a piece of land +and see what you can get out of it? I’ll spade the gardens myself, four +of them, each wherever its owner prefers it, and then do whatever you +like, each of you; plant what you please, make your garden the kind +you’d rather have. We’d have a sort of county fair of our own when they +all got bearing!” he said. + +“Say, daddy!” cried Mark struck with admiration. + +“I’d perfectly love it!” Isabel spoke with bated breath. Immediately +she added: “And I’d raise mignonette and sweet peas in mine----” + +“Me for lettuce!” shouted Prue excitedly. + +“Radishes! Red ’uns, like me!” shouted Poppy. “And peas--to eat, not +your no-good kind, Isa.” + +“Well, string beans seem about all I can choose,” said Mark. “I suppose +as long as I’m Jack-in-the-Box I may as well be Jack and the Bean +Stalk, too.” + +“Splendid!” cried Mr. Hawthorne. “No two alike, so each of you can be +first in your own class. Come along and pick out garden sites.” + +“Oh, Gilbert, my poor flower seeds!” his mother remonstrated. + +“Well, daddy!” cried Mark. “Walk right off like that and leave tiny +Motherkins to shift for herself! Come on, girls. I’ll make a trench and +you come over the top and take it, and fill it up with whatever our +General-in-chief, Motherkins, says. We’ll pick out gardens after we +plant this one. What’s in the front trench, General Motherkins? That’s +the most dangerous line.” + +“Brave little dwarfs, Mark--candytuft. They’re not afraid of the +enemy,” said Motherkins entering into the play-work, and giving the +three little girls each a paper of seeds to scatter in the shallow +trench which Mark made with a stick and stood ready to cover as they +sowed. + +So they went on sowing in rows, in squares, in circles, the entire +garden full of old-fashioned flowers, fragrant and modest, flaunting +and graceful, tall and short, “Just as I used to have it years ago!” +sighed Motherkins contentedly. Then she sighed again anxiously, +remembering that Gilbert had said that it was possible that she might +lose again this beautiful old place, and that if it did happen the +parting from it would this time be final. + +At last the garden was sown and all the seeds “tucked into their beds,” +Isabel said. Dirty and tired, but with their enthusiasm unabated, the +four children followed Mr. Hawthorne across the grass to inspect the +various sites for possible gardens. Semp--Semper Fidelis, living up to +his name--Bunkie, and round, gray Pincushion, who adored Bunk, all of +whom had superintended the laying out of Motherkins’ garden, marched +behind their human friends to seek for more gardens to lay out. + +There was considerable difference of opinion as to the best spots. The +discussion stood in some danger of growing unpleasant because Poppy was +tired enough to be more than ordinarily inflammable, and Prue was tired +enough to have less patience with her than ordinarily--and at best Prue +had not great patience with excitable little Poppy. + +The decision was made easier by Isabel, the peacemaker, who suggested +that it would be far pleasanter to have all four gardens close together. + +“You see,” she said, in her sweet, soothing voice that always fell on +the ear like the soft touch of a cool hand on a fevered head, “we’d be +tired to death working and working when it got hot, all by ourselves, +where we couldn’t call over to one another, back and forth. If +Daddy-dear doesn’t mind, why not divide off that nicest easterly field +into quarters, and give us each a corner quarter?” + +“Daddy-dear” did not mind; he cordially approved, and so it was done. +By the next day the ground was plowed, harrowed and raked fine, and +the gardens, one exactly as good as the other, were apportioned. Thus +the children were installed as gardeners, precisely as if there were no +threat of the Hawthorne place being lost to its owners. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +“THE LUCKY FOUR” + + +“Isa, child, do you realize that you and I are growing to be merely +calling acquaintances? That you are gone all day long, after your +practice and reading are done, and that we meet only at meals, +sometimes not then? It is painful to see my only child slipping into +a calling acquaintance, and to foresee that some day I may say: Miss +Lindsay? Miss _Isabel_ Lindsay? Oh, yes; I do know her! She calls on me +occasionally; I do not return her calls.” + +Mrs. Lindsay tried to look pathetic, and succeeded so well that Isabel, +though she knew that her mother was playing with her, threw herself +upon her with a rush and hugged her violently. + +“Mother, you darling, dreadful mother! You know I’m not so awful as +that!” she cried. “But there’s so much, so _very_ much to do!” + +“I had to try not to be pleased that school closed in April,” Mrs. +Lindsay went on in a pensive tone as she smoothed her disordered +garments. “It seemed wicked to be glad when the school had to close +because so many children had measles, but I had to try hard not to be +glad--and I’m not sure I succeeded!--because I was to have my daughter +at home. And she deserts me! It is a blow. She gives me our twilight +hour’s talk, but I may lose that.” + +“Mother, stop!” begged Isabel. “I know you don’t mean it, but it’s +horrid, because it would be so horrid if you did mean it! You know I +wouldn’t miss my hour for anything in the world! It’s the loveliest +thing ever to sit down with you every night in the dusk and tell you +every single thing that I’ve done all day! But, mother, only think +all that we four have now! There’s the Club Room, all our own, and we +love it! And our gardens, and the things are poking right up since it +came so warm after this rain! And the woods to go to, which we’ve got +to love best of all, forever. And the secret passage, though we don’t +like to go through it much; it’s so dark and damp and probably spidery, +but it’s great to know it’s there, and it’s another of our places. And +there’s Château Branche. We haven’t been up in it yet, but now it’s +warm we thought we might go up and sit there this afternoon. Really, we +are so busy! I think we are pretty lucky to have all these places our +own. We are a sort of society, or club, or something now; our name is +‘the Lucky Four,’ and our badge is a four-leafed clover. I named us; +isn’t it fine?” + +“Fine, indeed!” Mrs. Lindsay dropped her pretense of feeling abused, +and sympathized with Isabel’s pleasure, which was also her own +pleasure; the greatest joy she had was her beloved little girl’s +happiness. + +“Are you going to Château Branche this afternoon? Because if you are +I’ve a fairly good-sized box of candy that might enjoy the Château, if +you’d take it with you and open it there,” she said. + +“Mother, mother, there’s no other mother on earth like you!” Isabel +declared, as she declared so often that it was like a refrain to a song +that was hard to stop singing. “You think of such nice things!” + +“Candy?” queried Mrs. Lindsay. + +“And having it to take up into Château Branche to open there; that’s +one of them,” Isabel tempestuously embraced her mother over again. +“Now, I’ve got to go, duckie mother, or I’ll be late. Good-by till +half-past five.” + +Isabel ran out calling: “Hoo-hoo-oo-oo,” for Prue to hear and join her. + +Prue heard; she had been listening for the call, and was ready to run +the moment it fell on her ear. The two inseparable friends put their +arms around each other and went on happily, chattering as if they had +parted a month before, instead of at dinner time. + +They met two little girls of their own age, schoolmates of theirs, who +stopped them. Kathie Stevens, the taller of the two, moved and spoke +energetically; she had a wilful face, with a snap in her eyes. Dolly +Harding, her friend, was shorter, decidedly plump, with round features +and a placid look that at the same time hinted of obstinacy. Dolly was +inclined to be lazy, while Kathie was more energetic than was always +pleasant. Prue and Isabel liked them, but they were too satisfied with +each other and Mark--Poppy, too, added to their pleasure--to have much +interest left to give any one else. + +“Hello, Prue ’n Isa!” cried Kathie as they came toward one another from +opposite directions. “Say, we saw that funny Poppy Meiggs just a while +ago!” + +“Did you?” Isabel answered. “What made her funny?” + +“She is, all the time; she’s _funny_!” Kathie found it easier to repeat +her statement than to explain it. “She said you’d got up a club.” + +“Well, kind of,” Prue admitted warily, foreseeing danger. “It’s just +us, same’s before, only we call it a club.” + +“Lucky Four, Pop said it was,” Kathie persisted. + +“Well, that’s what we _call_ it,” Prue said, as if it might, +nevertheless, be almost anything else. + +“Say, girls,” Kathie spoke so vehemently that the two words seemed to +pop like corn on a popper, “say, let us be in it! Don’t be piggish with +your club. Let us belong. We want to, don’t we, Doll?” + +“Surest thing in the world, we want to,” Dolly approved her. “We think +you might. We’d like to know why not? We wouldn’t hurt it, would we? +More the merrier!” + +“It wouldn’t be the Lucky Four if it was six,” said Isabel, uttering +the first words that came into her head, to gain time. She knew +instantly that she and Prue did not want Kathie and Dolly to join the +club, and that Mark and Poppy would not want them; she was not at all +sure that “more” would be “merrier,” but she had no idea of how to +refuse the petition. + +“Oh, well, my gracious! Can’t we change the name? Lucky Six is just as +good, even if you can’t have a four-leaf clover for the badge--Poppy +said that’s what you took. Have six rings all hitched together, in a +circle, like doughnuts, for the badge. Just ’s good!” Kathie resumed +her pleading. + +“I shouldn’t care about doughnuts for my club badge,” said Prue, coming +to Isabel’s rescue before she could speak again. She knew it was hard +for Isa to say no to any one who wanted her to say yes, and Prue was +afraid Isa’s tender-heartedness would give them two more club members +on the spot unless she interfered. + +“We couldn’t let you join right off like this, Kathie. We’d have to put +it to Mark and Poppy and let them vote on it, have a club meeting or +something, to decide, you know. We’re not the whole club; we’re only +half,” she said. + +Isabel looked at Prue with profound admiration. She certainly was the +most sensible person! And her sense kept her out of scrapes into which +Isabel’s greater sweetness, her sensitive desire to make everything +pleasant, often landed her. + +“Well, I suppose that’s fair,” Kathie admitted grudgingly. “We’ll go +right along with you now and put it up to Mark and Poppy, then we’ll +know how it went.” + +“Oh, but clubs have to vote by themselves; only members there. You +mustn’t come unless we let you belong,” Prue cried. + +Dolly set her chin in a way she had that meant she had first set her +mind. “It isn’t so much of a club. We’re going now,” she said. + +And go they did, Kathie taking Prue by the arm, Dolly linking herself +with Isabel with so much decision that poor Prue and Isa saw no way to +prevent what they felt was an unwarrantable intrusion. + +Mark and Poppy would be waiting for them at Château Branche; not in +it, for they would be sure to wait for Isabel and Prue to help them +up, and not choose places till they were there to choose fairly. There +was one side of the platform in the tall pine tree, which was the +children’s beloved summer house, that was not quite level, and these +four honorable comrades were all equally anxious not to get the best +of one another. So Mark and Poppy would surely wait till they had all +assembled to mount together into their beautiful perch. + +“This is the first time this year,” said Prue, as they came through the +spring-green woods and espied the tree, with Mark and Poppy waiting +beside it, as they had expected. + +“I know it is,” said Isabel, her voice answering in its mournful tone +Prue’s meaning, which was: “The first time this year, and Dolly and +Kathie here!” + +“Well, hello, Dolly; hello, Kathie,” said Mark, striving to greet the +guests politely, but unable to greet them cordially. + +Poppy frowned openly. “It’s a club now,” she remarked. + +“We met the girls,” Prue at once plunged into an explanation to give +Mark a clew to what had happened. “They want to join our club--we’d +have to change the name, of course. And we said we couldn’t let ’em +without talking to you. So they came along. I told them we had to meet +first.” + +Kathie saw the dismay that Mark could not keep out of his eyes, and +that Poppy fairly glowered, looking ready to do more. + +“You let us join this,” she said instantly, “and we’ll do something for +you. We’ll kind of belong hitched on, not inside, so you can keep on +being the Lucky Four, if you want to. That can be the real club, and +we’ll be--I don’t know what we’d call it--just kind of belong, hitched +on. And I’ve got a whole nice, awful nice, collection of old coins. I +don’t want ’em, but they’re perfectly fine; I know that. You and Prue +and Isa love history, Mark, so you’d be crazy over ’em. Some of ’em +were Roman emperors’ money; pretty near two thousand years old, they +are. I’ll divide ’em up with you three--Poppy wouldn’t care any more’n +I do for ’em--and I won’t keep one myself, if you’ll let Doll and +I--Doll and me--into the club. How’s that? We could pretend the coins +were the club’s treasure!” + +“Is that bribery, Mark?” asked Isabel. + +“N-no,” Mark decided slowly. “It’s a fair offer. It’s kind of like +tribute paid to the king to be allowed to belong to his kingdom. That’s +all right. I’d love the coins. But, honestly, Kathie, you see this is +just ourselves, and we have such nice times! It’s kind of risky to let +in some one else. Suppose we let you come on trial? I don’t want to let +any one in for keeps till we know how it works.” + +“But he doesn’t want to be selfish with our lovely times, and we do +like you both, you know that,” Isabel hastily interposed with her smile +that always disarmed wrath, for she saw that Kathie looked indignant, +and that Dolly was by no means pleased. + +“Everybody keeps their own house for themselves, no matter if ’tis +nice, and they are happy. They don’t take in boarders, just ’cause it’s +nice,” said Poppy, her meaning only too plainly showing through her +figure of speech. + +“Oh, well, on trial,” said Prue. “Want to join that way, girls?” + +“All right. Any way you say,” agreed Kathie, banishing her annoyance. +“You’ll like us; we’ll be good clubbers. And I’ll bring the coins +to-morrow.” + +“Just to look at. We wouldn’t let you divide them till you are taken +in,” said Mark firmly, as if he were afraid that he might be tempted. + +“Now, let’s get up,” said Dolly, weary of waiting so long to get her +way. + +The children clambered up into Château Branche. Mark’s father had +improved its entrance by footholds of wood nailed to the side of the +tree; last year the climb had been difficult for the girls. + +“O my! It’s worth more than coins to come here!” cried Kathie, catching +her breath delightedly. + +“We just love it,” said Isabel, softening toward the intruder when she +found her so enthusiastic. “But we have company here. You could come +here, if you didn’t belong, and without any coins.” + +It was beautiful. No one could have resisted its loveliness. Lying +back on their abundant pillows, the children looked up through the +dark green pine, now pungent with the spring scent of newly mounted, +resinous sap, to see the flecks of deep blue that were revealed as the +branches moved in the breeze. Birds hopped about, most of them bits of +motion, rather than color or shape, so thick were the pine needles, +so heavy the shadows. But close above the branches which held Château +Branche robins were darting in and out, nest-building. At first they +doubted the children, discussing them between themselves with sharp +chirps and nervous tail twitching, but finally they decided that human +beings who had bird habits and nested in trees must be trustworthy, and +resumed their work without any more delay. It was easy to see, by the +short time between their trips after supplies and the rapid way they +tucked those supplies into the growing nest, that there was no time to +lose. For a long time--a long time for six children to be still--no one +spoke. Then Isabel said softly: + +“It would be nice to be dead and lying out under the trees, all quiet +and lovely, among birds and grass and flowers, if only your body could +know it was there, wouldn’t it be?” + +“Oh, Isabel!” cried Dolly, in strong protest and horror. + +But Mark smiled at Isabel and nodded. + +“I’ve thought that, too, Isa,” he said. “But we can have it all and be +alive; that’s still better.” + +“Mother gave me a box of candy to open,” said Isa, sitting up and +throwing off her dreams by an effort that showed. + +She produced the box, two pounds, and the six fell upon it as if +Château Branche were a desert island on which they had been shipwrecked +without food for days. + +It doesn’t take long to do away with two pounds of candy when there +are six to eat it; after all, that is only a wee bit over five ounces +apiece! Mrs. Lindsay had not reckoned on the extra two. When the candy +was gone the spell of the quiet woods seemed broken; Kathie and Dolly +grew restless and wanted to go down again. + +“You can’t keep quiet a whole afternoon,” said Kathie. + +“We do. We read and talk and just sit and look. We never get tired,” +said Prue disapprovingly. + +But they all came down, Mark with Pincushion on his shoulder in the +fashion of the preceding summer when Isabel and Prue had first known +him and Pincushion had been a kitten. Bunkie was waiting for them, and +they all wandered slowly through the woods, toward the Hawthorne house. + +“Show us the Club Room, too; Pops said you had a club room,” said Dolly. + +“We have,” said Mark. “This way, then.” + +He led the way through the house, into the room at its rear which the +children claimed. It was furnished abundantly with the contributions +from the families which had helped it to completion, albeit the odds +and ends effect was somewhat queer, decidedly odds-and-endish. + +“Now, I like this!” cried Kathie delightedly. “Isn’t it great to have +this all our own? And dishes! Why, what fun! I’m going to give a party +here--just us members!” she added, seeing disapproval of her instant +taking possession gathering on the other faces. “You could climb up +outside. Why don’t you come in that way always? Lots nicer.” + +“Isabel and I like the stairs,” said Prue primly. + +Poppy looked for the first time as if she found Kathie an addition to +the club ranks. + +“We will,” she said. “Us, anyway, Kathie.” + +“Let’s be the Lucky Four and a Half--six, you know!” cried Dolly. + +“We’ll see,” Mark said cautiously. “Maybe yes; maybe no. But you come +and try. We don’t want things happening here to change it.” + +But Mark was to discover things happening there, and that soon. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE DEAR HOUSE + + +Dolly and Kathie did not appear the next day. “The Lucky Four” had been +sure that they would come, they were so delighted with the idea of the +club and so anxious to belong to it. + +It was the second day before they came, however. Isabel, Prue, Mark and +Poppy were working hard in their gardens. Poppy always worked hard in +hers; it seemed doubtful if anything planted in it could escape being +hoed up, so hard and so recklessly did she weed it. + +Kathie and Dolly came across the grass toward the workers so slowly, +and Kathie’s face was so flushed and woe-begone that Isabel noticed it +and called: “What’s the matter?” as soon as she could make Kathie hear. + +“Nothing. Aren’t you going up to the club room?” Kathie called back. + +“We’re going to work out here exactly one hour; we’ve been at it twenty +minutes, only, so you may as well find the nicest seat on the ground +there is and wait for us,” said Mark. + +“Oh, my land! More’n half an hour!” groaned Kathie, but Dolly bumped +down under a tree, where the grass grew thick, and, picking a blade, +began to blow on it without wasting time on argument. + +“Why don’t you leave it, and do it in the morning before it gets hot?” +Kathie asked impatiently. + +“We work one hour in the morning, one in the afternoon, Miss Stevens, +for we are out after first-class gardens,” Mark answered loftily. + +“If I had a hoe I’d help, then you’d get through sooner,” said Kathie. + +“No, you wouldn’t--thanks just the same,” Prue spoke with decision. +“Nobody who hadn’t planted it could tell what to dig up when things are +starting. I wouldn’t let any one loose to dig my garden for the world.” + +“You might think I was a hen!” grumbled Kathie, throwing herself down +beside Dolly and joining in her blade of grass solo with a louder, +shriller blade. + +“Bet you didn’t bring those cones!” exclaimed Poppy, who had been +eyeing the pair sharply. + +“Did, too; here they are.” Kathie motioned to a box which she had +carried as if it were heavy. “They’re not cones; they’re coins, Poppy +Meiggs, and I got them; they are here. I won’t open them till we’re in +the club room, and then I’ll tell you something.” + +“We’ll be as quick as we can, Kathie,” said Isabel. + +“We can’t be quicker than twenty minutes, because we said we’d work an +hour, and we can’t stop sooner.” Prue was the firm person who made this +announcement. “Jack-in-the-Box keeps the time; we’re wasting some.” + +One worker in each corner of the lot given over to these gardeners, the +hoes dug fast from this moment in a silence broken only by the dreadful +cries of the grass blowers, getting horrible sounds, now high, now low, +from the helpless blades. + +“Time’s up!” Mark announced at last, looking at his wrist watch. “Say, +it’s a whole lot easier to eat vegetables than it is to raise them!” + +“I guess it is! I’ve got a crick in my back from my neck all the way to +my heels,” Prue said, straightening herself with a heavy sigh. + +“Quite a long back, Prue. You’ll be tall when you’re grown up,” +remarked Isa. + +“It begins as a crick in my back. I suppose it gets to be cramp in my +legs after a while. Let’s make lemonade in our glasses in the Club +Room,” Prue suggested. + +“No lemons, no sugar! I’ll go buy ’em,” cried Poppy, tired, but always +ready to do errands. + +“But there are! Both things, Pops; I took them there yesterday. There +are nice lemons, the plump, smooth kind, and two pounds of sugar.” Prue +enjoyed the triumph of her foresightedness, though the rest expected +Prue to think of things of this sort. + +The six children went toward the house, the workers mopping their +crimson faces, Kathie and Dolly still blowing grass till Isabel, warm +and tired, begged them to stop. + +“All right; I don’t like it myself, much, but it’s something you keep +right on doing, once you start, though I get awful sick of it before +long,” said Dolly, amiably throwing away her grass blade. + +“I’m going to climb in,” announced Kathie, surveying the balcony, which +was built out from one of the windows of the Club Room, and the roof of +the piazza, which ran all along the rear of the house, below the room. + +“Oh, don’t, Kathie! The posts may be weak,” protested Isabel. + +“’Course they’re not!” Kathie maintained. “I love to climb. Now, you +all watch me go up! Here, some one, take my box. Don’t lose it; it’s +the coins. Now, watch!” Kathie spat on her hands like a boy, but +she went up the piazza post and swung on the balcony like a monkey. +Wriggling her body expertly, she got herself into position to catch the +top of the balcony rail, from which it was no feat to get over and open +the window into the club room. + +“Hey-yeh, pokies, I’m in! Hurry up if you’re coming through the house!” +she called down. + +The others made haste to join her by the usual way, and the moment that +she got inside the door Prue made a dash for her lemons, while Poppy +caught up the club’s own private and particular water pitcher, and ran +off for water. + +“Do show us the coins, Kathie,” said Mark. “I’m wild to see them.” + +“Well, I will,” began Kathie slowly. “But, look here! You said you +wouldn’t divvy them up till I regularly belonged? Well, if I never +divvied, couldn’t I belong?” + +“Oh, oh! Injun giver!” exclaimed a frowning Poppy, appearing in the +doorway with a steaming water pitcher, spilling its contents over the +top. + +“No, honest; no, I’m not!” Kathie cried eagerly. “But my father says I +can’t give them away, and so I can’t. ’Tisn’t my fault. I’d do it in a +jiffy, but if he says I can’t, why, how can I?” + +“Thought they were yours!” observed Prue, disgustedly, not because she +cared the least bit for the coins, but because she thought she had +caught Kathie pretending. + +“They are mine. But they aren’t mine to do what I please with; not +now,” Kathie was quick to explain. “They were left to me, in a will; +some one father knew left ’em. They are mine, but father says I can’t +do one thing with them till I’m grown up and can tell a hawk from a +handsaw. That’s what he said; I don’t know what he meant, but I suppose +that’s two kinds of coins. I’ll show you how they are; they’re awful +old! Some of ’em go all the way back to Julius Cæsar and to old Egypt.” + +“Oh, Kath, honest!” cried Mark, instantly excited; he was studying +Cæsar with his father, out of school, and the great Roman was one of +his heroes--Mark had many heroes, and so had Isabel. + +Kathie opened the case that held the coins and began laying them out on +the table. + +“I couldn’t bring all. This isn’t half, but it was so heavy Dolly and I +had to keep shifting hands; she helped me carry them,” Kathie said. + +“We know it’s heavy; we carried it up stairs,” said Prue, coming over +with the brown paper bag of sugar in her hands. “They’re not so much; +just pieces of money. Our money’ll be nice ages from now.” + +“Lots of people think it’s pretty nice now,” laughed Isabel. “I think +these coins are perfectly wonderful! Only think, when this one was made +in England George Washington was a little boy----” + +“Cutting down a cherry tree!” Prue interrupted her unexpectedly. “What +of it if he was? We all know he had to be a little boy first. I think +it’s silly to make a fuss over that! Like it very sweet, Kath and Doll? +I don’t want to put in so much sugar that it stays at the bottom.” + +“I guess I like it same as the rest,” said Kathie, and Dolly also +thought that she did. + +“Oh, Mark, Mark, please see! This one is Queen Elizabeth! Shakespeare +had one like this in his pocket, most likely!” sighed Isabel, almost +tearful from emotion. + +“He didn’t have much money in his pocket, did he?” laughed Mark. “Yes, +Isa; it does make you feel funny, doesn’t it? But only see this one! +Cæsar!” + +“You didn’t say whether it made any difference about my belonging, now +I can’t divide up the coins,” hinted Kathie anxiously. + +“Oh, it won’t; it isn’t your fault,” said Dolly easily. “And I’m going +to belong, and I haven’t one thing to do with the coins.” + +“We thought we’d call it half-membership for awhile. Then we can go +either way with the other half. That’s fair, not to decide too soon, +isn’t it?” Isabel’s voice betrayed her anxiety not to offend Kathie and +Dolly. + +“I’ve thought of such a splendid plan! There’s the secret passage into +this house! Nobody, hardly, knows about it, and nobody ever goes into +it. Put the box down there--it’s as safe as safe; safer than in any +house--and let’s play it is buried treasure. We could have lots of fun +knowing it was there and keeping it secret. Will you do that, Kathie?” + +“And I belong?” Kathie would not yield her point. + +“Y-es, but half-membership!” said Isabel, and Kathie accepted the terms. + +“Well, this lemonade certainly does taste fine!” said Dolly, sipping +hers with a spoon and letting the refreshing drops trickle down her +throat. “I’d rather have this than the coins!” + +“They’re different,” Kathie needlessly remarked. “Both are good, I +guess; I can tell more about lemonade myself. Doll, we’ve got to get +back. Didn’t your mother say something about your getting dressed +early?” + +“Oh, mercy! ’Course she did! Her aunt, my great aunt, is coming, and +I’ve got to be fixed up; mother’s terribly anxious to please her. And +she’s as big as a haystack and just as deaf! Come on, Kathie; mother’ll +never forgive me if I don’t get to the station to meet her.” Indolent +Dolly sighed with real dismay at the prospect before her and slowly got +on her feet. + +“I’ll take you down,” said Poppy, with a splendid air of young +ladyhood. “I can harness my horse myself now; he’s just as gentle as a +cream peppermint, and I’ll drive you home.” + +“Maybe we would get there quicker if we walked; maybe he is as slow as +a cream peppermint!” cried Kathie cruelly. + +“Then walk ’f you think so!” cried Poppy, angry in an instant. “Hurrah +is a lovely, lovely horse, and he goes like everything! Just walk! +Serves you right!” + +“You harness and let me go, too, Pops! Show them how Hurrah trots,” +whispered Isa into Poppy’s burning ear. “Take us all down; Prue, too, +and meet Mr. Daddé and bring him home. He’s coming on the 4.30 train.” + +“All right, Isa, for you I will. Not for any one who consults Hurrah,” +said Poppy. She meant “insults Hurrah,” but Isabel did not correct her. + +It was true that Poppy had learned to harness her pet. She was small +for her not-great age, and had to stand on a box to do it, but Hurrah +knew, like the good and intelligent creature that he really was, that a +small girl must be considered. He put down his head for the bridle, and +moved over exactly as Poppy bade him, she meanwhile straining her arms +over his back, but refusing help, for her joy in Hurrah and being about +him increased with each day. + +The five little girls piled on the buckboard, leaving to Mark, who was +not going with them, the task of placing the box of coins in the secret +passage. + +Bunkie jumped up beside Isa as a matter of course; the small dog +enjoyed and approved the sociable, springy buckboard with all his might. + +Poppy gathered up the lines and ordered Hurrah to “get up,” with a +dignity intended to show how many years she had driven spirited steeds. + +Hurrah had preserved through his two decades an excellent gait. As he +trotted off down the driveway, and thence on down the street, Poppy +glanced scornfully over her shoulder at Kathie and Dolly, as one who +would say: + +“Now do you see?” yet disdained to say it. + +But she did say as they drew near the Harding and Stevens houses, which +stood next each other: + +“I hope I can stop him! You get off quick, girls, ’cause Hurrah hates +to stand.” + +“Good-night. We’ll be right up to the club!” Kathie called back as +Hurrah started up the instant they were off, as if he were young and +impatient, but Isabel, sitting beside Poppy, saw the twitch that young +jockey gave the lines. + +Isabel and Prue stayed with Poppy as she drove toward the station, +instead of going straight home. It was understood between them and +Mark that Poppy was not to be left alone with her horse; quiet though +Greenacres streets were, Poppy was capable of getting into trouble in +them. + +Mr. Hawthorne came from the train before they reached the station. He +took off a new straw hat and waved it gayly at the children, but all +six sharp eyes saw that the handsome face beneath the hat was grave and +anxious. + +“Oh, dear Mr. Daddé, is it all right?” Isabel ventured to ask, after he +had jumped on the buckboard and it had been turned around, a feat that +always frightened Poppy more than it would have done had she realized +that Hurrah attended to the doing of it himself, leaving nothing to +her. Evidently he had no more confidence in Poppy’s wisdom in directing +him than she had herself. + +“Dear little Isa, we must try to feel that it is all right, but +it looks as though it might not be as we want it to be,” said Mr. +Hawthorne sadly. “My lawyers told me to-day that Maurice Ditson has +made out a case that promises success for him. He claims that his +father’s will was not valid--I won’t try to explain to you how he +proves it. My lawyers are sure that he is hiring false witnesses, that +the whole thing is what they call ‘a frame up,’ fraud, you know! But +the thing is to prove that it is fraud, and my lawyers seem to fear it +may be more than difficult. If Maurice Ditson gets his case I lose the +money his father left to me, and----” + +“The house? Oh, the house?” cried Isabel, clasping her hands. + +“The house. Not because Ditson can claim that, but because it would +have to be sold; I put some of the money into buying it.” Mr. Hawthorne +showed how hard this was to say. + +With a wail that made a man passing stop short and stare at them, Poppy +burst out crying. + +“Hurrah, oh, Hurrah? Would my darling go?” she shrieked. + +“Perhaps we can keep him to help us to earn our living, little Poppy,” +said Mr. Hawthorne, smiling, though his eyes were profoundly sad. + +“I was so happy in putting my little mother back into her old home,” he +added. + +“Oh, yes, oh, yes! And her garden, and the old flowers, and +everything!” cried Isabel. “Oh, dear, Mr. Daddé, it can’t happen, it +can’t possibly happen! But if it does, Motherkins has you and Mark, and +that’s more than a house.” + +“I try to remember that, dear little loving heart!” Mr. Hawthorne’s +smile for the child he dearly loved was tender and grateful. “I know it +is true.” + +“It is true,” said Prue dismally. “But, oh, the dear house!” + +“Ah, yes; the dear house!” echoed Isabel. + +“Oh, my jiminy, the dear house!” Poppy chimed in most tragically of +all. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE QUEER MAN + + +“Mother,” said Isabel with all the emphasis she could get into her +voice, “we want to sneak!” + +“Do you, dear? And can’t you?” asked Mrs. Lindsay with no apparent +shock. + +Mr. Lindsay looked up from his paper with a laugh in his eyes; they +were at breakfast and Isabel had followed up her announcement by +corking her lips with the biggest, most luscious strawberry on her +plate. + +“Just a general sneak, or a special sneak, do you crave, Miss Lindsay? +Is it merely that you feel sneaking, or do you wish to sneak away from +something?” Isabel’s father inquired. + +Isabel always said that she “loved the way her father treated her.” He +used toward her a playful, exaggerated politeness that delighted her +soul; needless to say, his love for this sole little girl left to him +was far beyond expression in words. + +“Well, Mr. Lindsay,” said Isabel, hastily disposing of the big +strawberry and replying after his manner of asking, “it’s a special +sneak. We want to get away to Château Branche without Kathie and Dolly. +They’re nice, you know, but we did so like to be there by ourselves!” + +“I realize that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but why you have +to take on new members of your Lucky Four Club, if you’d rather not, +is beyond me,” said Mr. Lindsay. “I suppose it’s because you are all +girls, all but Mark, and he can’t behave as he would if he weren’t +muffled in girls, so to speak. Now, if boys had a club and didn’t care +about new members, they’d say so, straight from the shoulder, not +ill-naturedly, but honestly, and the would-be members would see that +they were within their rights and take themselves off, unoffended. +But you seem to feel obliged to be wax, and give in. It will end in +a fuss--you see if it doesn’t! I want you to learn to take a stand +firmly, but amiably, my dear, and, having taken it, stand pat on that +stand!” Mr. Lindsay shook his head, as if this weakness in his Isa +annoyed him. + +“But they do want awfully to belong,” said Isabel, “and it seems so +mean to keep lovely things to yourself--though we are four selves! +Prue says we might as well take people to live with us because we have +nice homes.” + +“Prue is a sensible little person,” Mrs. Lindsay said. “She’s always +obliging, but she can tell clearly which are the boundaries of her +own fields, to use a figure that seems to express what I mean. Prue +is just, in a common-sense way, while my little lass gets weak-kneed, +fearing to hurt some one when she steps out.” + +Mrs. Lindsay smiled most tenderly at Isabel, plainly finding her +weakness very lovable. + +“Run right away as soon as you have finished those berries; get Prue +and the Hawthorne house pair, and climb up into Château Branche so +early that nobody else will be there--for a while, at least. That’s my +advice this perfect June morning,” Mrs. Lindsay added. + +“And pull our legs up after us, so they won’t show?” cried Isabel +gayly. “All right, motherums; you’re a dear to help me sneak.” + +“There is a cake,” remarked Mrs. Lindsay slowly. “A fresh, round, +two-story-and-basement cake, made late yesterday for a possible trip to +Château Branche. I think I’ll get it and put it in a box, with a knife +to cut it, and send it with you on your sneaking trip.” + +“Oh, mother!” cried Isabel, rapidly eating her juicy strawberries as +her mother went in pursuit of the cake. + +She came back in a moment bearing it aloft on the palm of her outspread +hand. Isabel’s back was toward her, but she heard the rustle of +paraffine paper and she sniffed the air as Bunkie might have done, as +Bunkie did do, in fact, for he lay at Isabel’s feet, under the table. + +“Smells like fudge!” Isabel said. + +“Wise little nose! It _is_ fudge; fudge icing and middle coatings!” +cried Mrs. Lindsay, setting the cake where Isabel could see it. + +She folded the paraffine paper over and around the cake and dropped it +deftly into a box that might easily have been too small for it, and was +so exactly the right size that it took skill to get the cake into it +unharmed. + +“I’m ready!” cried Isabel, hastily taking a long drink of water and +folding her napkin with her left hand as she did so. + +“May I walk with you, Miss Lindsay, as far as Miss Wayne’s door?” asked +Mr. Lindsay, pushing back his chair. + +As “Miss Wayne’s door” was the next door, the Wayne and Lindsay places +adjoining, this did not seem too much to ask, and Isabel giggled as she +tried to consent with dignity. + +Hatless and happy, the cake in its box, resting on one arm, Isabel +started out beside her father and pulled his head down to kiss him when +they paused at the Wayne gate. + +“Come on, Prue; we’re going early to have a little while all to +ourselves, if Kathie and Dolly should come,” Isabel called, standing in +the hall and trusting to luck that Prue would hear her. + +“I’ll telephone Mark to be at Château Branche with Poppy when we get +there, save time going after them,” said Prue, the practical, ringing +up the Central as she spoke from the bend in the hall where the +telephone table stood, and where she happened to be when Isabel came in. + +After this was done, the two little girls sallied forth, Bunkie running +ahead and pretending to startle himself with important discoveries +along the way. They proceeded to Château Branche by a short cut into +the woods. + +Mark and Poppy were there waiting for them, thanks to Prue’s foresight, +when they reached the great pine in which Mr. Hawthorne had built their +house. + +“We’ll get right up,” said Prue, beginning to climb the footholds which +led into Château Branche. + +Isabel handed up the cake to Prue and followed; Mark and Poppy seemed +less to climb than to run up, like nuthatches, so agile they both were +at this sort of feat. + +“Ah!” Mark drew a long breath of delight. “It seems to smell more +piney so early in the morning. Isn’t it great to be up in these dark +branches?” + +“Hark!” whispered Isabel, holding up her hand. + +A song so sweet, so liquid, so heart-stirring, that it was like the +voice of the woods, of the sky, the green leaves, of June itself, +pierced the stillness from a point near at hand. + +“Oh, it’s the veery!” whispered Mark, his eyes dilating. He had been +taught by his father, wise in woods lore, the note of nearly every +bird, and could himself imitate many of them, calling around him the +little feathered denizens of the trees. + +“It’s a thrush; the veery,” Mark repeated, and the four sat so still +that they hardly seemed to breathe, listening to this exquisite song. + +At last the veery flew away. The children saw the brown body come out +from an oak that stood next to their pine, brighten as it crossed the +sunshine, and disappear. + +“Why do you sort of want to cry when things are nice that way?” asked +Poppy. + +“I think because they don’t last,” said Isabel, the poet, who always +saw deeper than the others. + +“You see one reason we don’t care about having Kathie,” said Prue +unexpectedly, for the rest had forgotten all about Kathie for the +moment, “is because she always wants to be doing something. When we +come here we--we--well, we’re just _here_, don’t you see? We don’t want +to do one thing but--be here.” + +“I do, now,” said Poppy. She laughed apologetically, but she said her +say. “It’s awful early after breakfast, but I want to try Isa’s cake +right off.” + +“’Course!” cried Isabel, getting it out. “It doesn’t matter when we eat +it; it’s when it tastes good. There!” + +She produced the cake, its icing slightly rubbed, and thrust the knife +into its creamy middle. “Cut it, Prue.” + +“Cut it yourself.” Prue promptly declined the honor. “It’s yours, and +besides, I won’t; I’d jig it.” + +“Sakes, don’t jig it! What is jigging it?” Mark laughed at Prue. + +“Hacking,” explained Prue, watching Isabel, who was slowly penetrating +the center of the three layers, her head on one side, her tongue out of +the corner of her mouth, her wrist held stiff, her face expressive of +the deepest concentration and anxiety. + +“There, sir!” Isabel exclaimed at last. “If I get one piece cut I won’t +mind the rest. Catch it, somebody. You, Pops!” + +Poppy needed no urging. She held out both her hands, palms up, side by +side, to receive the thick pointed piece which Isabel deposited in them. + +“Um-m-m! Land, what cake!” Poppy tried to say, rolling up her eyes at +her first mouthful, but because her mouth was indeed full, what she +really said, all in one word, was: “Lawbake!” + +In a few minutes there was complete silence in Château Branche because +all four of its tenants were merrily--and also messily--devouring great +wedges of a cake so creamily fresh and soft, so thickly spread with +fudge-filling, that talking was out of the question. + +Consequently any one coming along through the woods, past the tree, +would not have suspected it of being different from other trees, +inasmuch as it was occupied by children instead of birds. And some one +was coming along! Mark was the first to spy him. He leaned forward and +touched Prue and Isabel and Poppy, signaling them to keep quiet. Poppy +nearly cried out, but Prue, with great presence of mind, clapped a +fudgey hand over her mouth. + +The four children peered down through the branch, which Mark pulled +forward, the better to conceal them. + +They saw a small man with a queer, thin, wavering sort of face. He had +dark eyes, that roved perpetually from side to side, but never were +raised, for which the tree dwellers were duly grateful. His nose was +so long and sharp that, set in the middle of his thin, narrow face, it +lent itself to the children’s first thought of him as being some sort +of wild creature. His short body was painfully thin; his shoulders +were high; it took a few minutes for the children to discover that he +was slightly deformed, one shoulder higher than the other, his back a +little curved. + +The queer little man seemed to have no plan as to the movements which +he was restlessly making. He walked short distances in every direction, +returning to the pine tree. Each time he started off the children hoped +that he was going on, away from there, but he returned to the pine tree +as if it were a magnet that drew him. + +To their great terror, the children soon discovered that he was talking +to himself. It struck them as past bearing that this queer little man +should talk to himself alone, as he believed himself, in the middle of +the woods. Stray words came up to them; he spoke too low for them to +hear many. + +“The brook,” he said. “Over there. Nice brook. Nice place. Should think +they would live here, want to.” + +Did he mean themselves? the children wondered. No one lived beside the +lonely little brook that ran, talking to itself, much as this queer man +did, near Château Branche all day and every day. + +Isabel and Poppy were frightened almost out of their wits. Prue was +frightened, too, as was Mark, but Mark was on fire with curiosity, and +Prue’s imagination did not build all sorts of awful fancies upon the +deformed creature as Isabel’s did. Poppy was so excitable that anything +so out of the ordinary as this adventure would be sure to wind her up +to the highest pitch. + +“Better rest,” they heard the queer man say, and with that he lay down +on the carpet of brown needles which for years the great tree had +spread at its own feet. + +“How shall we get away?” Isabel signaled to Mark. + +Mark shook his head; he had no idea. + +Presently, after a time of utter stillness and waiting, during which +eight young legs and arms developed prickles of nervousness and grew +numb from keeping so long in one position--no one dared to move--the +children in the tree saw Kathie and Dolly coming through the woods, on +their way to join them. + +“Mercy me, he may kill them!” groaned Isabel, white to her lips and +almost forgetting caution for themselves. + +The queer little man sat up, listened; got quickly on his feet, +listened. + +With unspeakable relief the children saw that he was himself afraid of +being seen. Of being caught? They could not tell what he feared, but he +was evidently on the alert to get away unseen. + +Their own fear vanished under this welcome discovery. + +Mark grew positively rash. He had a beautiful, flexible singing voice, +which, though it was still a high soprano, was capable of doing many +queer feats. Dropping it low, Mark chanted in a way that even his +companions found rather awful: “Get out, get out, get out of here!” + +The queer man gave one wild glance all around him, and then he acted on +the command. He got out of there, running like a deer, dodging around +trees, looking over his shoulder, but not slackening speed, till, in a +moment, he was gone. + +Kathie and Dolly had not seen him; he had chanced to take the opposite +direction from the one in which they were coming. + +Isabel, Prue, Poppy and Mark lost no time in coming down from Château +Branche. + +“How could you, Mark; how dared you?” Isabel panted as she came down +backward, very fast, talking as she came. “Suppose he hadn’t run? +Suppose he had killed us!” + +“I thought I’d try it before he saw Kathie and Dolly. You couldn’t tell +what he might have done to them,” said Mark, by this time in high glee. + +“What? Who?” demanded Kathie as she and Dolly came up in time to hear +this answer. + +All talking at once, the four children told the story of the queer +little man. The story lost nothing of mystery and terror in the telling. + +“Well, no more Château Branche for me, thank you!” said Kathie +decidedly, as the tale ended. + +“Not much!” Dolly supplemented her. + +“We’ll be members in the club room, come there, I mean, but not up in +that tree; not ever!” Kathie continued. + +“But are the woods spoiled?” asked Prue piteously. + +“That’s according as you look at it,” said Mark sagely, trying to +catch Prue’s eye to convey to her that if Kathie and Dolly so looked at +it the Lucky Four might be the gainers. + +“I think it was perfectly dreadful to sit there, penned up there, and +see that man lying at the foot of the tree, so we couldn’t get down, +just as if he was a dog and we were ’possums!” said Prue. “Why, where +is Bunkie? He didn’t bark!” + +For the first time since she had owned him Bunkie had left Isabel and +gone home. + +“It’s a pretty queer time, every way,” said Isabel gravely. “Here, have +some cake, Kathie and Dolly. Mother gave it to us, and I need some more +after this fearful experience.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ROUND RED RADISHES + + + “There was an old Woman, as I’ve heard tell, + Went to market her eggs for to sell!” + +sang Isabel close to Poppy’s ear, who was far too interested in what +she was planning to hear her. + +“Five cents a bunch ’s awful little,” Poppy was saying, frowning over +her calculations. “But if you have a whole lot o’ bunches----” + +“They ought to be ten cents a bunch. Everything is twice as much as it +was, and think what it would cost to go around peddling them if you had +a car, when gasoline is so high! You’ve got to think of gasoline when +you go out with the buckboard and Hurrah,” said Mark so gravely that it +did not seem as if he were talking nonsense. + +Isabel laughed, but Prue said: + +“Would she have to? Anyway, Hurrah has to eat, so you could think of +oats just as well, if you’d rather. I say ten cents a bunch, too, +Poppy.” + +“Now, for pity’s sake, Pops, _don’t_ open another pea pod!” +remonstrated Isa, as Poppy pinched one of her pods to see how full it +felt. “You won’t have any peas at all if you keep on trying them! When +they’re ripe you can tell without opening the pods. It won’t be long; +they’re getting big.” + +“My lettuce is nice,” remarked Prue with satisfaction. “It isn’t headed +up, but it’s as sweet and tender! Let’s start soon.” + +“We’re to have an early lunch. I’m going to feed Hurrah now, ’cause you +hadn’t ought to drive a horse on his dinner,” said Poppy, turning from +the contemplation of her garden and picking up the can of glowing balls +of radishes which she intended to offer for sale that afternoon. + +“No; it’s better to drive a horse on the road than on his dinner. And +it’s better to say ‘you ought not’ than ‘you hadn’t ought,’” hinted +Mark. + +“Well, I gotta get something wrong once’n a while,” Poppy said +cheerfully. “You caught talking right from your families; I gotta learn +it. Do you s’pose I’ll sell ’em?” + +“Gladys Popham Meiggs, that’s the nine hundred and ninety-ninth +time--pretty near--you’ve asked that! And how can we tell?” cried +Prue. “Do you think my lettuce will sell? That’s just as much to find +out.” + +“Where is your lettuce, Prue?” asked Mark. + +“I picked it early, came up before Isa did and picked it. It’s on the +ice. Motherkins lent me a flat tin pan--it would be great to cool taffy +in!--and we set it right on the ice, on top. I was going to put it in +a basket all trimmed with dandelions when we started--yellow and green +are so pretty!--but the dandelions would all shut up on the way, so +what’s the use?” Prue sighed over the ways of dandelions. + +Isabel pulled Mark’s sleeve, and he fell behind the other two with her +as they went toward the house. + +“Any more news? About the will? Did your father hear?” Isa asked. + +Mark nodded without speaking. + +“Oh, dear! It’s true!” groaned Isabel. + +“Looks bad, dad’s lawyers say,” Mark said soberly. “This Maurice +Ditson is going to put it over. He’s got people to swear to another +will that left all Mr. Ditson had to his son, so that lets us out. +I’m afraid, Isa, dad and I will have to take Motherkins on our +shoulders--and I’ll have to carry Pincushion, too!--and go out of this +house. It makes us pretty sick!” + +“Anybody as nice as Motherkins, who did so much for everybody, gave +Poppy a home and Bunkie, too, even when she was quite poor and didn’t +know how she could do it, ought not to lose this house,” said Isabel +emphatically. “Of course, you wouldn’t care for yourself; you’d be +happy in any house till you were old enough to earn a really nice one.” + +“Suppose we had to leave Greenacres?” suggested Mark. + +Isabel stopped short and stared at him, growing a little pale. + +“Jack-in-the-Box! Why? Why should you leave Greenacres?” she cried. + +“Dad would have to earn money; we wouldn’t have enough, and suppose he +couldn’t find a way to do it in Greenacres? We’d have to go, wouldn’t +we?” Mark spoke gently, as if to soften to Isabel the edge of his +words; her eyes were dilating with tears which brimmed on their lids, +but did not fall, and her lips were parting with her quickened breath. + +“I never once, not ONCE, thought of that! I never ONCE thought you +could go away, Jack-in-the-Box!” she whispered, sharply realizing what +it would be to lose this dear boy, his quick fancy, his merry ways, +like a creature of the woods, half wild, wholly gentle; his charm, his +unfailing understanding of the thoughts, the imaginings which Prue +never could enter into. + +“Well, there’s no saying how I hope we won’t have to go,” sighed Mark. + +“Oh, you can’t go, Jack-in-the-Box!” cried Isabel. She used the first +name by which she had called him, unconsciously connecting her meeting +him with the awful threat of losing him. + +“I can’t stay if I can’t, Isa. What do people do when they _must_ do a +thing? They do it and try to stand it, don’t they?” asked Mark sadly. + +Isabel looked at him long and steadily, trying to adjust her mind +to this new idea. Then she straightened herself, throwing back her +slender shoulders, and tossed her dark, breeze-rumpled hair out of her +tear-dimmed, blue-gray eyes. + +“It won’t happen! It can’t happen! Anything so dreadful _can’t_ +happen. I won’t think of it for another single minute!” she declared. +“Hurry and catch up with the others, and talk about what we’ll do this +afternoon, when we go to take our garden things to market. If only my +flowers were ready! They’re budded. I dread to go, do you know that! It +seems funny to be hucksters right in Greenacres. Poppy always--well, +you know! The Meiggs family was poor, but my father is president of the +bank and Mr. Wayne is a lawyer, and your father is Mr. Hawthorne, and +people know the Hawthornes. You don’t think they’ll call it something +like going around begging, do you?” + +“Selling isn’t one bit like begging, you know, it’s going into +business, Isa. But don’t, if you don’t want to! Let Poppy have all we +raise and sell it, and keep the money,” suggested Mark. + +“Oh, she never would,” declared Isabel. “Besides, it’s rather backing +out. I’ll go, but I do feel rather queer about it.” + +At the last minute, as it happened, Isabel did not go. Her mother +telephoned for her to come home because a friend of her mother’s, who +had not seen Isa since she was a baby, had unexpectedly arrived on a +tour which she was making in her car, and Isabel had to be summoned +home to see her for the brief hour which was all that she could spare +to visit Mrs. Lindsay. + +So all that Isabel shared of this expedition to market with Prue’s +lettuce and Poppy’s radishes was storing the baskets, two of them, +under the seat of the buckboard and seeing her friends start. After +this she ran home. + +Hurrah was in no mood for hurrying; the day was growing warm, the air +heavy, showers threatened to come up at night. Poppy sat straight +and stiff, driving, with Prue beside her. Mark sat on the end of the +buckboard, dangling his long legs, amusing himself by turning the +toes of his shoes toward each other, and admiring his ribbed brown +stockings, or else experimenting in keeping his legs out stiff and +straight while he raised himself on his hands and tried to hold himself +thus as long as he could while they jolted along. + +They had decided to go first of all to Mrs. Wilkins’. She was a merry, +kindly old lady, nearing seventy, so friendly to children that half of +the youngsters in Greenacres called her “Grandma Wilkins,” though she +had no grandchild to give her the title. + +“Whoa!” shouted Poppy, louder than was necessary, since Hurrah was not +in the least deaf. She hoped that Mrs. Wilkins would hear and come out. + +This happened, and when she appeared on her piazza Poppy called: + +“Radishes! Round, red radishes! Raised by a Red-head! Round red +radishes!” in a voice worthy of her new occupation. + +“For goodness’ sake, Poppy! And you, Prudence Wayne! And Mark +Hawthorne! Are you turning into hucksters? Well, I want to know!” cried +Mrs. Wilkins. + +“We’ve got gardens, and this is the first out o’ them, Mis’ Wilkins,” +said Poppy. “The other things ain’t ready, but just lettuce and round +red radishes--they’re mine, and the lettuce is Prue’s. We’ve gone into +business. This is our first trip; you’re our first stop.” + +“Because you knew I’d want a lot of radishes! Though I don’t eat ’em +myself, other people do, and I like to send my neighbors some tidbits +occasionally. But lettuce I’m partial to; it’s a great help to a good +tea, with nice bread and butter. Give me all you can spare of your +stuff,” said the dear old plump person cordially. + +“Now, Mrs. Wilkins, you mustn’t say that just to help us,” interposed +Prue, scowling anxiously. “We want to sell, but we don’t want to have +people do what isn’t fair, take what they don’t want.” + +“Trust you, Prudence Wayne, to want to deal square,” laughed Mrs. +Wilkins. “But it isn’t good business to talk folks out of buying, my +dear! Don’t you worry; I’ve got a use for anything I buy.” + +[Illustration: POPPY CALLED, “RADISHES! ROUND RED RADISHES! GROWN BY A +RED-HEAD.”] + +She produced a worn pocketbook, with a nickel clasp, and a bill fold, +and pocket for change. Mark said afterward “it looked as if it belonged +to her.” + +Prue put into the bright new pan, which Mrs. Wilkins fetched, a large +quantity of the tender young lettuce and three bunches of Poppy’s +“round red radishes.” The combination was pretty against the shining +tin. + +“Well, we’ve begun!” Prue remarked, taking a long breath as they went +on their way with cordial good-bys and good wishes from Mrs. Wilkins, +the money of their first sale in Mark’s pocket, he being elected +treasurer, and four perfectly fresh, creamy cookies apiece, deliciously +sprinkled with cocoanut, held on the cookie by a coating of melted +sugar. No one, it had long ago been decided by Greenacres children, +ever made such cookies as Grandma Wilkins did. + +“We can’t have such luck everywhere,” said Poppy, speaking with +difficulty as she removed cocoanut from her cheek at the extreme reach +of her tongue’s length because Hurrah had whisked his tail over the +lines and spoiled her aim when she took a bite of cookie. “There ain’t +many people so awful nice as she is. But we’ll keep right at it.” + +They “kept right at it,” and, selling a little lettuce here, a bunch +of radishes there, soon got rid of all the stock except a few ragged +lettuce leaves. + +Most people regarded the new vendors as a great joke, but one severe +person held them up to lecture them on taking trade from the poor--and +did not buy when Prue and Poppy refused to cheapen their wares. + +“Gee, she might of took the stuff when we had to let her preach at us!” +said Poppy, too disgusted to remember the lessons in English which the +other children gave her, and which she was so anxious to learn. + +Hurrah was turned homeward--he went that way more willingly than he +started out--and the children were wondering how much they had made. + +“Don’t take it out to count it, Mark!” cried Prue. “It joggles so, you +might drop some. Help me count up in my head. I can remember just what +we sold.” + +Prue began to recall aloud where they had stopped, what sales they had +made, and Mark added for her as she went along. He was a marvel at +mental addition; indeed, his quick brain excelled in all feats demanded +of it. + +Poppy took no part in this calculation except to correct Prue sometimes +when she made a mistake in her recollection of sales. + +There was a wagon ahead of them, a long one with a top, and it emitted +a pleasant sound of a bell hung somewhere upon it. + +Poppy’s sharp eyes had been upon it for some time. At last she said: + +“I like Hurrah terrible well, but I do wish I could hurry him up to +catch that wagon! He won’t hurry for a cent.” + +“I’ll hurry him; he’ll go for me, Pops,” said Mark. “He knows your soft +heart by this time. I always can make animals do things, you know.” + +As Poppy, to his surprise, instantly accepted Mark’s offer, he added: + +“Why do you want to overhaul that wagon, Poppy?” + +“It looks like a friend of mine,” said Poppy, mixing the wagon with +its driver in her reply. “If I know what, that’s Mr. Thomas Burke, 906 +North Street, Hertonsburg, what took me along home that time I went +off, and I’d just love to see him, and I know he’d be crazy to see me.” + +“Is it, honest?” cried Mark. “Well, we’ll overhaul him, all right. See +Hurrah!” + +Sure enough, true to Mark’s prophecy, Hurrah was trotting along to +oblige Mark as he never did for Poppy. Soon the buckboard came up close +to the wagon, and Poppy made sure that the bulky form on its seat was, +indeed, her rescuer, the bottle dealer, and she shrieked wildly: + +“Mr. Burke, Mr. Burke! Turn around and see me!” + +Mr. Burke turned, not his head, but his whole body, which was a large +and thick one. + +“Well, if it ain’t little Redtop!” shouted Mr. Burke, and, stopping his +horse, got down to greet Poppy, his broad face red with pleasure. + +Poppy took him around the neck with gusto. She hugged him hard. + +“You’re just as welcome as a flower in the spring!” she poetically said. + +“Which I ain’t so strikin’ like!” said Mr. Burke with a grin. “Lucky I +haven’t got a gas truck, or you couldn’t have caught me. Say, how are +you, anyway, little Redtop? Just as calm an’ sort of slow an’ lazy as +you was? Don’t move around quick, nor fly off these days, do you? Are +these your friends you told me about? Miss Isabel Lindsay, that you +wrote the post card to?” + +“This is Miss Prue Wayne; Isabel didn’t come,” explained Poppy, and as +Mr. Burke touched his hat to Prue she added: “This is my own horse and +buckboard, Mr. Burke.” + +“Never!” exclaimed Mr. Burke. + +“Ever!” Poppy corrected him. “It was a present to me from another +friend of mine, Mr. Babcock, the postmaster; he’s very nice, not quite +straight--I mean his back ain’t.” + +“Well, you do be the great one for friends, little Poppy Redtop,” said +Mr. Burke admiringly. “It’s congratulations that’s due you, an’ that’s +the truth. Now I’ve met you, I might tell you my errand. I was aimin’ +to see your--well, I don’t know the title you give ’em, but whoever +takes care of you--Mr. Gilbert Hawthorne, ’tis. I’ll not be goin’ to +the house, now I can tell you what I had to say.” + +“Oh, yes, Mr. Burke,” Mark cried. “Please come. Dad will be glad +enough to see you. He would be annoyed with us, with me, if you didn’t +come. Please come. We all know you well through Poppy. Motherkins--my +grandmother, Mrs. Hawthorne--would love to thank you for taking care of +Poppy last summer.” + +“You’re a little gentleman!” declared Mr. Burke, regarding with frank +admiration Mark’s radiant face. “It’s no thanks are due me for pickin’ +up a bit of a girl, out gettin’ herself into trouble. But I’ll go along +with pleasure. I’ve something to tell your father that maybe he ought +to know, an’ maybe it’s no matter. Will I lead an’ will you follow, or +will we turn it the other way, an’ me follow that war horse of Poppy’s? +How do you name him?” + +“Hurrah,” said Poppy. “He’s not a war horse; he’s peaceful and loving.” + +“’Deed, then, he looks it! An’ Hurrah is a name that couldn’t be beat +for belongin’ to a horse that you own, little Redtop; you’re the one +to go with a hurrah, as the sayin’ is!” Mr. Thomas Burke grinned at +Poppy so warmly that she could not suspect him of looking down on +Hurrah, as she at first thought he might do. + +Mr. Burke went back and climbed up on his wagon, with grunts that +revealed the effort it cost him, and the two vehicles took their way up +to the Hawthorne house, Mr. Burke in the lead, Hurrah and his friends +in the rear. + +At the gateway they were met by Isabel, too excited to stand still or +to wonder at Mr. Burke. + +“Oh, I’ve been dying! I thought you’d never come back!” she cried, +jumping from one to the other foot. “Mother’s friend went and I came +back here to wait for you. I went up to the Club Room, and what do you +s’pose?” + +Isabel barely paused at the end of her question, which she did not +expect answered. The other children murmured something, but Isabel went +on hurriedly. + +“Some one’s been up there, in our room! They’ve been eating, and moved +things around. And they took out a pillow!” + +“Who?” demanded the other three together. + +“Well, who?” echoed Isabel. “I think it was Kathie and Dolly. Kathie +can climb up as easy! You know she did the other day. They aren’t +members yet; I don’t think they ought to go there when we’re not +there, and, of course, they can’t take anything out. Even one of us +couldn’t; we own those things together.” + +“Well, that’s rather queer,” said Mark slowly. “I wouldn’t think they’d +do that. Maybe it was some one else--but who?” + +“Yes, who?” echoed Isabel again. “Well, anyway, I’ve been crazy to have +you get back and come up to see.” + +“We’ll come,” said Mark. “I’ve got to find dad and introduce Mr. Burke +to him. This is Mr. Burke, who found Poppy for us that time; this is +Isabel Lindsay, Mr. Burke.” + +“Pleased to meet you, miss,” said Mr. Burke, again touching his cap. +His eyes lighted with pleasure at the sight of lovely little Isa. “I +had the honor to write you a post card, but I’d rather see you, an’ +that’s no lie for me.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +QUEER HAPPENINGS + + +“Could we hear what you are going to tell, Mr. Burke?” asked Poppy. Her +sharp little face almost looked as though it had been whittled, so much +was its natural pointedness increased by her devouring curiosity. Poppy +was always as curious as a cat. + +Mr. Burke looked down on her with kindly amusement. + +“Considerin’ it’s next to nothin’, unless Mr. Hawthorne has some +missin’ bits to put to it, like them pitcher puzzles, you may hear what +I’ve got to tell’s far’s I’m concerned--which is next to nothin’, as +I’ve just said,” he replied. + +“But first be sure you will not have something more--one more cup of +tea?” suggested Motherkins hovering, anxious to do all that she could +for this kind man who had once been good to Poppy. + +“’Deed, then, ma’am, there’s no more desire nor space left in me!” +declared Mr. Burke. “But I’d dearly love my pipeful of tobacco, if +there’s a place on the grounds where I could smoke it an’ not be +puttin’ you out.” + +“My mother lets me smoke on the piazza, in the house, too, when it is +too chilly to sit outside. Come, then, Mr. Burke, and open your budget +of news!” said Mr. Hawthorne. + +“It’s not much,” began Mr. Burke, when they were seated and he +had drawn deeply on his wooden pipe to get it going. All four +children--Isabel and Prue had obtained permission by telephone to stay +on at the Hawthorne house--sat close to Mr. Burke, not to miss a word. + +“Well, then,” Mr. Burke fairly launched himself in his story this time, +“it was this way: I was drivin’ along one day, I’d say ten days back, +but it might be a matter of a few days more; time does be greatly +alike, seen from a cart seat. I came up wid a small man trampin’ along +the side of the way, an’ when he looks up at me I passed the time o’ +day with him, civil like. He answered kind of funny, not just grumpy +like, but yet not ready; sort of hesitatin’. An’ the queerest face I +ever set me two eyes on was on the front side of the head of that same +little man! He had a nose you might use as a screwdriver, on a pinch, +that long and thin ’twas! He had a pair of dark eyes that shone like a +glass bottle beside the road when the sun strikes on it, an’ they was +never still a minute. He was a little misshapen creature besides----” + +“The queer man in the woods!” cried Mark and Isabel at the same +instant, as Poppy shouted: “We saw him! We saw him! Out by Château +Branche and we were scared!” + +“Did you see him now!” exclaimed Mr. Burke. “Small blame to you for +being scared, says I, for one! Then it’s you who knows how he looked +without me tellin’ you. Did he find you, sir?” + +“No,” said Mr. Hawthorne. “This is the first I’ve heard of him; the +children did not speak of seeing any one so peculiar in the woods.” + +“For fear you’d think we hadn’t ought--ought not to go there,” +explained Poppy. + +“I certainly should want his record investigated,” said Mr. Hawthorne. +“Why did you ask if he found me, Mr. Burke? Was he looking for me?” + +“When he’d eyed me for a minute, queer and uncertain like,” Thomas +Burke resumed, “he asked did I know the countryside well? An’ I told +him I ought to, drivin’ it constant for upwards of seven years. An’ he +asked did I know any one named Hawthorne, Gilbert Hawthorne, an’, says +I, I do. Leastways, I know a little about him, nor did I say he was +lookin’ after me friend, Poppy, though I might have, I might have!” +Mr. Burke smiled into Poppy’s face, thrust forward as she perched on +the edge of a chair as if afraid that a word might slip past her. + +“Then he asked me, an’ I told him where you lived, sir, an’ he listened +tight, an’ he sort of muttered that maybe he’d see you. ‘Maybe I will,’ +he said, an’ he shook his head hard. I misdoubted he was right in his +mind, but I let him go on--he wouldn’t ride wid me, though I asked +him. Ever since it’s been botherin’ me that maybe it was something you +ought to know about, an’ more an’ more did it bother me the longer I +thought about it, till the missus says: ‘Gwan wid you, Tom, an’ see Mr. +Hawthorne. Make it your way to go to Greenacres sooner than you’re due +there, an’ see him an’ tell him the little there is to tell, an’ get +it off your conscience.’ So I’m here, an’ you’re told, an’ for my part +of it, there’s no more about it. You don’t know the man; there’s no +mischief afoot, is there?” + +“Not that I know of; no, I don’t know any one like the person you +describe. Curious, too, especially that he was in the woods near the +children’s tree house--if it were the same man,” said Mr. Hawthorne +slowly. + +“Oh, it was, daddy; it had to be!” cried Mark. “There couldn’t be two +like that in one neighborhood. Say, isn’t it great? It sounds like a +story with a plot to it.” + +“It sounds like a fairy story. The queer man is a gnome, or wicked +fairy, or maybe he is enchanted and unhappy and is trying to do good +to you, to get free of the spell upon him!” cried Isabel, who always +wove stories out of all material that came to her hand. “I think it’s +_terribly_ interesting! And strange! Last year we found Jack-in-the-Box +in the woods and thought he was a fairy at first, and now it is a +gnome!” + +Prue had sat in rigid silence, listening, but not speaking. Her face +betrayed her alarm. Now she jumped up and said: + +“I hope you don’t think they’re anything alike! Jack-in-the-Box was the +nicest thing that ever happened to us, but this is horrid! Perfectly, +horrid-awful! And I’m going home before it gets any darker, and, Mark +and Poppy, you must go half way with me, even now!” + +“Let me see you home, little misses,” said Mr. Thomas Burke, rising. +He had received and accepted an invitation to stay over night at the +Hawthorne house, and his big horse, Cork, was to keep Hurrah company in +the next stall to him. + +“Oh, we sha’n’t be afraid with Mark and Poppy,” said Prue hastily. + +Prue was a proper little person, with considerable respect for social +distinctions; she did not care to be taken home by a bottle dealer. + +Isabel, cleverer and finer than Prue, made friends with all sorts of +people, knew how to get pleasure out of talking to them, yet never for +an instant was less than an exceedingly fine little fine lady. + +“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, if you aren’t tired, Mr. Burke, it would +be much nicer to have you come with us,” Isabel said, adding in an +undertone that only Prue could hear: + +“Don’t be a goose, Prue Wayne!” + +So Mr. Thomas Burke, dealer in second-hand bottles, escorted Isabel +Lindsay and Prue Wayne to their homes, Poppy trotting beside him, +holding his hand, admiringly looking up at him as he talked nonsense +and made the children laugh. + +“He’s splendid!” said Isabel, when Mr. Burke had bade her and Prue +good-night and had gone off with Poppy and Mark. “He is as kind as +kind, and doesn’t he tell wonderful stories! I would like to ride +in his cart all over the country, hearing him talk and seeing life. +To-morrow, Prue, we must pitch into Dolly and Kathie for taking things +out of the Club Room, though, of course, it was only Kath climbed up. +Fancy lazy Dolly climbing up there!” + +“We’ve got to ask them first if they did it,” said Prue justly. “Kathie +will not say she didn’t if she did. It seems to me rather queer for her +to do that; I can’t seem to believe she did.” + +“Who else?” demanded Isabel. “I think it’s queer, too, but who else +would it be likely to be?” + +“It isn’t likely to be Kathie, either,” persisted Prue. “Anyway, find +out before you say anything.” + +“I’ve got to say, ‘did you?’ haven’t I, or how shall I find out? +Good-night, Grandma Wayne! Didn’t they know just how you were going to +turn out when they named you Prudence!” + +Isabel kissed Prue hard; she loved her when she was so sensible and +cautious, partly because, though she, too, was sensible, Isabel was +likely to be rash. + +Then Isabel ran into the house for her hour which she always spent in +intimate talk with her mother at twilight, and for which to-night she +was late. + +The next morning Isabel was awake early, having a great deal on her +mind. The story of the queer man lost nothing of its interest in +telling it to her mother; she had gone to bed excited over its mystery. + +Then there was the fact that the Club Room had been entered from +outside. Isabel was impatient to see Kathie and Dolly and find out what +they knew about it. She was tempted to feel a little hard-used that she +could not omit her lessons that morning. School had been closed in the +middle of April because of an epidemic of measles that hung along, a +new case coming on when it all seemed to be over, so late that there +would be no more school that season. Isabel and Prue were compelled to +keep on with their studies at home; this morning Isabel found the rule +hard. It was eleven before she was ready to go to call Prue, and set +out to find Kathie and Dolly. + +They met Poppy running with all her might to meet them. + +“I thought you’d be coming,” she panted. “I knew you’d go for those +girls soon’s you could get done. Mark’s taken Hurrah to the blacksmith; +his feet’s long, Mr. Burke said. Ain’t he a peach? I just love him! +He’s coming again and bring his missus. He calls her ‘the missus.’ I +like that name. They’re both’s peachy as they can be. I might go help +c’lect bottles, if Mr. Hawthorne’s prop’ty gets swiped by that nasty +Ditson man. Say, what I run to tell you was that one of the dishes out +o’ the Club Room’s under a tree. So it was took out, and who done it?” + +“Oh, Poppy, there were more bad mistakes in what you’ve just said than +you’ve made for I-don’t-know-how-long!” sighed Prue, not to be torn +from her duty of correcting Poppy by any interest, however strong. And +this was an absorbing interest, the entering of the Club Room. + +“Oh, well, I’m going to be a lady if I bust, but you can’t keep right +at it, no matter what you’re thinking about!” cried Poppy. “Who +done--did it?” + +“We’re going right off this minute to ask Kathie and Dolly what they +know,” said Isabel, swinging around to carry out her words. And Poppy +joined her and Prue as a matter of course. + +They found Dolly and Kathie eating strawberry sundaes in the drug store. + +“We can’t treat because we had just enough money to pay for two, but +we’ll wait for you, if you’re after some,” said Kathie nobly. + +“We’re not,” said Isabel, though Poppy looked exceedingly sorry that +this was true. “Walk with us if you’re through, we want to ask you +something. Now: Who climbed up into the Club Room by the piazza roof?” + +“Me; you saw me,” said Kathie promptly, taking instant offence from a +tone in Isabel’s voice of which she was herself unconscious, but which +sprang from her certainty that Kathie had climbed in again, alone. + +“Yes, but since; just the night before last, or that day,” Isabel went +on her voice still more accusing. “Do you know anything about it?” + +“Why don’t you ask straight out if I did it?” demanded Kathie. + +“I will: Did you?” said Isabel. + +“I wouldn’t tell if I did, and I won’t say I didn’t,” said Kathie +angrily. “I’d just like to know, Isabel Lindsay, why you come at me +like this?” + +“She--I mean we--aren’t coming at you, Kathie,” interposed Prue. +“Isabel is speaking sort of hard because she’s so bothered--I mean we +are. Some one went in there, and they took out a few little things, +and we’ve got to know if anybody’s breaking in. Greenacres is a little +queer lately; there’s a man in it.” + +Kathie burst into mocking laughter, not in the least soothed by Prue’s +evident desire to keep the peace. “I always knew there was a man in +Greenacres! You silly, Prue Wayne!” + +“Silly nothin’!” broke in Poppy in a blaze of wrath. “Think you’re +smart! Anybody that wasn’t a gump would know she meant a queer man----” + +“You tend to your own affairs, you meddlesome monkey!” Dolly now took a +hand in the fast thickening atmosphere of thunder and lightning. + +“Poppy, please don’t!” begged Prue distressed. “I don’t care what +Kathie said.” + +“No! I’m not worth caring about! That’s what you mean, so just say so,” +stormed Kathie. + +“I did not! I meant I didn’t feel mad,” cried Prue beginning to cry, +dismayed to find the battle around her head when she had but meant to +head off a battle. + +“Well, but that isn’t the thing,” Isabel began over again. “There’s no +sense scrapping, saying things back and forth. What I want to know is +was it you who went up there alone and took out a pillow and a dish or +two? If it wasn’t you, it’s awful. If it is you, you hadn’t any right +to do it, for you’re not even a real member, and we real members can’t +take things away. So I want to know.” + +“Oh, you want to know, do you!” echoed Kathie in a towering temper by +this time. “Well, then, find out! You won’t get me to tell you. I might +have told, if you hadn’t talked as if I was a thief or something! Now +you can find out any way you can work it, but not from me. Why don’t +you get up a detector from New York and lock me up, if I’m the one?” + +“Detective,” murmured Prue in spite of herself, which did not make +things better. + +“Oh, Kathie, how can you!” cried Isabel, following Prue’s tears with +sobs that brought no tears, but which shook her delicate little body +from head to foot. + +“Oh, I hate a fuss, I can’t stand a fuss! I did not speak as you say. I +didn’t mean to speak unkindly. I just want to know, Kathie! Oh, Kathie, +don’t you see it’s dreadful to have some one coming in there and not +know who it is? Won’t you please, please, Kathie, tell if it’s you? +Just if it’s you, you know!” + +“I won’t tell you one single thing, Isabel Lindsay,” said Kathie. “And +Dolly shall not!” she added, seeing Prue about to turn to Dolly. + +Kathie put her hand on her chum’s shoulder with no gentle touch, and +Dolly would not have spoken for the world. + +“’Cause you’re the one, that’s why!” shouted Poppy at the top of her +voice. + +“Oh, hush, Pops!” cried Isabel, suddenly calm again. “I’m afraid that +is the reason, Kathie,” she added with great dignity. “I am afraid that +Poppy is right and that you did go up there, and that is why you won’t +answer. I’m afraid you can’t be a member, ever, and I think you’d +better stop being on trial now.” + +“I suppose everything’s as you say! I suppose Mark hasn’t one thing to +say, only just mind you! Well, we wouldn’t be in that club, not for the +wealth of Indians! We resign. Dolly and me resign--don’t you, Doll?” +Kathie demanded shaking her friend without knowing that she did so. + +“Sure!” said frightened Dolly, who never quarreled nor exerted herself +when she could help it. + +“Isa said it first! Isa said it first! You can’t--what-do-you-call-it! +Isa put you out first!” chanted Poppy dancing around the girls so +excited that she had no consciousness of being in the street, nor of +the amazed amusement of some grown-up on-lookers. + +“Because she knew we wouldn’t stay in!” cried Kathie, quite beside +herself at this triumphant war dance of Poppy’s. + +“Well, it’s horrid! It’s awful! Why, _why_ do we have such a row? Just +asking--just asking--just asking----” Isabel broke down in another +storm of tearless sobbing. + +“Come on home, Isa, my darling! I’ll wipe my shoes of their dust!” said +Prue, herself now in a white heat of anger since her beloved Isa was +so shattered. + +“Dust! Yes, I guess! Shoes! Wipe!” Kathie’s scorn was scathing, though +its expression was not striking. + +The two parties turned without another word and walked in opposite +directions, every muscle in each of the five bodies tautly declaring +the indignation that burned within them. + +Isabel walked on sobbing uncontrollably, but not crying. Prue was no +longer in tears; her anger had dried them when she saw Isabel so hurt. +Poppy was in such a rage that it might have been funny if either of +the others had been capable of seeing it. She spun around and around, +making progress, but always as a top progresses, and she ceaselessly +uttered funny sounds, almost as if she were a furious little beast. + +“Oh, it’s awful, it’s awful! It’s just like having a sort of fight!” +mourned Isabel. + +“’Course!” cried Prue, and to her own surprise she laughed. + +“Be nicer to fight,” said Poppy. + +“Well, I think the worst is not knowing who got into that room,” said +Prue. “If Kathie wants to act like this, let her. You did speak sort +of stern, Isa darling, but anybody’d know you were stirred up; you’re +so gentle and not-hurting always, not even flies! I don’t care about +Kathie, because--I don’t! But who was it?” + +“Oh, it was Kathie. I know it was now, and I knew it before--I mean I +was as sure as anything. Well, it won’t happen again. She’s too mad +with us to come either climbing in, or walking in and up the stairs,” +sighed Isabel. + +“If only we hadn’t let them half-come, be the least bit members!” Prue +said, also sighing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +“YOU’D HARDLY KNOW GREENACRES” + + +Isabel had not found relief, as Prue had, in tears while the scene with +Kathie and Dolly was enacted. She kept from crying till she poured out +the story of the quarrel to her mother that night at twilight, but then +she poured out tears with the story and cried till, big girl as she was +getting to be, her mother gathered her into her lap--all of her that it +would hold!--and tried to check the flood. + +Isa was not a child that cried easily, but, like most people to whom +tears are difficult, when she did cry she cried so hard that it often +made her a little ill. Mrs. Lindsay dreaded one of her breakdowns. + +“There, there, my dear; there, my little Isabel!” she murmured patting +Isa’s heaving shoulder. “It really is not so bad as you think it is. +It will be straightened out. Kathie resented being questioned, but it +will look different to her to-morrow morning. You still think she is +the one who climbed up into your room? Her being so angry over the +suspicion might mean that she had not been there, or it might mean that +she was angry at being found out.” + +“I’d believe her if she said she hadn’t gone, but she wouldn’t say it, +so I think it was--her? She?” Isabel tried at once to speak correctly +and to speak at all, keeping down her sobs. + +“She. After was, or is, you know,” Mrs. Lindsay helped her in both +ways, supplying the pronoun and smoothing Isa’s hair. “It wasn’t a +crime to climb up and go in, after all. If Kathie did it, I think she +must be forgiven.” + +“But taking out our things, mother?” cried Isabel, sitting erect with +symptoms that the storm was past. + +“Oh, I forgot about that! No, that was not right. It doesn’t seem to me +like Kathie Stevens, either! Curious little affair, isn’t it? I hear +what story books might call ‘a well-known footstep!’ I think a person +called Harvey Lindsay is coming in!” Isabel’s mother arose as Isabel +got off her knees, and went to meet her husband, Isabel languidly +following. + +“Why, what’s wrong, Lady Bird?” cried Mr. Lindsay at once. + +“Isa is greatly troubled by a falling out between her and Kathie +Stevens, in fact between our four intimate children, and Kathie and +Dolly. Isa may have made a little mistake in the way she approached +a question that had to be asked Kathie, but she has not provoked the +quarrel, and I’m sure it will be healed soon.” Mrs. Lindsay explained +to her husband, but smiled hopefully at her tear-stained and swollen +daughter. + +“Come now, that’s everything, not to be the cause of a rumpus, and to +be in the right!” Mr. Lindsay’s big voice sounded heartening. “I don’t +mind greatly what the other fellow does, not after a time, though I may +at first. I do mind like the mischief to see, when I cool off, that I +was in the wrong! Your trouble is not going to last, my dawtie! And +when I was about your age and had cried my fill, I found nothing as +refreshing to my throat and to my spirits as ice cream! So I’ll slip +back to Ebers’ and bring up a quart in a nice little tape-handled box. +What flavor, Lady Isabel-ladybird?” + +“Maple walnut and strawberry,” said Isabel without an instant’s +hesitation. “Thank you, you dear Person,” she added with a smile rather +like melted ice cream, sweet, but lacking vigor. + +When her father returned her mother helped herself and her husband +to a little less than a third of the cream apiece and handed Isa the +box, because she preferred it thus. Seated on the upper step under +the brilliant summer stars, taking heaped spoonfuls of the delicious +cream for which Ebers was famous for miles, and licking the top of +each spoonful into a cone to get the full flavor, a mannerless way of +eating that the night and out-of-doors allowed, Isabel began to feel +comforted. The strawberry ice cream was dotted with seeds to prove that +fruit, not flavoring gave it its flavor; the maple walnut was as strong +of maple syrup taste as a Vermont sugar camp vat. + +Isabel licked her spoon blissfully, if inelegantly, since no one could +see her, and felt that life still held a great deal to enjoy. As to her +father, who had taken the walk to get the cream for her when he was +surely tired, how could she express the flavor of his love for his girl? + +“Father, you blessing, my throat does feel scrumptious after that +cream, and I hope some day, I’ll have a big, hard thing to do for you +and mother, just to show you!” Isabel said at last, getting up from +the step with a contentedly-weary yawn, and going over to kiss her +best-beloveds good-night. + +The first thing in the morning, while Isa was still at breakfast, there +appeared Mark in a state of great excitement. + +“Well, what do you suppose!” he burst forth at once. “Oh, good +morning, Mrs. Lindsay! I forgot. But what _do_ you suppose, honest?” + +“What are we to suppose about, Mark?” hinted Mrs. Lindsay. + +“I’d say about ’most anything,” returned Mark. “Things are happening in +all directions. You couldn’t guess this; you didn’t know about it, I +suppose. Say, Isa, you know Kathie Stevens’ coins?” + +“’Course,” said Isa, leaning forward breathlessly. + +“Gone!” cried Mark. + +“Gone?” echoed Isabel. “Where? How do you mean gone?” + +“If I only knew where!” said Mark. “Don’t you know I put the box down +in the secret passage? They stayed there all right; I’ve looked once +in a while. Nobody on earth but us--father and Motherkins and we four +youngsters--knew a word about that passage. Kathie and Dolly knew there +was one, but they didn’t know how you got into it, not either from the +house, nor the woods end of it. I heard Kath once telling the girls +at school how we had a secret passage, made in the Revolution, when +Tories were around here, but I could tell she had no sort of idea where +it was. And somebody has got into it and taken off that box with the +coins in it! Isn’t it tough luck? What do you suppose Kathie will say, +or her father, for that matter? You see they are valuable. The minute +Pops came home and told about the fuss, how mad with you Kathie was, I +thought of the coins, and made up my mind I’d have them out of there, +ready to hand her if she came after them this morning--as I’m pretty +sure she will. So I got right out after them the first thing--and there +you are! Or there they’re not!” Mark waved his hands outward as if to +signify a flight. + +“Well, of all awful things!” said Isabel slowly. + +“It is awful,” agreed Mark. “It’s bad as it can be to lose the coins, +but it’s almost worse to have somebody know that secret passage and be +wriggling around in it! I never in all my life heard of anything like +these things--father going to lose that money almost certainly; that +queer little man in the woods, and the same man asking Mr. Burke for +father, and our club room entered, and now this! Why, you’d hardly know +Greenacres!” + +“Well,” said Isabel slowly, weighing her words, “I don’t like it; I’m +sure I don’t like it, but I do think it is interesting--all but your +money being taken away; that’s just awful, every side and up and down +of it! But the other things are exciting! And interesting! We always +knew nothing would happen when we went to the woods, but now you can’t +tell.” + +“Ah, but that makes _me_ feel that I can’t tell whether you may go +there now,” interposed Mrs. Lindsay. “I am far from pleased to think +that our safe woods are invaded by this queer little man.” + +“Oh, mother, please don’t be afraid!” begged Isabel. “And he is in lots +of other places. Mr. Burke met him over toward Hertonsburg. We wouldn’t +like it a bit if we couldn’t go. We’ll take Semp; he could hold a man +down. Mark’s father says he would take any one by the throat who tried +to touch us, and you know how big and strong he is. Besides, the man +seemed to be afraid himself; he ran away when the girls came that day. +We want to go to Château Branche this very morning!” + +“Oh, not to-day! Wait till your father decides it. I think, perhaps, +some one must lie in wait for this queer little man and find out about +him. The loss of the coins puts a new color on the case; that is theft, +you know,” said Mrs. Lindsay. + +“But maybe he found them in the secret passage and didn’t think they +belonged to any one; maybe he isn’t a thief, Mrs. Lindsay,” cried Mark. + +“Jack-in-the-Box, you are defending him, less from charity than because +you want to be free to roam the woods as you always have!” laughed +Isa’s mother. “And so do I want you still free, but we must wait to +find out more, so be content to keep away from Château Branche a short +time, please, dear!” + +“All right, motherdy, but we want to go!” said Isabel kissing her +mother, and going with Mark to find Prue, and to work in their gardens +at Hawthorne House. The exciting events of the recent days had given +a chance to the weeds which they were quick to use, and, to be quite +truthful, the children’s enthusiasm for gardening cooled in proportion +as the weather warmed, nor had their first trip to market their produce +yielded the fortune that they had hoped to count. + +Prue came out tying a last ribbon on her tight, light braid of hair; +she had seen Isabel and Mark coming and wanted to lose no time. + +She listened with tense attention, frowning severely, to the story of +the disappearance of Kathie’s ancient coins. + +“Well, she will be madder’n a whole army,” said Prue when it was +ended. “She will be right up this morning to get them, and when she +doesn’t----!” Prue did not attempt to describe what would happen when +Kathie did not get her coins. + +“But, my goodness gracious, she knew where they were, and she let them +be put there!” cried Isabel. “It isn’t our fault, is it?” + +“When you’re mad, you’re mad, and you’ve got to blame somebody,” said +Prue, with deep knowledge of human injustice. “Kathie will blame us; +you’ll see! I say let’s go down the secret passage first, and look for +the box again. I’ll run back and get my searchlight, and I’ll borrow +mother’s. We’ll go right in there and _hunt_!” + +Now this was a much more heroic proposition than it sounds, coming +from Prue. She was deadly afraid of spiders, snakes, rats, of black +beetles almost most of all, and she had always had a horror of the +secret passage greater than Isabel’s, because she felt sure that it was +inhabited by all these things and others similar to them which she had +never seen, and she had not Isabel’s imagination to turn the passage +into a romantic story and thus off-set the dread of reptiles, insects +and beasts. + +Isabel knew how Prue hated to explore the underground way that had been +a refuge in Revolutionary days. She stopped short and regarded her +friend with respectful admiration. + +“You are great, Prue! You are truly _great_! I think if there were +a war you’d fire cannon, like Molly Stark, and hang out flags like +Barbara Frietchie, and do all those things, though when there isn’t a +war you don’t seem quite so brave,” Isa declared. + +“I don’t know what I’d do, but, sometimes, I suppose you’ve got to +do what you hate. I’d heaps rather fire--well, hang out a flag, +anyway!--than walk on a squishy bug, or something,” said Prue trying to +look modest. + +There was a walled opening to the secret passage in the woods, at the +place where Isabel and Prue had first seen Mark; they had dubbed it +“the Toy Shop” because there was where they got their Jack-in-the-Box, +and again Mark was a “jack-in-the-box” because he appeared and +disappeared through this opening. + +The opening was so thoroughly hidden by shrubbery and trees that the +little girls had not then suspected it was there, nor could it be +better seen now. + +This morning Mark went down first and turned back to help Isabel +and Prue. Prue had first nobly gone back after searchlights and had +overtaken the other two, breathless, scared, but resolute. + +Both little girls were struggling to hold their skirts tight around +their legs, which did not help their progress. + +Mark laughed at them as he watched this strapped-in descent. + +“Nothing will get on you!” he said. + +“It’s all very well for you, Mark Hawthorne, in knickers, but we’ve +got skirts, and _anything_ could cling on them,” said Prue sternly. +“It makes me _sick_!” She persisted nevertheless, and the three went +rapidly to the spot where Mark said he had set the box of coins. + +“You see!” said Mark, holding up the searchlight which he carried to +show a rock in the side of the wall with nothing on it. “I put it there +and now where is it?” + +“Let’s hunt all around--but of course it didn’t walk off itself, and +whoever took it would take it--I mean carry it off!” Isabel said. “Oh, +dear, oh, dear! We _are_ in trouble! Kathie will be nearly crazy, and +there’s her father! He will--why, we can’t tell what he’ll do to us! We +hardly know him at all; we don’t know whether he’s one of those awful +stern men, or not! Oh, if only we hadn’t brought it here! But how could +we guess there was a thief around, in this place? Do you suppose it is +a den of thieves now?” + +The secret passage was full of turns, dark, sharp turns, around which +no one could see; only by making the turn and throwing a light ahead +could whatever chanced to be around these bends be seen. + +“I am not a thief!” came a voice out of the darkness as Isabel finished +speaking. + +Prue shrieked and shrieked. Isabel uttered one agonized scream, and +fell to trembling silently. Mark gasped, almost a groan, and after an +instant’s pardonable hesitation, went toward the sound of the voice. + +“Say, keep off!” the same voice said in a high, squeaky tone. “Don’t +you come after me! I’ll run faster’n you can and I’ll never be caught. +You stay off. I’ve’s good a right in here’s you have; better! If you +want that black box of money just go look for it where I say, but don’t +you chase _me_! Count your turns. Count three turns back the way you +come. Then go down a short little narrow path somebody must of dug and +got sick of once. There’s a box, and it isn’t one penny lighter’n ’twas +when I found it. If you want it, take it. But I ain’t any more a thief +than you are, and I won’t let you call me one. I’ll make you good’n +sorry if you do.” + +“My goodness, whoever you are!” cried Mark, his spirits rising as he +found a chance to answer the mystery. “If you return the box you’re not +a thief, so why should we call you one?” + +“We’re very much obliged; you are very kind,” Isabel managed to say +faintly, feeling compelled to politeness for the favor done them. + +“I won’t make trouble for kids,” said the voice. “Good-by.” + +“Oh, come out and let us see you!” cried Prue, all her fear wiped out +by the sentiment the voice had just expressed, and curiosity seizing +her. + +No answer came to this appeal. The children called several times, but +no sound came in return. A bat, aroused by the lights, flapped heavily +across Prue’s head, so close to her face that she screamed louder than +she had when the voice had first startled her. + +“Oh, for mercy’s sake, get the old box and come out of here!” she +cried. “I don’t want to be buried first, and then killed by bats and +stuff!” + +Isabel and Mark began to laugh, but there was no resisting the fervor +of poor Prue’s voice. They began to retrace their steps, counting as +the voice had bade them count. There, at the spot it had indicated, +they came upon the black box, and, as Mark lifted it, he said: + +“It does feel exactly as heavy as ever! Maybe it is all right.” + +The children came out of the secret passage at the end which led them +out into the grounds of Hawthorne House. Motherkins came to meet them. + +“Kathie and Dolly are waiting for you,” she said. “If only you could +find the coins!” + +“We have found them, Motherkins!” cried Isabel. “Just you wait till you +hear!” + +Without delaying for the soap and water that the three faces needed +after passing through the secret passage, the children went in to find +Kathie and Dolly in the library. + +“We came to get my coins, Mark,” said Kathie, ignoring Isabel’s feeble +“Hallo,” and not so much as seeing Prue, who did not attempt to speak +to them. + +“All right; they’re here. We went to bring them up from where I put +them,” said Mark. “I don’t know how many there were, but I don’t +believe any are lost.” + +“Thank you, Mark,” said Kathie with dignity. “You needn’t think +we’re mad with you, Mark, because we’re not. You didn’t ask us mean +questions!” + +“Nobody did; we all wanted to know if you’d been into that room. I +asked the question just as much as any one else, if that’s all, but +there’s no sense in being mad about it. Only if mad you are, please +count me in. It’s just as much my mess as the girls’.” Mark spoke so +firmly that Isabel and Prue were proud of him. + +“Just as you like. Then we’ll be mad with you, too. Come, Dolly!” +Kathie took the yielding Dolly under her command with a stern glance. +Neither Kathie nor Dolly had any desire to quarrel with Mark, whom they +admired greatly, but if he joined himself with Isabel and Prue, there +was no help for it. Mark escorted them to the door, polite in his own +home. + +“Good-by; come again!” he said with a laugh as they departed. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SHADOW OF PARTING + + +“Oh, dear, dear!” sighed Isabel watching the retreat of Kathie and +Dolly, who stalked away so wrathily that “they looked as if their backs +were calling names,” Isabel said. “They are staying mad. I hoped they’d +be over it when they’d had a night’s sleep. Mother says never to let +the sun go down upon your anger, but they did, and they let it rise +again, and still they’re mad!” + +“Well, I don’t think their not speaking is half as much consequence +as that voice that did speak,” said Mark, who could not get up great +interest in Kathie and Dolly’s doings. “I’d like to know who, or what +that was.” + +“I should--think--so!” Prue spoke with slow and awful emphasis. “It +gets worse every minute I remember it. I just about can’t stand it! +Everything is getting so queer! I wonder if we’re asleep and dreaming +these things? It’s like a queer, mixed-up dream.” + +“All of us asleep, and dreaming the same thing?” laughed Mark. “And how +could we know what the rest of us were dreaming?” + +“We couldn’t. But we could dream we were all together and heard the +voice, and saw that little man. And then I’d only be in your dream, or +Isa’s, and you’d only be in my dream--Oh, mercy! I’ll go crazy!” Prue +clapped her hands to her head and shook it hard, burrowing her chin +into her neck wildly. + +“And how could we tell which was the one dreaming?” Isabel cried +gleefully; she dearly liked this sort of game. “There’d only be one +real one, the other two would be the dream, and how should we know +which they were? And there’s Poppy.” + +“Where?” cried Prue. + +“I mean she saw the queer little man, and the only reason she didn’t +hear the voice is because she wasn’t there, so she had one-half the +dream and not the other half,” Isabel explained. “I sort of think that +proves we are awake, but I don’t know how it does it. First we saw a +queer little man without a voice; then we heard a voice----” + +“Without a queer little man!” cried Mark. “It’s like Alice and the +Cheshire cat! She said she’d seen cats without a smile, but never a +smile without a cat.” + +“If you don’t stop talking about crazy things I’ll go crazy myself!” +Prue warned them sharply. “It’s making me feel all crawly inside me. It +almost has sense, but it hasn’t any! It’s like trying to catch the wet +soap in the bath tub. I’m so scared when I think of that awful, awful +voice I could curl up and die. I declare I think Greenacres is getting +dreadfully funny!” + +“It wasn’t an awful voice, though; it was a pretty nice voice, telling +us where to find Kathie’s coins,” Isabel reminded her. + +“What puzzles me is why the man--or the beast, or the bird, or the +ghost, whoever that voice belongs to--stole the box, and then right +away told us where to get it! What’s the use?” Mark observed. + +“Probably he didn’t steal it; just happened to find it and took it.” +Isabel clearly saw the difference in these two actions, though it might +seem to another much the same. “Where’s Poppy?” she suddenly demanded; +it was odd for Poppy to absent herself for so long. + +“I don’t know; queer, isn’t it?” said Mark. “When we were coming up out +of the secret passage I just barely saw her tearing off through the +trees, ever so far down the middle path through the woods. ’Tis queer +she doesn’t come back, now I think of it.” + +“Dare you to go home that way, Prue, and see what she’s up to,” said +Isa. + +“I’m scared,” Prue admitted honestly, “but we’ve got to keep on going +into the woods, or else there wouldn’t be any use in living at all. +So I’ll go. You’re probably just as scared as I am, anyway, Isabel +Lindsay! And the way you’ll do is hold it down, and then not go to +sleep to-night.” + +“Oh, well, I never pretended not to mind, and of course it’s much worse +to be afraid of something you can’t understand than of burglars, or +rats, or anything sensible,” Isabel did not shrink from admitting her +nervousness. + +“Let’s go home through the woods, Prue. We can play we are pioneer +mothers daring wild beasts and Indians; that will help a whole lot. If +we put off going it will be much worse when we do go, as you said. And +let’s start _now_.” + +“Mark, Mark dear, will you come here? I want you,” called Motherkins. + +“Oh, I was going part of the way with you,” said Mark regretfully. “Now +I can’t, so good-by. I’ll see you after a while, maybe.” + +“We’d rather not have you come; we’ve got to get used to being brave +alone,” said Prue. “Good-by. If anything should happen to us, why, you +know where we went.” + +“Oh, gracious, Prue, don’t!” shuddered Isabel, profoundly disturbed by +the awful picture of herself and Prue lying wounded in the woods which +this suggestion at once called up. + +Prue and Isabel wound their arms around each other for mutual support +in their adventure, but resolutely faced the woods and walked toward +them, not hurrying, but not loitering, with that steady pace that +betokens steady purpose. + +“Let’s go the longest way, past Château Branche, then we’ll know we +didn’t get out of one thing because we were ’fraid-cats,” proposed Prue. + +“Well, if here isn’t Bunkie coming to meet us!” cried Isabel surprised. +“I left him at home because he might get lost in the secret passage, I +always think. How could he know we were coming here when we didn’t know +it ourselves?” + +The little dog came tearing toward Isabel, ears streaming backward, +tail wagging as fast as it could at the speed he was making. He leaped +up to his mistress with a great show of joy, gave Prue a rapid, but +cordial welcome, then turned in the direction from which he had come, +looking back to see that they were coming. At that moment the little +girls heard a sound of wailing and stood still. + +“Now what’s that?” cried Prue sharply. “There’s something else awful, +and it’s quite new.” + +“Doesn’t it sound horrible? But maybe it’s a panther--no, there aren’t +any! Maybe it’s a wild cat, and maybe they cry the way panthers do. +They say you can’t tell a panther from a baby; they fool hunters; +don’t you remember? In books I’ve seen that.” Isabel was trying to +be cheerful, though her teeth almost chattered, but Prue was not +appreciative. + +“Yes, and maybe it’s an orphan asylum and they are real babies crying,” +she said scornfully. “There are just as many orphan asylums in these +woods as there are panthers and wild cats. Shall we go on, or do you +say to turn off right here?” + +“I say to go on,” answered Isa, pale but heroic. + +Their decision rejoiced Bunkie, who while they hesitated had been +imploring them by every sign he knew to come on. + +The blood curdling wailing continued and grew louder as they advanced; +it took strong resolution to proceed. Prue clutched Isabel’s arm so +tight that she found it black and blue that night when she went to bed, +though she did not feel it then, while Isabel held Prue’s side in a +grasp that ticklish Prue could not have borne for a moment if her mind +had not been too fully occupied to notice it. + +Slowly, trembling from head to foot, these Greenacres heroines +advanced, and their courage was rewarded, for in the midst of the +wailing two words came out clear, and these words were: “Oh gosh!” + +It was Poppy! There was no mistaking the way she uttered her favorite +vent for her feelings, and Isabel and Prue laughed out in their relief, +though in another instant they began to feel troubled to find Poppy +like this, prone on her face, crying desperately, alone in the woods, +in which she, as well as Isabel and Prue, were beginning to feel afraid +to wander. + +Bunkie darted ahead and up to Poppy, nosing her anxiously, but she +ungratefully pushed him away, not being minded to accept his pity then. + +“Why, Poppy! Why, Poppy dear, what is it? Is anything the matter?” +cried Isabel and Prue together, running up and dropping on their knees +beside Poppy’s prostrate, sob-shaken little body. + +At this Poppy’s crying began afresh, so violently that Isa and Prue +were frightened and there was no hope of getting a word from her. + +“May as well wait,” said Prue, sitting back on her heels with a +resigned despair. + +“Oh, try to stop, try to tell us what is wrong, Poppy!” begged Isabel. +“Is anything wrong?” + +“Don’t you--don’t you know? Didn’t no one tell you?” Poppy managed to +gasp, losing her hold on English. + +“No, indeed!” Isabel said. “Tell us, quick!” + +“It’s settled!” Poppy moaned, and fell back into worse crying. + +“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed Prue impatiently. “What is settled, Poppy +Meiggs?” + +But Isabel had a sudden enlightenment. + +“Oh, Poppy, is it really? Oh, Poppy!” she cried. + +“Well, for pity’s sake!” Prue exclaimed again desperately. “Are you +going to be a puzzle, too! How _do_ you know what she means?” + +“She means it is settled that Mr. Hawthorne has to lose the money that +Mr. Ditson left to him, and that they will have to give up that dear, +dear house, and Motherkins’ garden and everything, don’t you, Poppy?” +said Isabel pale to her lips over her shocking discovery. + +Poppy nodded hard, raising her head to do so, and instantly burying her +face in the moss again. + +“That’s not the whole of it,” she said in a muffled voice. + +“Oh, not, not that they’re going away!” cried Isabel. + +“They are, too!” Poppy sat up suddenly and spoke out of a gust of +anger. “We shall go away, away! Out of Greenacres! Mr. Hawthorne can’t +get anything here, he said--he means work. He’ll be poor; he must +work. They’ll go away, away! And I sha’n’t see you no more, Isabel, +my darling, dear! But Hurrah! They can’t take him along, my own, own +horse! They can’t feed him; it costs. And I love him more’n anything +in all this world, and they’ll leave him here. Oh, Hurrah, Hurrah, +Hurrah!” Poppy’s voice rose higher with each repetition of the name, +till it became a shriek, and had the effect of cheering. + +But Poppy was far away from a cheer. She fell down again on the ground +and pulled up handfuls of mossy turf, kicking the while with such +violence that her striped gingham skirt fluttered as if it were in a +gale and one of her shoes flew off. + +“There’s no use kicking, Poppy,” remarked Prue, picking up the shoe and +stooping to replace it. “Hold still, and I’ll put your shoe on again. +Goodness knows it makes me sick, if it’s true that Mark and all are +going away. How do you know it is true?” + +“I heard Motherkins and Mr. Gilbert talking about it. They said the +lawyers had written a letter and said there wasn’t any show to help +it. And Motherkins kind of cried a little, then she said never mind, +Gilbert, because I shall not mind much, and I know you feel bad for +me. And that was worse’n her crying. Nearly kills me when she bucks +up brave that way! And they said they’d tell Mark’s soon as you two’d +gone, and now you’re here they likely telling him. And, oh, Hurrah, +Hurrah, Hurrah!” Once more Poppy gave herself up to the anguish of the +thought of parting from her horse, whose cheerful name so ill-fitted +this use of it. + +“Now, Poppy, I’m going to tell you something,” said Isabel in her sweet +little womanly way, putting aside her own sharp pain over this news to +try to comfort Poppy. “If you don’t want to leave Hurrah, you needn’t. +My father and mother were talking about this, what would happen if +the Hawthornes had to give up the money, and father said--they both +said--that you could come to live with us, if you wanted to, and stay +right on in Greenacres, and keep on in our same school. And father said +he’d keep Hurrah for you; he said he was sure you’d feel perfectly +terrible to give him up. So now you know all about it. You needn’t give +up Hurrah, nor Greenacres, if you’d rather not. You can stay with us +and Hurrah’ll be yours just the same.” + +Poor Poppy! She was in a bad state of nerves from grief and her +tempestuous crying, and at best she too easily flew into a temper. + +Now she sprang up like a rocket, on her feet, and waved her arms up and +down, as if she wanted to hit something either in the sky, or beneath +it. + +“I guess I won’t! I guess I won’t! I guess I won’t!” she screamed. +“What d’jer think I am! Leave Motherkins! Leave her! Didn’t she take +me in when she was poor’n poorhouses, and take care o’ me when nobody +wouldn’t, but her, but went and took all the rest o’ the Meiggses, +’cause there wa’n’t none of ’em red headed and freckled noses but me? +I guess I won’t live with your folks, not if I do love you cartloads, +Isabel Lindsay, and I won’t stay, not with no horse, Hurrah, nor +nobody, ’stead o’ Mis’ Hawthorne--Motherkins. So there!” + +“Well, Poppy, I’m sorry,” faltered Isabel sincerely. “I didn’t mean to +make you mad. You said you loved Hurrah best of anything, so I thought +you’d like to know you might have him if you really did love him best. +That’s all.” + +“Any gump’d know I didn’t mean Hurrah ’stead of Motherkins,” said Poppy +still disgusted and offended. Then with one of her sudden changes, she +threw her arms around Isabel and half crushed her in a tremendous hug, +crying, but with a new and gentler misery, as she did so. + +“Oh, you darling Isa,” she moaned. “I’m the nastiest! I’m sorry, Isa! +And how shall I ever stand it without you?” + +“Well, Poppy,” said Prue, who found Poppy trying, as she so often did, +“do you think you’re the only one feeling bad? Don’t you suppose we +care? Isn’t Mark--isn’t Mark--our own Jack--Jack-in-the-Box?” + +Prue had great difficulty in getting to the end of her sentence, and +when she did haltingly reach it her own tears were flowing, but quietly. + +“Shall we sit in Château Branche just a few minutes to get rested so +we can go home? I feel sort of weak,” said Isabel, and Prue saw that +she was as white as a white rose petal, even her lips colorless; it was +Isa’s way to take a blow silently, but with tragic intensity. + +They climbed up into their house in the great pine, each one thinking +how beautifully Mark’s father had prepared this for them, as well as +so many other things which they enjoyed. And Isabel, looking off with +great tears on her lashes, her gray-blue eyes black from their dilated +pupils, with black hollows below them, realized how she and Prue might +come here by and by--provided they had the courage to come--and sit +here, as to-day, without Mark, forever without Mark. The thought was +unbearable. + +Down went Isa’s head on her knees, which she was clasping with tense +fingers. + +“Oh, it’s too awful, too awful!” she murmured. “It can’t be true! I’m +going to hope something will happen! I’m going to pray for it! Let’s +all pray for something to happen to let us keep our Jack-in-the-Box.” + +“But it won’t,” said Prue dismally. + +“It might!” cried Isabel, raising her head and tossing her hair out of +her eyes. “We must believe it will, and pray hard!” + +“It could, couldn’t it, Isa?” cried Poppy, enkindled by the idea. +“Should we call this Church Branche, instead of Château Branche, and +pray and pray, right here?” + +“Oh, here comes Mark! See how slowly he’s coming, and Semp marching +beside him! Oh, it must be true when he comes so very slowly!” said +Prue, before Poppy’s question could be answered. + +“Are you up here?” asked Mark preparing to swing himself up into +Château Branche. + +“We’re coming down, Mark,” said Isabel. “Don’t come up; we have to go +home.” + +The three little girls descended, Mark quietly offering each his hand. +It was as if he had grown up since they had last seen him, so grave, so +kind, so gentle was his manner. + +Isabel was last to get down. She stood where she alighted and looked at +Mark, and quietly Mark looked at her, his lips twitching. + +“It is all true,” said Isabel slowly. “I hoped Poppy was mistaken. It +is all true that--that--you are going away, Jack-in-the-Box.” + +“Hard luck, Isa,” muttered Mark. “But daddy has no chance at good +business here, and he has in Boston. Yes, Isa, it is true. Daddy and +Motherkins told me themselves. I--I--I’m horribly sorry, Isa, but we’ve +got to stand it the best that’s in us.” + +“If we can stand it at all that’ll be the way we must,” said Isabel. +“It will take the best we can do even to live, let alone stand it! +Will--will you go soon, Jack-in-the-Box, dear?” + +“About September first, daddy thought,” said Mark. + +“Oh!” cried Isabel brightening; her mind had been keyed up to a parting +at once. “A lot can happen before then. We’re going to pray for +something to stop it, and that gives us time!” + +She smiled quite cheerfully, as if the working of a miracle was made +more probable by allowing more time for it. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MERRILY PUTTING OFF SORROW + + +“You’re to come home with Poppy and me, Isa and Prue; Motherkins said +so,” said Mark. “She was going to call up your mothers, and ask them to +let you stay to supper. She said we might get it ourselves. We’re going +to have ice cream.” + +“Whatever in this world _for_?” demanded Prue. “Funny time to have a +party when we’re too miserable to talk!” + +“Motherkins said we must have all the good times, and just as good +times, as we can while we--before we--go away.” Mark’s voice trembled +over the end of this sentence. “And of course it isn’t a party; just +ourselves puttering into things in the kitchen, the way we always do.” + +“And of course we’ll love it!” Isabel came to Mark’s rescue. “Poppy, +try not to show how you feel about Hurrah, and don’t cry before +Motherkins.” + +“H’uh! Don’t you s’pose she knows about Hurrah and me? I’ll bet she +hates to leave him her ownself!” said Poppy with a scornful sniff. “I +b’lieve you’n Prue’s full as likely to cry as me.” + +“Well, we’ll all do our very best to be jolly,” said Isabel. + +“I’m saddest now in my stomach; it aches, I cried so hard,” said Poppy, +and the other three could not help laughing, which proved to be a +helpful start toward cheerfulness. + +Bunkie, blissfully ignorant of the misfortune that had befallen his +friends, ran back and forth ahead of them as the children started for +Hawthorne House. Pincushion came to meet them down the grass at the +rear of the house, talking, as she always did, with every step, softly +cooing: “M-m-m-m,” at the sight of Bunkie whom the little cat loved +with as great fervor as when she was a kitten. + +“Oh, and there are Bunkie and Cushla! They love each other so; how will +they stand part----” + +“Prue!” Isabel interrupted Prue’s lament. “Now, don’t begin that! +Aren’t we forgetting every single minute, with all our might, so why do +you want to remind us?” + +There was no chance to be dismal in meeting Motherkins. She stood at +the top of the steps waving her hands girlishly. Behind her stood the +grim person who had come to Hawthorne House to do the housework, +and was so exceedingly gloomy that she made everybody else cheerful. +Flossie Doolittle was her name, not one bit suitable, for she was a +great worker, and nothing could have been less like her than “Flossie.” +But the trifling name, worn by the solemn and rather elderly woman, was +so funny that the children never got used to it. + +“Ice cream, my guests!” called Motherkins the moment the children were +within reach of her voice. “My son Gilbert, your Mr. Daddé, has brought +us up a quantity of ice, and I have cream so heavy it will hold up a +spoon! Flossie is going to let you do anything that you please in her +kitchen, and not interfere, unless you ask her help. And I am going +to get out the plates you like best--those thin French ones with the +bronze-gold border--and we shall have one of those nicest parties, the +kind that you don’t plan, and which are not celebrating anything, but +having a good time. What will each of you make for supper? And what +sort of cream shall it be? We’ll have to take a vote on that.” + +“Well,” said Prue with a vivid remembrance of an attempt she had +once made to get up a half dozen delicacies, and what a failure it +had been, “I say don’t try a whole lot of things. Don’t each of us +make something different, but let’s make about two things, and work +together. We don’t need such a lot--I think ice cream is enough for +supper.” + +“Prudence always proves true to her name!” laughed Motherkins. “That’s +a sensible sugges--what shall it be?” + +“I can frazzle--I mean frizzle dried beef nice,” said Prue, and they +all laughed. + +“I can do potatoes in the oven, sliced and baked in milk,” said +Isabel. “We could use some of the milk you skimmed for the ice cream, +Motherkins.” + +“Economical Isa! And that sort of potatoes is delicious. But not +everything done in milk, please! Prue, what else besides frizzled beef +could you offer us?” + +“I’ll make cake,” said Prue, and they saw that she did not quite enjoy +having her beef laughed at. + +“Oh, Motherkins, there’s cold chicken left! If only you’d let me make +those croquet ball things--you showed me how you did it; I’ll bet I +could!” + +Poppy spoke as if she had long yearned to do this. + +“Croquettes, funny Poppy!” cried Motherkins. “But they are balls, it’s +true. I don’t believe you could ever go through two wickets at a time +with one! Croquettes be it; isn’t that enough?” + +“Too much,” said Prue decidedly. “What sort of cream?” + +“Let’s make ourselves into a convention; daddy told me how they +nominate the president. I nominate chocolate ice cream. Anybody else +want my candidate?” asked Mark. + +“I do,” said Poppy. + +“I don’t; I want brown sugar caramel cream,” said Isabel. + +“O-o-oh, so do I!” cried Prue, smacking her lips. + +“Convention is evenly divided--unless you’ll vote, Motherkins-wee?” +said Mark. + +Mrs. Hawthorne shook her head decidedly. “All your choice, this +supper,” she said. + +“Then one of you must vote with us, or one of us with you,” said Mark. +“I don’t care; I’ll say caramel----” + +“No, listen!” interrupted Isa. “I say make plain cream, without any +flavor, or else the weeniest little drop of vanilla in it--and make a +chocolate sauce to pour over it. We all like that.” + +“That’s the dark horse in the convention!” cried Mark. “When they don’t +get enough votes for one candidate they put up a bran new one nobody +thought of, and get together on him. We’ll have the chocolate sauce +candidate, the dark horse Senator Isabel nominated!” + +“It _is_ dark; chocolate sauce always is,” observed literal-minded Prue +thoughtfully. + +“I suppose I may’s well get out pans for you young ones; young ones +always uses a great many they no need to,” said Flossie mournfully. +“I think you’ve got comp’ny to your party unexpected. There’s a wagon +drivin’ in, and if I’m not much mistook it’s the bottle man again that +come here not so long back, and is a friend o’ Poppy’s, who ought to be +called by her name and not such a no-name ’tall as Poppy, even though +her name is Gladys, which is by far too silly and ornamental for the +Meiggs part of her name.” + +“Well, you should worry!” said Poppy indignantly. “Oh, Motherkins, it +is Mr. Thomas Burke, 906 North Street, Hertonsburg, and his wife’s +along!” + +Poppy had run to the window in the pantry from which she could see the +barn and her friends alighting from the wagon, which they were leaving +in the barnyard. She ran back with her tidings, her face radiant; she +always gave Mr. Burke’s address when she spoke of him as if it were +part of his name. + +“I’m glad that they’ve come,” said Motherkins heartily. “And the moral +of this, as the Duchess would say, is always to have a party ready in +case unexpected guests arrive.” + +She went out to welcome and bring in the Burkes, and the children +looked after her admiringly. Sweet and calm, ready to give the children +a good time and to take part in it, who that had not known would have +guessed that brave little Motherkins had received a hard blow and bore +a heavy heart in her breast? + +“I hope I shall grow up like her, just exactly like my mother and her!” +said Isabel, and it was not necessary to say why, for Prue echoed: + +“So do I hope I shall!” + +Poppy had run after Motherkins and now returned leading a large, sunny +looking woman, with a broad hat trimmed with cornflowers, much askew +from riding in the jolting wagon, crowning disordered hair. + +“Yes,” she said, continuing something she had been telling Motherkins, +who followed her into the room, “my man had to be over beyond here +to-morrow, so he came around this way to-day to tell your husband--I +mean your son, ma’am--something about that little man he met one day, +as he was telling you the time he was here previous. It seems that +little hunchback man had something on his mind to do with you folks. +He was to the doctor’s over to Hertonsburg and was hinting at it. When +Poppy wrote us--’twasn’t just so easy to read, but we made out you was +in trouble and a-going to lose your fine home, and so we kinder put two +and two together, as the saying is, and wondered if the little man was +mixed up with your trouble some way.” + +“Poppy wrote you about it?” Motherkins looked at Poppy with surprise, +and a little disapproval. + +“I told Mis’ Burke that most likely you was goin’ to get poor again, +and I asked her, if you did, could they take me into the bottle +business and let me work for ’em? And I said I’d let ’em use my +horse--Hurrah, I mean--and I’d tag along behind on the buckboard, +working for ’em, if they’d take me into business,” said Poppy with +great dignity. + +Mrs. Burke winked at Motherkins mysteriously, though a child less +bright than Poppy could not have missed that wink, nor failed to see +that it meant admiration of herself. + +“She did that, ma’am,” said Mrs. Burke. “We’d be proud to travel like a +circus, as Tom said, with Poppy following the big wagon, but we didn’t +want to make a bargain by mail, not letting you in on it.” + +“We’re having a kind of a party,” said Poppy, changing an unpleasant +for a pleasant subject, “and we’d ought to be fixing things.” + +“Leave me help!” said Mrs. Burke, instantly unbuttoning and rolling up +her sleeves. “I know how to do most anything, if I do say it, and I +ain’t fond of not doin’ most anything, all the time--I hate loafin’!” + +So in a short time the kitchen hummed with industry. Isabel was slicing +potatoes; Poppy was shredding chicken from its bones; Prue was beating +eggs, and Mark, pinned up in a roller towel, was scraping chocolate for +the sauce, a dark streak on one cheek that suggested--but it was not +sweetened chocolate, so perhaps he had not been taking toll-tastes of +his material. + +When the table was set--Flossie had attended to that at a hint from +Motherkins--Isabel brought in her potatoes in their casserole, trying +not to look proud of the wrinkled brownness of their milky top. But +when they were served she tried--less successfully--not to look +mortified; the slices of potatoes were hard; the milk had boiled and +browned, but the potatoes were raw. + +Poppy’s croquettes fell apart when they were taken out of the boiling +fat, and she had not been sure that she had salted them, so she had put +in a generous amount, which, as it was the second salting, made the +croquettes something to taste once, choke over and forever after to +avoid. + +“Oh, well, who wants anything but ice cream and cake when it’s around, +anyway?” asked Poppy, winking back her tears of mortification. + +“Got a whopping freezerful!” cried Mark. “I thought of a way to make it +three kinds, too! First, plain--and it’s good that way; it’s rich. Then +with chocolate sauce over it. Then with strawberry jam over it. Flossie +said we might do that, and it’s great.” + +“Guessing, or knowledge, Mark?” hinted his father. + +Mark laughed. “Knowledge; I tasted it,” he owned up. + +Mark served the cream. Eight saucers were brought in by him heaped and +running over. + +“Oh, Mark, dear, where _are_ we to put the sauce? I am sure there is a +pint of ice cream in this saucer! Poppy, dear, please hand me another +plate to put half of this on,” cried Motherkins. + +“Oh, Motherkins, the freezer is full and it holds two gallons!” +remonstrated Mark. “Don’t take any off; we’ve as much again all around.” + +“Sure you can pack it!” said Mr. Burke, speaking for the first time. + +“Thank you, Mr. Burke; this boy cares more for the safety of the cream +than for his poor little grandmother!” said Motherkins pathetically. + +“Eat a crater in the top first, and then put on sauce to fill it,” +advised Prue, rapidly taking helpings of cream from the top of her +piled-up plate, carefully keeping the sides alike by turning the spoon +around like a drill. “I think my cake is all right.” + +“Your cake is delicious, Prue,” said Mr. Hawthorne, though everybody +else laughed at Prue. “And the ice cream is too good for it to grieve +us if we can’t find room for sauce over it. This is a nice party!” + +“Oh, we have nice parties! We have nice parties!” Isabel’s voice +quavered as she said this and she bent forward and scooped out the +middle of her cream to hide her emotion, scooping so hard that the +melted cream at the base of the cone overflowed the edge of her plate +without her seeing it. + +For a moment there was a dangerous tendency on the part of the four +children to tears; it was easy to understand that Isabel was thinking +of the day, now drawing near, when there would be no more of these +impromptu good times. + +“Well!” It was Mr. Burke who saved the day by speaking as if he were +unconscious of this danger. “What I would be sayin’ is that if Mrs. +Hawthorne would trust me an’ my wife, an’ well she may, for we’d look +after Poppy our best an’ Mrs. Burke’s best is as good as best comes, +we’d take Poppy along to-morrow for a trip. We’ll be coming this way +again, back on our tracks, three days from now, an’ Poppy might harness +up her Arabian race horse an’ follow along on the buckboard, an’ try +how she’d like the business. What do you say to it?” + +“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!” Poppy started up, clapping her hands. Then she +stopped, and fell back in her chair with a sudden gust of tears. “Oh, +no! Oh, no; I couldn’t! I couldn’t leave Isabel for so long, not +now--nor Prue,” she added, but plainly as an afterthought. + +“Well, if that’s the only objection, take them along,” suggested Mr. +Burke. “An’ Mark, too. Even if you ain’t parting from him, like the +girls here, it’ll do no harm to have him with us. If it’s too big a +pull for Hurrah’s well-known delicacy of constitution, there’s room in +the wagon for the lot of ye, or any one of ye, to ride amongst me an’ +Mrs. Tommy Burke an’ the bottles.” + +“And sell our garden truck, the way we planned!” cried Prue. “It’s +ready this minute! We’ve got to sell it, because that’s why we raised +it, and we said we would, even if it is too late to save up money +enough for this house.” + +“Might we, Mrs. Hawthorne? If you said Poppy and Mark could go, I know +mother would think I could. I’d love it.” Isabel leaned over the table, +her eyes shining, her lips parted by her quick breath. + +“I don’t see any objections. It would be great sport for you,” said +Motherkins. + +“You’re such a darling!” cried Prue. “You always see why things are +nice, just as we do. Hurry up with that cream, Mark. I’ve got to go up +to the Club Room for the scales.” + +“What for?” asked Mark, filling the crater he had made in the middle of +his ice cream with a great spoonful of chocolate syrup. “My, but it’s +luscious! I will not hurry!” + +“To weigh our vegetables. I left the scales up there.” Prue nearly +choked herself with ice cream covered with strawberry jam; she did not +mind that the others laughed. “We’ll be gypsying. We’ll sleep outdoors, +shan’t we? I want to! Poppy and Isa and I will roll up in blankets +and sleep on the buckboard! Mark can sleep in the wagon, or use his +father’s tent that he used to have last summer. Oh, Mr. Burke, you are +an angel!” + +“I’ll be after getting a new sign painted: ‘T. Burke, Angel. Dealer in +Glass Bottles,’” said Mr. Burke with his twinkle. + +“Come with me,” said Prue to Isa, as she hastily took her last spoonful +of ice cream, so large a spoonful that she clapped her hand to her +cheek, for it made her teeth ache. + +Isa followed her out of the door and up to the Club Room. Nobody had +visited the room that day. As the little girls opened the door and +rushed in, being in a great hurry to get the scales, they stopped short +and looked around, then stared at each other. + +The couch was pulled forward, its cover thrown off, its pillows piled +up and the top one dented with the unmistakable impression of a head in +it. + +“Some one has slept here!” cried Prue. + +“And it surely wasn’t Kathie,” added Isabel, pointing to a cigar stub +and ashes and burnt matches which lay on one of the saucers of their +cherished set of cups and saucers. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +GYPSYING + + +The children stampeded down stairs. + +“Some one slept in the Club Room last night!” Isa shouted. “Some one’s +been there! Not Kathie, because there’s the end of a cigar on the +table.” + +“It wouldn’t be Kathie if there weren’t a cigar,” said Prue. “Kathie +wouldn’t come there to _sleep_!” + +Mr. Hawthorne looked at his mother, she at him, and Mr. Burke gave +his wife a startled look which he tried to change into a careless one +and carry on to the sideboard, as if he were examining the silver on +it, because he did not want to alarm the children more than they were +already frightened. They could easily see, however, that the four grown +people took their announcement seriously. + +“There’s no kind of use in letting this go on longer without trying to +find out who is at the bottom of all these mysterious happenings,” said +Mr. Hawthorne. “I believe I’ll sleep in that room for a while.” + +“Oh, daddy, let me!” implored Mark. + +“You’re going gypsying with the Burkes in the morning, aren’t you? +You can’t watch that room till you get back; then we’ll see.” Mark’s +father evaded a direct answer. “If you are going you ought to be ready +to-night, by the way. Gather your garden products while it is still +light, and get together whatever you need for an early start.” + +“Is that really a go? I was afraid it was fooling,” Mark said, looking +delighted and forgetting the mystery of the Club Room for the moment. + +“It’s a go an’ a going ’s far ’s I’m concerned, my young Hawberry,” +said Mr. Burke, looking with admiration at Mark’s eager, handsome face, +all alight with anticipation. + +“You are nice to us, and we like you a great deal, Mr. Burke. It’s a +pity you haven’t any children to go around with you,” Prue said in her +elderly fashion. + +“Whist!” said Mr. Burke, glancing anxiously at his wife to see if she +heard. + +“Oh, Prue, you mustn’t speak of that; they died!” whispered Isabel +nervously. + +“We’d take Poppy along the whole season, if she’d come,” Mr. Burke +said loudly. “But it’s not every youngster we’d say it of.” + +“I wouldn’t go, much ’s I love you. Come on and pick vegettubles,” said +Poppy, pulling Isabel out of the room by her belt. + +“I’ve gotter curry Hurrah. I thought you done--did--it with curry +powder, but you don’t; Mr. Thomas Burke showed me how.” + +“You can’t reach to curry him; he’s a tall horse, and you are a +whippet, as the Burkes say,” Mark reminded her. + +“I’ll curry all I can reach,” Poppy answered, not at all discouraged. +“It’s elegant to do. You use something you call a comb, but ’tain’t, +and you kind of hiss through your teeth when you rub him. Mr. Burke +showed me. He says the hiss you mustn’t leave out, ’cause no one ever +does it right who ain’t a hisser currying. I got heaps of radishes now +to sell, and my second peas. We gotter hustle and pick things.” + +“My string beans are as good as the best, and I’ll have a bushel to +take, I’m pretty sure,” Mark said proudly. + +“It’s been pretty dry for my lettuce, but some is tender,” said Prue +anxiously. + +“You can see for yourselves my flowers are lovely. But I wonder if +there’s any use of taking them to sell?” sighed Isabel. + +“I don’t see a bit of use in any of it,” said Prue. “We were just plain +silly! We know now we couldn’t raise enough to keep the house, so +what’s the use of doing a little?” + +“Maybe they’ll need money till Mr. Hawthorne gets well started in +business,” said Isabel, with a sense of delicacy upon her in alluding +to Mark’s family affairs before him. + +Poppy was not wasting time. She had taken a hoe out with her and was +digging radishes so recklessly that she cut many of them, but she said +she “didn’t care; there were tons too many of ’em.” + +Then she picked peas, tearing down the vines to get them, and had her +basket filled in an amazingly short time. Prue selected tender lettuce +heads with care; Mark gathered a bushel basketful of crisply tender +wax beans, and Isabel gathered quantities of sweet peas, mignonette, +alyssum, which, piled on a tray, filled the air with fragrance. + +“It seems ’s if we ought to make a good business. Now, you watch me +curry!” said Poppy. + +Without the least fear, nor reason for fear, for the tall horse knew +and loved her, Poppy went into Hurrah’s stall and began to curry him, +“hissing through her teeth” in approved hostler fashion. + +Poppy could reach only Hurrah’s shoulders and chest and legs, so the +currying left a good deal of him undone, but she rubbed and hissed and +got warm and dusty over all that she could reach of her comrade, and +suddenly threw her currycomb from her and burst into tempestuous tears. + +“Oh, oh, oh! When you think I can’t keep on doing it!” she screamed. + +Isabel vainly tried to soothe her, privately thinking that it was not a +good reason for crying that one could not curry a horse, however dear. + +There was an early and most exciting start in the morning of the +remarkable expedition. First, the blue wagon, boxes in its body, +rattling with bottles of sorts and sizes; on its high seat the jolly +Burkes, both red in the face and full of laughter. And on a blanket, +thrown over an empty box, set bottom-side-up, Mark, carrying a +fantastic flag which he had hastily made after he had gone to his room +the night before. It was a square of flaming scarlet, ornamented with +pasted designs in white. Dangling from the two corners which were not +attached to its pole hung a small bottle to announce to the world the +business upon which this wagon rolled through it. + +Behind the wagon came the buckboard drawn by tall Hurrah, all sorts of +bundles lashed on its floor; on its seat three little girls, cleaner +than they would long be, seated so low, driving through dusty roads; +the smallest, with her flaming hair almost as conspicuous as Mark’s +red flag on the big wagon, holding the lines, her brow knit, her lips +pursed, her eyes intent, exactly as if Hurrah would be likely to do +anything but follow his leader. + +“Good-by, and we’ll be back the day after to-morrow, ma’ams,” said Mr. +Burke to Mrs. Hawthorne and Mrs. Lindsay and Mrs. Wayne, who had come +up to see the start. + +“Oh, bring them home safe, Mr. Burke!” cried Mrs. Lindsay, her heart +suddenly sinking as she wondered at herself for consenting to let her +one ewe lamb go on this fantastic excursion. + +“Sure, ma’am, if I was dead myself I’d look after them, that anxious am +I to bring them back safe!” replied Mr. Thomas Burke, giving his horse +the signal to start as he waved his hat in the air and grinned broadly +over his shoulder. + +“You may as well do your selling in Trout Brook, to which we’re coming +shortly,” suggested Mr. Burke. “It’s a summer cottagers’ paradise, +so ’tis, an’ they’ll buy fresh vegetables like crazy. An’ same with +Isabel’s flowers.” + +Mr. Burke proved a true prophet. At Trout Brook people were so tired +of the lack of events in the quiet place where they had come for rest +that they were eager to buy. + +String beans and Poppy’s peas went in a trice. Isabel’s flowers were in +such demand for the adornment of living rooms and dining tables that +she was sold out in a few minutes, and hardly knew how to meet the rush +of trade. + +Lettuce was less desired, because, being so easily raised, some of the +cottagers had planted it in their gardens. But most of that sold, too, +and when the big and the little equipages and drivers started on there +were no vegetables nor flowers left on the buckboard, only a little +lettuce which Isa said would come in beautifully with their own lunch. +Mark was made the cashier; he buttoned nearly sixteen dollars into his +jacket pocket, the result of the children’s garden products. + +They went off in a gay mood, trying not to laugh, because they heard +a lady say as they started away, a lady who had evidently spent years +abroad and wanted it known: + +“What an extraordinary country America is! Really, do you know, those +children appeared quite refined and intelligent! Not in the least like +hucksters’ children!” + +“Some of us ought to be refined, and some of us intelligent. No fair +any one being the whole show!” muttered Mark softly. “Which do you +choose to be, Poppy?” + +“Don’t know what you mean. Don’t bother me; I’m driving,” said Poppy. + +Mark had come over to ride on the buckboard with the other children, +now that it was emptied of the vegetables. + +“Here’s a watering place,” called Mr. Burke, putting his hand on the +back of his seat and swinging half around to the children behind him. + +“This is the brook that the village is named after. We’ve got to stop +an’ let both horses drink. Drive ahead, Poppy, an’ I’ll let down +Hurrah’s check.” + +He prepared to dismount, but Mark called to him that he could and would +let down Hurrah’s check rein, and the big wagon drew to one side of the +road to let the buckboard go by. + +Hurrah drank long and blissfully, knee deep in the middle of the +brook, sucking up water and blowing it out, sniffing it into his dusty +nostrils after he had had enough to drink. + +“My, but it looks good! Makes you feel cool to watch him,” said Mark, +reluctantly crawling out on the shaft to pull up Hurrah’s head and +fasten the check rein again, the other horse whinnying and pawing, +impatient for his turn. + +The buckboard came up safely on the opposite bank of the watering +place, going right through the brook; Isabel and Prue were nervous over +the feat, but Hurrah knew his duty and did it. + +“Well, he may not be so awfully young, nor fancy, but it’s pretty nice +to know you can trust Hurrah,” said Isabel emphatically. + +But, alas, horseflesh, like human nature, is likely to have some +weakness that may make it break its record of sober good behavior! + +Hurrah feared no automobile, not the biggest truck; locomotives, whole +trains, were to him nothing to look at. But paper blowing around his +feet was one thing that he could not endure. This the children had not +yet found out, yet if they had known it they could hardly have helped +what happened. + +A large sheet of paper, which had got detached from a billboard, +advertising an auction that had been held the previous spring, came +rollicking down the road, and fluttered and flourished between Hurrah’s +forelegs, and rustled noisily against his hind ones. + +Hurrah drew himself together with a snort; all his insulted legs seemed +to be bunched for an instant. Then he plunged, and ran down the road at +a speed no one could have imagined he could have struck, the buckboard, +and the children holding to it, bounding and curving behind him, Poppy +still holding the reins, but only at the buckle, screaming at the top +of her voice and powerless to check Hurrah. + +Mr. Burke was still standing beside his horse in the stream. He could +not go after the flying Hurrah for a moment; if he had been able to, he +could not have hoped, with his lumbering wagon, to catch Hurrah and the +light buckboard. + +“Oh, angels in heaven, go after that horse!” Thomas Burke groaned. “Oh, +it’s killed entirely they’ll be! However will I face their mothers! Oh, +sweet guardian angels, take care of them.” + +Mrs. Burke was clambering down backward from the wagon, not aware that +she was coming down into the brook. + +“What’ll you be doin’, Ellen Burke? Do you think you can catch ’em +walkin’?” demanded her husband. + +“I’m no angel, but I’m going after that mad horse to see what I can do +for them children when I come up to where they’ll be lyin’, alive or +dead,” said Mrs. Burke, pale and resolute. + +“Well, well, I’m goin’ to drive after ’em, ain’t I? Stay where ye are, +me poor woman, an’ I’ll make Cork go his best after the track of ’em,” +said Mr. Burke. + +Cork, the big Burke horse, was urged forward and did his best, but +Hurrah had a start, a light load, and was frightened, so he went far +beyond the Burkes’ power to help. + +None of the children jumped. Mark bade them hold on for their lives and +not try to jump out of the buckboard. + +“It’s low, if we do tip over, and we’ll take the chance of Hurrah’s +stopping soon,” he said, keeping his presence of mind and trying to +speak courage to the cowering little girls. + +Prue sat with her head bent, her eyes closed, holding to the seat. +Isabel, deadly white, held herself fast by one hand; the other grasped +Poppy, whom Mark also held, and who was so frightened that she could +not understand anything said to her, nor in any way help the situation; +she would have thrown herself out if Isa and Mark had not clutched her +tight. + +Suddenly, while Hurrah was still in full flight, there sprang out of +the thick growth on the side of the road a figure that seized Hurrah’s +bridle. + +So suddenly it happened that the horse was flung back on his haunches; +he threw back his head so high that the man, a tiny creature, was swung +off his feet. But he held on pluckily, and Hurrah stopped. The children +were saved. + +After a moment, in which all that they could understand was that they +were not killed, not harmed, and were not going to be, they looked at +the one to whom they owed their escape. + +It was the queer little man whom they had seen in the woods! There was +no mistaking his long nose, his thin, dark face, his crooked little +body. + +“Oh, how do you do?” gasped Prue. + +In spite of the fact that Isabel was crying quietly, Poppy noisily, +from the nervous relief of being saved, the others giggled at this +remark from Prue. + +“I’m pretty well,” said the queer little man in a thin, high, queer +little voice that seemed, when you heard it, to be the only voice that +could come out of that body. + +“I don’t think you’d oughter drive such a mettlesome horse. It’s +dang’rous to be run away with--for little girls like you,” he said. + +Mark and Isabel giggled again, but Poppy, drying her eyes with a swift +stroke of the back of her hand across them, cried indignantly: + +“He ain’t meddlesome. He never meddles. That old paper meddled with him +and scared him. He never run away before, and it’s because a big paper +went and flew all through his legs!” + +“That’ll do it, that’ll do it! That’ll scare ’em when trains a-rushin’ +won’t,” said the little man, not in the least tempted to laugh. + +“Well, I’m kinder glad I happened to be here to keep you from getting +killed. I think most likely your folks’d been awful upset if you’d been +killed.” + +“They wouldn’t have liked it,” Mark admitted without a smile. “We’re +grateful to you. We’re so grateful that we don’t know how to say it! +What can any one say for thanks when it’s like this?” + +Mark jumped over the buckboard wheel and went up to the little man with +his hand out; his beautiful eyes, which were the color of an oak leaf +in autumn, shone out through tears and his voice shook. + +“Goodness me, ’twan’t anything; I happened to be here,” said the little +man. “You’re entirely welcome.” + +“Please tell me your name,” said Mark. “Isabel, Prue, Poppy, come; +aren’t you going to thank him?” + +“You’re a wonderful sweet, pretty child,” said the little man to +Isabel. “My name is Ichabod Lemuel Rudd. You’re perfectly welcome, ’s I +said. I’d like to hear how you’re called, if ’tisn’t impudence.” + +“Well, considering what you’ve done, I wouldn’t call it that,” said +Mark. “Mr. Rudd, this is Prudence Wayne. This is Poppy Meiggs. This is +Isabel Lindsay. I am Mark Hawthorne.” + +“What!” fairly shouted the little man. “Not Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy? +How’d you come here? Gilbert’s boy! And I caught that horse! Well, +well!” + +He stood staring at Mark, forgetting the little girls completely, +excitement in his eyes and manner. + +“Do you know my father?” asked Mark. “Come home with us and let him +thank you. There’s a big wagon coming along soon; we were driving +behind it, in the man’s care. You can ride with him. Come home with us +and see my father.” + +“No, no, no! Maybe I’ll see him some day before long; maybe not. I +can’t seem to get it right in my mind. Jiminy cats, it’s the bottle +man!” Ichabod Rudd cried, the first to catch sight of the Burkes +tearing, in a cloud of dust, toward them. “Good-by, Gilbert Hawthorne’s +boy!” + +Turning, the queer little man plunged into the thick undergrowth, out +of which he had sprung to save the children, and instantly disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +UNDER THE STARS + + +Mr. Burke’s wagon came rattling down the road, its load of bottles +jumping around in their boxes in a way that threatened their existence +as bottles. + +“Whoa, there!” shouted Mr. Burke when he espied the children standing +at the side of the road. He pulled in his horse so suddenly that he +threw the reliable beast back on his haunches. + +“Well, thank the Lord, you’re all right!” cried Mrs. Burke, clambering +down from the wagon backward in her usual fashion. Her face was deadly +pale. “You _are_ all right, ain’t you?” she added. + +“All right; every one of us!” Mark called back. + +“Well, by cricky, that was goin’ _some_!” said Mr. Burke. + +“It was stopping some!” cried Mark, letting Mr. Burke take his hand, +which he had come down out of the wagon to do. But Mark was too much +absorbed in the fact of their rescue by the queer little man to be +interested in the danger they had escaped. + +“Say, Mr. Burke, who do you suppose caught Hurrah?” he said. + +“Yes, who’d you s’pose? Who’d you s’pose?” echoed Poppy, dancing about +like a firefly. “That man! The queer little man! And we know his name; +it’s Kickabout! Did you ever!” + +Poppy was in such haste to tell all the news herself that her tongue +tripped over her words and she stammered. + +“Oh, Poppy, it is not! It’s Ichabod!” Prue said disgustedly. “He said +Ichabod Lemuel Rudd. Kickabout! Whoever heard such a name!” + +“No, nor the other one, the right one,” said Poppy. “Ain’t Hurrah just +fine? I tell you, he can go like a colt!” + +Poppy spoke with great enthusiasm thrown into her voice, because she +felt considerable fear of Mr. Burke’s disapproving of Hurrah’s running +away. + +Mr. Burke shook his head, frowning. + +“Well, I’m not so sure about the performance bein’ fine! It depends on +how you look at it. There’s a lot of people wouldn’t call a horse that +ran away so killin’ fine for a little girl to drive,” he said. + +“Oh, but it was paper! There’s hardly ever handbills blowing around in +the road. You don’t see ’em!” Poppy swept the road in both directions +with a wide gesture of her right arm, meaning to prove that handbills +were not to be seen. “It came along just flopping, and it flopped right +in under Hurrah’s legs. You couldn’t blame him for getting nervous. I +think it’s great the way he ran, and folks saying he’s old!” + +“If you want a good jounce it’s the old horse you think you know’ll be +givin’ it to you,” said Mr. Burke, again shaking his head dubiously. +“I’ll be watchin’ out for handbills cavortin’ along after this, for I +suppose you’ll have to drive back, seein’ as none of you, nor my wife +no more, could drive the wagon. Whatever did you do with your little +friend, wid the long nose on him, Mark? There’s no sign of him.” + +“He dropped down through the undergrowth and took to his heels like a +rabbit when he saw you coming. He said, ‘Oh, it’s the bottle man!’ and +off he went,” said Mark. “I was asking him to come to see my father; +he seemed half to want to, but instead he melted off quicker than an +icicle.” + +“Which is about the shape an’ size of him! Maybe he was afraid the +bottle man would put him in one of them flat, thin bottles, an’ be off +to set the black little wisp of a man he is on the shelf, mistakin’ +him for ink! It is a queer one he is, whatever’s the matter wid him!” +laughed Mr. Burke. + +“Now, I’m thinkin’ that we’ll make a camp for the night, for I promised +ye we’d sleep out, though we might push on an’ find a place under +cover, did you vote for it.” + +“We vote to sleep out!” cried Isabel, who had been so badly frightened +by the runaway that she now spoke for the first time. + +“Oh, mercy, yes; all the nights,” said Poppy decidedly. + +“Well, I’d not wonder if this was the one night we were gone. I’m +thinkin’ I’ll be turnin’ back to-morrow an’ make the rest of the trip +the next time,” said Mr. Burke, not caring to explain to Poppy that +Hurrah’s running had brought his wife and himself to this decision as +they gave chase to the buckboard with hearts frozen with fear. + +“Let us once get them, and no great harm done, and it’s back we’ll +go with those children to-morrow, Thomas Burke, and take no risk of +another scare,” Mrs. Burke had said, as she and her husband tore down +the road in pursuit of Hurrah amid the rattling bottles. + +“We should be willing to stay longer,” said Poppy, most politely. + +“Now, that’s kind of you!” Mr. Burke spoke with extreme heartiness, +but though she looked at him quickly, Poppy’s sharp eyes could not +discover that he was making fun of her. “All the same, I’d forgotten to +remember, but now I’m remembering not to forget, that I must go back to +Greenacres to-morrow an’ take in the country beyond another time. I’d +like the opinion of the sailors on the good ship Buckboard as to the +best place to anchor for the night.” + +“Take soundings, Captain,” said Mark, responding in kind to Mr. Burke’s +fooling, offering him a piece of ribbon that had been around a candy +box, hardly long enough to “take soundings” in a bath tub. + +Mr. Burke tied the horses to trees and started out, followed by the +four children. + +“I’ll stop where I am,” Mrs. Burke announced, making herself +comfortable in the wagon. “I’m that tired with the fright and holding +myself fast when we walloped along, chasing you young ones, that +sittin’ down looks good to me. When you’ve found the place to sleep +you’ll be back here, anyways, to get the things there’s here, and I +may as well be one of ’em.” + +It was not necessary to go far to find a camping place that could not +have been bettered. Isabel was right when she said it was a pity not to +use it for more than one night, so perfect it was. + +They came upon a glade surrounded by trees, reached by a sloping +clearing, so that there would be no difficulty in bringing the horses +to it. A little spring was just beyond, making its presence known by a +thread of sound as it trickled down over rocks on its way to the river +that flowed on to the outskirts of Greenacres. It was such a sweet, +refreshingly restful little sound, so full of hints of flowers watered +by the spring, of far-off, hidden places where the stream rose, such a +gentle lullaby to which to sleep, that Mr. Burke said it was a shame +not to stay awake to think how nice it was to sleep by, and he couldn’t +see why Isabel and Mark laughed. + +“Well, unless we marched on to Eden, an’ I’m not clear where we’d be +findin’ it, since Adam an’ Eve destroyed the map of the road there, +we’d never come upon another such spot to spend the night, so it’s +back Mark an’ I go to bring the chariot an’ band wagon of this circus, +an’ the star performer, who is Mrs. Thomas Burke, by the same token!” +announced Mr. Burke, leading the way again to whence they had started +out. + +“Put a fire in the range, Poppy, an’ cut the fruit cake, while Isabel +an’ Prue lays the damask an’ the silver, for we’ll have supper once we +get here,” Mr. Burke turned back to say. + +Neither the fire, nor the range to hold it, nor silver, nor damask +were to be seen when the Burkes came back with Mark, bringing horses +and belongings. But the little girls had laid the largest leaves which +they could find for plates in a circle on the grass, and Isabel had +cleverly bound twigs into an approach to the shape of a vase and had +put them in the center of the circle, which represented the table, so +that it really might be imagined to be a table, if one brought to it a +respectable amount of imagination. + +There were wonderful things to eat--or was it that the shadowy, poetic +spot transformed everything with its charm? + +Bread and butter is every-day enough to us lucky people who have not +been taught what it is to lack it, yet this white bread, with its +golden-brown crust--“the color of Mark’s eyes,” Prue said, unexpectedly +observant--the yellow, yellow butter, fragrant of the grass and clover +which had gone to make its cream, seemed raised above bread and butter +known in houses, and to be a sort of fairy food. And there were slices +of beef as thin as leaves, and of ham, all rosy and white; and jams and +jellies in glasses--surely no jam and jelly had ever looked like this +at home! And cake! Golden, with white icing, as if a peach had stayed +out too late on its tree and got caught in the first light snow of +November. There was white cake with a brown coating in layers and on +top, that proved, when bitten into, to be not ordinary chocolate icing, +but fudge. It was fudge delicious enough to make any one’s very palate +sing, all crumbly, yet smooth and soft, chocolatey, yet buttery--the +sort of fudge that every fudge-maker knows comes by luck in boiling and +beating, and may or may not ever be got a second time! + +And there were big, bulging blackberries, full of juice and sweetness, +but not of seeds, all ready to go to pieces and yield up their perfect +flavor when any one pressed them, with a delighted tongue, up against +the roof of a mouth that would surely promptly open to get another such +berry! And, last of all, there was lemonade, kept cool in stone jugs, +because thermos bottles, not even all that the Hawthornes and Waynes +and Lindsays owned, would not hold enough. + +“Some supper!” said Poppy, or meant to. + +What she really said was, “Thum thupper!” a thick lisp, because of too +large a mouthful of fudge cake and the fudge clogging her tongue. + +“If you asked me,” said Mark solemnly, “I’d say it wasn’t a supper, but +a banquet.” + +“Does it make it a banquet to eat too much?” asked Prue. “Because, if +it does, it is; I have eaten too much, a great deal too much, and I’m +so uncomfortable that I love it--to feel so tight! Because I never, +NEVER in all my life, ate such good things!” + +“Why not sit up all night?” suggested Isabel, her eyes fixed on the +afterglow of the sunset seen through the trees, its soft colors still +more softened by the half-veiling green, and upon the few stars +beginning to appear in the east, opposite the purpling pinks of the +west. + +“We all turn in at nine,” said Mr. Burke, consulting his able-bodied, +open-faced watch. “It’s now eight o’clock an’ fifteen minutes. Mark +my words, by nine there won’t be one of you hardly able to see where +you’re turnin’ in, that sleepy will you be! I’m goin’--with Mark’s +help--to turn the buckboard over an’ let the three little girls have +plenty blankets an’ sleep under it; ’twill make a kind of roof over ’em +for keepin’ off dampness. The big wagon’s not altogether comfortable, +but Mark’ll make out in it, along wid us. You’re not so fussy, sleepin’ +out, as you do be in your homes, when you complain if there’s a small +wrinkle in the sheet under you! How’d it be to be givin’ us a small +concert till bedtime--if there’s enough breath in you after that +supper? Some nice songs, an’ then hymns, last of all, for a help to +night prayers an’ safe sleepin’?” + +The children all sang well, all but Prue, whose ear was not wholly +reliable. Isabel was decidedly musical; she was alive to beauty in +every form, and her voice was sweet and true. Mark had a rarely lovely +voice, a pure, high boy soprano that was a delight, but Poppy, Poppy +with her plain little face, her red hair and freckles, had the gift of +a voice so exquisite that no one could think of her as a child while +she was singing; she became only a voice to be listened to with the +same sort of joy felt when the little brown thrasher sings unseen on a +tree near by. She seemed only a song so lovely that it was impossible +to consider the body from which it sprang. + +“All right,” said Poppy, at once assenting to Mr. Burke’s suggestion. + +Without waiting for any one else, she at once began to sing “Loch +Lomond,” that haunting, sweet, pathetic song, filled with patient +sorrow for a joy that is done. + +The others joined in, Isabel singing softly her true little alto, +keeping it down because she loved to listen to Poppy and Mark. + +They sang and sang “Annie Laurie,” “Bonny Charley,” “Sweet Afton,” +“Bonny Doon,” for they all loved the Scotch songs best, and Isabel +Lindsay, as her name showed, had a right to, if the blood of her +Highland forebears was truly in her. + +“Well, now, some Irish ones, the best of all!” hinted Mr. Burke, and +he started them with “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” +which they all knew. He was half offended that they knew few others, +but Mark saved his feelings by singing “Kathleen Mavourneen” as it +should be sung, and making him cry a little without being ashamed that +they all knew it. + +By this time there were many stars in the east and south. Cassiopeia’s +Chair and Andromeda and Perseus were up, as well as the Great Bear, in +the north, though only Isabel and Mark knew them all. Isabel’s mother +had taught them to her in the twilight talks they always had, and which +Isabel was missing that night, and Mark had learned them from his +father when he was a tiny lad, out under the stars, camping with his +wonderful daddy. + +“Now the hymns,” said Mr. Burke, once more looking at his watch. “An’, +moreover, there’s not time for half I’d like of them, if we keep to the +hour.” + +“Let us not keep to the hour, dear Mr. Burke; let us keep to the +singing,” whispered Isabel, putting her hand on his arm. + +“I’ll not believe you’re of Scotch descent at all; it’s Irish your +ancestors were, acushla!” declared Mr. Burke, looking fondly down on +her. No one could ever resist Isabel; her sweetness was of the sort +that penetrates and softens hearts. + +So they did not “keep to the hour,” but sang their hymns until Prue +fell asleep and Mark was drowsy. Isabel could have sung on all night, +and Poppy grew more like an electric spark the later the evening wore +on. + +Mr. Burke and his wife tipped over the buckboard; Mark tried to help, +but he was too sleepy to be of much use. Isa thought that it looked +unpleasantly queer, propped up with its seat beneath and its wheels in +the air, and Prue voiced her feeling. + +“I hate it; it’s scarey for night, wouldn’t matter in daytime,” she +said. + +“We can’t see it when we’re asleep under it,” said Isa, careful not to +show that she agreed. “It will be like a nice, funny little house.” + +Leafy branches made a good mattress, a new horse blanket that had +never been used was so heavy that the cool hours after midnight would +not chill the three little girls, snuggled up together under the +buckboard, with the big brown and red plaid blanket spread over them. + +Mark said good-night and crawled into his own shelter in the big wagon +the moment the buckboard was established upside down. + +“Goodness, but I’m sleepy!” he said, yawning and staggering as he +walked off. + +Nobody was to undress. Prue’s orderly soul was further afflicted by +lying down to sleep, even on a wildwood bed of boughs, with all her +clothes on. + +“Isn’t it queer?” she whispered, welcoming with both arms Isa, who was +to sleep in the middle, because both Prue and Poppy wanted to be next +to her. + +It _was_ decidedly queer, but it really was exceedingly nice! + +The night seemed deep and vast out here under the stars, surrounded by +its complete silence. The little sounds of earth went on, the children +discovered after the first few minutes, when they had thought the +stillness unbroken. Leaves rustled steadily; sometimes a twig snapped; +little birds stirred and chirped softly, sweetly; the crickets and +other insects played a ceaseless symphony of the night with their legs +drawn over their wings, or their wings whirring in the air. Yet, with +all these many soft sounds of earth, the stillness of the night seemed +somehow to brood over them and remain unbroken. Isabel and Poppy had +been sure that they should not go to sleep all night. It was a pity +that going off tight asleep in a few minutes kept them from knowing and +being very much surprised that they were not awake one-half hour! + +Isabel woke with a great start. She did not know how long she had been +asleep, but it seemed to her a long time, though it still was dark. +Something had touched her face, something damp and cold! + +Poppy was gone; Isabel put out her hand, groping for her, though the +space in which they lay was so small that she could not have missed +Poppy if she had been there. Poppy was gone! Prue was there, asleep. +Isabel grasped her and spoke her name close to her ear. + +“Prue, Prue, something is here! Poppy’s gone!” she said. + +“Oh, are you awake! I’m dying!” said Poppy hoarsely from somewhere near +in the darkness. + +“Oh, did you feel it, too?” whispered Isabel, putting out her hand and +catching Poppy’s arm as she came, crawling and shaking, toward the bed. + +“It got--it got up on--on--me,” Poppy managed to gasp. + +With that, Isabel shrieked horribly and dove under the blanket, and +Prue and Poppy ably seconded her screams. + +“Mr. Burke! Mr. Burke! Mrs. Burke! Mark!” the three little girls +screamed. + +“Well, what in the name of Mike----” said Mr. Burke, coming toward them. + +He turned a flashlight in upon the terror-stricken three and burst out +laughing. + +“Well, wherever did you get Bunkie? An’ why do you scare the poor +little beast’s hide off of him?” Mr. Burke inquired. + +“Bunkie!” shouted the three little girls in one breath, and threw off +the blanket to sit up and see if it possibly could be Bunkie. + +It certainly was Bunkie, standing afar, wistfully wagging his tail, +puzzled to be received so unkindly when he had followed the trail of +his beloveds’ journey, wearily and patiently, and was so delighted to +have overtaken them, so sure that Isa would be as glad to see him as +she always was, as he was to see her. But Poppy and she had both jumped +up when his nose touched their cheeks, and they had thrown him off the +bed where he had joyously leaped to say that he had come up with them +at last, shrieking as if he were a rat! + +Poor Bunkie, low in his mind, tired and longing, stood wagging his tail +and eyeing his mistress wistfully. + +“Oh, Bunkie, Bunkie, my dearest!” cried Isabel, holding out her arms. + +This was as it should be! With a whine of happiness, Bunkie sprang into +these arms and curled down between Isa and Prue to finish the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A CLEAR DAY + + +Mark came singing over to the buckboard in the morning. He sang a tune +of his own, but the words were Tweedledee’s. + + “‘Oh, Oysters,’ said the Carpenter, + ‘You’ve had a pleasant run! + Shall we be trotting home again? + But answer came there none-- + And this was scarcely odd, because + They’d eaten every one.’ + +“You aren’t eaten, are you? I sure thought you were going to be last +night! My goodness gracious, but you did yell! And all about Bunkie!” +he cried. + +“Bunkie feels as awful as a wild animal when you don’t see him, and his +nose’s just as cold!” Poppy answered, and her manner was far colder +than poor Bunkie’s nose could have been. “Anyhow, I just got right +out; I didn’t yell, nor anything.” + +“Well, then, as long as you aren’t eaten you’ll be trotting home +again?” Mark returned to the idea of his song. “Mr. Burke told me to +tell you that it was going to be ‘a day right off the griddle’--that’s +exactly what he said--and that he wanted to start back early. So you +get ready for breakfast--the only thing you’ve got to do when you don’t +undress is to wash your face and hands in the spring over there--and +we’ll soon break camp.” + +Mark ran back to make himself useful in the preparation of breakfast, +taking out the food that they had brought with them, carrying +sticks for the fire to boil the coffee which Mrs. Burke, who was an +experienced camper, was to make for herself and her husband; the +children were to drink the water from the nearby spring, cold and +delicious as only spring water can be. + +“Now, pack up; every one of us is to get at it, an’ we’ll be off for +Greenacres in good time. It’ll be one of the days when you’ve got to +take a step-ladder to read the thermometer, the mercury’s going that +high! We’ll get as far’s we can before it is too uppish, an’ let the +horses have a noontide rest, in a shady place, for a good bit. Cork +is going to want it, an’ Hurrah’ll have not a word against it,” said +Mr. Burke, setting an example by gathering up his cup and saucer and +throwing his paper plate on the fire. + +“Cork! Is that your horse’s name? I don’t think I ever heard his name +before, Mr. Burke,” cried Isabel, laughing. “How funny!” + +“I’d like to know what’s funny about it?” said Mr. Burke. “My father +come from County Cork, for one thing. An’ for another, ain’t I the +bottle man? An’ what goes better with a bottle than a cork, would ye be +tellin’ me?” + +“Yes, but you pull corks, and this Cork pulls you!” laughed Isabel. + +“Sure; isn’t turn about fair play? He’s payin’ the debts of his +namesakes! Now, then, let’s set Cork to pullin’ us as soon’s may be, +for in no time we’ll feel like St. Lawrence when they roasted him over +the fire, barrin’ his sanctity,” said Mr. Burke, and he pushed Poppy +before him a few steps in the direction of the buckboard to emphasize +his wish. + +There was little to do to get this small gypsying party started. In +twenty minutes they were going along the road at a good pace, the +rested horses not unwilling to trot, especially as they were headed +homeward. + +All four children were on the buckboard this time, the wagon ahead. + +“I’ll go first,” said Mr. Burke, “an’ if I see any poster, or the like, +gambolin’ along the road, I’ll meet it first an’ politely hold it up, +askin’ it to let me roll it up an’ take it in, as the fine gentleman +haulin’ the equipage in the rear of me wagon is that nervous he’d never +be able to stand the sight of it.” + +Following this arrangement, therefore, Hurrah came trotting along +behind Cork, in the big wagon, holding his head up and showing no +sense of disgrace at his scandalous behavior when he was going in the +opposite direction the day before. + +The children chattered happily, but quietly; the country road was +soothing, lined with beauty on either hand. Not a bird escaped Mark’s +trained eye, taught as he had been by his father to know them and to +imitate their notes. Sometimes he would lay his hand over Poppy’s, +holding the lines, and stop Hurrah while he whistled to some small +feathered acquaintance he spied on a shrub. The bird would answer the +note, mistaking it for the call of one of his nearer kin than this +brown boy who, nevertheless, always seemed to Isabel and Prue near +kindred to the birds. + +So they jogged on pleasantly homeward, with a long nooning, as Mr. +Burke had planned. The day grew almost unbearably hot as the sun +mounted, but the road was shady, so the heat was somewhat softened, +though there was little air under the trees. Isabel and Prue tipped +over against each other and fell asleep. Poppy was wide awake, giving +her whole mind to driving, and Mark waked with her, giving his whole +mind--though Poppy did not know it--to seeing that nothing went wrong +because she drove. + +Isabel sat up and rubbed her eyes. + +“Mercy, my neck is cracked! It’s all stiff holding my head on one +side!” she said. + +“What do you think of me?” demanded Prue, also waking. “My shoulder is +more than cracked; it’s ruined, holding your head! Where are we; near +home, Mark?” + +“Not so far from it,” said Mark. “Ought to be about an hour more +getting there.” + +“I’ve been thinking----” began Isabel. + +“Never would have guessed it! Any one would have guessed you were +asleep,” interrupted Mark. + +“Jack-in-the-Box, go down into your box and pull the lid down; you’re +impertinent, sir!” + +Isabel pretended to be angry. “I thought before I went to sleep, and +while I was waking up; kind of a sleep sandwich, with thinking between! +And I was thinking that something must happen to keep you from going +away, Mark. It just plain _must_!” + +“I don’t see what can,” Mark began, but got no farther. + +“I say don’t talk about it,” Prue said firmly. “We came to gypsy, and +have a good time, and I say let’s have it to the end. It’s hot enough, +too! Isa, will you take Bunkie a while? I’ve held him all this time, +and he’s just like a chestnut roaster; he’s burning right through my +skirt, and cramping me besides! Take your ragged little dog and let me +stretch.” + +“Little scalawag to follow us! But I’m glad he found us, as long as he +came!” commented Isabel, relieving patient Prue of Bunkie’s warmth and +weight. + +The subject of losing Mark was thus dropped for the time, and it was +not long before the gypsies turned in at the gate of the Hawthorne +house. They stirred Cork and Hurrah up to their best speed, drove up +singing, “Marching Through Georgia,” which Poppy had said was “Hurrah’s +national hymn,” because of the words of its chorus. + +Motherkins hastened out to meet them, but she looked pale and her eyes +showed that they had lately been swollen with tears. + +There, on the piazza, stood trunks, three of them, new ones, with +their lids set back against the wall, as if waiting to be filled! + +Mark laid a hand on the buckboard wheel and vaulted it to run up the +steps and seize his tiny grandmother, who always seemed too young and +too small for that title, around the waist and kiss her hard. + +“Motherkins, little wee Motherkins, what are these for?” he cried, +pointing to the trunks. + +“Oh, Mark, dear, I can’t bear to have your pleasant trip end in grief! +We did not look for you till to-morrow,” Motherkins said. + +“Hurrah got scared and ran away; it wasn’t safe to let Poppy drive +further, so we came back,” Mark said, forgetting that Poppy was not to +know why Mr. Burke had changed his plans, and not seeing the anger with +which she heard him. “What do you mean by grief, Motherkins? What is +wrong?” Mark asked, almost as if he were grown up. + +“Your father, dear, has found that he must leave here at once, since he +is to go, or else lose the business opening which is too good to lose. +So we are to go away from Greenacres within a few days. Oh, Isabel, +Isabel, I know, and I’m so sorry, dear child! But, remember, it is +hard for us, too.” Gentle Motherkins patted Isabel’s head and smoothed +her hair, as, with a cry, she threw herself into Motherkins’ arms and +sobbed uncontrolledly. + +There was a sad supper eaten in silence by Poppy and Mark at the +Hawthorne house, by Isabel and Prue in their own homes. It did not +seem possible that they had all been light-hearted and had set out +pleasuring so short a time ago. As long as the Hawthornes were not to +leave Greenacres until September the children could postpone grief at +parting. But trunks all ready to receive their contents! The parting +but a week distant! Ah, there was no shaking off this horrible reality. + +“Mark will come to us summers, Isa, darling; I have that promise. We +shall not lose him,” Mrs. Lindsay strove to console Isabel, whose +head lay on her mother’s shoulder as they sat in the deep window seat +spending “Isabel’s hour” together at the close of this eventful day. + +“We shall not lose him, we shall keep friends, but, oh, mother, a +friend on a telephone, or writing letters, is not the same at all as +a friend where you can touch him!” sighed Isabel, and Mrs. Lindsay +could not answer. She knew better than Isabel could, with her longer +experience, that separation is a wedge that often makes friends +completely forget. + +Early in the morning Isabel and Prue met Mark and Poppy by appointment +at Château Branche. + +There had been a shower in the night which had refreshed the heated +earth and put new beauty into every growing thing and had left them all +shining with brilliance in the early morning sunshine. + +Birds were singing everywhere, the birds which Mark could name and +call. Flowers brightened the woods here and there; Mark knew them all. +How everything was going to speak of Mark and emphasize his loss when +he was gone! And Poppy! Funny, excitable, explosive, but honorable, +devoted, high-hearted little Poppy! Isabel and Prue felt that her plain +face was almost beautiful when they realized that they were not long to +see it. + +Mark sat whittling, whistling between his tight closed teeth. He was +so miserable that he did not attempt to disguise it, nor to speak. For +once Poppy was not talking. Pale under her many brown freckles, her +lips drawn and drooping, she stared at Isa, trying to learn her face by +heart to take away with her each detail of its sweetness. + +“Let’s go over to the Toy Shop,” said Prue. + +No one answered, but one after another they all slid down from Château +Branche to follow Prue, knowing that she wanted to go there because +it was the spot in the woods where she and Isa had found their +Jack-in-the-Box. They went along single file, till Poppy stepped back +and, without a word, put her arm around Isabel’s waist. + +The Toy Shop was a pleasant little glade; on one side of it was the +hidden opening to the secret passage up to the Hawthorne house. As +they came into the Toy Shop now, there, just outside the bushes which +concealed this opening, sat the queer little man whom now they knew as +Ichabod Lemuel Rudd. + +“Jiminy cribs! Look who’s here!” cried Poppy, as Prue fairly shouted: + +“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd!” as if she had gone to school with him. + +“Good morning, young ladies,” said Ichabod, in his high falsetto voice. + +“And good morning to you, Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy! Now, what I want to +say is: Take me right on to your father, and do it quick, ’cause I’ve +got my mind on it, and cats can’t say how long it will stay set!” + +“All right; come on,” said Mark, taking this as part of the strange +doings of recent days and not stopping to discuss why cats should be +able to tell how long Ichabod’s mind would stay set. + +“That’s the ticket!” said Ichabod, in evident relief. “If you knew +what a time I’ve had! I’ve fairly hung around. Been down in that secret +passage--I found it when I fell into it--and going up to the house, and +then going back----” + +“Secret passage! You found the box of coins in there?” cried Mark. + +“Returned ’em, too, undisturbed. More’n could be said of me, these +days,” said Ichabod, nodding hard. “Been skinning up outside the house, +into a room where I judged you youngsters played----” + +“What!” cried all four children together. + +“Sure!” said Ichabod. “Once I slept there. And yet I couldn’t make up +my mind to tell what I’m going to tell to-day--provided you get me +there quick enough. I tell you, Gilbert Hawthorne’s boy, I’ve been that +exercised in my mind, what with wanting to do one right, and wanting to +do another right----There, if we talk about it I may slip my cogs and +not tell!” + +“Sure, you’ll tell!” said Mark, beginning to feel that there really +must be something important behind all this. “And it was you came up +into our Club Room! And you slept there? And you took out our cups----” + +“Not to steal ’em!” cried Ichabod quickly. “They’re safe. I needed ’em +for tea, so I borrowed ’em, but I’ve got ’em for you.” + +“And we thought maybe it was Kathie!” said Prue, as one talking in her +sleep. + +“Been troublous times. Trouble for your father, and in my mind! Oh, +jiminy cats, are we there? Oh, I’d rather do a whole lot of worse +things than tell!” cried Ichabod, as they came suddenly upon the house +from the side entrance. + +“Daddy, daddy, come here, quick!” Mark called, as he ran ahead of the +rest up the steps. + +But Mr. Hawthorne was out under the trees; he came forward from the +opposite side of the house from that around which the children emerged. + +“Oh, jiminy cats and jiminy kittens!” cried Ichabod Rudd. “As sure as +death, ’tis you, Gilbert Hawthorne!” + +“Well,” said Mr. Hawthorne, “it doesn’t seem to me strange that I +should be myself.” + +“No, not put that way, but it’s strange to me to see you at last, when +I’ve been backing and filling about seeing you for dear knows how long! +I’ve been hanging around here, climbing up outside your house, getting +into a room on that rear side. Been up to every sort of hanging around +stunt! Once I asked a bottle dealer about you, but when I found he did +know you I faded right out,” said Ichabod earnestly. “I guess I’ll +fade now. Glad to have seen you, Mr. Gilbert.” He turned as if to go +rapidly away, but Mark caught him. + +“Not much!” he cried. “Whatever this thing is you’ve got to tell, tell +it and get it over with, quick!” + +“Is there something you want to say to me? Shall we go inside? Where +have I ever seen you? I have a sort of recollection of seeing you +somewhere,” said Mr. Hawthorne. + +“I don’t mind the kids,” said Ichabod. He began to speak quickly, as +if he were in danger of not speaking, and he got his strange tale over +with briefly. + +“You saw me once at Mr. Ditson’s house. I worked for him for years. He +was the best friend to me I ever could have had. He liked me; I loved +him. His son is putting up a job to get the money his father left you. +He don’t need it; he has too much. He near killed his father, sorrowing +over him. I got the proof it’s a put-up job. I can prove the money’s +yours. I hated to speak because, after all, Maurice is a Ditson. But he +near killed his father, and his father wanted you to have the money. +I always tried to do what my dear old employer wanted done; alive or +dead, I’ve always tried to please him. So I hated to tell on his son, +but I had to tell to get his way for Mr. Ditson. Take me down to the +lawyer’s and I’ll come over with the goods. I can prove by line and +word, written and my own knowledge, that Maurice Ditson has faked the +whole plot. There! It’s told!” + +For a moment no one spoke. Gilbert Hawthorne looked steadily into the +eyes of the queer little man, but they never flinched. + +“Ichabod Rudd----” + +“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd,” said the little man. + +“Ichabod Lemuel Rudd.” Mr. Hawthorne adopted the correction with a +slight smile. “We were getting ready to give up all that we love, our +home and its associations, for I have bought back my mother’s old home +with part of Mr. Ditson’s legacy. I don’t know how to tell you what +this means to us. And two days ago you caught the horse, and perhaps +saved the children from a horrible accident. I think it is safe to say +that Mr. Ditson would bless and thank you, if he could speak to you. I +think he does bless and thank you, but that we are not able to hear it. +I hope he will; I can’t!” + +“It was right,” said Ichabod Lemuel Rudd, struggling with strong +emotion. “I hated to give away a Ditson, but Maurice was the worst +sorrow his father ever had; my dear old master told me so. And he had +money enough, anyway.” + +“Come in and see my little mother; you’ll love her, too,” said Mr. +Hawthorne, and gently drew the queer little man into the house. + +The children stood motionless, gazing after them and at one another, +speechless. + +Then the great truth rushed over them, and they fell upon one another, +yelling like Comanches, even gentle Isa and staid Prue equaling Poppy +in yelling. + +“We’ve got you all, we’ve got our Jack-in-the-Box forever, ever, ever!” +screamed Isabel, and Prue and Poppy and Mark joined her, madly echoing: + +“Forever, ever, ever, forever!” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +HAWTHORNE HOUSE ABLOOM + + +Prue was the first to sober somewhat after the first delirium of joy +had been vented. + +“I feel as though we’d all been hung up to die, and some one had come +along and cut every single rope, just as we were going to squirm our +last squirm,” she said, which graphic bit of inelegance made Isabel +exclaim in protest: + +“Oh, Prue!” + +“It’s just like that, a what-do-you-call-it? A relieve?” Prue +persisted, ignoring Isa. + +“A reprieve,” Mark told her. “So it is, Prue! In stories some one comes +riding madly, his horse white with foam, just as the hero is standing +blindfolded against the wall, waiting to be shot--they don’t hang +heroes in stories. The rider turns out to be the king’s messenger. He +waves a paper in the air, shouting: ‘Reprieve! Reprieve!’ The king +has found out the hero is innocent, and has sent the messenger with +the reprieve; he gets there barely in time. It’s always like that in +stories. This is like that! Is Ichabod the king’s messenger? But I +don’t dare be glad till after he has told the lawyers what he knows. +Let’s wait till daddy’s had him down to their office and they say we’re +all right. _Then_ let’s raise the roof!” + +It needed no more than a suggestion that everything might not be all +right to quiet the little girls; it would be worse to be disappointed +than not to have hoped, as it always is. + +Mr. Hawthorne went away to the city in the earliest train that left +Greenacres in the morning. He would not return until the second day, +and the four children were in difficulties with the intervening time. + +How to fill the weary hours till they could know positively that the +cruel parting was not to be--they would not consider Ichabod Rudd’s +testimony being useless to the Hawthornes--was a hard question to solve. + +Prue withdrew herself from her playmates. She said she “did not want to +see Mark till she knew that she could see him right along.” She set her +bureau drawers in apple-pie order, though they did not need tidying; +Prue was an orderly child. She got her mother to give her long-promised +lessons in cutting and putting together a middy blouse--altogether, +Prudence filled in her time in ways so useful as to be absorbing, +which kept her from fretting too much and gave her the pleasant sense +of being “womanly” under affliction of mind. + +Isabel, on the other hand, haunted Mark’s footsteps. She was not +capable of thinking of anything else than of his loss, and now that in +so short a time she was to know whether or not she should lose him, now +that there was likelihood of keeping him, she could bear the strain +of waiting only by keeping him in sight, and dogged his footsteps as +Bunkie followed hers. + +Poppy did not bear the delay at all. It had to be put up with, but she +did not _bear_ it; she fumed her way through the two days, getting so +cross that even Motherkins herself, so patient and understanding, found +it hard to excuse her, though she knew that the child’s nerves were on +edge. + +But Mark, sunny, even-tempered Mark, would not admit that there was +anything to worry over. He alone of the four was his natural self while +his father was gone to get the evidence that was going to make such a +tremendous difference in his life. + +With Pincushion on his shoulder, where she best loved to be, Mark went +calmly about his work and play. + +“No good fussing, Isa Bell,” he said, smiling into Isa’s worried eyes +and using the twist of her name which he had invented by way of caress. + +“You don’t care, Mark Jack-in-the-Box!” Isabel reproached him. + +“Don’t I, though! Maybe I care too much to dare to begin to be afraid +it will come out wrong,” said Mark, and Isa caught a note in the boy’s +voice that betrayed that his anxiety was intense. + +When the train was due on which Mr. Hawthorne’s return was hoped for, +Poppy went down to the end of the driveway and climbed up on the stone +post. There she sat like a statue, eyes set rigidly, looking in the +direction from which Mr. Hawthorne would come, although it was long +before he could appear. + +Isabel and Prue had come up to the Hawthorne house to be there when the +decision of their fate was made known. They and Mark prowled up and +down, from room to room, unable to keep still. Motherkins tried to hem +a napkin, but her hands trembled and her thread knotted a great deal; +her sewing was not a success. + +[Illustration: “WE’RE ALL TOGETHER, FOREVER AND FOR AYE,” THEY SANG.] + +At last Poppy came tearing into the house. + +“They’ve come! They’ve come!” she shouted. “Ichybod’s along. _Oh_, +gosh!” + +Everybody who heard her echoed what Poppy meant when she exclaimed: +“_Oh_, gosh!” It didn’t sound prayerful, but Poppy’s feeling when she +said it made it a prayer for good news. + +“Hello, daddy!” shouted Mark, without turning to see the expression on +his father’s face. If he were the bearer of ill-tidings Mark wanted one +cheerful greeting to reach him before his family knew it; afterward no +one would be able to speak quite cheerfully. + +But as Gilbert Hawthorne came into the room, followed by queer little +Ichabod Lemuel Rudd, before any of the children had ventured to look at +him, Motherkins cried: + +“Oh, Gilbert! Oh, my son!” + +Then the children turned to see. Motherkins sat erect, leaning forward +in her chair, her work fallen, her hands clasped, her face radiant. + +One glance at Mr. Hawthorne, and they all knew the gist of what he had +to tell. He looked triumphantly young and happy; his eyes were beaming. +He strode over and caught up little Motherkins, as he might have swung +Poppy, high in his arms. + +“Surest thing in the world, Motherkins!” he cried, laughing in joyous +excitement. “Ichabod told what he knew, and the lawyers cross-examined +him--Maurice Ditson’s fellows were present, too--and he couldn’t be +tripped up; besides, he had his proofs! And Ditson’s lawyers advised +him to drop it as quick, and considerably quicker, than he could! +He should be grateful not to be prosecuted for attempted felony. Of +course, nobody wants to bother with him, but it’s not a pretty thing to +have known about a man that he has tried to steal!” + +“I wouldn’t of told,” said Ichabod, in a worried voice, “but I knew my +dear old friend, the kindest friend a man ever had, would have wanted +me to. He’d have blamed me if I hadn’t. I wish Maurice wasn’t his son; +I wish his name wasn’t Ditson! But often and often his father wished +the same. He was a sore trial to his father, a sorrow that ate right +into him. I know he’d say I must stop his doing any more harm, if I +could.” + +“Surely he would! Whether we were to gain or lose by it, I should say +the same, you faithful Ichabod!” said Motherkins, touching the queer +little man’s arm, and as he revered Motherkins beyond all words, this +consoled him for the pain of doing something that distressed him to do. + +“And we are safe, Gilbert dear?” she added, turning to her son. + +“Completely safe, and for always,” said Mr. Gilbert. “Mark, old +chum-son, I haven’t spoken to you. Good news, laddie; everything is +all right.” + +“Pretty good to hear, daddy,” said Mark. “I’m too glad to know how glad +I am.” + +Isabel, Prue and Poppy had stood motionless, soundless, listening and +watching. + +Now Isabel stirred, pale from excitement, and seized Prue around the +neck, hugging her till she choked her. + +“They--are--not--going! They--are--not--going--away--at--all!” Isa said +slowly, in a sort of rapturous trance. + +This set free Poppy’s pent-up emotion; she realized that what Isa said +was true. + +With a shriek that made everybody jump, Poppy threw herself over on +her hands and cartwheeled all around the room and out of it before +Motherkins, a little shocked, could stop her. Out of the room she went +and down the hall. Then they heard her singing at the top of her really +wonderfully beautiful voice, the song growing fainter, and they knew +she was running around the house, just as Bunkie and Pincushion ran +when they wanted to have a celebration. + +The words of her song reached them; they were simply these: + +“Oh, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoopity whoopity whoop. And whoop, oh, +whoop, _oh_, whoop! Forever whoop, whoop, whoop, amen!” + +“What we’re going to do,” announced Isabel after they had laughed at +Poppy, “is to trim this house all over with all the flowers we can get! +We’re going to take Hurrah--please, Motherkins!--and get flowers from +every one we can. And we’re just going to hang them all over Hawthorne +House to show it how we feel about it’s staying Hawthorne House.” + +“Second the motion!” cried Mark, starting up ready to go. + +“Oh, but, Isabel, Hurrah may meet paper in the road!” objected +Motherkins. + +“Not in such a neat town as Greenacres! Oh, Motherkins, we took him +all the time before that one day when it happened, so please don’t be +afraid!” Isa pleaded. + +“We must take some risks,” Mr. Hawthorne said, to Isa’s intense relief, +when his mother looked at him for an opinion. “We don’t have papers +flying around our streets; Isa is right. The children must have a vent, +little mother!” + +So in a short time the buckboard, with its three girls and a boy, +started off to get a load of flowers. Poppy had thoughtfully taken +the clothes basket, and Mark played at juggling with a bushel basket, +seated on the end of the buckboard, facing outward and dangling his +slender legs, as he always did. + +At the Wayne and the Lindsay houses there were many flowers, so many +that it seemed likely that the children could not pick them in time to +go farther. + +Mrs. Lindsay had run across to her neighbor’s to enjoy the children’s +good news with her, and she said: + +“Helen, we will gather all the flowers that we have, you and I, and +take them up to Hawthorne House, while the children go on begging for +more; shall we?” + +And Mrs. Wayne had answered: + +“Yes, Margaret; we couldn’t keep away, could we? Aren’t you quite +beside yourself to see dear little Mrs. Hawthorne with her last anxiety +forever laid at rest? The dear little soul! I’ve been so troubled over +it all!” + +“Drive on, then, Merry Beggars, and ask all Greenacres to give you +blossoms!” cried Mrs. Lindsay, looking like a happy child herself. + +Flowers! Isabel, Prue and Mark had to walk beside the buckboard, +there were so many! They had no expectation of what happened, but +everybody loved Motherkins, the whole town knew how sad her life had +been and rejoiced that another sorrow had not fallen upon her, so the +Greenacres women showed this feeling by stripping their gardens of all +their bloom to adorn Hawthorne House for its rejoicing. + +Walking up the street, with Poppy’s red hair topping masses of red +blossoms in the buckboard abreast of them in the road, Isabel and Prue +met Kathie and Dolly coming around the corner of a side street, turning +in the direction in which they were going. + +All four little girls stopped and looked at one another, half smiling, +hesitatingly, sheepishly. None of them had the slightest desire not to +speak, but no one knew whether the others felt like answering. + +“Hello,” said Isabel, realizing that something must be done by +somebody; it would never do for every one to stand there always, +waiting for some one else to break the ice. + +“Hello. Are you mad?” asked Kathie. + +“We never were, so we’re not now,” said Prue reasonably. + +“I was,” Kathie said, “but I’m over it. I’d like to make up.” + +“We only wanted to know who it was went into that room; we only asked,” +Prue said unwisely. + +“But if we get to talking about that we shall not make up,” Isabel +interposed. + +“Call it made up and let it go at that,” Mark advised. “Every one +agreed?” + +“Yes. Agreed!” the four little girls repeated. + +“Come on up to the house. We’re going to trim it up and be glad. We +know now who it was climbed up into the Club Room; the same one who +took the coins and returned them; the queer little man we saw in the +woods. Oh, it is a wonderful story!” cried Isabel, taking Kathie’s arm, +who at once pulled it away to put it around Isabel’s waist in closer +token of reconciliation. + +“Tell it,” Kathie said, and Isabel told it, frequently helped and +hindered by Prue’s and Mark’s additions, or Kathie and Dolly’s +exclamations. + +“And we’re going to trim the house with flowers everywhere; in all the +rooms, anyway. It looks as though we had enough to trim all the trees +outside, but they don’t reach as far as you’d think when you see them +like that.” Isabel ended the story of the narrow escape and the queer +little man, with a gesture toward the buckboard, heaped high with +blossoms. + +“There are our mothers with more!” cried Prue, as they turned into the +driveway and caught sight of Mrs. Wayne and Mrs. Lindsay on the lawn, +shaking out and assorting the baskets of flowers which they had got +Prue’s big brother to help them bring to Hawthorne House. + +It was lucky that Kathie and Dolly had come up to the rejoicing. There +were such quantities of flowers to place! Everybody talked at once, but +it did not matter; nobody waited for, nor wanted a reply. + +With amazing speed Hawthorne House was set abloom. In every room +there were flowers, masses of flowers, and over the front door, on +the ledge of its old-fashioned transom, Mr. Hawthorne had the bright +idea of setting bowls, from which long festoons of vines and blossoms +of nasturtiums made a glory that looked almost as if a bonfire were +blazing there. + +At last it was done; Hawthorne House was abloom! + +“Well, it truly does look glad!” sighed Isabel in profound contentment, +leaning her head, all ringed with her disordered dark hair, against her +mother. + +“What shall we do with Ichabod Lemuel Rudd, children?” asked Mr. +Hawthorne. “Quick before he comes! He is alone in the world. Mr. Ditson +looked after him, but since his death the queer, devoted little chap +has gone solitary, with a lonely heart. And he saved us from the loss +of this house and one another. Who can suggest a plan for him, to be +told him when he comes back?” + +“I can!” said Poppy instantly. “Adopt him, like you did me, and we’ll +give up the Club Room, and it can be his, and he can shin up outside +whenever he wants to.” + +Mark laughed, but he said: “Pops hit it! There’s room enough for the +queer little man in this great place, and we all like him a whole lot +now.” + +“Mother?” queried Mr. Hawthorne, turning to little Motherkins. + +Motherkins smiled her placid smile, eyes and lips warm with it. + +“I adopted Bunkie when he was hurt--to be sure, Isabel took him +afterward--but I did adopt him! And Poppy, too. And then I had no home +that was my own, and no certainty of enough for myself. I think we +ought to give a share of our happiness to Ichabod Lemuel Rudd--I’m sure +he’ll give us as much as we do him, in another way! And think of the +pleasure of calling his name!” + +“Trust Motherkins to cover up her goodness with a laugh!” cried her son. + +“A laugh doesn’t cover up goodness; I think it often proves it, +Gilbert--that kind of laughter!” said Mrs. Lindsay. + +“He’s coming; tell him, Mark,” murmured Motherkins. + +“Ichabod, we--I mean Motherkins and my father--well, all of us--oh, +gracious! Say, Ichabod, we want you to live with us, here, you know; +take that room we had to play in, where you climbed in and slept, you +know. Live with us right along; will you?” Mark said rapidly after he +had hesitated for a beginning; he blushed painfully, embarrassed by his +office. + +“Oh, jiminy cats! Oh, what’ll I say? I--I--I appreciate it,” said poor +Ichabod, and burst into tears. He was indeed a lonely, longing little +creature, and it seemed to him that heaven had almost opened when Mark +voiced a desire on the part of these dear people to befriend him. + +“I’ll do things; I’ll help; you shall never be sorry,” he managed to +say, gulping down great sobs. + +“Do you remember, Prue and Poppy, the day we opened the Club Room, we +said it was just opening it, and we didn’t know what would go into it?” +whispered Isabel, drawing Prue and Poppy’s heads together, the better +to hear her. “It was true, wasn’t it? Isn’t it nice to have the dear +little queer man, who so needs it and all of us, go into it?” + +“I feel that there is ice cream somewhere!” said Mr. Hawthorne, +sniffing the air. “I smell ice cream and beau-ti-ful cream puffs +somewhere! Come on and find them, all of you! I guess there’s an ice +cream freezer full, and that it holds four gallons--one vanilla, one +chocolate, one strawberry, one caramel! Come and see how well I can +guess!” + +“Because you know!” shouted Poppy with shrill ecstasy. “Oh, you great +Mark’s-daddy! You treated!” + +“It’s the house,” Mr. Daddé corrected her solemnly. “The house treats +us all--treats us the best it can. Let’s cheer the house gratefully, +thankful it’s to hold us all together.” + +The cheers arose, loud and prolonged, and Bunkie and Semper Fidelis +barked their parts in them, while Cushla-machree, alias Pincushion, ran +up a tree to be on the safe side, in case it meant danger. + +Mark caught Isabel’s hand; she understood and took hold of Prue, Prue +of Poppy, Poppy of Kathie, Kathie of Dolly, Dolly of Mrs. Lindsay, +she of Mrs. Wayne, and Isabel completed the circle by taking Mr. +Hawthorne’s hand in her other hand. + +“Oh, gracious, there’s Ichabod!” cried Poppy, and widened the circle to +let in the queer little man, just as they had widened their home circle +to take him in. + +Then, with shrieks of joy, they danced around and around Motherkins, +and Isabel put the meaning of the dance into words: + +“We’re all together, all together, all together forever and for aye,” +she sang. + +The others joined in her song, and thus they wheeled and danced, +grown-ups and children, quite dementedly singing the words that mean so +much when people love one another: + +“We are all together, all together, all together forever and for aye!” + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Perceived typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78419 *** |