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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Satin Gown, by Laura E. Richards
+
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+Title: The Green Satin Gown
+
+Author: Laura E. Richards
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9397]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 29, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN SATIN GOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN SATIN GOWN
+
+BY LAURA E. RICHARDS
+
+_Author of_ "Captain January," "Melody," "Three Margarets,"
+"Peggy," "Queen Hildegarde," etc., etc.
+
+
+Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN SATIN GOWN
+
+Published May, 1903
+
+
+
+
+TO
+THE GIRLS OF
+The Friday Club of Gardiner, Maine
+THIS VOLUME
+IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE GREEN SATIN GOWN
+
+BLUE EGYPTIANS
+
+LITTLE BENJAMIN
+
+DON ALONZO
+
+THE SHED CHAMBER
+
+MAINE TO THE RESCUE
+
+THE SCARLET LEAVES
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"THE FIRST TITTER PUT A FIRE IN MY VEINS THAT KEPT ME WARM ALL THE
+    EVENING"
+
+"GREGORY POLISHED IT ON HIS SLEEVE, AND HELD IT UP AGAIN"
+
+"'A LONG BASKET WITH SOMETHING WHITE INSIDE; AND--IT'S CRYING!'"
+
+"'FATHER SAYS THE LORD SENT YOU. DID HE?'"
+
+"MAINE HAILED HIM FROM THE TOP OF A GREAT DRIFT"
+
+THE CONFERENCE
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN SATIN GOWN
+
+
+Who ever wore such a queer-looking thing? I wore it myself, dear,
+once upon a time; yes, I did! Perhaps you would like to hear about it,
+while you mend that tear in your muslin. Sit down, then, and let us
+be cosy.
+
+I was making a visit in Hillton once, when I was seventeen years old,
+just your age; staying with dear old Miss Persis Elderby, who is now
+dead. I have told you about her, and it is strange that I have never
+told you the story of the green satin gown; but, indeed, it is years
+since I looked at it. We were great friends, Miss Persis and I; and
+we never thought much about the difference in our ages, for she was
+young for her years, and I was old for mine. In our daily walk
+through the pretty, sleepy Hillton street--we always went for the
+mail, together, for though Miss Persis seldom received letters, she
+always liked to see mine, and it was quite the event of the day--my
+good friend seldom failed to point out to me a stately mansion that
+stood by itself on a little height, and to say in a tone of pride,
+"The Le Baron place, my dear; the finest place in the county. Madam
+Le Baron, who lives there alone now, is as great a lady as any in
+Europe, though she wears no coronet to her name."
+
+I never knew exactly what Miss Persis meant by this last remark, but
+it sounded magnificent, and I always gazed respectfully at the gray
+stone house which sheltered so grand a personage. Madam Le Baron, it
+appeared, never left the house in winter, and this was January. Her
+friends called on her at stated intervals, and, to judge from
+Miss Persis, never failed to come away in a state of reverential
+enthusiasm. I could not help picturing to myself the great lady as
+about six feet tall, clad in purple velvet, and waving a
+peacock-feather fan; but I never confided my imaginings even to the
+sympathetic Miss Persis.
+
+One day my friend returned from a visit to the stone house, quite
+breathless, her pretty old face pink with excitement. She sat down
+on the chair nearest the door, and gazed at me with, speechless
+emotion.
+
+"Dear Miss Persis!" I cried. "What has happened? Have you had bad
+news?"
+
+Miss Persis shook her head. "Bad news? I should think not, indeed!
+Child, Madam Le Baron wishes to see you. More I cannot say at present.
+Not a word! Put on your best hat, and come with me. Madam Le Baron
+waits for us!"
+
+It was as if she had said, "The Sultan is on the front door-step." I
+flew up-stairs, and made myself as smart as I could in such a hurry.
+My cheeks were as pink as Miss Persis's own, and though I had not
+the faintest idea what was the matter, I felt that it must be
+something of vital import. On the way, I begged my companion to
+explain matters to me, but she only shook her head and trotted on the
+faster. "No time!" she panted. "Speech delays me, my dear! All will
+be explained; only make haste."
+
+We made such haste, that by the time we rang at the door of the
+stone house neither of us could speak, and Miss Persis could only
+make a mute gesture to the dignified maid who opened the door, and
+who looked amazed, as well she might, at our burning cheeks and
+disordered appearance. Fortunately, she knew Miss Persis well, and
+lost no time in ushering us into a cool, dimly lighted parlor, hung
+with family portraits. Here we sat, and fanned ourselves with our
+pocket-handkerchiefs, while I tried to find breath for a question;
+but there was not time! A door opened at the further end of the room;
+there was a soft rustle, a smell of sandal-wood in the air. The next
+moment Madam Le Baron stood before us. A slender figure, about my
+own height, in a quaint, old-fashioned dress; snowy hair, arranged
+in puff on puff, with exquisite nicety; the darkest, softest eyes I
+ever saw, and a general air of having left her crown in the next room;
+this was the great lady.
+
+We rose, and I made my best courtesy,--we courtesied then, my dear,
+instead of bowing like pump-handles,--and she spoke to us in a soft
+old voice, that rustled like the silk she wore, though it had a clear
+sound, too. "So this is the child!" she said. "I trust you are very
+well, my dear! And has Miss Elderby told you of the small particular
+in which you can oblige me?"
+
+Miss Persis hastened to say that she wasted no time on explanations,
+but had brought me as quickly as might be, thinking that the main
+thing. Madam Le Baron nodded, and smiled a little; then she turned
+to me; a few quiet words, and I knew all about it. She had received
+that morning a note from her grandniece, "a young and giddy person,"
+who lived in B----, some twenty miles away, announcing that she and
+a party of friends were about to drive over to Hillton to see the
+old house. She felt sure that her dear aunt would be enchanted to
+see them, as it must be "quite too forlorn for her, all alone in
+that great barn;" so she might expect them the next evening (that is,
+the evening of this very day), in time for supper, and no doubt as
+hungry as hunters. There would be about a dozen of them, probably,
+but she knew there was plenty of room at Birchwood, and it would be
+a good thing to fill up the empty rooms for once in a way; so,
+looking forward to a pleasant meeting, the writer remained her
+dearest aunt's "affectionate niece, Effie Gay."
+
+"The child has no mother," said Madam Le Baron to Miss Persis; then
+turning to me, she said: "I am alone, save for my two maids, who are
+of middle age, and not accustomed to youthful visitors. Learning
+from my good friend, Miss Elderby, that a young gentlewoman was
+staying at her house, I conceived the idea of asking you to spend
+the night with me, and such portion of the next day as my guests may
+remain. If you are willing to do me this service, my dear, you may
+put off your bonnet, and I will send for your evening dress and your
+toilet necessaries."
+
+I had been listening in a dream, hearing what was said, but thinking
+it all like a fairy story, chiefly impressed by the fact that the
+speaker was the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life.
+The last sentence, however, brought me to my senses with a vengeance.
+With scarlet cheeks I explained that I had brought no evening dress
+with me; that I lived a very quiet life at home, and had expected
+nothing different here; that, to be quite frank, I had not such a
+thing as an evening dress in the world. Miss Persis turned pale with
+distress and mortification; but Madam Le Baron looked at me quietly,
+with her lovely smile.
+
+"I will provide you with a suitable dress, my child," she said.
+"I have something that will do very well for you. If you like to go
+to your room now, my maid will attend you, and bring what is
+necessary. We expect our guests in time for supper, at eight o'clock."
+
+Decidedly, I had walked into a fairy tale, or else I was dreaming!
+Here I sat in a room hung with flowered damask, in a wonderful chair,
+by a wonderful fire; and a fairy, little and withered and brown,
+dressed in what I knew must be black bombazine, though I knew it
+only from descriptions, was bringing me tea, and plum-cake, on a
+silver tray. She looked at me with kind, twinkling eyes, and said
+she would bring the dress at once; then left me to my own wondering
+fancies. I hardly knew what to be thinking of, so much was happening:
+more, it seemed, in these few hours, than in all my life before. I
+tried to fix my mind on the gay party that would soon fill the silent
+house with life and tumult; I tried to fancy how Miss Effie Gay
+would look, and what she would say to me; but my mind kept coming
+back to the dress, the evening dress, that I was to be privileged to
+wear. What would it be like? Would silk or muslin be prettier? If
+only it were not pink! A red-haired girl in pink was a sad sight!
+
+Looking up, I saw a portrait on the wall, of a beautiful girl, in a
+curious, old-time costume. The soft dark eyes and regal turn of the
+head told me that it was my hostess in her youth; and even as I
+looked, I heard the rustle again, and smelt the faint odor of
+sandalwood; and Madam Le Baron came softly in, followed by the fairy
+maid, bearing a long parcel.
+
+"Your gown, my dear," she said, "I thought you would like to be
+preparing for the evening. Undo it, Jessop!"
+
+Jessop lifted fold on fold of tissue-paper. I looked, expecting I
+know not what fairy thing of lace and muslin: I saw--the green satin
+gown!
+
+We were wearing large sleeves then, something like yours at the
+present day, and high collars; the fashion was at its height. This
+gown had long, tight, wrinkled sleeves, coming down over the hand,
+and finished with a ruffle of yellow lace; the neck, rounded and
+half-low, had a similar ruffle almost deep enough to be called a ruff;
+the waist, if it could be called a waist, was up under the arms:
+briefly, a costume of my grandmother's time. Little green satin
+slippers lay beside it, and a huge feather-fan hung by a green ribbon.
+Was this a jest? was it--I looked up, with burning cheeks and eyes
+suffused; I met a glance so kind, so beaming with good-will, that my
+eyes fell, and I could only hope that my anguish had not been visible.
+
+"Shall Jessop help you, my dear?" said Madam Le Baron. "You can do
+it by yourself? Well, I like to see the young independent. I think
+the gown will become you; it has been considered handsome." She
+glanced fondly at the shining fabric, and left the room; the maid,
+after one sharp glance at me, in which I thought I read an amused
+compassion, followed; and I was left alone with the green satin gown.
+
+Cry? No, I did not cry: I had been brought up not to cry; but I
+suffered, my dear, as one does suffer at seventeen. I thought of
+jumping out of the window and running away, back to Miss Persis; I
+thought of going to bed, and saying I was ill. It was true, I said
+to myself, with feverish violence: I _was_ ill, sick with shame and
+mortification and disappointment. Appear before this gay party,
+dressed like my own great-grandmother? I would rather die! A person
+might easily die of such distress as this--and so on, and so on!
+
+Suddenly, like a cool touch on my brow, came a thought, a word of my
+Uncle John's, that had helped me many a time before.
+
+"Endeavor, my dear, to maintain a sense of proportion!"
+
+The words fell with weight on my distracted mind. I sat up straight
+in the armchair into which I had flung myself, face downward. Was
+there any proportion in this horror? I shook myself, then put the
+two sides together, and looked at them. On one side, two lovely old
+ladies, one of whom I could perhaps help a little, both of whom I
+could gratify; on the other, my own--dear me! was it vanity? I
+thought of the two sweet old faces, shining with kindness; I fancied
+the distress, the disappointment, that might come into them, if I--
+
+"Yes, dear uncle," I said aloud, "I have found the proportion!" I
+shook myself again, and began to dress. And now a happy thought
+struck me. Glancing at the portrait on the wall, I saw that the fair
+girl was dressed in green. Was it? Yes, it must be--it was--the very
+same dress! Quickly, and as neatly as I could, I arranged my hair in
+two great puffs, with a butterfly knot on the top of my head, in the
+style of the picture; if only I had the high comb! I slipped on the
+gown, which fitted me well enough. I put on the slippers, and tied
+the green ribbons round and round my ankles; then I lighted all the
+candles, and looked at myself. A perfect guy? Well, perhaps--and
+yet--
+
+At this moment Jessop entered, bringing a pair of yellow gloves; she
+looked me over critically, saying nothing; glanced at the portrait,
+withdrew, and presently reappeared, with the high tortoise-shell
+comb in her hand. She placed it carefully in my hair, surveyed me
+again, and again looked at the picture. Yes, it was true, the
+necklace was wanting; but of course--
+
+Really, Jessop was behaving like a jack-in-the-box! She had
+disappeared again, and now here she was for the third time; but this
+time Madam Le Baron was with her. The old lady looked at me silently,
+at my hair, then up at the picture. The sight of the pleasure in her
+lovely face trampled under foot, put out of existence, the last
+remnant of my foolish pride.
+
+She turned to Jessop and nodded. "Yes, by all means!" she said. The
+maid put into her hand a long morocco box; Madam kissed me, and with
+soft, trembling fingers clasped the necklace round my neck.
+"It is a graceful compliment you pay me, my child," she said,
+glancing at the picture again, with eyes a little dimmed. "Oblige me
+by wearing this, to complete the vision of my past youth."
+
+Ten stars of chrysoprase, the purest and tenderest green in the world,
+set in delicately wrought gold. I need not describe the necklace to
+you. You think it the most beautiful jewel in the world, and so do I;
+and I have promised that you shall wear it on your eighteenth
+birthday.
+
+Madam Le Baron saw nothing singular in my appearance. She never
+changed the fashion of her dress, being of the opinion, as she told
+me afterward, that a gentlewoman's dress is her own affair, not her
+mantua-maker's; and her gray and silver brocade went very well with
+the green satin. We stood side by side for a moment, gazing into the
+long, dim mirror; then she patted my shoulder and gave a little sigh.
+
+"Your auburn hair looks well with the green," she said. "My hair was
+dark, but otherwise--Shall we go down, my dear?"
+
+I will not say much about the evening. It was painful, of course;
+but Effie Gay had no mother, and much must be pardoned in such a case.
+No doubt I made a quaint figure enough among the six or eight gay
+girls, all dressed in the latest fashion; but the first moment was
+the worst, and the first titter put a fire in my veins that kept me
+warm all the evening. An occasional glance at Madam Le Baron's
+placid face enabled me to preserve my sense of proportion, and I
+remembered that two wise men, Solomon and my Uncle John, had
+compared the laughter of fools to the crackling of thorns under a pot.
+And--and there were some who did not laugh.
+
+Pin it up, my dear! Your father has come, and will be wanting his tea.
+
+I can tell you the rest of the story in a few words.
+
+A year from that time Madam Le Baron died; and a few weeks after her
+death, a parcel came for me from Hillton.
+
+Opening it in great wonder, what did I find but the gown, the green
+satin gown, with the slippers and fan, and the tortoise-shell comb
+in a leather case! Lifting it reverently from the box, the dress felt
+singularly heavy on my arm, and a moment's search revealed a strange
+matter. The pocket was full of gold pieces, shining half-eagles,
+which fell about me in a golden shower, and made me cry out with
+amazement; but this was not all! The tears sprang to my eyes as I
+opened the morocco box and took out the chrysoprase necklace: tears
+partly of gratitude and pleasure, partly of sheer kindness and love
+and sorrow for the sweet, stately lady who had thought of me in her
+closing days, and had found (they told me afterward) one of her last
+pleasures in planning this surprise for me.
+
+There is something more that I might say, my dear. Your dear father
+was one of that gay sleighing party; and he often speaks of the
+first time he saw me--when I was coming down the stairs in the green
+satin gown.
+
+
+
+
+BLUE EGYPTIANS [1]
+
+
+A PAPER-MILL STORY
+
+"I wouldn't, Lena!"
+
+"Well, I guess I shall!"
+
+"Don't, Lena! please don't! you will be sorry, I am sure, if you do
+it. It cannot bring good, I know it cannot!"
+
+"The idea! Mary Denison, you are too old-fashioned for anything. I'd
+like to know what harm it can do."
+
+The rag-room was nearly deserted. The whistle had blown, and most of
+the girls had hurried away to their dinner. Two only lingered behind,
+deep in conversation; Mary Denison and Lena Laxen.
+
+Mary was sitting by her sorting-table, busily sorting rags as she
+talked. She was a fair, slender girl, and looked wonderfully fresh
+and trim in her gray print gown, with a cap of the same material
+fitting close to her head, and hiding her pretty hair. The other
+girl was dark and vivacious, with laughing black eyes and a careless
+mouth. She was picturesque enough in her blue dress, with the
+scarlet handkerchief tied loosely over her hair; but both kerchief
+and dress showed the dust plainly, and the dark locks that escaped
+here and there were dusty too, showing little of the care that may
+keep one neat even in a rag-room.
+
+"It's just as pretty as it can be!" Lena went on, half-coaxing,
+half-defiant. "You ought to see it, Mame! A silk waist, every bit as
+good as new, only of course it's mussed up, lying in the bag; and a
+skirt, and lots of other things, all as nice as nice! I can't think
+what the folks that had them meant, putting such things into the rags:
+why, that waist hadn't much more than come out of the shop, you
+might say. And do you think I'm going to let it go through the duster,
+and then be thrown out, and somebody else get it? No, sir! and it's
+no good for rags, you know it isn't, Mary Denison."
+
+"I know that it is not yours, Lena, nor mine!" said Mary, steadily.
+"But I'll tell you what you might do; go straight to Mr. Gordon, and
+tell him about the pretty waist,--very likely it got in by mistake,
+--tell him it is no good for rags, and ask if you may have it. Like
+as not he'll let you have it; and if not, you will find out what his
+reason is. I think we ought to suppose he has some reason for what
+he does."
+
+Lena laughed spitefully.
+
+"Like as not he's going to take it home to his own girl!" she said.
+"I saw her in the street the other day, and I wouldn't have been
+seen dead with the hat she had on; not a flower, nor even a scrap of
+a feather; just a plain band and a goose-quill stuck in it. Real
+poorhouse, I thought it looked, and he as rich as a Jew. I guess I
+sha'n't go to Mr. Gordon; he's just as hateful as he can be. He gave
+out word that no one was to touch that bag, nor so much as go near it;
+and he had it set off in a corner of the outer shed, close by the
+chloride barrels, so that everything in it will smell like poison.
+If that isn't mean, I don't know what is.
+
+"Well, I can't stay here all day, Mame. Aren't you coming?"
+
+"Pretty soon!" said Mary. "Don't wait for me, Lena! I want to finish
+this stint, so as to have the afternoon off. Mother's poorly to-day,
+and I want to cook something nice for her supper."
+
+Lena nodded and went out, shutting the door with a defiant swing.
+Mary looked after her doubtfully, as if hesitating whether she ought
+not to follow and make some stronger plea; but the next moment she
+bent over her work again.
+
+"I must hurry!" she said. "I'll see Lena after dinner, and try to
+make her promise not to touch that bag. I don't see what has got
+into her."
+
+Mary worked away steadily. The rags were piled in an iron sieve
+before her; they were mostly the kind called "Blue Egyptians,"
+cotton cloth dyed with indigo, which had come far across the sea from
+Egypt. Musty and fusty enough they were, and Mary often turned her
+head aside as she sorted them carefully, putting the good rags into
+a huge basket that stood beside her on the floor, while the bits of
+woollen cloth, of paper and string and other refuse, went into
+different compartments of the sorting-table, which was something
+like an old-fashioned box-desk.
+
+Mary was a quick worker, and her basket was already nearly full of
+rags. Fastened upright beside her seat was a great knife, not unlike
+a scythe-blade, with which she cut off the buttons and hooks and eyes,
+running the garment along the keen edge with a quick and practised
+hand. Usually she amused herself by imagining stories about the
+buttons and their former owners, for she was a fanciful girl, and
+her child-life, without brothers or sisters, had bred in her the
+habit of solitary play and "make-believe," which clung to her now
+that she was a tall girl of sixteen. But to-day she was not thinking
+of the Blue Egyptians. Her thoughts were following Lena on her
+homeward way, and she was hoping devoutly that her own words might
+have had some effect, and that Lena might pass by the forbidden bag
+without lingering to be further tempted. It _was_ strange that this
+one special bundle of rags, coming from a village at some distance,
+should have been kept apart when the day's allowance was put into
+the dusters. But--"Mother always says we ought to suppose there is a
+reason for things!" she said to herself. And she shook her head
+resolutely, and tried to make a "button-play."
+
+She pulled from the heap before her a dark blue garment, and turned
+it over, examining it carefully. It seemed to be a woman's jacket.
+It was of finer material than most of the "Egyptians," and the
+fashion was quaint and graceful. There were remnants of embroidery
+here and there, and the heavy glass buttons were like nothing Mary
+had ever seen before.
+
+"I'll keep these," she said, "for little Jessie Brown; she will be
+delighted with them. That child does make so much out of so little,
+I'm fairly ashamed sometimes. These will be a fortune to Jessie.
+I'll tell her that I think most likely they belonged to a princess
+when they were new; they were up and down the front of a dress of
+gold cloth trimmed with pearls, and she looked perfectly beautiful
+when she had it on, and the Prince of the Fortunate Islands fell in
+love with her."
+
+Buttons were a regular perquisite of the rag-girls in the Cumquot
+Mill; indeed, any trifle, coin, or seal, or medal, was considered
+the property of the finder, this being an unwritten law of the
+rag-room.
+
+Mary cut the buttons off, and slipped them into her pocket; then she
+ran her fingers round the edge of the jacket, in case there were any
+hooks or other hard substance that had escaped her notice, and that
+might blunt the knives of the cutter, into which it would next go.
+
+In a corner of the lining, her fingers met something hard. Here was
+some object that had slipped down between the stuff and the lining,
+and must be cut out. Mary ran the jacket along the cutting-knife,
+and something rolled into her lap. Not a button this time! she held
+it up to the light, and examined it curiously. It was a brooch, of
+glass, or clear stones, in a tarnished silver setting. Dim and dusty,
+it still seemed full of light, and glanced in the sun as Mary held
+it up.
+
+"What a pretty thing!" she said. "I wonder if it is glass. I must
+take this to Mr. Gordon, for I never found anything like it before.
+Jessie cannot have this."
+
+She laid it carefully aside, and went on with her sorting, working
+so quickly that in a few moments the sieve was empty, and the basket
+piled with good cotton rags, ready for the cutting-machine.
+
+Taking her hat and shawl, Mary passed out, holding the brooch
+carefully in her hand. There were few people in the mill, only the
+machine-tenders, walking leisurely up and down beside their machines,
+which whirred and droned on, regardless of dinnertime. The great
+rollers went round and round, the broad white streams flowed on and
+on over the screens, till the mysterious moment came when they
+ceased to be wet pulp and became paper.
+
+Mary hardly glanced at the wonderful machines; they were an old
+story to her, though in every throb they were telling over and over
+the marvellous works of man. The machine-tenders nodded kindly in
+return to her modest greeting, and looked after her with approval,
+and said, "Nice gal!" to each other; but Mary hurried on until she
+came to the finishing-room. Here she hoped to find a friend whom she
+could consult about her discovery; and, sure enough, old James
+Gregory was sitting on his accustomed stool, tying bundles of paper
+with the perfection that no one else could equal. His back was
+turned to the door, and he was crooning a fragment of an old
+paper-mill song, which might have been composed by the beating
+engine itself, so rhythmic and monotonous it was.
+
+
+  "'Gene, 'Gene,
+  Made a machine;
+  Joe, Joe,
+  Made it go;
+  Frank, Frank,
+  Turned the crank,
+  His mother came out,
+  And gave him a spank,
+  And knocked him over
+  The garden bank."
+
+
+At Mary's cheerful "Good morning, Mr. Gregory!" the old man turned
+slowly, and looked at the young girl with friendly eyes.
+
+"Good day, Mary! glad to see ye! goin' along home?"
+
+"In just a minute! I want to show you something, Mr. Gregory, and to
+ask your advice, please."
+
+The old finisher turned completely round this time, and looked his
+interest. Mary opened her hand, and displayed the brooch she had
+found.
+
+James Gregory drew his lips into the form of a whistle, but made no
+sound. He looked from the brooch to Mary, and back again.
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"I found it in the rags; blue Egyptians, you know, Mr. Gregory. It
+was inside the lining of a jacket. Do you think--what do you think
+about it? is it glass, or--something else?"
+
+Gregory took the ornament from her, and held it up to the light,
+screwing his eyes to little points of light; then he polished it on
+his sleeve, and held it up again.
+
+[Illustration: "GREGORY POLISHED IT ON HIS SLEEVE, AND HELD IT UP
+AGAIN."]
+
+"Something else!" he said, briefly.
+
+"Is it--do you think it might be worth something, Mr. Gregory?"
+asked Mary, rather timidly.
+
+"Yes!" roared Gregory, with a sudden explosion. "I do! I b'lieve
+them's di'monds, sure as here I sit. Mary Denison, you've struck it
+this time, or I'm a Dutchman."
+
+He got off his stool in great excitement, and walked up and down the
+room, still holding the brooch in his hand. Mary looked after him,
+and her face was very pale. She said one word softly, "Mother!" that
+was all.
+
+Mary Denison and her mother were poor. Mrs. Denison was far from
+strong, and they had no easy time of it, for there was little save
+Mary's wages to feed and clothe the two women and pay their rent.
+James Gregory knew all this; his pale old face was lighted with
+emotion, and he stumped up and down the room at a rapid pace.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and faced the anxious girl, who was following
+him with bewildered eyes.
+
+"Findin's havin'!" he said, abruptly. "That's paper-mill law. Some
+folks would tell ye to keep this to yourself, and sell it for what
+you could get."
+
+Mary's face flushed.
+
+"But you do not tell me that!" she said, quietly.
+
+"No!" roared the old man, with another explosion, stamping violently
+on the floor. "No, I don't. You're poor as spring snakes, and your
+mother's sickly, and you've hard work to get enough to keep the
+flesh on your bones; but I don't tell ye to do that. I tell ye to
+take it straight to the Old Man, and tell him where ye found it, and
+all about it. I've knowed him ever since his mustash growed, and
+before. You go straight to him! He's in the office now."
+
+"I was going!" said Mary, simply. "I thought I'd come and see you
+first, Mr. Gregory, you've always been so good to mother and me.
+You--you couldn't manage to come with me, could you? I am afraid of
+Mr. Gordon; I can't help it, though he is always pleasant to me."
+
+"I'll go!" said old James, with alacrity. "You come right along with
+me!"
+
+In his eagerness he seized Mary by the arm, and kept his hold on her
+as they passed out through the mill. The few "hands" who were at
+work here and there gazed after them in amazement; for the old man
+was dragging the girl along as if he had caught her in some offence,
+and was going to deliver her up to justice.
+
+The same impression was made in the office, when the pair appeared
+there. The two clerks stared open-mouthed, and judged after their
+nature; for one of them said, instantly, to himself, "It's a mistake!"
+while the other said, "I always knew that Denison girl was too pious
+to last!"
+
+A tall man who sat at a desk in the corner looked up quietly.
+
+"Ah, Gregory!" he said. "What is it? Mary Denison? Good morning, Mary!
+Anything wrong in the rag-room?"
+
+Gregory waved his hat excitedly.
+
+"If you'd look here, sir!" he said. "If you would just cast your eye
+over that article, and tell this gal what you think of it! Blue
+Egyptians, sir! luckiest rags that ever come into this mill, I've
+always said. Well, sir?"
+
+Mr. Gordon was not easily stirred to excitement. It seemed an age to
+the anxious girl and the impetuous old man, as he turned the brooch
+over and over, holding it up in every light, polishing it, breathing
+on it, then polishing it again. Gregory's hands twitched with
+eagerness, and Mary felt almost faint with suspense.
+
+"You found this in the rags?" he asked at length, turning to Mary.
+He spoke in his ordinary even tone, and Mary's heart sank, she could
+not have told why.
+
+"Yes, sir!" she faltered. "I found it in a blue jacket. It was in
+between the stuff and the lining. There were glass buttons on the
+jacket."
+
+She drew them from her pocket and held them out; but Mr. Gordon,
+after a glance, waved them back.
+
+"Those are of no value!" he said. "About this brooch, I am not so
+sure. The stones may be real stones--I incline to think they are;
+but it is possible that they may be paste. The imitations are
+sometimes very perfect; no one but a jeweller can tell positively. I
+will take it to Boston with me to-morrow, and have it examined."
+
+He dropped the brooch into a drawer at his side, turned the key and
+put it in his pocket, all in his quiet, methodical way, as if he
+were in the habit of examining diamond brooches every day; then he
+nodded kindly to the pair, and bent over his papers again.
+
+Mary went out silently, and Gregory followed her with a dazed look
+on his strong features. He looked back at the door two or three times,
+but said nothing till they were back in the finishing-room.
+
+Then--"It's one of his days!" he said. "I've knowed him ever since
+his mustash growed, and there's days when he's struck with a dumb
+sperit, just like Scriptur'. Don't you fret, Mary! He'll see you
+righted, or I'll give you my head."
+
+Mary might have thought that Mr. Gregory's head would be of little
+use to her without the rest of him. She felt sadly dashed and
+disappointed. She hardly knew what she had expected, but it was
+something very different from this calm, every-day reception, this
+total disregard of her own and her companion's excitement.
+
+"I guess he thinks they're nothing great!" she said, wearily.
+"What was that he said about paste, Mr. Gregory? You never saw any
+paste like that, did you?
+
+"No!" said Gregory, "I've heered of Di'mond Glue, but 'twan't
+nothin' like stones--nor glass neither. You may run me through the
+calenders if I know what he's drivin' at. But I'll trust him!" he
+added, vehemently. "I done right to tell you to go to him. He's in
+one of his moods to-day, but you'll hear from him, if there's
+anything to hear, now mark my words! And now I'd go home, if I was
+you, and see your ma'am, and get your dinner. And--Mary--I dono as
+I'd say anything about this, if I was you. Things get round so in a
+mill, ye know."
+
+Mary nodded assurance, and went home, trying to feel that nothing of
+importance had happened. Do what she would, however, the golden
+visions would come dancing before her eyes. Suppose--suppose the
+stones should be real, after all! and suppose Mr. Gordon should give
+her a part, at least, of the money they might bring in Boston. It
+might--she knew diamonds were valuable--it might be thirty or forty
+dollars. Oh! how rich she would be! The rent could be paid some time
+in advance, and her mother could have the new shawl she needed so
+badly: or would a cloak be better? cloaks were more in fashion, but
+Mother said a good shawl was always good style.
+
+Turning the corner by her mother's house, she met one of the clerks
+who had been in the office when she went in there. He looked at her
+with the smile she always disliked, she hardly knew why.
+
+"You did the wrong thing that time, Miss Denison!" he said.
+
+"What do you mean, Mr. Hitchcock?" asked Mary.
+
+"You'll never see your diamonds again, nor the money for them!"
+replied the man. "That's easy guessing. He'll come back and tell you
+they're glass or paste, and that's the last you'll hear of them. And
+the diamonds--for they are diamonds, right enough--will go into his
+pocket, or on to his wife's neck. I know what's what! I wasn't born
+down in these parts."
+
+"You don't know Mr. Gordon!" said Mary, warmly. "That isn't the way
+he is thought of by those who do know him."
+
+The clerk was a newcomer from another State, and was not liked by
+the mill-workers.
+
+"I know his kind!" he said, with a sneer; "and they're no good to
+your kind, Mary Denison, nor to mine. Mark my words, you'll hear no
+more of that breastpin."
+
+Mary turned away so decidedly that he said no more, but his eyes
+followed her with a sinister look.
+
+Next moment he was greeting Lena Laxen cordially, and she was
+dimpling and smiling all over at his compliments. Lena thought
+Mr. Hitchcock "just elegant!" and believed that Mary was jealous when
+she said she did not like him. Something now prompted her to tell
+him about the silk waist in the forbidden sack; he took her view at
+once and zealously. The boss (for he did not use the kindly title of
+"Old Man," by which the other mill-hands designated Mr. Gordon,
+though he was barely forty) had his eye on the things, most likely,
+as he had on the pin Mary Denison found. Hadn't Lena heard about that?
+Well, it was a burning shame, he could tell her; he would see that
+she, Lena, wasn't fooled that way. And Lena, listening eagerly,
+heard a story very different from that which had been told to
+Mr. Gordon.
+
+In an hour the whole mill knew that Mary Denison had found a diamond
+pin in the rags, and that Mr. Gordon had told her it was nothing but
+hard glue, and had sold it himself in Boston for a thousand dollars,
+and spent the money on a new horse.
+
+Nor was this all! Late that evening Lena Laxen stole from her home
+with a shawl over her head, and met the clerk by the corner of the
+outer shed. A few minutes of whispering and giggling, and she stole
+back, with a bundle under her shawl; while Hitchcock tied a bright
+silk handkerchief round his neck, and strutted off with the air of a
+conqueror.
+
+Next morning, as Mary Denison was going to her work, Lena rapped on
+the window, and called her attention by signs to the bodice she had
+on. It was a gay striped silk, little worn, but still showing, in
+spite of pressing, the marks of crumpling and tossing. The bright
+colors suited Lena's dark skin well, and as she stood there with
+flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, Mary thought she had never seen
+her look prettier. At first she nodded and smiled in approval; but
+the next moment a thought darted into her mind that made her clasp
+her hands, and cry anxiously:
+
+"Oh! Lena, you didn't do it! you never did it! it's not _that_ waist
+you have on?"
+
+Lena affected not to hear. She only nodded and laughed triumphantly,
+and turned away, leaving Mary standing pale and distressed outside
+the window.
+
+Mary hesitated. Should she go in and reason further with the wilful
+girl, and try to persuade her to restore the stolen garment?
+Something told her it would be useless; but still she was on the
+point of going in, when old James Gregory came by, and asked her to
+walk on with him.
+
+She complied, but not without an anxious look back at the window,
+where no one was now to be seen.
+
+"Well, May," said Gregory, "how're ye feelin' to-day? hearty? that's
+clever! I hope you wasn't frettin' about that pin any. Most girls
+would, but you ain't the fool kind."
+
+"I don't know, Mr. Gregory!" said Mary, laughing. "I'm afraid I have
+thought about it more or less, but I haven't been fretting. Where's
+the use?"
+
+"Jes' so! jes' so!" assented the old man, with alacrity.
+
+"And I didn't say anything to Mother," Mary went on. "I didn't want
+her to know about it unless something was really coming of it. Poor
+Mother! she has enough to think about."
+
+"She has so!" said Gregory. "A sight o' thinkin' your mother doos,
+Mary, and good thoughts, every one of 'em, I'll bet my next pay.
+She's a good woman, your mother; I guess likely you know it without
+me sayin' so. I call Susan Denison the best woman I know, and I've
+told my wife so, more times than she says she has any occasion for.
+I don't say she's an angel, but she's a good woman, and that's as fur
+as we're likely to get in this world.
+
+"But that ain't what I wanted to say to you, May! Somehow or 'nother,
+the story's got round about your findin' that pin yesterday. You
+didn't say nothin'?"
+
+"Not a word!" said Mary. "How could it--"
+
+"'Twas that pison Hitchcock, I expect!" said Gregory. "I see him
+lookin' up with his little eyes, as red as a ferret, and as ugly. I
+bet he started the hull thing; and he's tacked on a passel of lies,
+and the endurin' place is hummin' with it. Thought I'd tell ye
+before ye went in, so's ye could fix up a little what to say."
+
+Mary thanked him cordially, and passed on into the mill: the old man
+looked after her with a very friendly glance in his keen blue eyes.
+
+"She's good stuff, May is!" he murmured. "Good stuff, like her mother.
+
+"Folks is like rags, however you look at 'em. Take a good linen rag,
+no matter how black it is, and put it through the washers, and the
+bleachers, and the cutters, and all the time it's gettin' whiter and
+whiter, and sweeter and sweeter, the more you bang it round; till at
+last you have bank-note paper, and write to the Queen of England on
+it, if you're a mind to, and she won't have none better. And take
+jute or shoddy, and the minute you touch to wash it, it cockles up,
+or drops to pieces, and it ain't no good to mortal man. Jest like
+folks, I tell ye! and May and her mother's pure linen clippin's, if
+ever I see 'em."
+
+Forewarned is forearmed, and Mary met quietly the buzz of inquiry
+that greeted her when she entered the rag-room. The girls crowded
+round her, the men were not far behind. To each and all Mary told the
+simple truth, trying not to say a word too much. "The tongue is a
+fire!" her mother's favorite text, was constantly in her mind, and
+she was determined that no ill word should be spoken of Mr. Gordon,
+if she could help it. Almost every one in the mill liked and
+respected the "Old Man;" but the human mind loves a sensation, and
+Lena and Hitchcock had told their story so vividly the day before
+that Mary's account seemed tame and dull beside it; and some of the
+hands preferred to think that "Mame Denison was a sly one, and
+warn't goin' to let on, fear some one'd git ahead of her."
+
+Lena, who came shortly, in her usual dress, fostered this feeling,
+not from malice, but from sheer love of excitement and gossip. In
+spite of Mary's efforts, the excitement increased, and when, late in
+the afternoon, word came that Mary Denison was wanted in the office,
+the rag-room was left fairly bubbling with wild surmise.
+
+Mr. Gordon did not see Mary when she came in. He was standing at his
+desk, with an open letter in his hand, and his face was disturbed as
+he spoke to the senior clerk.
+
+"Myers, it is as I feared about that bag of rags from Blankton. You
+have kept it carefully tied up, and close by the chlorides, as I
+told you?"
+
+Myers, a clear-eyed, honest-browed man, looked troubled.
+
+"I did, sir!" he said. "I have looked at the bag every time I passed
+that way, and have cautioned every one in the mill not to go near it,
+besides keeping the shed-gate locked; but this morning I found that
+it had been tampered with, and evidently something taken out. I hope
+there is nothing wrong, sir!"
+
+George Gordon struck his hand heavily on the desk. "Wrong!" he
+repeated. "There have been two fatal cases of smallpox in Blankton,
+and that bag has been traced to the house where they were."
+
+There was a moment of deathly silence. He went on:
+
+"I suspected something wrong, the moment you told me of things that
+looked new and good; but I did not want to raise a panic in the mill,
+when there might be some other explanation. I thought I had taken
+every precaution--what is that?"
+
+He turned quickly, hearing a low cry behind him. Mary Denison was
+standing with clasped hands, her face white with terror.
+
+"Mary!" said Mr. Gordon, in amazement. "You--surely you have had
+nothing to do with this?"
+
+"No, sir!" cried Mary. "Oh, no, Mr. Gordon, indeed I have not. But I
+fear--I fear I know who has. Oh, poor thing! poor Lena!"
+
+Then, with an impulse she could not explain, she turned suddenly
+upon Hitchcock.
+
+"Who let Lena Laxen into the yard last night?" she cried. "She could
+not have got in without help. You had a key--you were talking to her
+after I left her yesterday. Oh! look at him, Mr. Gordon! Mr. Myers,
+look at that man!"
+
+But Hitchcock did not seem to hear or heed her. He sat crouched over
+his desk, his face a greenish-gray color, his eyes staring, his
+hands clutching the woodwork convulsively; an awful figure of terror,
+that gasped and cowered before them. Then suddenly, with a cry that
+rattled in his throat, he dashed from his seat and ran bareheaded
+out of the door.
+
+Myers started up to pursue him, but Mr. Gordon held up his hand.
+
+"Let him go!" he said, sternly. "It may be that he carries his
+punishment with him. In any case we shall see him no more."
+
+Quickly and quietly he gave Myers his orders; to take Lena Laxen to
+her home, notify the physician, and proclaim a strict quarantine; to
+burn the infected rags without loss of time; to have every part of
+the shed where the fatal bag had stood thoroughly disinfected. When
+the man had hastened away, Mr. Gordon turned to Mary, and his stern
+face lightened.
+
+"Do not distress yourself, Mary," he said, kindly. "It may be that
+Lena will escape the infection; it seems that she only had the
+garment on a few minutes; and you did all you could, I am sure, to
+dissuade her from this piece of fatal and dishonest folly."
+
+"Oh! I might have said more!" cried Mary, in an agony of
+self-reproach. "I meant to go into her house this morning, and try
+to make her hear reason; it might not have been too late then."
+
+"Thank Heaven you did not!" said Mr. Gordon, gravely. "The air of
+the house was probably already infected. No one save the doctor must
+go near that house till all danger of the disease developing is over."
+
+He then told Mary briefly why he had sent for her. Finding that he
+could not go to Boston himself at present, as he had planned, he had
+sent the brooch by express to a jeweller whom he knew, and would be
+able to tell her in a few days whether it was of real value or not.
+Mary thanked him, but his words fell almost unheeded on her ears.
+What were jewels or money, in the face of a danger so awful as that
+which now threatened her friend, and, through her, the whole village?
+
+Days of suspense followed. From the moment when the weeping,
+agonized Lena was taken home and put, tenderly, pityingly, in her
+mother's hands (it was Mr. Gordon himself who had done this, refusing
+to let any other perform the duty), an invisible line was drawn
+about the Laxen cottage, which few dared pass. The doctor came and
+went, reporting all well to the eager questioners. Mr. Gordon called
+daily to inquire, and every evening Mary Denison stole to the door
+with a paper or magazine for Lena and her mother, or some home-made
+delicacy that might please the imprisoned girl. Lena was usually at
+the window, sometimes defiant and blustering, sometimes wild with
+fright, sometimes again crying for sheer loneliness and vexation;
+but always behind her was her mother's pale face of dread, and her
+thin voice saying that Lena was "as well as common, thank ye," and
+she and Mary would exchange glances, and Mary would go away drawing
+breath, and thanking the Lord that another day was gone.
+
+So on, for nine anxious days; but on the tenth, when Mary looked up
+at the window, the mother stood there alone, crying; and the doctor,
+coming out of the house at the moment, told Mary harshly to keep away
+from him, and not to come so near the house.
+
+In the dreadful days that followed, his people learned to know
+George Gordon as they had never known him before. The grave, silent
+man, who never spoke save when speech was necessary, was now among
+them every day, going from room to room with cheerful greetings,
+encouraging, heartening, raising the drooping spirits, and rebuking
+sharply the croakers, who foretold with dismal unction a general
+epidemic. While taking every possible precaution, he made light of
+the actual danger, and by his presence and influence warded off the
+panic which might have brought about the dreaded result.
+
+As a matter of fact, there were no more cases in the mill; and Lena
+herself had the terrible disease more lightly than any one had dared
+to hope. The doctor, hurrying through back ways and alleys to change
+his clothes and take his bath of disinfectants, was hailed from back
+gates and windows at every step; and he never failed to return a
+cheery "Doing well! out of it soon now! No, not much marked, only a
+few spots here and there."
+
+This was when he left the quarantined house; but when he sought it,
+he might be seen to stop at one gate and another, picking up here a
+jar, there a bowl, here again a paper bag; till by the time he
+reached the Laxen gate he stood out all over with packages like a
+summer Santa Claus.
+
+"There ain't anybody goin' to starve round here, if they _have_ got
+the smallpox!" was the general verdict, voiced by James Gregory, and
+when he added, for the benefit of the mill-yard, that he had heard
+Mr. Gordon order ice-cream, oranges, and oysters, all at once, for
+Lena, a growl of pleasure went round, which deepened into a hearty
+"What's the matter with the Old Man? _he's_ all right!"
+
+At length, one happy day, Mary Denison met Mr. Gordon at the Laxens'
+gate, and heard the good news that Lena was sitting up; that in a
+day or two now the quarantine would be taken off, the house
+disinfected, and Lena back in her place at the mill. The manager
+looked with satisfaction at Mary's beaming face of happiness; then,
+as she was turning away to spread the good tidings, he said:
+
+"Wait a moment, Mary! I have some other news for you. Have you
+forgotten the brooch that you found in the Blue Egyptians?"
+
+The color rushed to Mary's face, and Mr. Gordon had his answer.
+
+"Because," he added, "I have not forgotten, though you might well
+think I had done so. All this sad business has delayed matters, but
+now I have it all arranged. I am ready to-day, Mary, to give you
+either the brooch itself, or--what I think will be better--five
+hundred dollars, the sum I find it to be worth. Yes, my child, I am
+speaking the truth! The stones are fine ones, and the Boston
+jeweller offers you that sum for them. Well, Mary, have you nothing
+to say? What, crying? this will never do!"
+
+But Mary had nothing to say, and she was crying, because she could
+not help it. Presently she managed to murmur something about
+"Too much! too great kindness--not fair for her to have it all!" but
+Mr. Gordon cut her short.
+
+"Certainly you are to have it all, every penny of it! Finding's
+having! that is paper-mill law; ask James Gregory if it is not!
+There comes James this moment; go and tell him of your good fortune,
+and let him bring you up to my house this evening to get the money.
+
+"But, Mary,"--he glanced at a letter in his hand, and his face,
+which had been bright with kindness and pleasure, grew very grave,--
+"there is something else for you to tell James, and all the hands.
+James Hitchcock died yesterday, of malignant smallpox!"
+
+[Footnote 1: The main incidents in this story are founded on fact.]
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BENJAMIN
+
+     "Then is little Benjamin their ruler."
+
+
+"I THINK the kitty wants to come in," said Mother Golden. "I hear
+him crying somewhere. Won't you go and let him in, Adam?"
+
+Adam laid down his book and went out; the whole family looked up
+cheerfully, expecting to see Aladdin, the great Maltese cat, enter
+with his stately port. There was a pause; then Adam came back with a
+white, scared face, and looked at his father without speaking.
+
+"What is the matter, my son?" asked Father Golden.
+
+"Is Kitty hurt?" asked Mother Golden, anxiously.
+
+"Was it that dog of Jackson's?" cried Lemuel, Mary, Ruth, and Joseph.
+
+"The cat isn't there!" said Adam. "It's--it's a basket, father."
+
+"A basket? What does the boy mean?"
+
+"A long basket, with something white inside; and--it's crying!"
+
+The boy had left the door open, and at this moment a sound came
+through it, a long, low, plaintive cry.
+
+"My heart!" said Mother Golden; and she was out of the door in a
+flash.
+
+"See there now!" said Father Golden, reprovingly. "Your mother's
+smarter than any of you to-day. Go and help her, some of you!"
+
+The children tumbled headlong toward the door, but were met by
+Mother Golden returning, bearing in her strong arms a long basket,
+in which was indeed something white and fluffy that cried.
+
+[Illustration: "'A LONG BASKET WITH SOMETHING WHITE INSIDE;
+AND--IT'S CRYING!'"]
+
+"A baby!" exclaimed Father Golden.
+
+"A baby!" echoed Mary, Lemuel, Ruth, and Joseph.
+
+"Well, I knew it was a baby," protested Adam; "but I didn't like to
+say so."
+
+Mother Golden lifted the child out and held it in a certain way; the
+cries ceased, and the little creature nestled close against her and
+looked up in her face.
+
+"My heart!" said Mother Golden again. "Come here, girls!"
+
+The girls pressed forward eagerly; the boys hung back, and glanced
+at their father; these were women's matters.
+
+"It's got hair!" cried Ruth, in rapture. "Mother! real hair, and it
+curls; see it curl!"
+
+"Look at its little hands!" murmured Mary. "They're like pink shells,
+only soft. Oh! see it move them, Ruth!" She caught her sister's arm
+in a sudden movement of delight.
+
+"Oh, mother, mayn't we keep it?" cried both girls at once.
+
+Mother Golden was examining the baby's clothes.
+
+"Cambric slip, fine enough, but not so terrible fine. Flannel blanket,
+machine-embroidered--stop! here's a note."
+
+She opened a folded paper, and read a few words, written in a
+carefully rough hand.
+
+"His mother is dead, his father a waif. Ask the woman with the kind
+eyes to take care of him, for Christ's sake."
+
+"My heart!" said Mother Golden, again.
+
+"It's a boy, then!" said Father Golden, brightening perceptibly. He
+came forward, the boys edging forward too, encouraged by another
+masculine presence.
+
+"It's a boy, and a beauty!" said Mother Golden, wiping her eyes.
+"I never see a prettier child. Poor mother, to have to go and leave
+him. Father, what do you say?"
+
+"It's for you to say, mother;" said Father Golden. "It's to you the
+child was sent."
+
+"Do you suppose 'twas me that was meant? They might have mistaken the
+house."
+
+"Don't talk foolishness!" said Father Golden. "The question is, what
+shall we do with it? There's places, a plenty, where foundlings have
+the best of bringing up; and you've got care enough, as it is, mother,
+without taking on any more."
+
+"Oh! we could help!" cried Mary. "I could wash and dress it, I know
+I could, and I'd just love to."
+
+"So could I!" said twelve-year-old Ruth. "We'd take turns, Mary and I.
+Do let's keep it, mother!"
+
+"It's a great responsibility!" said Father Golden.
+
+"Great Jemima!" said Mother Golden, with a sniff. "If I couldn't
+take the responsibility of a baby, I'd give up."
+
+Father Golden's mind moved slowly, and while he was meditating a
+reply, his wife issued various commands, and went through some
+intricate feminine manoeuvres, with the effect of increased
+fluffiness on the baby's part. In five minutes she was feeding the
+child with warm milk from a spoon, and proclaiming that he ate
+"like a Major!"
+
+The boys, gaining more and more confidence, were now close at her
+knee, and watched the process with eager eyes.
+
+"He's swallering like anything!" cried Lemuel. "I can see him do it
+with his throat, same as anybody."
+
+"See him grab the spoon!" said Joseph. "My! ain't he strong? Can he
+talk, mother?"
+
+"Joe, you chuckle-head!" said Adam, who was sixteen, and knew most
+things. "How can he talk, when he hasn't got any teeth?"
+
+"Uncle 'Rastus hasn't got any teeth," retorted Joseph, "and he talks
+like a buzz-saw."
+
+"Hush, Joseph!" said Mother Golden, reprovingly. "Your Uncle 'Rastus
+is a man of years."
+
+"Yes, mother!" said Joseph, meekly.
+
+"Baby _has_ got a tooth, too, Adam!" Mother Golden continued,
+triumphantly. "I feel it pricking through the gum this minute. And
+he so good, and laughing like a sunflower! Did it hurt him, then, a
+little precious man? he shall have a nice ring to-morrow day, to
+bitey on, so he shall!"
+
+"I suppose, then, he must be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam,
+in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they,
+unless they are going to be Richard the Thirds, or something
+wonderful?"
+
+"Perhaps he is!" said Ruth. "He looks wonderful enough for Richard
+the Twentieth, or anything."
+
+But--"A week old!" said Mother Golden. "It's time there was a baby in
+this house, if you don't know better than that, Adam. About six
+months old I call him, and as pretty a child as ever I saw, even my
+own."
+
+She looked half-defiantly at Father Golden, who returned the look
+with one of mild deprecation.
+
+"I was only thinking of the care 'twould be to you, mother," he said.
+"We're bound to make inquiries, and report the case, and so forth;
+but if nothing comes of that, we might keep the child for a spell,
+and see how things turn out."
+
+"That's what I was thinking!" said Mother Golden, eagerly. "I was
+thinking anyway, Joel, 'twould be best to keep him through his
+teething and stomach troubles, and give him a good start in the way
+of proper food and nursing. At them homes and nurseries, they mean
+well, but the most of them's young, and they _don't_ understand a
+child's stomach. It's experience they need, not good-will, I'm well
+aware. Of course, when Baby begun to be a boy, things might be
+different. You work hard enough as it is, father, and there's places,
+no doubt, could do better for him, maybe, than what we could.
+But--well, seeing whose name he come in, I _do_ feel to see him
+through his teething."
+
+"Children, what do you say?" asked Father Golden. "You're old enough
+to have your opinion, even the youngest of you."
+
+"Oh, keep him! keep him!" clamored the three younger children.
+
+Adam and Lemuel exchanged a glance of grave inquiry.
+
+"I guess he'd better stay, father!" said Adam.
+
+"I think so, too!" said Lemuel; and both gave something like a sigh
+of relief.
+
+"Then that's settled," said Father Golden, "saying and supposing
+that no objection turns up. Next thing is, what shall we call this
+child?"
+
+All eyes were fixed on the baby, who, now full of warm milk, sat
+throned on Mother Golden's knee, blinking content.
+
+It was a pretty picture: the rosy, dimpled creature, the yellow
+floss ruffled all over his head, his absurd little mouth open in a
+beaming smile; beaming above him, Mother Golden's placid face in its
+frame of silver hair; fronting them, Father Golden in his big
+leather chair, solid, comfortable, benevolent; and the five children,
+their honest, sober faces lighted up with unusual excitement. A
+pleasant, homelike picture. Nothing remarkable in the way of setting;
+the room, with its stuffed chairs, its tidies, and cabinet organ, was
+only unlike other such rooms from the fact that Mother Golden
+habitually sat in it; she could keep even haircloth from being
+commonplace. But now, all the light in the room seemed to centre on
+the yellow flossy curls against her breast.
+
+"A-goo!" said the baby, in a winning gurgle.
+
+"He says his name's Goo!" announced Joseph.
+
+"Don't be a chuckle-head, Joe!" said Adam. "What was the name on the
+paper, mother?"
+
+"It said 'his father is a Waif;' but I don't take that to be a
+Christian name. Surname, more likely, shouldn't you say, father?"
+
+"Not a Christian name, certainly," said Father Golden. "Not much of
+a name anyhow, 'pears to me. We'd better give the child a suitable
+name, mother, saying and supposing no objection turns up. Coming
+into a Christian family, let him have Christian baptism, I say."
+
+"Oh, call him Arthur!"
+
+"Bill!"
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"Charlie!"
+
+"Reginald!" cried the children in chorus.
+
+"I do love a Bible name!" said Mother Golden, pensively. "It gives a
+child a good start, so to say, and makes him think when he hears
+himself named, or ought so to do. All our own children has Bible
+names, father; don't let us cut the little stranger off from his
+privilege."
+
+"But Bible names are so ugly!" objected Lemuel, who was sensitive,
+and suffered under his own cognomen.
+
+"Son," said Father Golden, "your mother chooses the names in this
+family."
+
+"Yes, father!" said Lemuel.
+
+"Lemuel, dear, you was named for a king!" said Mother Golden.
+"He was a good boy to his mother, and so are you. Bring the Bible,
+and let us see what it opens at. Joseph, you are the youngest, you
+shall open it."
+
+Joseph opened the great brown leather Bible, and closing his eyes,
+laid his hand on the page; then looking down, he read:
+
+"'There is little Benjamin their ruler, and the princes of Judah
+their council: the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Nephtali.'"
+
+"Zebulun and Nephtali are outlandish-sounding names," said Mother
+Golden.
+
+"I never knew but one Nephtali, and he squinted. Benjamin shall be
+this child's name. Little Benjamin: the Lord bless and keep him!"
+
+"Amen!" said Father Golden.
+
+
+
+_PART II_.
+
+"Father, may I come in, if you are not busy?"
+
+It was Mary who spoke; Mary, the dear eldest daughter, now a woman
+grown, grave and mild, trying hard to fill the place left empty
+these two years, since Mother Golden went smiling out of life.
+
+Father Golden looked up from his book; he was an old man now, but
+his eyes were still young and kind.
+
+"What is it, daughter Mary?"
+
+"The same old story, father dear; Benny in mischief again. This time
+he has rubbed soot on all the door-handles, and the whole house is
+black with it. I hate to trouble you, father, but I expect you'll
+have to speak to him. I do love the child so, I'm not strict
+enough--I'm ashamed to say it, but they all think so, and I know
+it's true--and Adam is too strict."
+
+"Yes, Adam is too strict," said Father Golden. He looked at a
+portrait that stood on his desk, a framed photograph of Mother Golden.
+
+"I'll speak to the child, Mary," he said. "I'll see that this does
+not happen again. What is it, Ruthie?"
+
+"I was looking for Mary, father. I wanted--oh, Mary! what shall I do
+with Benny? he has tied Rover and the cat together by their tails,
+and they are rushing all about the garden almost crazy. I must
+finish this work, so I can't attend to it. He says he is playing
+Samson. I wish you would speak to him, father."
+
+"I will do so, Ruth, I will do so. Don't be distressed, my daughter."
+
+"But he is so naughty, father! he is so different from the other boys.
+Joe never used to play such tricks when he was little."
+
+"The spring vacation will be over soon now, Ruth," said Sister Mary.
+"He is always better when he is at work, and there is so little for
+a boy to do just at this time of year."
+
+"I left Joe trying to catch the poor creatures," said Ruth.
+"Here he comes now."
+
+Joe, a tall lad of seventeen, entered with a face of tragedy.
+
+"Any harm done, Joseph?" asked Father Golden, glancing at the
+portrait on his desk.
+
+"It's that kid again, father!" said Joe. "Poor old Rover--"
+
+"Father knows about that, Joe!" said Mary, gently.
+
+"Did you get them apart?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Yes, I did, but not till they had smashed most of the glass in the
+kitchen windows, and trampled all over Mary's geraniums. Something
+has got to be done about that youngster, father. He's getting to be
+a perfect nuisance."
+
+"I am thinking of doing something about him, son Joseph," said Father
+Golden. "Are your brothers in the house?"
+
+"I think I heard them come in just now, sir. Do you want to see them?"
+
+Apparently Adam and Lemuel wanted to see their father, for they
+appeared in the doorway at this moment: quiet-looking men, with grave,
+"set" faces; the hair already beginning to edge away from their
+temples.
+
+"You are back early from the office, boys!" said Father Golden.
+
+"We came as soon as we got the message," said Adam. "I hope nothing
+is wrong, father."
+
+"What message, Adam?"
+
+"Didn't you send for us? Benny came running in, all out of breath,
+and said you wished to see us at once. If he has been playing tricks
+again--"
+
+Adam's grave face darkened into sternness. The trick was too evident.
+
+"Something must be done about that boy, father!" he said. "He is the
+torment of the whole family."
+
+"No one can live a day in peace!" said Lemuel.
+
+"No dumb creature's life is safe!" said Joe.
+
+"He breaks everything he lays hands on," said Ruth, "and he won't
+keep his hands off anything."
+
+"You were all little once, boys!" said Mary.
+
+"We never behaved in this kind of way!" said the brothers, sedate
+from their cradles. "Something must be done!"
+
+"You are right," said Father Golden. "Something must be done."
+
+Glancing once more at the portrait of Mother Golden, he turned and
+faced his children with grave looks.
+
+"Sit down, sons and daughters!" said the old man. "I have something
+to say to you."
+
+The young people obeyed, wondering, but not questioning. Father
+Golden was head of the house.
+
+"You all come to me," said Father Golden, "with complaints of little
+Benjamin. It is singular that you should come to-day, for I have
+been waiting for this day to speak to you about the child myself."
+
+He paused for a moment; then added, weighing his words slowly, as
+was his wont when much in earnest, "Ten years ago to-day, that child
+was left on our door-step."
+
+The brothers and sisters uttered an exclamation, half surprised,
+half acquiescent.
+
+"It doesn't seem so long!" said Adam.
+
+"It seems longer!" said Mary.
+
+"I keep forgetting he came that way!" murmured Joe.
+
+"I felt doubtful about taking him in," Father Golden went on.
+"But your mother wished it; you all wished it. We decided to keep
+him for a spell, and give him a good start in life, and we have kept
+him till now."
+
+"Of course we have kept him!" said Ruth.
+
+"Naturally!" said Lemuel.
+
+Adam and Mary said nothing, but looked earnestly at their father.
+
+"Little Benjamin is now ten years old, more or less," said Father
+Golden. "You are men and women grown; even Joseph is seventeen. Your
+mother has entered into the rest that is reserved for the people of
+God, and I am looking forward in the hope that, not through any
+merit of mine, but the merciful grace of God, I may soon be called
+to join her. Adam and Lemuel, you are settled in the business, and
+looking forward to making homes of your own with worthy young women.
+Joseph is going to college, which is a new thing in our family, but
+one I approve, seeing his faculty appears to lie that way. Ruth will
+make a first-rate dressmaker, I am told by those who know. Mary--"
+
+His quiet voice faltered. Mary took his hand and kissed it
+passionately; a sob broke from her, and she turned her face away
+from the brothers and sister who loved but did not understand her.
+They looked at her with grave compassion, but no one would have
+thought of interrupting Father Golden.
+
+"Mary, you are the home-maker," the old man went on. "I hope that
+when I am gone this home will still be here, with you at the head of
+it. You are your mother's own daughter; there is no more to say." He
+was silent for a time, and then continued.
+
+"There remains little Benjamin, a child of ten years. He is no kin
+to us; an orphan, or as good as one; no person has ever claimed him,
+or ever will. The time has come to decide what shall be done with
+the child."
+
+Again he paused, and looked around. The serious young faces were all
+intent upon him; in some, the intentness seemed deepening into
+trouble, but no one spoke or moved.
+
+"We have done all that we undertook to do for him, that night we
+took him in, and more. We have brought him--I should say your mother
+brought him--through his sickly days; we 'most lost him, you remember,
+when he was two years old, with the croup--and he is now a healthy,
+hearty child, and will likely make a strong man. He has been well
+treated, well fed and clothed, maybe better than he would have been
+by his own parents if so't had been. He is turning out wild and
+mischievous, though he has a good heart, none better; and you all,
+except Mary, come to me with complaints of him.
+
+"Now, this thing has gone far enough. One of two things: either this
+boy is to be sent away to some institution, to take his place among
+other orphans and foundlings, or--he must be one of you for now and
+always, to share alike with you while I live, to be bore with and
+helped by each and every one of you as if he was your own blood, and
+to have his share of the property when I am gone. Sons and daughters,
+this question is for you to decide. I shall say nothing. My life is
+'most over, yours is just beginning. I have no great amount to leave
+you, but 'twill be comfortable so far as it goes. Benjamin has
+one-sixth of that, and becomes my own son, to be received and
+treated by you as your own brother, or he goes."
+
+Mary hid her face in her hands. Adam walked to the window and looked
+out; but the other three broke out into a sudden, hurried clamor,
+strangely at variance with their usual staid demeanor.
+
+"Oh, father, we couldn't let him go!"
+
+"Why, father, I can't think what you mean!"
+
+"I'm sure, sir, we never thought of such a thing as sending him away.
+Why, he's our Ben."
+
+"Good enough little kid, only mischievous."
+
+"Needs a little governing, that's all. Mary spoils him; no harm in
+him, not a mite."
+
+"And the lovingest little soul! the minute he found that Kitty's paw
+was cut, he sat down and cried--"
+
+"I guess if Benny went, I'd go after him pretty quick!" said Joseph,
+who had been loudest in his complaint against the child.
+
+Mary looked up and smiled through her tears. "Joe, your heart is in
+the right place!" she said. "I finished your shirts this morning,
+dear; I'm going to begin on your slippers to-night."
+
+"Well, but, father--"
+
+"Father dear, about little Benny--"
+
+"Yes, sir--poor little Ben!"
+
+"Go easy!" said Father Golden; and his face, as he looked from one
+to the other, was as bright as his name.
+
+"Why, children, you're real excited. I don't want excitement, nor
+crying--Mary, daughter, I knew how you would feel, anyway. I want a
+serious word, 'go,' or 'stay,' from each one of you; a word that
+will last your lives long. I'll begin with the youngest, because
+that was your mother's way. She always said the youngest was nearest
+heaven. Joseph, what is your word about little Benjamin?"
+
+"Stay, of course!" cried Joe. "Benny does tease me, but I should be
+nowhere without him."
+
+"Ruth! you seemed greatly tried just now. Think what you are going
+to say."
+
+"Oh, of course he must stay, father. Why, the child is the life of
+the house. We are all so humdrum and mopy, I don't know what we
+should do without Benny to keep us moving."
+
+"Mary, daughter--not that I need your answer, my dear."
+
+"He is the only child I shall ever have!" said Mary, simply.
+
+There was silence for a moment, and all thought of the grave where
+her young heart had laid its treasure.
+
+"Lemuel!"
+
+"I've been hard on the child, Father!" said Lemuel. "He's so
+different from the rest of us, and he does try me. But mother loved
+him, and down at the bottom we all do, I guess. I say 'stay,' too,
+and I'll try to be more of a brother to him from now on."
+
+"Son Adam, I have left you the longest time to reflect," said Father
+Golden. "You are the oldest, and when I am gone it will be on you
+and Mary that the heft of the care will come. Take all the time you
+want, and then give us your word!"
+
+Adam turned round; his face was very grave, but he spoke cheerfully.
+
+"I have had time enough, Father," he said. "I was the first that
+heard that little voice, ten years ago, and the first, except mother,
+that saw the child; 'twould be strange if I were the one to send him
+away. He came in Christ's name, and in that name I bid him stay."
+
+"Amen!" said Father Golden.
+
+A silence followed; but it was broken soon by a lively whistle,
+shrilling out a rollicking tune; the next moment a boy came running
+into the room. Curly, rosy, dirty, ragged, laughing, panting, little
+Benjamin stood still and looked round on all the earnest, serious
+faces.
+
+"What's the matter, all you folks?" he asked. "I should think you
+was all in meeting, and sermon just beginning. Ruth, I tied up
+Kitty's leg all right; and I'll dig greens to pay for the glass, Joe.
+Say, Bro'rer-Adam-an'-Lem (Benny pronounced this as if it were one
+word), did you forget it was April Fool's Day? Didn't I fool you good?
+And--say! there's a fierce breeze and my new kite's a buster. Who'll
+come out and fly her with me?"
+
+"I will, Benny!" said Adam, Lemuel, Mary, Ruth, and Joseph.
+
+
+
+
+DON ALONZO
+
+
+"Don Alonzo! Don Alonzo Pitkin! Where be you?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Don Alonzo! Deacon Bassett's here, and wishful to see you. Don
+Alonzo Pit-_kin_!"
+
+Mrs. Joe Pitkin stood at the door a moment, waiting; then she shook
+her shoulders with a despairing gesture, and went back into the
+sitting-room. "I don't know where he is, Deacon Bassett," she said.
+"There! I'm sorry; but he's so bashful, Don Alonzo is, he'll creep
+off and hide anywheres sooner than see folks. I do feel mortified,
+but I can't seem to help it, no way in the world."
+
+"No need to, Mis' Pitkin," said Deacon Bassett, rising slowly and
+reaching for his hat. "No need to. I should have been pleased to see
+Don 'Lonzo, and ask if he got benefit from those pills I left for him
+last time I called; what he wants is to doctor reg'lar, and keep
+straight on doctorin'. But I can call again; and I felt it a duty to
+let you know what's goin' on at your own yard-gate, I may say. Mis'
+Pegrum's house ain't but a stone's throw from yourn, is it? Well,
+I'll be wishing you good day, and I hope Joseph will be home before
+there's any trouble. I don't suppose you've noticed whether Don
+Alonzo has growed any, sence he took those pills?"
+
+"No, I haven't!" said Mrs. Pitkin, shortly. "Good day, Deacon Bassett."
+
+"Yes, you can call again," she added, mentally, as she watched the
+deacon making his way slowly down the garden walk, stopping the
+while to inspect every plant that looked promising. "You can call
+again, but you will not see him, if you come every day. It does beat
+all, the way folks can't let that boy alone. Talk about his being
+cranky! I'd be ten times as cranky as he is, if I was pestered by
+every old podogger that's got stuff to sell."
+
+She closed the door, and addressed the house, apparently empty and
+still. "He's gone!" she said, speaking rather loudly, "Don 'Lonzo,
+he's gone, and you can come out. I expect you're hid somewheres
+about here, for I didn't hear you go out."
+
+There was no sound. She opened the door of the ground-floor bedroom
+and looked in. All was tidy and pleasant as usual. Every mat lay in
+its place; the chairs were set against the wall as she loved to see
+them; the rows of books, the shelves of chemicals, at which she
+hardly dared to look, and which she never dared to touch for fear
+something would "go off" and kill her instantly, the specimens in
+their tall glass jars, the case of butterflies, all were in their
+place; but there was no sign of life in the room, save the canary in
+the window.
+
+"Deacon Bassett's gone!" she said, speaking to the canary.
+
+There was a scuffling sound from under the bed; the valance was
+lifted, and a head emerged cautiously.
+
+"I tell you he's gone!" repeated Mira Pitkin, rather impatiently.
+"Come out, Don Alonzo! There! you are foolish, I must say!"
+
+The head came out, followed by a figure. The figure was that of a
+boy of twelve, but the head belonged to a youth of seventeen. The
+rounded shoulders, the sharp features, the dark, sunken eyes, all
+told a tale of suffering; Don Alonzo Pitkin was a hunchback.
+
+His pretty, silly mother had given him the foolish name which seemed
+a perpetual mockery of his feeble person. She had found it in an old
+romance, and had only wavered between it and Senor Gonzalez,--which
+she pronounced Seener Gon-zallies,--the other dark-eyed hero of the
+book. Perhaps she pictured to herself her baby growing up into such
+another lofty, black-plumed hidalgo as those whose magnificent
+language and mustachios had so deeply impressed her. It was true
+that she herself had pinkish eyes and white eyelashes, while her
+husband was familiarly known as "Carrots,"--but what of that?
+
+But he had a fall, this poor baby,--a cruel fall, from the
+consequences of which no high-sounding name could save him; and then
+presently the little mother died, and the father married again.
+
+The boy's childhood had been a sad one, and all the happiness he had
+known had been lately, since his elder brother married. Big,
+good-natured Joe Pitkin, marrying the prettiest girl in the village,
+had been sore at heart, even in his new-wedded happiness, at the
+thought of leaving the deformed, sensitive boy alone with the
+careless father and the shrewish stepmother. But his young wife had
+been the first to say:
+
+"Let Don Alonzo come and live with us, Joe! Where there is room for
+two, there is room for three, and that boy wants to be made of!"
+
+So the strong, cheerful, wholesome young woman took the sickly lad
+into her house and heart, and "made of him," to use her own quaint
+phrase; and she became mother and sister and sweetheart, all in one,
+to Don Alonzo.
+
+Now she stood looking at him, shaking her head, yet smiling.
+"Don 'Lonzo, how can you behave so?" she asked. "This is the third
+time Deacon Bassett has been here to see you, and he's coming again;
+and what be I to say to him next time he comes? You can't go through
+life without seeing folks, you know."
+
+Don Alonzo shook his shoulders, and pretended to look for dust on
+his coat. He would have been deeply mortified to find any, for he
+took care of his own room, and prided himself, with reason, on its
+neatness. Also, the space beneath his bedstead was cupboard as well
+as hiding-place.
+
+"He troubles me," he said, meekly. "Deacon Bassett troubles me more
+than any of 'em. Did he ask if I'd grown any?"
+
+"Well, he did," Mira admitted. "But I expect he didn't mean anything
+by it."
+
+"He's asked that ever since I can remember," said Don Alonzo;
+"and I'm weary of it. There! And then he says that if I would only
+take his Green Elixir three times a day for three months, I'd grow
+like a sapling willow. He hopes to make his living out of me, yet!"
+
+Mrs. Pitkin laughed, comfortably, and smoothed the lad's hair back
+with a motherly touch. "All the same," she said, "you must quit
+hiding under the bed when folks come to call, Don 'Lonzo. You don't
+want 'em to think I treat you bad, and keep you out o' sight, so's
+they'll not find it out." Then, seeing the boy's face flush with
+distress, she added, hastily, "Besides, you're getting to be 'most a
+man now; I want strangers should know there's men-folks about the
+place, now Joe's away. There's burglars in town, Don 'Lonzo, and we
+must look out and keep things shut up close, nights."
+
+"Burglars!" repeated the youth.
+
+"Yes; Deacon Bassett was telling me about 'em just now. I guess
+likely half what he came for was to give me a good scare, knowing
+Joe was away. Now, ain't I uncharitable! 'Twas just as likely to be
+a friendly warning. Anyway, he was telling me they came through from
+Tupham Corner day before yesterday, and they've been lurking and
+spying round."
+
+"Some boys saw them, coming through Green Gully, and were scared to
+death at their looks; they said they were big, black-looking men,
+strangers to these parts; and they swore at the boys and ordered 'em
+off real ugly. Nobody else has seen them in honest daylight, but
+they broke into Dan'l Brown's house last night. He's deaf, you know,
+and didn't hear a sound. They came right into the room where he slept,
+--Deacon Bassett was there the next day, and saw their tracks all
+over the floor,--and took ten dollars out of his pants pocket. The
+pants was hanging right beside the bed, and they turned them clean
+inside out, and Dan'l never stirred."
+
+"My, oh!" exclaimed Don Alonzo.
+
+"Why, it's terrible!" Mira went on. "Then, last night, they got into
+Mis' Pegrum's house, too. She's a lone woman, you know, same as
+Dan'l is a man. Seems as if they had took note of every house where
+there wasn't plenty of folks to be stirring and taking notice. They
+got into the pantry window, and took every living thing she had to
+eat. They might do that, and still go hungry, Deacon Bassett says;
+you know there's always been a little feeling between him and Mis'
+Pegrum; her cat and his hens--it's an old story. Well, and she did
+hear a noise, and came out into the kitchen, and there sat two great,
+black men, eating her best peach preserves, and the cake she'd made
+for the Ladies' Aid, to-day. She was so scare't, she couldn't speak
+a word; and they just laughed and told her to go back to bed, and
+she went. Poor-spirited, it seems, but I don't know as I should have
+done a bit better in her place. There! I wish Joe'd come back! I
+feel real nervous, hearing about it all. Oh, and her gold watch, too,
+they got, and three solid silver teaspoons that belonged to her
+mother. She's sick abed, Deacon Bassett says, and I don't wonder. I
+don't feel as if I should sleep a wink to-night!"
+
+The color came into Don Alonzo's thin cheeks. "There sha'n't no one
+do you any hurt while I'm round, Mira!" he said; and for a moment he
+forgot his deformity, and straightened his poor shoulders, and held
+up his head like a man.
+
+There was no shade of amusement in Mira Pitkin's honest smile.
+"I expect you'd be as brave as a lion, Don 'Lonzo," she said.
+"I expect you'd shoo 'em right out of the yard, same as you did the
+turkey gobbler when he run at my red shawl; don't you remember? But
+all the same, I hope they will not come; and I shall be glad to see
+Joe back again."
+
+At that moment the lad caught sight of himself in the little
+looking-glass that hung over his chest of drawers. Mira, watching him,
+saw the sparkle go out of his eyes, saw his shoulders droop, and his
+head sink forward; and she said, quickly:
+
+"But there! we've said enough about the burglars, I should think!
+How's the experiments, Don 'Lonzo? I heard an awful fizzing going on,
+just before Deacon Bassett came in. I expect you've got great things
+hidden under that bed; I expect there's other perils round besides
+burglars! Joe may come back and find us both blown into kindlin'-wood,
+after all!"
+
+This was a favorite joke of theirs; she had the pleasure of seeing a
+smile come into the boy's sad eyes; then, with another of those
+motherly touches on his hair, she went away, singing, to her work.
+
+Don Alonzo looked after her. From the way his eyes followed her, she
+might have been a glorified saint in robe and crown, instead of a
+rosy-cheeked young woman in a calico gown. "There sha'n't nothing
+hurt her while I'm round!" he muttered again.
+
+The night fell, dark and cloudy. Mrs. Pitkin went to bed early,
+after shaking every door and trying every window to make sure that
+all was safe. Don Alonzo went through the same process twice after
+she was gone, but he did not feel like sleeping, himself. He lay
+down on his bed, but his thoughts seemed dancing from one thing to
+another,--to Brother Joe, travelling homeward now, he hoped, after a
+week's absence; to Mira's goodness, her patience with his wayward
+self, her kindness in letting him mess with chemicals, and turn the
+shed into a laboratory, and frighten her with explosions; to Dan'l
+Brown and Mis' Pegrum and the burglars.
+
+Ah, the burglars! What could he do, if they should really come to
+the house? They were two men, probably well-grown; he--he knew what
+he was! How could he carry out his promise to Mira, if she should be
+in actual danger? Not by strength, clearly; but there must be some
+way; bodily strength was not the only thing in the world. He looked
+about him, seeking for inspiration; his eyes, wandering here and
+there, lighted upon something, then remained fixed. The room was
+dimly lighted by a small lamp, but the corners were dark, and in one
+of these dark corners something was shining with a faint, uncertain
+light. The phosphorescent match-box! He had made it himself, and had
+ornamented it with a grotesque face in luminous paint. This face now
+glimmered and glowered at him from the darkness; and Don Alonzo lay
+still and looked back at it. Lying so and looking, there crept into
+his mind an old story that he had once read; and he laughed to
+himself, and then nodded at the glimmering face. "Thank you, old
+fellow!" said Don Alonzo.
+
+Was there a noise? Was it his imagination, or did a branch snap, a
+twig rustle down the road? The hunchback had ears like a fox, and in
+an instant he was at the window, peering out into the darkness. At
+first he could see nothing; but gradually the lilac bushes at the
+gate came into sight, and the clumps of flowers in the little garden
+plot. Not a breath was stirring, yet--hark! Again a twig snapped, a
+branch crackled; and now again! and nearer each time. Don Alonzo
+strained his eyes to pierce the darkness. Were those bushes, those
+two shapes by the gate? They were not there a moment ago. Ha! they
+moved; they were coming nearer. Their feet made no sound on the
+soft earth, but his sharp ears caught a new sound,--a whisper, faint,
+yet harsh, like a hiss. Don Alonzo had seen and heard enough. He
+left the window, and the next moment was diving under the bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mira Pitkin usually slept like a child, from the moment her head
+touched the pillow till the precise second when something woke in
+her brain and said "Five o'clock!" But to-night her sleep was broken.
+She tossed and muttered in her dreams; and suddenly she sat up in bed
+with eyes wide open and a distinct sense of something wrong. Her
+first thought was of fire; she sniffed; the air was pure and clear.
+Then, like a cry in her ears, came--"The burglars!" She held her
+breath and listened; was the night as still as it was dark? No! a
+faint, steady sound came to her ears. A mouse, was it, or--the sound
+of a tool?
+
+And then, almost noiselessly, a window was opened, the window of the
+upper entry, next her room. Mira was at her own window in an instant,
+raising it; that, too, opened silently, for Joe was a carpenter and
+detested noisy windows. She peered out into the thick darkness. Black,
+black! Was the blackness deeper there, just at the front door?
+Surely it was! Surely something, somebody, was busy with the lock of
+the door; and then she heard, as Don Alonzo had heard, a low sound
+like a hiss, beside the soft scraping of the tool. What should she do?
+The windows were fast, there was a bar and chain inside the door,
+but what of that? Two desperate men could force an entrance anywhere
+in a moment. What could she do, a woman, with only a sickly boy to
+help her? And--who had opened that upper window? Was there a third
+accomplice--for she thought she could see two spots of deeper
+blackness by the door--hidden in the house? Oh, if only Joe had
+borrowed his father's old pistol for her, as she had begged him to do!
+
+Mira opened her lips to shout, in the hope of rousing the nearest
+neighbors, though they were not very near. Opened her lips--but no
+sound came from them. For at that instant something appeared at the
+window next her own; something stepped from it, out on to the little
+porch over the front door. Mira Pitkin gasped, and felt her heart
+fail within her. A skeleton! Every limb outlined in pale fire, the
+bony fingers points of wavering flame. What awful portent was this?
+The Thing paused and turned, a frightful face gazed at her for an
+instant, a hand waved, then the Thing dropped, silent as a shadow, on
+that spot of deeper blackness that was stooping at the front door.
+
+Then rose an outcry wild and hideous. The burglar shouted hoarsely,
+and tried to shake off the Thing that sat on his shoulders, gripping
+his neck with hands of iron, digging his sides with bony knees and
+feet; but the second thief, who saw by what his comrade was ridden,
+shrieked in pure animal terror, uttering unearthly sounds that cut
+the air like a knife. For a moment he could only stand and shriek;
+then he turned and fled through the yard, and the other fled after
+him, the glimmering phantom clutching him tight. Down the road they
+fled. Mira could now see nothing save the riding Thing, apparently
+horsed on empty air; but now she saw it, still clutching close with
+its left hand, raise the right, holding what looked like a shining
+snake, and bring it down hissing and curling. Again, and again! and
+with every blow the shrieks grew more and more hideous, till now
+they had reached the cluster of houses at the head of the street,
+and every window was flung open, and lights appeared, and voices
+clamored in terror and amaze. The village was roused; and now--now,
+the glimmering skeleton was seen to loose its hold. It dropped from
+its perch, and turning that awful face toward her once more, came
+loping back, silent as a shadow. But when she saw that, Mira Pitkin,
+for the first and last time in her sensible life, fainted away.
+
+When she came to herself, the skeleton was bending over her anxiously,
+but its face was no longer frightful; it was white and anxious, and
+the eyes that met hers were piteous with distress.
+
+"My, oh!" cried Don Alonzo. "I vowed no one should do her any hurt,
+and now I've done it myself."
+
+There was little sleep in the Pitkin house that night. The neighbors
+came flocking in with cries and questions; and when all was explained,
+Don Alonzo found himself the hero of the hour. For once he did not
+hide under the bed, but received everybody--from Deacon Bassett down
+to the smallest boy who came running in shirt and trousers,
+half-awake, and athirst for marvels--with modest pride, and told
+over and over again how it all happened.
+
+'Twas no great thing, he maintained. He had fooled considerable with
+phosphorus, and had some of the luminous paint that he had mixed
+some time before. Thinking about these fellows, he remembered a
+story he read once, where they painted up a dead body to scare away
+some murdering robbers. He thought a living person was as good as a
+dead one, any day; so he tried it on, and it appeared to succeed. He
+didn't think likely those men would stop short of the next township,
+from the way they were running when he got down. Oh, the snake? That
+was Joe's whip. He presumed likely it hurt some, from the way they
+yelled.
+
+But the best of all was when Joe came home, the very next day, and
+when, the three of them sitting about the supper-table, Mira herself
+told the great story, from the first moment of Deacon Bassett's
+visit down to the triumphant close--"And I see him coming back,
+shining like a corpse-candle, and I fell like dead on the floor!"
+
+"There!" she continued, beaming across the table at Joe, as she
+handed him his fourth cup of coffee, "you may go away again whenever
+you're a mind to; I sha'n't be afraid. You ain't half the man Don
+'Lonzo is!"
+
+"I don't expect I be!" said big Joe, beaming back again.
+
+It seemed to Don Alonzo that their smiles made the kitchen warm as
+June, though October was falling cold that year.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SHED CHAMBER_
+
+
+"Well, I once answered an advertisement in the _Farmer's Friend_,
+girls, and I have always been glad I did. It was that summer when
+father broke his arm and the potato crop failed, and everything
+seemed to be going wrong on the farm. There were plenty of girls to
+do the work at home, and I thought I ought to get something outside
+to do if I could. I tried here and there, but without success; at
+last my eye caught a notice in the _Farmer's Friend_, just the same
+kind of notice as that you are speaking of, Lottie: 'Wanted, a
+capable, steady girl to assist in housework and take care of children.
+Address, with reference, A. B. C., Dashville.' I talked it over with
+mother, and she agreed with me; father didn't take so kindly to the
+idea, naturally; he likes to have us all at home, especially in
+summer. However, he said I might do as I pleased; so I answered the
+notice and sent a letter from our pastor, saying what he thought of
+me. I was almost ashamed to send it, too; he has always been more
+than kind to me, you know; if I'd been his own daughter he couldn't
+have said more. Well, they wrote for me to come, and I went.
+
+"Girls, it was pretty hard when it came to that part, leaving the
+house, and mother standing in the doorway trying not to look anxious,
+and father fretting and saying it was all nonsense, and he shouldn't
+have hands enough to pick the apples. Of course he knew I knew better,
+but I was glad he didn't want me to go, after all. Sister Nell and
+Sister Margie had packed my trunk, and they were as excited as I was,
+and almost wished they were going instead, but not quite, I think;
+and so Joe whistled to old Senator, and I waved my handkerchief, and
+mother and the two girls waved their aprons, and off I went.
+
+"I didn't really feel alone till I was in the train and had lost
+sight of Joe standing and smoothing Senator's mane and nodding at me;
+then the world seemed very big and Tupham Corner a very small corner
+in it. I will not say anything more about this part; you'll find it
+out soon enough yourselves, when you go away from home the first time.
+
+"It was a long journey, or it seemed so then; but everything comes
+to an end some time, and there was plenty of daylight left for me to
+see my new home when I arrived. It was a pleasant-looking house,
+long and rambling, painted yellow, too, which made me more homesick
+than ever. There were two children standing in the doorway, and
+presently Mr. Bowles came out and shook hands with me and helped me
+down with my things. He was a kind, sensible-looking man, and he
+made the children come and speak to me and shake hands. They were
+shy then and hung back, and put their fingers in their mouths; I
+knew just how they felt. I wanted to hang back, too, when he took me
+into the house to see Mrs. Bowles. She was an invalid, he told me,
+and could not leave her room.
+
+"Girls, the minute I saw that sweet, pale face, with the look of
+pain and patience in it, I knew what I had come for. I do think we
+understood each other from the first minute, Mrs. Bowles and I; for
+she held my hand a good while, looking into my face and I into hers,
+and she must have seen how sorry I was for her, and how I hoped I
+could help her; for when I went into the kitchen I heard her say,
+with a little sigh, as she lay back again, 'O John, I do believe
+this is the right one at last!' You may believe I made up my mind
+that I would be the right one, Lottie!
+
+"That kitchen was in a scandalous condition. It was well I had seen
+Mrs. Bowles first or I should have wanted to run away that very
+minute. The eldest little girl--it seems strange to think that there
+ever was a time when I didn't know Barbara's name!--followed me out,
+--I think her father told her to,--and rubbed along against the wall,
+just exactly as I used to when I felt shy. When I asked her a little
+about where things were, and so on--they were everywhere and nowhere;
+you never saw such a looking place in your life!--she took her
+finger out of her mouth, and pretty soon I told her about our yellow
+coon kittens, and after that we got on very well. She said they had
+had one girl after another, each worse than the last. The shoe
+factory had taken off all the good help and left only the incapable
+ones. The last one, Barbara said, had almost starved them, and been
+saucy to Mrs. Bowles, and dirty--well, there was no need to tell me
+that. It was a shame to see good things so destroyed; for the things
+were good, only all dirty and broken, and--oh, well! there's no use
+in telling about that part.
+
+"I asked when her mother had had anything to eat, and she said not
+since noon; I knew that was no way for an invalid to be taken care of,
+so I put the kettle on and hunted about till I found a cup and saucer
+I liked, and then I found the bread-box--oh, dear! that bread-box,
+girls! But the mold scraped right off, and the bread wasn't really
+bad; I made some toast and cut the crust off, and put just a thin
+scrape of butter on it; then I sent Barbara in with a little tray
+and told her to see that her mother took it all. I thought she'd
+feel more like taking it from the child than from a stranger, if she
+hadn't much appetite. My dears, the child came out again in a few
+minutes, her face all alight.
+
+"'She drank it all, every drop!' she cried. 'And now she's eating
+the toast. She said how did you know, and she cried, but now she's
+all right. Father 'most cried, too, I think. Say!'
+
+"'Yes, dear.'
+
+"'Father says the Lord sent you. Did he?'"
+
+[Illustration: "'FATHER SAYS THE LORD SENT YOU. DID HE?'"]
+
+"I nodded, for I couldn't say anything that minute. I kissed the
+little girl and went on with my cleaning. Girls, don't ever grudge
+the time you spend in learning to cook nicely. Food is what keeps the
+breath of life in us, and it all depends upon us girls now, and later,
+when we are older women, whether it is good or bad. No, Sue, I'm not
+going to preach, but I shall never forget how that tired man and
+those hungry children enjoyed their supper. 'Twas mother's supper,
+every bit of it, from the light biscuit down to the ham omelette; I
+found the ham bone in a dark cupboard, all covered with mold, like
+the bread, but 'twas good and sweet underneath. I only wish mother
+had been there to see them eat. After supper Mr. Bowles came and
+shook hands with me. I didn't know then that he never used any more
+words than he had to; but I was pleased, if I did think it funny.
+
+"I was tired enough by the time bedtime came, and after I had put
+the children to bed and seen that Mrs. Bowles was comfortable, and
+had water and crackers and a candle beside her--she was a very poor
+sleeper--I was glad enough to go to bed myself. Barbara showed me my
+room, a pretty little room with sloping gables and windows down by
+the floor. There were two doors, and I asked her where the other led
+to. She opened it and said, 'The shed chamber.' I looked over her
+shoulder, holding up the candle, and saw a great bare room, with
+some large trunks in it, but no other furniture except a high
+wardrobe. I liked the look of the place, for it was a little like
+our play room in the attic at home; but I was too tired to explore,
+and I was asleep in ten minutes from the time I had tucked up
+Barbara in her bed, and Rob and Billy in their double crib.
+
+"I should take a week if I tried to tell you all about those first
+days; and, after all, it is one particular thing that I started to
+tell, only there is so much that comes back to me. In a few days I
+felt that I belonged there, almost as much as at home; they were
+that kind of people, and made me feel that they cared about me, and
+not only about what I did. Mrs. Bowles has always been the best
+friend I have in the world after my own folks; it didn't take us a
+day to see into each other, and by and by it got to be so that I
+knew what she wanted almost before she knew, herself.
+
+"At the end of the week Mr. Bowles said he ought to go away on
+business for a few days, and asked her if she would feel safe to
+stay with me and the children, or if he should ask his brother to
+come and sleep in the house.
+
+"'No, indeed!' said Mrs. Bowles. 'I shall feel as safe with Nora as
+if I had a regiment in the house; a good deal safer!' she added, and
+laughed.
+
+"So it was settled, and the next day Mr. Bowles went away and I was
+left in full charge. I suppose I rather liked the responsibility. I
+asked Mrs. Bowles if I might go all over the house to see how
+everything fastened, and she said, 'Of course.' The front windows
+were just common windows, quite high up from the floor; but in the
+shed chamber, as in my room, they opened near the floor, and there
+was no very secure way of fastening them, it seemed to me. However, I
+wasn't going to say anything to make her nervous, and that was the
+way they had always had them. If I had only known!
+
+"After the children went to bed that evening I read to Mrs. Bowles
+for an hour, and then I went to warm up a little cocoa for her; she
+slept better if she took a drop of something hot the last thing. It
+was about nine o'clock. I had just got into the kitchen, and was
+going to light the lamp, when I heard the door open softly.
+
+"'Who's there?' I asked.
+
+"'Only me,' said a girl's voice.
+
+"I lighted my lamp, and saw a girl about my own age, pretty, and
+showily dressed. She said she was the girl who had left the house a
+few days ago; she had forgotten something, and might she go up into
+the shed chamber and get it? I told her to wait a minute, and went
+and asked Mrs. Bowles. She said yes, Annie might go up. 'Annie was
+careless and saucy,' she said, 'but I think she meant no harm. She
+can go and get her things.'
+
+"I came back and told the girl, and she smiled and nodded. I did not
+like her smile, I could not tell why. I started to go with her, but
+she turned on me pretty sharply, and said she had been in the house
+three months and didn't need to be shown the way by a stranger. I
+didn't want to put myself forward, but no sooner had she run
+up-stairs, and I heard her steps in the chamber above me, than
+something seemed to be pushing, pushing me toward those stairs,
+whether I would or no. I tried to hold back, and tell myself it was
+nonsense, and that I was nervous and foolish; it made no difference,
+I had to go up-stairs.
+
+"I went softly, my shoes making no noise. My own little room was dark,
+for I had closed the blinds when the afternoon sun was pouring in
+hot and bright; but a slender line of light lay across the blackness
+like a long finger, and I knew the moon was shining in at the
+windows of the shed chamber. I did a thing I had never done before
+in my life; that silver finger came through the keyhole, and it drew
+me to it. I knelt down and looked through.
+
+"The big room shone bare and white in the moonlight; the trunks
+looked like great animals crouching along the walls. Annie stood in
+the middle of the room, as if she were waiting or listening for
+something. Then she slipped off her shoes and went to one of the
+windows and opened it. I had fastened it, but the catch was old and
+she knew the trick of it, of course. In another moment something
+black appeared over the low sill; it was a man's head. My heart
+seemed to stand still. She helped him, and he got in without making
+a sound. He must have climbed up the big elm-tree which grew close
+against the house. They stood whispering together for a few minutes,
+but I could not hear a word.
+
+"The man was in stocking feet; he had an evil, coarse face, yet he
+was good-looking, too, in a way. I thought the girl seemed frightened,
+and yet pleased, too; and he seemed to be praising her, I thought,
+and once he put his arms round her and kissed her. She went to the
+wardrobe and opened it, but he shook his head; then she opened the
+great cedar trunk, and he nodded, and measured it and got into it
+and sat down. It was so deep that he could sit quite comfortably
+with the cover down. Annie shut it and then opened it again.
+
+"I had seen all I wanted to see. I slipped down-stairs as I heard
+her move toward the door; when she came down I was stirring my cocoa
+on the stove, with my back to her. She came round and showed me a
+bundle she had in her hand, and said she must be going now. I kept
+my face in the shadow as well as I could, for I was afraid I might
+not be able to look just as usual; but I spoke quietly, and asked
+her if she had found everything, and wished her good night as
+pleasantly as I knew how. All the while my head was in a whirl and
+my heart beat so loud I thought she must have heard it. There was a
+good deal of silver in the house, and I knew that Mr. Bowles had
+drawn some money from the bank only a day or two before, to pay a
+life-insurance premium.
+
+"I never listened to anything as I did to the sound of her footsteps;
+even after they had died away, after she had turned the corner, a
+good way off, I stood still, listening, not stirring hand or foot.
+But when I no longer heard any sound my strength seemed to come back
+with a leap, and I knew what I had to do. I told you my shoes made
+no noise. I slipped up-stairs, through my own room, and into the shed
+chamber. Girls, it lay so peaceful and bare in the white moonlight,
+that for a moment I thought I must have dreamed it all.
+
+"It seemed half a mile to the farther end, where the great cedar
+trunk stood. As I went a board creaked under my feet, and I
+heard--or fancied I heard--a faint rustle inside the trunk. I began
+to hum a tune, and moved about among the trunks, raising and
+shutting the lids, as if I were looking for something. Now at last I
+was beside the dreadful chest, and in another instant I had turned
+the key. Then, girls, I flew! I knew the lock was a stout one and
+the wood heavy and hard; it would take the man some time to get it
+open from the inside, whatever tools he might have. I was
+down-stairs in one breath, praying that I might be able to control my
+voice so that it would not sound strange to the sick woman.
+
+"'Would you mind if I went out for a few minutes, Mrs. Bowles? The
+moonlight is so lovely I thought I would like to take a little walk,
+if there is nothing you want.'
+
+"She looked surprised, but said in her kind way, yes, certainly I
+might go, only I'd better not go far.
+
+"I thanked her, and walked quietly out to the end of the garden walk;
+then I ran! Girls, I had no idea I could run so! Strength seemed
+given me, for I never felt my body. I was like a spirit flying or a
+wind blowing. The road melted away before me, and all the time I saw
+two things before my eyes as plain as I see you now,--the evil-faced
+man working away at the lock of the cedar chest, and the sweet lady
+sitting in the room below with her Bible on her knee. Yes, I thought
+of the children, too, but it seemed to me no one, not even the
+wickedest, could wish to hurt a child. So on I ran!
+
+"I reached the first house, but I knew there was no man there, only
+two nervous old ladies. At the next house I should find two men,
+George Brett and his father.
+
+"Yes, Lottie, my George, but I had never seen him then. He had only
+lately come back from college. The first I saw of him was two
+minutes later, when I ran almost into his arms as he came out of the
+house. I can see him now, in the moonlight, tall and strong, with
+his surprised eyes on me. I must have been a wild figure, I suppose.
+I could hardly speak, but somehow I made him understand.
+
+"He turned back to the door and shouted to his father, who came
+hurrying out; then he looked at me. 'Can you run back?' he asked.
+
+"I nodded. I had no breath for words but plenty for running, I
+thought.
+
+"'Come on, then!'
+
+"Girls, it was twice as easy running with that strong figure beside
+me. I noticed in all my hurry and distress how easily he ran, and I
+felt my feet, that had grown heavy in the last few steps, light as
+air again. Once I sobbed for breath, and he took my hand as we ran,
+saying, 'Courage, brave girl!' We ran on hand in hand, and I never
+failed again. We heard Mr. Brett's feet running, not far behind; he
+was a strong, active man, but could not quite keep up with us.
+
+"As we neared the house, 'Quiet,' I said; 'Mrs. Bowles does not know.'"
+
+He nodded, and we slipped in at the back door. In an instant his
+shoes were off and he was up the back stairs like a cat, and I after
+him. As we entered the shed chamber the lid of the cedar trunk rose.
+
+I saw the gleam of the evil black eyes and the shine of white,
+wolfish teeth. Without a sound George Brett sprang past me; without
+a sound the robber leaped to meet him. I saw them in the white light
+as they clinched and stood locked together; then a mist came before
+my eyes and I saw nothing more.
+
+"I did not actually faint, I think; it cannot have been more than a
+few minutes before I came to myself. But when I looked again George
+was kneeling with his knee on the man's breast, holding him down,
+and Father Brett was looking about the chamber and saying, in his
+dry way, 'Now where in Tunkett is the clothes-line to tie this fellow?'
+
+"And the girl? Annie? O girls, she was so young! She was just my own
+age and she had no mother. I went to see her the next day, and many
+days after that. We are fast friends now, and she is a good, steady
+girl; and no one knows--no one except our two selves and two
+others--that she was ever in the shed chamber."
+
+
+
+
+_MAINE TO THE RESCUE_
+
+
+"Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's snowing!"
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! It's snowing!"
+
+Massachusetts looked up from her algebra. She was the head of the
+school. She was rosy and placid as the apple she was generally
+eating when not in class. Apples and algebra were the things she
+cared most about in school life.
+
+"Whence come these varying cries?" she said, taking her feet off the
+fender and trying to be interested, though her thoughts went on with
+"a 1/6 b =" etc.
+
+"Oh, Virginia is grumbling because it is snowing, and Maine is
+feeling happy over it, that's all!" said Rhode Island, the smallest
+girl in Miss Wayland's school.
+
+"Poor Virginia! It is rather hard on you to have snow in March, when
+you have just got your box of spring clothes from home."
+
+"It is atrocious!" said Virginia, a tall, graceful, languishing girl.
+"How could they send me to such a place, where it is winter all the
+spring? Why, at home the violets are in blossom, the trees are coming
+out, the birds singing--"
+
+"And at home," broke in Maine, who was a tall girl, too, but lithe
+and breezy as a young willow, with flyaway hair and dancing brown
+eyes, "at home all is winter--white, beautiful, glorious winter,
+with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and
+fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast
+sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the
+splendor of it! And here--here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor
+good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call
+winter because they don't know what else to call it."
+
+"Come! come!" said Old New York, who was seventeen years old and had
+her own ideas of dignity. "Let us alone, you two outsiders! We are
+neither Eskimos nor Hindoos, it is true, but the Empire State would
+not change climates with either of you."
+
+"No, indeed!" chimed in Young New York, who always followed her
+leader in everything, from opinions down to hair-ribbons.
+
+"No, indeed!" repeated Virginia, with languid scorn. "Because you
+couldn't get any one to change with you, my dear."
+
+Young New York reddened. "You are so disagreeable, Virginia!" she
+said. "I am sure I am glad I don't have to live with you all the
+year round--"
+
+"Personal remarks!" said Massachusetts, looking up calmly. "One cent,
+Young New York, for the missionary fund. Thank you! Let me give you
+each half an apple, and you will feel better."
+
+She solemnly divided a large red apple, and gave the halves to the
+two scowling girls, who took them, laughing in spite of themselves,
+and went their separate ways.
+
+"Why didn't you let them have it out, Massachusetts?" said Maine,
+laughing. "You never let any one have a good row."
+
+"Slang!" said Massachusetts, looking up again. "One cent for the
+missionary fund. You will clothe the heathen at this rate, Maine.
+That is the fourth cent to-day."
+
+"'Row' isn't slang!" protested Maine, feeling, however, for her
+pocket-book.
+
+"Vulgar colloquial!" returned Massachusetts, quietly. "And perhaps
+you would go away now, Maine, or else be quiet. Have you learned--"
+
+"No, I haven't!" said Maine. "I will do it very soon, dear Saint
+Apple. I must look at the snow a little more."
+
+Maine went dancing off to her room, where she threw the window open
+and looked out with delight. The girl caught up a double handful and
+tossed it about, laughing for pure pleasure. Then she leaned out to
+feel the beating of the flakes on her face.
+
+"Really quite a respectable little snowstorm!" she said, nodding
+approval at the whirling white drift. "Go on, and you will be worth
+while, my dear." She went singing to her algebra, which she could not
+have done if it had not been snowing.
+
+The snow went on increasing from hour to hour. By noon the wind
+began to rise; before night it was blowing a furious gale. Furious
+blasts clutched at the windows, and rattled them like castanets. The
+wind howled and shrieked and moaned, till it seemed as if the air
+were filled with angry demons fighting to possess the square white
+house.
+
+Many of the pupils of Miss Wayland's school came to the tea-table
+with disturbed faces; but Massachusetts was as calm as usual, and
+Maine was jubilant.
+
+"Isn't it a glorious storm?" she cried, exultingly. "I didn't know
+there could be such a storm in this part of the country, Miss Wayland.
+Will you give me some milk, please?"
+
+"There is no milk, my dear," said Miss Wayland, who looked rather
+troubled. "The milkman has not come, and probably will not come
+to-night. There has never been such a storm here in my lifetime!"
+she added. "Do you have such storms at home, my dear?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed!" Maine said, cheerfully. "I don't know that we
+often have so much wind as this, but the snow is nothing out of the
+way. Why, on Palm Sunday last year our milkman dug through a drift
+twenty feet deep to get at his cows. He was the only milkman who
+ventured out, and he took me and the minister's wife to church in
+his little red pung.
+
+"We were the only women in church, I remember. Miss Betsy Follansbee,
+who had not missed going to church in fifteen years, started on foot,
+after climbing out of her bedroom window to the shed roof and
+sliding down. All her doors were blocked up, and she lived alone, so
+there was no one to dig her out. But she got stuck in a drift about
+half-way, and had to stay there till one of the neighbors came by
+and pulled her out."
+
+All the girls laughed at this, and even Miss Wayland smiled; but
+suddenly she looked grave again.
+
+"Hark!" she said, and listened. "Did you not hear something?"
+
+"We hear Boreas, Auster, Eurus, and Zephyrus," answered Old New York.
+"Nothing else."
+
+At that moment there was a lull in the screeching of the wind; all
+listened intently, and a faint sound was heard from without which
+was not that of the blast.
+
+"A child!" said Massachusetts, rising quickly. "It is a child's voice.
+I will go, Miss Wayland."
+
+"I cannot permit it, Alice!" cried Miss Wayland, in great distress.
+"I cannot allow you to think of it. You are just recovering from a
+severe cold, and I am responsible to your parents. What shall we do?
+It certainly sounds like a child crying out in the pitiless storm.
+Of course it _may_ be a cat--"
+
+Maine had gone to the window at the first alarm, and now turned with
+shining eyes.
+
+"It _is_ a child!" she said, quietly. "I have no cold, Miss Wayland.
+I am going, of course."
+
+Passing by Massachusetts, who had started out of her usual calm and
+stood in some perplexity, she whispered, "If it were freezing, it
+wouldn't cry. I shall be in time. Get a ball of stout twine."
+
+She disappeared. In three minutes she returned, dressed in her
+blanket coat, reaching half-way below her knees, scarlet leggings
+and gaily wrought moccasins; on her head a fur cap, with a band of
+sea-otter fur projecting over her eyes. In her hand she held a pair
+of snow-shoes. She had had no opportunity to wear her snow-shoeing
+suit all winter, and she was quite delighted.
+
+"My child!" said Miss Wayland, faintly. "How can I let you go? My
+duty to your parents--what are those strange things, and what use
+are you going to make of them?"
+
+By way of answer Maine slipped her feet into the snow-shoes, and,
+with Massachusetts' aid, quickly fastened the thongs.
+
+"The twine!" she said. "Yes, that will do; plenty of it. Tie it to
+the door-handle, square knot, so! I'm all right, dear; don't worry."
+Like a flash the girl was gone out into the howling night.
+
+Miss Wayland wrung her hands and wept, and most of the girls wept
+with her. Virginia, who was curled up in a corner, really sick with
+fright, beckoned to Massachusetts.
+
+"Is there any chance of her coming back alive?" she asked, in a
+whisper. "I wish I had made up with her. But we may all die in this
+awful storm."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Massachusetts. "Try to have a little sense, Virginia!
+Maine is all right, and can take care of herself; and as for
+whimpering at the wind, when you have a good roof over your head, it
+is too absurd."
+
+For the first time since she came to school Massachusetts forgot the
+study hour, as did every one else; and in spite of her brave efforts
+at cheerful conversation, it was a sad and an anxious group that sat
+about the fire in the pleasant parlor.
+
+Maine went out quickly, and closed the door behind her; then stood
+still a moment, listening for the direction of the cry. She did not
+hear it at first, but presently it broke out--a piteous little wail,
+sounding louder now in the open air. The girl bent her head to listen.
+Where was the child? The voice came from the right, surely! She
+would make her way down to the road, and then she could tell better.
+
+Grasping the ball of twine firmly, she stepped forward, planting the
+broad snow-shoes lightly in the soft, dry snow. As she turned the
+corner of the house an icy blast caught her, as if with furious hands,
+shook her like a leaf, and flung her roughly against the wall.
+
+Her forehead struck the corner, and for a moment she was stunned;
+but the blood trickling down her face quickly brought her to herself.
+She set her teeth, folded her arms tightly, and stooping forward,
+measured her strength once more with that of the gale.
+
+This time it seemed as if she were cleaving a wall of ice, which
+opened only to close behind her. On she struggled, unrolling her
+twine as she went.
+
+The child's cry sounded louder, and she took fresh heart. Pausing,
+she clapped her hand to her mouth repeatedly, uttering a shrill,
+long call. It was the Indian whoop, which her father had taught her
+in their woodland rambles at home.
+
+The childish wail stopped; she repeated the cry louder and longer;
+then shouted, at the top of her lungs, "Hold on! Help is coming!"
+
+Again and again the wind buffeted her, and forced her backward a
+step or two; but she lowered her head, and wrapped her arms more
+tightly about her body, and plodded on.
+
+Once she fell, stumbling over a stump; twice she ran against a tree,
+for the white darkness was absolutely blinding, and she saw nothing,
+felt nothing but snow, snow. At last her snow-shoe struck something
+hard. She stretched out her hands--it was the stone wall. And now,
+as she crept along beside it, the child's wail broke out again close
+at hand.
+
+"Mother! O mother! mother!"
+
+The girl's heart beat fast.
+
+"Where are you?" she cried. At the same moment she stumbled against
+something soft. A mound of snow, was it? No! for it moved. It moved
+and cried, and little hands clutched her dress.
+
+She saw nothing, but put her hands down, and touched a little cold
+face. She dragged the child out of the snow, which had almost
+covered it, and set it on its feet.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked, putting her face down close, while by
+vigorous patting and rubbing she tried to give life to the benumbed,
+cowering little figure, which staggered along helplessly, clutching
+her with half-frozen fingers.
+
+"Benny Withers!" sobbed the child. "Mother sent me for the clothes,
+but I can't get 'em!"
+
+"Benny Withers!" cried Maine. "Why, you live close by. Why didn't
+you go home, child?"
+
+"I can't!" cried the boy. "I can't see nothing. I tried to get to
+the school, an' I tried to get home, an' I can't get nowhere 'cept
+against this wall. Let me stay here now! I want to rest me a little."
+
+He would have sunk down again, but Maine caught him up in her strong,
+young arms.
+
+"Here, climb up on my back, Benny!" she said, cheerfully. "Hold on
+tight round my neck, and you shall rest while I take you home. So!
+That's a brave boy! Upsy, now! there you are! Now put your head on
+my shoulder--close! and hold on!"
+
+Ah! how Maine blessed the heavy little brother at home, who _would_
+ride on his sister's back, long after mamma said he was too big. How
+she blessed the carryings up and down stairs, the "horsey rides"
+through the garden and down the lane, which had made her shoulders
+strong!
+
+Benny Withers was eight years old, but he was small and slender, and
+no heavier than six-year-old Philip. No need of telling the child to
+hold on, once he was up out of the cruel snow bed. He clung
+desperately round the girl's neck, and pressed his head close
+against the woollen stuff.
+
+Maine pulled her ball of twine from her pocket--fortunately it was a
+large one, and the twine, though strong, was fine, so that there
+seemed to be no end to it--and once more lowered her head, and set
+her teeth, and moved forward, keeping close to the wall, in the
+direction of Mrs. Withers's cottage.
+
+For awhile she saw nothing, when she looked up under the fringe of
+otter fur, which, long and soft, kept the snow from blinding her;
+nothing but the white, whirling drift which beat with icy, stinging
+blows in her face. But at last her eyes caught a faint glimmer of
+light, and presently a brighter gleam showed her Mrs. Withers's gray
+cottage, now white like the rest of the world.
+
+Bursting open the cottage door, she almost threw the child into the
+arms of his mother.
+
+The woman, who had been weeping wildly, could hardly believe her eyes.
+She caught the little boy and smothered him with kisses, chafing his
+cold hands, and crying over him.
+
+"I didn't know!" she said. "I didn't know till he was gone. I told
+him at noon he was to go, never thinking 'twould be like this. I was
+sure he was lost and dead, but I couldn't leave my sick baby. Bless
+you, whoever you are, man or woman! But stay and get warm, and rest
+ye! You're never going out again in this awful storm!"
+
+But Maine was gone.
+
+In Miss Wayland's parlor the suspense was fast becoming unendurable.
+They had heard Maine's Indian whoop, and some of them, Miss Wayland
+herself among the number, thought it was a cry of distress; but
+Massachusetts rightly interpreted the call, and assured them that it
+was a call of encouragement to the bewildered child.
+
+Then came silence within the house, and a prolonged clamor--a sort
+of witches' chorus, with wailing and shrieking without. Once a heavy
+branch was torn from one of the great elms, and came thundering down
+on the roof. This proved the finishing touch for poor Virginia. She
+went into violent hysterics, and was carried off to bed by Miss Way
+land and Old New York.
+
+Massachusetts presently ventured to explore a little. She hastened
+through the hall to the front door, opened it a few inches, and put
+her hand on the twine which was fastened to the handle. What was her
+horror to find that it hung loose, swinging idly in the wind! Sick
+at heart, she shut the door, and pressing her hands over her eyes,
+tried to think.
+
+Maine must be lost in the howling storm! She must find her; but
+where and how?
+
+Oh! if Miss Wayland had only let her go at first! She was older; it
+would not have mattered so much.
+
+But now, quick! she would wrap herself warmly, and slip out without
+any one knowing.
+
+The girl was turning to fly up-stairs, when suddenly something fell
+heavily against the door outside. There was a fumbling for the handle;
+the next moment it flew open, and something white stumbled into the
+hall, shut the door, and sat down heavily on the floor.
+
+"Personal--rudeness!" gasped Maine, struggling for breath. "You shut
+the door in my face! One cent for the missionary fund."
+
+The great storm was over. The sun came up, and looked down on a
+strange, white world. No fences, no walls; only a smooth ridge where
+one of these had been. Trees which the day before had been quite
+tall now looked like dwarfs, spreading their broad arms not far from
+the snow carpet beneath them. Road there was none; all was smooth,
+save where some huge drift nodded its crest like a billow curling
+for its downward rush.
+
+Maine, spite of her scarred face, which showed as many patches as
+that of a court lady in King George's times, was jubilant. Tired!
+not a bit of it! A little stiff, just enough to need "limbering out,"
+as they said at home.
+
+"There is no butter!" she announced at breakfast. "There is no milk,
+no meat for dinner. Therefore, I go a-snow-shoeing. Dear Miss Wayland,
+let me go! I have learned my algebra, and I shall be discovering
+unknown quantities at every step, which will be just as instructive."
+
+Miss Wayland could refuse nothing to the heroine of last night's
+adventure. Behold Maine, therefore, triumphant, sallying forth, clad
+once more in her blanket suit, and dragging her sled behind her.
+
+There was no struggling now--no hand-to-hand wrestling with
+storm-demons. The sun laughed from a sky as blue and deep as her own
+sky of Maine, and the girl laughed with him as she walked along, the
+powdery snow flying in a cloud from her snow-shoes at every step.
+
+Such a sight had never been seen in Mentor village before. The
+people came running to their upper windows--their lower ones were
+for the most part buried in snow--and stared with all their eyes at
+the strange apparition.
+
+In the street, life was beginning to stir. People had found,
+somewhat to their own surprise, that they were alive and well after
+the blizzard; and knots of men were clustered here and there,
+discussing the storm, while some were already at work tunnelling
+through the drifts.
+
+Mr. Perkins, the butcher, had just got his door open, and great was
+his amazement when Maine hailed him from the top of a great drift,
+and demanded a quarter of mutton with some soup meat.
+
+[Illustration: "MAINE HAILED HIM FROM THE TOP OF A GREAT DRIFT."]
+
+"Yes, miss!" he stammered, open-mouthed with astonishment. "I--I've
+got the meat; but I wasn't--my team isn't out this morning. I don't
+know about sending it."
+
+"I have a 'team' here!" said Maine, quietly, pulling her sled
+alongside. "Give me the mutton, Mr. Perkins; you may charge it to
+Miss Wayland, please, and I will take it home."
+
+The butter-man and the grocer were visited in the same way, and Maine,
+rather embarrassed by the concentrated observation of the whole
+village, turned to pull her laden sled back, when suddenly a window
+was thrown open, and a voice exclaimed:
+
+"Young woman! I will give you ten dollars for the use of those
+snow-shoes for an hour!"
+
+Maine looked up in amazement, and laughed merrily when she saw the
+well-known countenance of the village doctor.
+
+"What! You, my dear young lady?" cried the good man. "This is 'Maine
+to the Rescue,' indeed! I might have known it was you. But I repeat
+my offer. Make it anything you please, only let me have the
+snow-shoes. I cannot get a horse out, and have two patients
+dangerously ill. What is your price for the magic shoes?"
+
+"My price, doctor?" repeated Maine, looking up with dancing eyes.
+"My price is--one cent. For the Missionary Fund! The snow-shoes are
+yours, and I will get home somehow with my sled and the mutton."
+
+So she did, and Doctor Fowler made his calls with the snow-shoes,
+and saved a life, and brought cheer and comfort to many. But it was
+ten dollars, and not one cent, which he gave to the Missionary Fund.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCARLET LEAVES
+
+
+"The Committee will please come to order!" said Maine.
+
+"What's up?" asked Massachusetts, pausing in her occupation of
+peeling chestnuts.
+
+"Why, you know well enough, Massachusetts. Here it is Wednesday, and
+we don't know yet what we are going to do on Friday evening. We must
+do something, or go shamed to our graves. Never a senior class has
+missed its Frivolous Friday, since the school began."
+
+"Absolutely no hope of the play?"
+
+"None! Alma's part is too important; no one could possibly take it
+at two days' notice. Unless--they say Chicago has a real gift for
+acting; but somehow, I don't feel as if she were the person."
+
+"I should bar that, positively," put in Tennessee. "In the first
+place, Chicago has not been here long enough to be identified with
+the class. She is clever, of course, or she could not have entered
+junior last year; but--well, it isn't necessary to say anything more;
+she is out of the question."
+
+"It is too exasperating!" said Massachusetts. "Alma might have
+waited another week before coming down with measles."
+
+"It's harder for her than for any one else, Massachusetts," said
+Maine. "Poor dear; she almost cried her eyes out yesterday, when the
+spots appeared, and there was no more doubt."
+
+"Yes, I know that; she is a poor, unfortunate Lamb, and I love her,
+you know I do; still, a growl may be permitted, Maine. There's
+nothing criminal in a growl. The question is, as you were saying,
+what shall we do?"
+
+"A dance?"
+
+"We had a dance last week!" said Maine; "at least the sophomores did,
+and we don't want to copy them."
+
+"A straw-ride?"
+
+"A candy-pull?"
+
+"A concert?"
+
+"The real question is," said Tennessee, cracking her chestnut
+leisurely, "what does Maine intend to do? If she thinks we made her
+Class President because we meant to arrange things ourselves, she is
+more ignorant than I supposed her. Probably she has the whole thing
+settled in her Napoleonic mind. Out with it, Moosetocmaguntic!"
+
+Maine smiled, and looked round her. The Committee was clustered in a
+group at the foot of a great chestnut-tree, at the very edge of a
+wood. The leaves were still thick on the trees, and the October sun
+shone through their golden masses, pouring a flood of warmth and
+light down on the greensward, sprinkled with yellow leaves and
+half-open chestnut burrs. Massachusetts and Tennessee, sturdy and
+four-square as their own hills; Old New York and New Jersey, and
+Maine herself, a tall girl with clear, kind eyes, and a color that
+came and went as she talked. This was the Committee.
+
+[Illustration: THE CONFERENCE.]
+
+"Well," said Maine, modestly. "I did have an idea, girls. I don't
+know whether you will approve or not, but--what do you say to a
+fancy ball?"
+
+"A fancy ball! at two days' notice!"
+
+"Penobscot is losing her mind. Pity to see it shattered, for it was
+once a fine organ."
+
+"Be quiet, Tennessee! I don't mean anything elaborate, of course.
+But I thought we might have an informal frolic, and dress up in--oh,
+anything we happened to have. Not call it a dance, but have dancing
+all the same; don't you see? There are all kinds of costumes that
+can be got up with very little trouble, and no expense to speak of."
+
+"For example!" said Massachusetts. "She has it all arranged, girls;
+all we have to do is to sit back and let wisdom flow in our ears."
+
+"Massachusetts, if you tease me any more, _I'll_ sit back, and let
+you do it all yourself. Well, then--let me see! Tennessee--to tell
+the truth, I didn't sleep very well last night; my head ached; and I
+amused myself by planning a few costumes, just in case you should
+fancy the idea."
+
+"Quack! quack!" said Massachusetts. "I didn't mean to interrupt, but
+you _are_ a duck, and I must just show that I can speak your language.
+Go on!"
+
+"Tennessee, I thought you might be an Indian. You must have something
+that will show your hair. With my striped shawl for a blanket, and
+the cock's feather out of Jersey's hat--what do you think?"
+
+"Perfect!" said Tennessee. "And I can try effects with my new
+paint-box, one cheek stripes, the other spots. Hurrah! next!"
+
+"Old New York, you must be a flower of some kind. Or--why not a
+basket of flowers? You could have a basket-work bodice, don't you see?
+and flowers coming out of it all round your neck--your neck is so
+pretty, you ought to show it--"
+
+"Or carrots and turnips!" said the irrepressible Massachusetts.
+"Call her a Harvest Hamper, and braid her lovely locks with strings
+of onions!"
+
+"Thank you," laughed Old New York, a slender girl whose flower-like
+beauty made her a pleasure to look at. "I think I'll keep to the posy,
+Massachusetts. Go on, Maine! what shall Massachusetts be, and what
+will you be yourself?"
+
+"Massachusetts ought by rights to be an apple, a nice fat rosy apple;
+but I don't quite know how that can be managed."
+
+"Then I shall be a codfish!" said Massachusetts, decidedly.
+"I am not going to desert Mr. Micawber--I mean the Bay State. I
+shall go as a salt codfish. _Dixi_! Pass on to the Pine-Tree!"
+
+"Why, so I might be a pine-tree! I didn't think of that. But still,
+I don't think I will; I meant to be October. The leaves at home are
+so glorious in October, and I saw some scarlet leaves yesterday that
+will be lovely for chaplets and garlands."
+
+"What are they? the maples don't turn red here--too near the sea, I
+suppose."
+
+"I don't know what they are. Pointed leaves, rather long and delicate,
+and the most splendid color you ever saw. There is just this one
+little tree, near the crossroad by the old stone house. I haven't
+seen anything like it about here. I found it yesterday, and just
+stood and looked at it, it was so beautiful. Yes, I shall be October;
+I'll decide on that. What's that rustling in the wood? aren't we all
+here? I thought I heard something moving among the trees. I do
+believe some one is in there, Massachusetts."
+
+"I was pulling down a branch; don't be imaginative, my dear. Well,
+go on! are we to make out all the characters?"
+
+"Why--I thought not. Some of the girls will like better to choose
+their own, don't you think? I thought we, as the Committee, might
+make out a list of suggestions, though, and then they can do as they
+please. But now, I wish some of you others would suggest something;
+I don't want to do it all."
+
+"Daisy will have to be her namesake, of course," said Tennessee.
+
+"Jersey can be a mosquito," said Old New York; "she's just the
+figure for it."
+
+"Thank you!" said Jersey, who weighed ninety pounds. "Going on that
+theory, Pennsylvania ought to go as an elephant, and Rhode Island as
+a giraffe."
+
+"And Chicago as a snake--no! I didn't mean that!" cried Maine.
+
+"You said it! you said it!" cried several voices, in triumph.
+
+"The Charitable Organ has called names at last!" said Jersey,
+laughing. "And she has hit it exactly. Now, Maine, what is the use
+of looking pained? the girl _is_ a snake--or a sneak, which amounts
+to the same thing. Let us have truth, I say, at all hazards."
+
+"I am sorry!" said Maine, simply. "I am not fond of Chicago, and
+that is the very reason why I should not call her names behind her
+back. It slipped out before I knew it; I am sorry and ashamed, and
+that is all there is to say. And now, suppose we go home, and tell
+the other girls about the party."
+
+The Committee trooped off across the hill, laughing and talking,
+Maine alone grave and silent. As their voices died away, the ferns
+nodded beside a great pine-tree that stood just within the border of
+the wood, not six yards from where they had been sitting. A slender
+dark girl rose from the fern-clump in which she had been crouching,
+and shook the pine-needles from her dress. Very cautiously she
+parted the screen of leaves, and looked after the retreating girls.
+
+"That was worth while!" she said; and her voice, though quiet, was
+full of ugly meaning. "Snakes can hear, Miss Oracle, and bite, too.
+We'll see about those scarlet leaves!"
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+  "Tra la, tra lee,
+  I want my tea!"
+
+Sang Tennessee, as she ran up-stairs. "Oh, Maine, is that you? my
+dear, my costume is simply too perfect for anything. I've been out
+in the woods, practising my war-whoop. Three yelps and a screech; I
+flatter myself it is the _most_ blood-curdling screech you ever heard.
+I'm going to have a dress-rehearsal now, all by myself. Come and
+see--why, what's the matter, Maine? something is wrong with you.
+What is it?"
+
+"Oh! nothing serious," said Maine, trying to speak lightly.
+"I must get up another costume, that's all, and there isn't much time."
+
+"Why! what has happened?"
+
+"The scarlet leaves are gone."
+
+"Gone! fallen, do you mean?"
+
+"No! some one has cut or broken every branch. There is not one left.
+The leaves made the whole costume, you see; it amounts to nothing
+without them, merely a yellow gown."
+
+"Oh! my dear, what a shame! Who could have taken them?"
+
+"I cannot imagine. I thought I would get them to-day, and keep them
+in water over night, so as to have them all ready to-morrow. Oh, well,
+it can't be helped. I can call myself a sunflower, or Black-eyed
+Susan, or some other yellow thing. It's absurd to mind, of course,
+only--"
+
+"Only, being human, you do mind," said Tennessee, putting her arm
+round her friend's waist. "I should think so, dear. We don't care
+about having you canonized just yet. But, Maine, there must be more
+red leaves somewhere. This comes of living near the sea. Now, in my
+mountains, or in your woods, we could just go out and fill our arms
+with glory in five minutes, whichever way we turned. These murmuring
+pines and--well, I don't know that there are any hemlocks--are all
+very splendid, and no one loves them better than I do; but for a
+Harvest festival decoration, '_Ils ne sont pas la dedans_,' as the
+French have it."
+
+"Slang, Tennessee! one cent!"
+
+"On the contrary; foreign language, mark of commendation.
+
+"But come now, and see my war-dance. I didn't mean to let any one
+see it before-hand, but you are a dear old thing, and you shall. And
+then, we can take counsel about your costume. Not that I have the
+smallest anxiety about that; I've no doubt you have thought of
+something pretty already. I don't see how you do it. When any one
+says 'Clothes' to me, I never can think of anything but red flannel
+petticoats, if you will excuse my mentioning the article. I think
+Black-eyed Susan sounds delightful. How would you dress for it? you
+have the pretty yellow dress all ready."
+
+"I should put brown velveteen with it. I have quite a piece left
+over from my blouse. I'll get some yellow crepe paper, and make a hat,
+or cap, with a brown crown, you know, and yellow petals for the brim;
+and have a brown bodice laced together over the full yellow waist,
+and--"
+
+The two girls passed on, talking cheerfully--it is always soothing
+to talk about pretty clothes, especially when one is as clever as
+Maine was, and can make, as Massachusetts used to say, a court train
+out of a jack-towel.
+
+A few minutes after, Massachusetts came along the same corridor, and
+tapped at another door. Hearing "Come in!" she opened the door and
+looked in.
+
+"Busy, Chicago? beg pardon! Miss Cram asked me, as I was going by, to
+show you the geometry lesson, as you were not in class yesterday."
+
+"Thanks! come in, won't you?" said Chicago, rising ungraciously from
+her desk, "I was going to ask Miss Cram, of course, but I'm much
+obliged."
+
+Massachusetts pointed out the lesson briefly, and turned to go, when
+her eyes fell on a jar set on the ground, behind the door.
+
+"Hallo!" she said, abruptly. "You've got scarlet leaves, too. Where
+did you get them?"
+
+"I found them," said Chicago, coldly. "They were growing wild, on
+the public highway. I had a perfect right to pick them."
+
+There was a defiant note in her voice, and Massachusetts looked at
+her with surprise. The girl's eyes glittered with an uneasy light,
+and her dark cheek was flushed.
+
+"I don't question your right," said Massachusetts, bluntly,
+"but I do question your sense. I may be mistaken, but I don't
+believe those leaves are very good to handle. They look to me
+uncommonly like dogwood. I'm not sure; but if I were you, I would
+show them to Miss Flower before I touched them again."
+
+She nodded and went out, dismissing the matter from her busy mind.
+
+"Spiteful!" said Chicago, looking after her sullenly.
+
+"She suspects where I got the leaves, and thinks she can frighten me
+out of wearing them. I never saw such a hateful set of girls as
+there are in this school. Never mind, sweet creatures! The 'snake'
+has got the scarlet leaves, and she knows when she has got a good
+thing."
+
+She took some of the leaves from the jar, and held them against her
+black hair. They were brilliantly beautiful, and became her well.
+She looked in the glass and nodded, well pleased with what she saw
+there; then she carefully clipped the ends of the branches, and put
+fresh water in the jar before replacing them.
+
+"Indian Summer will take the shine out of Black-eyed Susan, I'm
+afraid," she said to herself. "Poor Susan, I am sorry for her." She
+laughed; it was not a pleasant laugh; and went back to her books.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+"What a pretty sight!"
+
+It was Miss Wayland who spoke. She and the other teachers were
+seated on the raised platform at the end of the gymnasium. The long
+room was wreathed with garlands and brilliantly lighted, and they
+were watching the girls as they flitted by in their gay dresses, to
+the waltz that good Miss Flower was playing.
+
+"How ingenious the children are!" Miss Wayland continued. "Look at
+Virginia there, as Queen Elizabeth! Her train is my old party cloak
+turned inside out, and her petticoat--you recognize that?"
+
+"I, not!" said Mademoiselle, peering forward. "I am too near of my
+sight. What ees it?"
+
+"The piano cover. That Persian silk, you know, that my brother sent
+me. I never knew how handsome it was before. The ruff, and those
+wonderful puffed sleeves, are mosquito-netting; the whole effect is
+superb--at a little distance."
+
+"I thought Virginie not suffeeciently clayver for to effect zis!"
+said Mademoiselle. "Of custome, she shows not--what do you say?
+--invention."
+
+"Oh, she simply wears the costume, with her own peculiar little air
+of dignity. Maine designed it. Maine is costumer in chief. The
+Valiant Three, Maine, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, took all the
+unpractical girls in hand, and simply--dressed them. _Entre nous_,
+Mademoiselle, I wish, in some cases, that they would do it every day."
+
+"_Et moi aussi_!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, nodding eagerly.
+
+"Maine herself is lovely," said Miss Cram. "I think hers is really
+the prettiest costume in the room; all that soft brown and yellow is
+really charming, and suits her to perfection."
+
+"Yes; and I am so glad of it, for the child was sadly disappointed
+about some other costume she had planned, and got this up almost at
+the last moment. She is a clever child, and a good one. Do look at
+Massachusetts! Massachusetts, my dear child, what do you call
+yourself? you are a most singular figure."
+
+"The Codfish, Miss Wayland; straight from Boston State-House. Admire
+my tail, please! I got up at five o'clock this morning to finish it,
+and I must confess I am proud of it."
+
+She napped her tail, which was a truly astonishing one, made of
+newspapers neatly plaited and sewed together, and wriggled her body,
+clad in well-fitting scales of silver paper. "Quite a fish, I
+flatter myself?" she said, insinuatingly.
+
+"Very like a whale, if not like a codfish," said Miss Wayland,
+laughing heartily. "You certainly are one of the successes of the
+evening, Massachusetts, and the Mosquito is another, in that filmy
+gray. Is that mosquito-netting, too? I congratulate you both on your
+skill. By the way, what does Chicago represent? she is very effective,
+with all those scarlet leaves. What are they, I wonder!"
+
+Massachusetts turned hastily, and a low whistle came from her lips.
+"Whew! I beg pardon, Miss Wayland. It was the codfish whistled, not I;
+it's a way they have on Friday evenings. I told that girl to ask
+Miss Flower about those leaves; I am afraid they are--oh, here is
+Miss Flower!" as the good botany teacher came towards them, rather
+out of breath after her playing.
+
+"Miss Flower, what are those leaves, please? those in Chicago's hair,
+and on her dress."
+
+Miss Flower looked, and her cheerful face grew grave.
+
+"_Rhus veneneta_" she said; "poison dogwood."
+
+"I was afraid so!" said Massachusetts. "I told her yesterday that I
+thought they were dogwood, and advised her to show them to you
+before she touched them again."
+
+"Poor child!" said kind Miss Flower. "She has them all about her
+face and neck, too. We must get them off at once."
+
+She was starting forward, but Miss Wayland detained her.
+
+"The mischief is done now, is it not?" she said. "And after all,
+dogwood does not poison every one. I have had it in my hands, and
+never got the smallest injury. Suppose we let her have her evening,
+at least till after supper, which will be ready now in a few minutes.
+If she is affected by the poison, this is her last taste of the
+Harvest Festivities."
+
+They watched the girl. She was receiving compliments on her striking
+costume, from one girl and another, and was in high spirits. She
+glanced triumphantly about her, her eyes lighting up when they fell
+on Maine in her yellow dress. She certainly looked brilliantly
+handsome, the flaming scarlet of the leaves setting off her dark
+skin and flashing eyes to perfection.
+
+Presently she put her hand up to her cheek, and held it there a
+moment.
+
+"Aha!" said Massachusetts, aloud. "She's in for it!"
+
+"In for what?" said Maine, who came up at that moment. Following the
+direction of Massachusetts' eyes, she drew her apart, and spoke in a
+low tone. "I shall not say anything, Massachusetts, and I hope you
+will not. Don't you know?" she added, seeing her friend's look of
+inquiry. "Those are my scarlet leaves."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes. I have found out all about it. Daisy lingered behind the rest
+of us the other day, when I had been telling you all about the leaves,
+to pick blackberries. She saw Chicago come out of the wood a few
+minutes after we left, looking black as thunder. Don't you remember,
+I thought I heard a rustling in the fern, and you laughed at me? She
+was hidden there, and heard every word we said. Next day the leaves
+were gone, and now they are on Chicago's dress instead of mine."
+
+"And a far better place for them!" exclaimed Massachusetts,
+"though I am awfully sorry for her. Oh! you lucky, lucky girl! and
+you dear, precious, stupid ignoramus, not to know poison dogwood
+when you see it."
+
+"Poison dogwood! those beautiful leaves!"
+
+"Those beautiful leaves. That young woman is in for about two weeks
+of as pretty a torture as ever Inquisitor or Iroquois could devise.
+I know all about it, though there was a time when I also was ignorant.
+Look! she is feeling of her cheek already; it begins to sting.
+Tomorrow she will be all over patches, red and white; itching--there
+is nothing to describe the itching. It is beyond words. Next day her
+face will begin to swell, and in two days more--the School Birthday,
+my dear--she will be like nothing human, a mere shapeless lump of
+pain and horror. She will not sleep by night or rest by day. She
+will go home to her parents, and they will not know her, but will
+think we have sent them a smallpox patient by mistake. Her eyes--"
+
+"Oh, hush! hush, Massachusetts!" cried Maine. "Oh! poor thing! poor
+thing! what shall I do? I feel as if it were all my fault, somehow."
+
+"Your fault that she sneaked and eavesdropped, and then stole your
+decoration? Oh! come, Maine, don't be fantastic!"
+
+"No, Massachusetts, I don't mean that. But if I had only known,
+myself, what they were, I should never have spoken of them, and all
+this would never have happened."
+
+"The moral of which is, study botany!" said Massachusetts.
+
+"I'll begin to-morrow!" said Maine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And what is to be the end of the dogwood story, I wonder!" said
+Tennessee, meeting Massachusetts in a breathless interval between
+two exercises on the School Birthday, the crowning event of the
+Harvest Festivities at Miss Wayland's. "Have you heard the last
+chapter?"
+
+"No! what is it?"
+
+"Maine is in a dark room with the moaning Thing that was Chicago,
+singing to her, and telling her about the speeches and things last
+night. She vows she will not come out again to-day, just because she
+was at chapel and heard the singing this morning; says that was the
+best of it, and she doesn't care much about dancing. Maine! and
+Miss Wayland will not let us break in the door and carry her off
+bodily; says she will be happier where she is, and will always be
+glad of this day. I'll tell you what it is, Massachusetts, if this
+is the New England conscience I hear so much about, I'm precious
+glad I was born in Tennessee."
+
+"No, you aren't, Old One! you wish you had been born in Maine."
+
+"Well, perhaps I do!" said Tennessee.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Green Satin Gown, by Laura E. Richards
+
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